No woman would have doubted that here was a tall lady who well understood how to be at her best and had decided to be at her best to-night. Almost affectionately arm-in-arm with her companion, she was talking rapidly, talking gayly, too, and smiling as she talked — and her brilliant eyes, continually upon him, emanated a soft radiance plainly far from distasteful to him. Of the affability of his mood there could be no question whatever.
Near the corner of the two streets and only a little way from the intensely observant darkened balcony above, they paused before the last house of the Ouled Nails; she drew her arm from his and stood facing him, still smiling upon him, but speaking in a low voice and apparently with some seriousness. The painted girl, lolling upon the doorstep close by, like a figure dressed in a few yards of rainbow and splashed over with gilt, leaned forward in a glittering movement; — deeply interested, she watched them fixedly, though not with an attention more concentrated than that bestowed upon them from on high.
Mr. Shuler, however, remained humorous; he supposed the encounter of his admired compatriot and the tall lady but a chance one of friendly tourists; and he made no doubt that the lady was some worthy acquaintance of Mrs. Tinker’s to whom she had introduced her husband. Tinker had probably just happened upon her in a stroll about the neighbourhood, and they were obviously returning to the hotel, being, in fact, but a few yards distant from a corner of the building now. Therefore, Mr. Shuler, entertaining the ladies, pushed his humour as far as it would go, and had no more thought of preparing a catastrophe than when he was similarly merry, at the Church Bazaar at home, upon the subject of the aged Pastor’s gallantries.
He made his cackle breathy, rather than loudly vocal, and again informed the silent Mrs. Tinker that he had warned her to be watchful. “Your husband’s certainly proving he’s got a good eye this evening!” he continued. “I hate to think what Mrs. Shuler’d say if she caught me carrying on with as good a looking woman as that! After dinner I’m going to have a little fun with him about what Charlie Wackstle told me in Naples. I guess you must have been a little off your guard with him on the steamer, Mrs. Tinker; Charlie told me about some fine-looking French lady you had on board that the other gentlemen were all jealous of your husband on account of. Said he never gave a one of ’em the chance to meet her; just shooed ’em away and used to sit all afternoon with her up in a corner of the boat-deck every day. Charlie said he wouldn’t even play cards after the first afternoon or two; he was so afraid he’d miss that taity-tait; said it was a perfectly terrible scandal! You wait till I get a chance to twit him about it.”
Then, laughing under his breath, he improved this theme; planning an after-dinner discomfiture for Tinker which should be assisted by a pretended severity on the part of Mrs. Tinker; and as he talked jubilantly on, Ogle, standing next to Olivia, was conscious of the increasing rigidity of her attitude. It was his impression that she became frozen with horror and that she was horrified for her father. In spite of his own emotions, which were various and all poignant, Ogle had not failed to notice the hurried anxiety with which she had striven to draw her mother’s attention from the street of the dancing girls and to fix it in another direction.
Yet, from the viewpoint of both the girl and her mother, what reason was there for Olivia’s anxiety? Ogle understood the marital attitude of the type he thought of as the “Middle Class wife”; but surely even by such a person nothing especially ruinous need be thought of a middle-aged man’s walking about the neighbourhood of his own hotel with a lady not intimate with his wife. Of course, after Mr. Shuler’s merry revelations, even a wife not decisively “Middle Class” might warrantably become somewhat excitedly inquisitive; but Olivia’s manoeuvre was before Mr. Shuler spoke. It seemed to be plain, therefore, that although the daughter herself had probably no criticism to make of her father’s behaviour, she was alarmed for him because of something familiar to her in her mother’s character. Indeed, by the time Mr. Shuler’s plans for a pleasant evening were perfected, she seemed to be more than alarmed. Unless Ogle’s impression was at fault, her anticipations were preoccupied with an accomplished calamity.
“Look at that!” Mr. Shuler exclaimed. “Didn’t I tell you?”
But his half-suppressed chuckling was the only sound upon the roof. Leaning nearer to her American friend — and it might be thought almost tenderly — as they stood smilingly face to face, Mme. Momoro did something that upon the instant of her leaning Ogle was sickeningly sure she would do. She gave Tinker a pat or two upon his stalwart right shoulder, and, with the last of these friendly caresses, let her white hand linger pleasantly in its descent of his brown coat sleeve. Then she took his arm cosily again; they plunged into the dark lane beneath the parapet; and the cheerful murmur of their voices rose to that slight but frigid altitude as they went on in the direction of the entrance of the hotel. The Ouled Nail, more interested than ever, half rose to stare after them.
The fatal Shuler’s cackle grew louder. “There! What did I tell you, Mrs. Tinker? Didn’t I — —” Mrs. Tinker, without a word, turned from the parapet and strode toward the stairway that descended into the hotel.
Shuler called after her: “Now, remember, Mrs. Tinker; we want to make this a good one. Don’t say a word to him till after dinner. As soon as we come out to the hotel parlour we’ll —
Ogle heard the whisper, hoarse and fierce, of Mrs. Shuler: “Hush up! Haven’t you got any sense?”
“Why, what—”
“Hush up!”
Then they disappeared in the darkness.
Olivia had turned to follow her mother; but Ogle detained her. “Just a moment.”
“Yes, Mr. Ogle?” she said in a troubled voice. “I mustn’t stay long just now, I’m afraid.”
“I won’t keep you. I asked you how you had learned I was the author of ‘The Pastoral Scene.’
You said your father—”
“Oh, no,” she interrupted. “That didn’t have anything to do with my father. By the way—” she paused, and laughed apologetically— “I was going to say something too impulsive, I’m afraid!”
“Please do.”
“Well — you mustn’t think anything important about Papa’s getting his shoulder patted just now. He’s really an old dear, you know: he isn’t really kittenish; he never means anything. I don’t think you need fear your fascinating lady will flirt too hard with him!”
“If you please,” Ogle said; “she isn’t ‘my’ fascinating lady. I was asking you—”
“Oh, that? A lot of American papers were sent to Papa here, and I happened to notice in one of them that Isabella Clarkson, who’d been playing in Laurence Ogle’s ‘Pastoral Scene,’ was rehearsing for ‘Hedda Gabier.’ So I knew who you were. I hope it won’t make any difference in your play.”
“None at all. I suppose she’s going to do a special Ibsen matinée. That’s often done by an actress, even when—”
“I’m afraid I’d better run, Mr. Ogle,” Olivia broke in nervously. “You’ll forgive me; I’m afraid there’s something important I ought to be doing.”
He followed more slowly as she sped lightly away through the darkness; and then, descending to his room, he found he had added one more to his list of troubles. Isabella Clarkson was the wife of Lehren, the manager of “The Pastoral Scene”; and the playwright wished that her husband held a tighter rein upon her. How could she play well in the evenings after doing special matinées? Besides, she should have been satisfied to be known as the “Anna Struger” of “The Pastoral Scene.” If she wanted to do “Hedda Gabier” later, after three or four years, no one could find fault with her for it; but just now adding an Ibsen rôle might diversify interest; and people who saw her as “Hedda” might not care to see her as “Anna.” What was the matter with Joe Lehren, that he could never show any firmness or intelligence with Isabella? And, indignantly, as he dressed, Ogle went so far as to picture himself returned to New York and saying to Isabella: “See here! You sit down in that chair
and listen to me.
You may be able to do what you like with your husband; but I’m not that sort of man. You’re going to do exactly what I — —”
But just then an Arab servant brought a note to him.
My dear, I’m going to ask you to forgive me if I let you and Hyacinthe dine alone together this evening. You have seen me at so many meals I must not flatter myself that I am not giving you a little vacation which you may be unkind enough to find a relief! You shall thank me when I see you again, and in the meantime you are a dear boy and I am so fond of you that I send you a pat upon the shoulder. But do miss me a little!
Ogle interrupted his dressing not only to read the note, but also to sit down on the side of his bed and take his head in his hands. Recalling what he had just been saying to Isabella Clarkson, he was able to produce a feeble and nauseated laughter before he rose; then, returning to his mirror to perfect his neck-gear, he made with precision the neatest semblance of a black butterfly below the two white triangles of his collar. After that, before going down to join Hyacinthe, he gave a little time to the well-favoured but somewhat stricken-looking portrait within the glass. He sneered at it. “You withdraw your remarks to Miss Clarkson, I gather!” he said aloud; and added, muttering as he turned away: “No wonder you ‘try’ to write tragedy! Doesn’t it rather strike you that you are one yourself?”
At their table in the large dining-room he was as silent, for a time, as Hyacinthe, though there were several subjects he wished to discuss with the youth, and he intended to open them before the conclusion of their meal. However, he waited, and in the meantime took note of Miss Olivia Tinker, dining alone just beyond the intervening table of Orthe the Eighteenth «and his cheerful princess. The bridal table, though incognito, had been covered with flowers, and from Ogle’s view Olivia’s pretty head and shoulders, as she sat directly beyond, seemed to be growing out of a small rose garden — not inappropriately. She looked serious; but now that he saw her in the light he perceived that her sullenness was all gone, an improvement almost startlingly becoming to her. Then she turned her head, as if she felt and recognized his gaze, and her seriousness disappeared for an April moment; — she was suddenly all of such charming sunniness, as she smiled and nodded to him, that she even had a lopsided smile from him in return.
He flushed a little with the effort he made to produce even that semblance, and then as she turned away and became grave again, he decided that the time had come to speak to Hyacinthe. The waiters were placing the dessert upon the table.
“Did your mother mention to you where she was dining to-night?”
Hyacinthe’s eyebrows and shoulders expressed a tendency to disclaim responsibility. “My mother? I did not see her since we arrive at the hotel. She was very tired, you know. I think perhaps she may have something to eat in her room.”
“Do you?”
Hyacinthe looked up, meeting Ogle’s eyes mildly, yet with what seemed to be a covert apprehension. “You think she went to some other hotel?”
“I don’t know.” And as it seemed apparent that if Hyacinthe knew he intended to look upon his knowledge as confidential and not to be imparted, Ogle let it go and tried something else.
“I wonder if you’d mind telling me—”
“Why, no,” the youth said. His eyes met Ogle’s again mildly, but with a faint surprise. “What is it you like to ask me?”
“Why did that Englishman, Broadfeather, fly off the handle at Bougie? What made him leave there two hours before we did?”
“Why? I thought my mother told you. He drank too much old wine, and it went into his head. We had to stop playing, and I think he must have been ashamed for my mother to see him again.”
“What did he say when you stopped playing, Hyacinthe?
“It was nothing,” the boy said; but a faint colour came into his pale cheeks, and his lower lip was thrust forward slightly, producing an expression a little obstinate and a little scornful. “I did suppose my mother told you. He thought himself a great bridge player; and both at Bougie and at Michelet it was he who asked to play with us. At Bougie he had too much Beaune, and he was too confused to understand how he could be outmatched both evenings; — he said I counted wrong. How silly! As if I would do such a thing when there was no need! He is a third-class player; perhaps a fourth-class.” Hyacinthe’s colour heightened, and he reverted to something he had just said. “When I say I would never do such a thing when I am in a game with a fourth-class player, it isn’t the same as to say I would ever do it.”
“I understand,” Ogle rejoined; and he added, though not with absolute conviction: “Of course not.” Then it seemed that he divined something; — the one diversion of Mile. Daurel and her sister upon the “Duumvir” had been to play cards against Hyacinthe and Mme. Momoro. “Your mother has told me something of your difficulties with Mademoiselle Daurel, Hyacinthe. She was angry with you much as the Englishman was, wasn’t she?”
“Much,” Hyacinthe said bitterly. “What she lives for, it is bridge and religion — and to make my mother unhappy! Me, I don’t care, if that old woman would let my mother alone. My mother must never speak to anybody; she must be ready to run for something every moment like a lady’s-maid; she must promise to become a religious. That is a terrible old woman! She makes you presents of a gold cigarette case or a fur coat, and you must give her your life! But never in money two sous! If you had money, you see, she thinks you might escape. What you have in money is the little you win at bridge at fifty centimes the point, and even at that she becomes insane, if you win Well, what is there to do? She is a poor player, and you can’t force her to win just to be obliging; because you can’t afford it.
All you can do is to let her become insane and accuse you of everything disgusting! She was horrible in Algiers. I tell you I would refuse to let her adopt me now, even if she wished to! There are some things nobody can bear. I would refuse!”
He spoke with more vehemence than Ogle had heard from him; and there were gloomy lights in his dark and averted eyes as he made this final declaration, which was one his listener found somewhat informing. At least it confirmed the gossip of the femme de chambre at Algiers, and it strikingly did not confirm the account Hyacinthe’s mother had given him of her quarrel with Mile. Daurel. Evidently there were reticences really to the credit of both the mother and the son. The two did not plan deliberately together, saying, “Let us agree upon such and such a story”; they had been opportunists, but by no means plotters. Moreover, it was plain that their life at “Colline des Roses” had indeed been one of those purgatories known to the households of opinionated old rich women; that they had endured it in the hope of Hyacinthe’s adoption and prospective inheritance; and that there had been a quarrel over the too great talent of this young Mozart of bridge. Something like desperation had been the result, and Mme. Momoro had shown herself a dramatic artist in the moving presentation of partial truths.
Ogle did not press the boy to say anything more; he was sorry for him, in truth; and as for obtaining further enlightenment he was sufficiently sickened by what he had. It was enough: he could piece out the details from his dramatist’s imagination, if he cared to; but he had no wish to engage himself in that occupation at present. Then Hyacinthe added something that startled him. “They are here, you know,” the boy said quietly.
“Who are here?”
“Mademoiselle Daurel and Mademoiselle Lucie. They are at another hotel. They guessed that we would come to Biskra. The concierge gave my mother a note from them when we arrive this afternoon before she went to her room. They insist to see her at once.”
Ogle stared at him. “Then that’s where she’s gone to-night.”
Hyacinthe gave him a piteous look, wholly genuine. “If she is not in her room, it might be. I am afraid so.” He swallowed painfully, and there was no doubt of his despair. “If she promise them for us to go back with them—” He rose abruptly as if he found it impossible to remain longer in a room full of people; t
hen immediately he remembered his manners and sat down again.
“I beg your pardon,” he said pathetically, “I did not notice you still have your dessert to eat.”
XXIV
AS OGLE SAT after dinner, finishing his coffee and beginning a cigar in the public room of the hotel, a long, orientalized apartment with a cosmopolitan population prevalently English, two ladies entered at a door and stood looking about them as if in search of a friend. More accurately, one of them wore the expression of a person looking for a missing friend, though apprehensively; while the other had the air of an aroused feudist trailing an enemy. Her dilated eyes swept fiercely over the room; her lips were bitterly compressed; her colour was that of war. She saw Ogle, who sat in profile to her, unaware of her; and after hurriedly conferring with her daughter, she departed swiftly by way of the door they had just entered.
Olivia came to a vacant chair beside Ogle and occupied it before he knew she was near.
“May I sit here a little while?” she said, and though she looked anxious, she smiled brightly upon him. “I’ve been instructed to find out something from you so tactfully that you won’t think anything’s gone wrong; but as you couldn’t help knowing it anyhow I’m afraid my diplomacy may be thrown away. I’m going to obey my orders though, and I hope you’ll admit afterwards that I’ve done it with tact.”
“What is it I couldn’t help knowing? I’m afraid there’s not much I know; — I’ve come to that conclusion lately.”
“Dear me!” Olivia laughed and shook her head ruefully. “What a very great deal you’ve changed! I suppose you think that’s a spiteful thing to say, though, don’t you?”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 408