“I’m going to make a clean breast of the whole thing to old Benbow Smith.”
CHAPTER XXI
LINDSAY REPORTED TO DRAYTON. The interview was of the shortest. Drayton, sitting at his desk, his shoulders stooped, his head thrust forward, listened to what he had to say in a silence that remained unbroken on his side. He did not even look at Lindsay. The heavy pouched lids were almost closed. Some imp pushed into Lindsay’s mind the lines: “Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter.” A little zigzag flash of amusement went off like a squib. Drayton’s eyes were beastly enough when you could see them—lizard’s eyes, snake’s eyes; but when you couldn’t, when the bulging eyelids hid them, they were a good deal worse.
He was dismissed with a curt, indifferent nod, and departed with relief. Half way up the main stair, with its gilded pillars and its caryatides, he encountered Restow—this also with relief. Villain for villain, he preferred Restow every time. Restow was bull to Drayton’s serpent. If he had to fall foul of one of them, he would rather take on brute force than poison. Not that Restow hadn’t plenty of brain—he wouldn’t have been Restow without it. He had starved in every capital in Europe, and he would still have been starving if he had not had the brain that can coin itself into gold. Ruin Restow to-morrow, and he would be a millionaire again whilst another man would still be casting about for a job that would keep him out of the workhouse.
Restow came charging down the stairs.
“Aha, Fothering! You have come! Where have you been? What does it matter where you have been?” He flung a huge arm about Lindsay’s shoulders. “You are here—you are the watched pot that has boiled—and I do not care a halfpenny damn where you have been.”
“Did you want me?”
Restow clapped him on the back.
“Would I look for you if I did not want you? Would I go running up and down these stairs like a squirrel in a cage if I did not want you?”
Restow as a squirrel was very nearly too much for Lindsay. He laughed.
But Restow himself was laughing too.
“I am a fine well-grown squirrel, hein?” His enormous cheeks crinkled, the little pig eyes almost disappeared, on either side of the big open mouth the crooked canine teeth came into view. Lindsay was again smitten on the back. “You will go to your room, and you will pack your bag.”
For a frightful moment Lindsay thought that he was being dismissed.
Restow roared with laughter.
“Did you think I was giving you the chuck? By Jing, I believe you did! Have you a conscience that makes you a coward—what?” He took Lindsay by the arm and began to mount the stairs two steps at a time. “Hurry! Hurry! Hurry! Pack the bag! Take everything for a week—ten days—a month! Perhaps we shall only be there twenty-four hours—perhaps we shall never come back. ‘To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow.’ That is Shakespeare—kein? But I do not know where from. It all goes round in my mind like a whirlwind, and when I fish in it something comes up, and how shall I know what it is and where it comes from? It is the wise reader who knows his own quotation—nicht?”
They arrived at the top, and Lindsay was suddenly released.
“Where are we going?”
“To Paris,” said Restow. He blew out his cheeks and made a schoolboy grimace. “Paris—why? Aha! I will tell you. Because we are not expected there. Or do you think that she will expect me—that she has done it on purpose? How is it possible to tell with a woman who always goes a different way like an Irish pig in a poke? What do you say, Fothering?”
“You haven’t told me what you’re talking about yet, sir.”
Restow ran his hand through his thick black hair.
“I haven’t told you? Have I stopped telling you? Your head is wood all through from one side to the other! I suppose you have clockwork somewhere that makes you go. If you had either a brain or a heart, you would know that I am going to Paris because Gloria is there. Do you hear that? Does your clockwork miss a stroke when I tell you that you are to see Gloria Paravicini—to meet her—to meet her—to be an ambassador, a go-between, a plenipotentiary—a whole peace conference? By Jing, I am sorry for you, my Fothering, because I do not think that Gloria is feeling peaceful. She makes a splendid gesture of war, and I send her my Fothering—and a formula. That blessed word formula! We right like cat and dog—no, these are too small animals—it is like tiger and elephant that we fight—but—let us find a formula, and let me see my Gloria’s magnificent face when you bring it to her! Aha! She shall learn that I too can make gestures! Did I tell you what she has done?”
“No, you didn’t,” said Lindsay, as drily as he dared. Restow caught him by the shoulders and shook him to and fro.
“She has gone back to the circus—she has herself billed to appear in Paris in three days’ time. Gloria Paravicini—Premiere Dompteuse of the habitable globe—the Python Queen—the Serpent Sorceress—Tiger Tamer—Lion Witch—Panther Pet. Bah! What do I know how many dam foolish names she calls herself? But I know this”—he stopped shaking Lindsay and held him solemnly at arm’s length—“this I know for sure, because my head is not wood, it contains brains, so I know when Gloria placards herself all over Paris that she does it to cock a snook at me.” He took his right hand from Lindsay’s shoulder, pressed his own nose with the thumb, and twiddled the four fingers derisively. “She cocks a snook—she says ‘be dam!’ I too can cock a snook—but I do not swear at a lady, not even when she is my wife. Aha! She and her Gloria Paravicini! I am divorced, am I? There is no Gloria Restow any more? By Jing, then, we shall see!” He pushed Lindsay away. “Go and pack your bag, my Fothering!”
CHAPTER XXII
LINDSAY WENT TO PARIS in something of an unreasoning holiday spirit. To leave Drayton behind and to go off into the blue with Restow felt absurdly like coming out of prison. They had a smooth crossing, and an encounter which, to Lindsay at any rate, was unexpected.
He was standing by the side looking down at the oily, even flow of lead-coloured water, when he felt a touch on the arm and, turning his head, found himself very close indeed to a lady whose fine eyes looked smilingly into his. A single line of plucked eyebrow surmounted the eyes, which shone like dark jewels in a sallow mobile face.
“What a happy encounter!” said a voice with a marked French accent.
Lindsay produced a smile of pleased recognition, at the same time stepping back a pace. As he had never set eyes on the lady before, he imagined that she must be a friend of Froth’s. As he smiled, he snatched off his hat and displayed the red hair. A pleasant consciousness of having given it a fresh wash of henna overnight sustained him; even in this bad light it would put any carrot to shame.
“Fortunate for me,” he said, and remembered to pitch his voice high.
The lady was a thin vivacious forty. She had exquisite ankles, and expensive shoes. Her dress was the smart, inconspicuous black of the travelling Frenchwoman. She asked him if he was going to Paris, and where he was staying, and for how long. He told her that he was staying with Restow at the Paris Luxe, but that he had no idea how long they were to be there. He began to wonder if he was talking to Madame Ferrans. After a few minutes she left him. The incident was over. He wondered whether Froth knew many people in Paris. And then suddenly, as he stood looking out towards the grey horizon, there was Madame Ferrans brushing past him. She did not stop. Just beyond him she hesitated, spoke a few words in a low voice, and then walked away. He had no time to say anything to her; the whole thing was over in a moment, leaving him puzzled and interested.
What she had said was just this:
“Take care, mon ami—he suspects you.”
Lindsay left the boat with relief. On the gangway Restow stood aside to let Madame Ferrans pass. She thanked him with a murmured “Merci, monsieur” but with no trace of recognition. Lindsay put that away to remember.
It was just after six o’clock that he
knocked at the door of Madame Paravicini’s sitting-room. She was registered as Madame Gloria Paravicini. Restow had been oddly divided between the sense of the honour done to the hotel by the world-famous name and the insult offered to himself by the repudiation of his own name, equally world famous. He had dispatched Lindsay to this interview with plenipotentiary powers and a number of extremely conflicting instructions.
A voice said, “Come right in!” and Lindsay came.
He was a good deal intrigued, and a good deal afraid that it would not be possible for Madame Gloria to be as exotic as Restow’s account of her. Even as he turned the handle of the door, he told himself that he must be prepared to meet a merely civilized woman. At the first glance his spirits rose. Gloria Paravicini wasn’t going to be merely anything. To use her own vocabulary, she was two hundred per cent, and then some. In the midst of an untidy room littered with clothes, flowers, parcels, cocktail shakers, and a variety of other articles, she drew the eye and held it.
She had grown stouter since the offending artist had painted her with a panther because the tiger she desired would take up too much room. It would have required a colossal canvas to accommodate Gloria Paravicini and a tiger now, but she was still magnificently handsome. She wore a loose wrapper of cloth of gold lined with the vivid emerald green of the portrait. Her hair hung in two enormous braids. They appeared to Lindsay to be some yards in length, and though afterwards he had moments of doubt, yet, at the time, he received the impression that they were at least six inches across. They were certainly looped and threaded with emeralds. A ruby and an emerald of about the size and appearance of the side and rear lights of a bicycle lamp blazed upon the curves of Madame Gloria’s bosom. It was of a surprising whiteness. Lindsay found everything about her surprising, and the most surprising thing of all was the deep contralto voice with its purely American accent. Gloria Paravicini might be her name, but God’s own country had had the raising of her.
“Come right in!” she said.
Lindsay came in, shut the door, and shook hands. He received a grip which he felt would have inspired his respect had he been a refractory lion; after which he was waved to a chair and wondered what he was going to say first. He confessed to feeling just a trifle dazed. He repressed a desire to stretch his fingers gingerly and discover whether any of them were broken. He achieved a pleasant deprecating smile, and said,
“It’s very good of you to see me, Madame paravicini.”
“Cut it out!” said the lady with a frown. Then, on a rising note, “You’re Algy’s secretary, aren’t you?”
“I’m Mr Restow’s secretary—yes.”
“Isn’t that what I’m saying? Cut out all that politeness stunt! I’m not seeing you—I’m seeing Algy’s secretary. And I’m seeing Algy’s secretary because I’d a darned sight rather see Algy’s secretary than Algy—and you can tell him I said so.”
Lindsay found this rather a difficult gambit. It seemed to him that tact was going to be wasted. With ingenuous frankness as the order of the day, he might perhaps be able to hold his own.
Gloria Paravicini flung back one of her massive plaits and fixed him with a compelling gaze.
“And you get this straight right here and now!” she said in forceful tones. “If Algy guesses he’s going to get across with any he-man stuff, well, he’s guessing the wrong side of the multiplication table, and he’d better go right out and buy himself a calculating machine, because I reckon that brain he thinks such a sight of has got the blue mould sprouting all over it.”
“I don’t think that’s Mr Restow’s idea at all,” said Lindsay firmly.
“And what is his idea? No—hold on! What he wants is to get it right into his head that his ideas don’t cut any ice with me. What you want to hand him is my ideas.”
“Well, I shall be delighted—if you will tell me what they are.”
She was sitting on a small gilt sofa piled up with cushions. So little of the sofa was visible that, except for the fact that the lady and the cushions must have had some means of support, it would have been rash to assert its existence. Madame Paravicini now seized a scarlet cushion, tucked it behind her head, and said,
“You listen to me!”
Lindsay listened. The lady’s ringing voice would indeed have made it difficult to do anything else.
“The first thing you’ve got to hand to Algy,” said Madame Paravicini, “is that he isn’t my husband any more. We’re divorced, and he’d better not forget it. There isn’t anyone on this planet that’s got any reason to talk scandal about me, and there isn’t going to be anyone. I’ve always been mighty careful of my reputation, and I’m not going to have Algy compromising me by coming to Paris and butting in on my hotel.”
“It’s a very large hotel,” said Lindsay mildly.
“It’s my hotel,” announced the lady. She put a good deal of vigour into the pronoun. “It’s my hotel, and I consider it very bad taste for Algy to come butting in—very bad taste and very compromising—and that’s the first thing you can tell him. And the next thing you can tell him is this—I’m billed all over Paris to appear before the public with four lions and a tiger that have never been tamed, and if he wants a box to see the show, he can have one with my compliments—with Gloria Paravicini’s compliments.” She threw back her head against the scarlet cushion and looked at Lindsay through the longest and blackest lashes he had ever seen. Behind them her eyes were bright, lazy, and intent. She reminded him of one of those great cats she had been speaking of—the drowsy pose; the full, graceful curves; the unsleeping wariness.
“I’ll tell him,” he said.
A curious flickering smile just stirred her rather heavily cut lips.
“He’ll be mad,” she said with considerable satisfaction. Then she sat up with a suddenness that sent the scarlet cushion toppling. “He’ll be real mad. And when he’s real mad you can tell him that just as soon as I get through with this engagement I’m going to be married.”
Lindsay was rather taken aback.
“Don’t you think you’d better tell him that yourself?” he said.
“Nope!” said Madame Paravicini. “I’ve got my reputation to think about, and the gentleman I’m going to marry has got a very jealous disposition.”
Lindsay smiled affably. It had obviously become necessary to return the lady’s fire. “But in the circumstances,” he submitted, “the gentleman surely wouldn’t be jealous—er—not in the circumstances?”
“I don’t know anything about circumstances. He’s jealous—do you get that? He’s got Othello beat to a frazzle.”
I But if Mr Restow is also expecting to be married, there would surely be no occasion for jealousy?”
Madame Paravicini sprang to her feet. Some seven or eight yards of cloth of gold swished sharply to the floor. She stood like a towering golden pyramid and glared at Lindsay.
“Say that again, young man!”
Lindsay got to his feet, and felt safer.
“Since Mr Restow is also thinking of getting married—” he began, and was at once interrupted.
“He can’t do it!”
“Well, he’s thinking about it.”
Her voice sank to an ominous purring note.
“Let him think about it! He can’t do it.”
“Well, I don’t see—”
Her voice seemed to spring at him, it rose so suddenly.
“Cut it out! He can’t do it. I’ve got him where he can’t move. I’ve got him where he’s tied up and I’m free. I’ve got him where I’m divorced and he’s married. It’s great—isn’t it?” She began to laugh. “Isn’t it just great?”
“Well, I don’t think I’ve quite got there.”
She went on laughing.
“I’m an American citizen, and my divorce is good in American law; but Algy’s a British subject, and they won’t take any stock in an Am
erican divorce. I’ve been to the best people, and what they say goes. I’m not married, but Algy is. I can marry to-morrow—Algy’s got to wait till my tombstone’s ordered. Isn’t that just the slickest thing you’ve ever struck? Now you get going with that little packet of samples and put Algy wise. The only thing I mind is not seeing his face when he tumbles to how I’ve got him fixed.”
The folds of her gold wrap lay all about her feet. She kicked them out of her way, swept to the door, and flung it open.
“Quit!” she said.
Lindsay quitted.
He had gone perhaps a dozen yards down the corridor, when it occurred to him that he had not heard Madame’s door close. He glanced over his shoulder and saw her standing on the threshold. He received a curious fleeting impression of a mood in the very process of change. She looked triumphant, a laugh still moulded her lips; but her eyes had clouded, her brows sketched a frown.
As he looked back, she made a gesture that recalled him.
“You’re in a mighty hurry,” she said.
He came back into the room, and wondered what would come next. At first it seemed as if nothing would come at all. Madame Paravicini walked away to the window, where she stood parting the curtains a little, her long gold draperies gleaming against their rosy colour. She stood like that for quite a time. Then, with one of those sudden graceful movements, she swung round and came towards him again.
“You haven’t told me how Algy is,” she said in something nearer an ordinary conversational tone than he had yet heard from her.
“Oh, I think he is very well.”
She lifted her chin. One might almost have said that she tossed her head.
“He hasn’t worried himself sick then?”
“Oh, I don’t think so.”
“Hasn’t got thin!” She laughed rather angrily. “He was right down fleshy when I left him. He hasn’t gone away into a decline fretting about me?”
“Oh no—I think he’s very well.”
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