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Simon the Jester

Chapter XIII

You could have knocked me down with a feather. It is a trite metaphor, I know; but it is none the less excellent. I repeat, therefore, unblushingly -- you could have knocked me down with a feather. I gasped. The little man wiped his eyes. He was the tearfullest adult I have ever met, and I once knew an Italian prima donna with a temperament.

"Captain Vauvenarde? The man with the shoebrush hair and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck? Are you sure?"

The dwarf nodded. "I set out from England to find him. I swore to the carissima signora that I would do so. I have done it," he added, with a faint return of his self-confidence.

"Well, I'm damned!" said I, in my native tongue.

I don't often use strong language; but the occasion warranted it. I was flabbergasted, bewildered, out-raged, humiliated, delighted, incredulous, and generally turned topsy-turvy. In conversation one has no time for so minute an analysis of one's feelings. I therefore summed them up in the only word. Captain Vauvenarde! The wild goose of my absurd chase! Found by this Flibbertigibbet of a fellow, while I, Simon de Gex, erstwhile M.P., was fooling about War Offices and regiments! It was grotesque. It was monstrous. It ought not to have been allowed. And yet it saved me a vast amount of trouble.

"I'm damned!" said I.

Anastasius had just enough English to understand. I suppose, such is mortal unregeneracy, that it is the most widely understood word in the universe.

"And I," said he, "am eternally beaten. I am trampled under foot and shall never be able to hold up my head again."

Whereupon he renewed his lamentations. For some time I listened patiently, and from his disconnected remarks I gathered that he had gone to the Cercle Africain in view of his gigantic combinations, but that the demon of gambling taking possession of him had almost driven them from his mind. Eventually he had lost control of his nerves, a cloud had spread over his brain, and he had committed the unspeakable blunder which led to disaster.

"To think that I should have tracked him down -- for this!" he exclaimed tragically.

"What beats me," I cried, "is how the deuce you managed to track him down. Your magnificent intellect, I suppose" -- I spoke gently and not in open sarcasm -- "enabled you to get on the trail."

He brightened at the compliment. "Yes, that was it. Listen. I came to Algiers, the last place he was heard of. I go to the cafes. I listen like a detective to conversation. I creep behind soldiers talking. I find out nothing. I ask at the shops. They think I am crazy, but Anastasius Papadopoulos has a brain larger than theirs. I go to my old friend the secretary of the theatre, where I have exhibited the marvellous performance of my cats. I say to him, 'When have you a date for me?' He says, 'Next year.' I make a note of it. We talk. He knows all Algiers. I say to him, 'What has become of Captain Vauvenarde of the Chasseurs d'Afrique?' I say it carelessly as if the Captain were an old friend of mine. The secretary laughs. 'Haven't you heard? The Captain was chased from the regiment -- -- '"

"The deuce he was!" I interjected.

"On account of something," said Anastasius. "The secretary could not tell what. Perhaps he cheated at cards. The officers said so.

"'Where is he now?' I ask. 'Why, in Algiers. He is the most famous gambler in the town. He is every night at the Cercle Africain, and some people believe that it belongs to him.' My friend the secretary asks me why I am so anxious to discover Captain Vauvenarde. I do not betray my secret. When I do not wish to talk I close my lips, and they are sealed like the tomb. I am the model of discretion. You, Monsieur, with the high-bred delicacy of the English statesman, have not questioned me about my combination. I appreciate it. But, if you had, though it broke my heart, I should not have answered."

"I am not going to pry into your schemes," I said, "but there are one or two things I must understand. How do you know the banker was Captain Vauvenarde?"

"I saw him several times in Marseilles with the carissima signora ."

"Then how was it he did not recognise you to-night?"

"I was then but an acquaintance of Madame; not her intimate friend, counsellor, champion, as I am now. I did not have the honour of being presented to Captain Vauvenarde. I went to-night to make sure of my man, to play the first card in my gigantic combination -- but, alas! But no!" He rose and thumped his little chest. "I feel my courage coming back. My will is stiffening into iron. When the carissima signora arrives in Algiers she will find she has a champion!"

"How do you know she is coming to Algiers?" I asked startled.

"As soon as I learned that Captain Vauvenarde was here," he replied proudly, "I sent her a telegram. 'Husband found; come at once.' I know she is coming, for she has not answered."

An idea occurred to me. "Did you sign your name and address on the telegram?"

He approached me confidentially as I sat, and wagged a cunning finger.

"In matters of life and death, never give your name and address."

As Professor Anastasius Papadopoulos was himself again, and as I began to sneeze -- for the night was chilly -- I rose and suggested that we might adjourn this conference till the morrow. He acquiesced, saying that all was not lost and that he still had time to mature his combinations. We crossed the road, and I hailed a cab standing by the Cafe d'Alger. I offered Anastasius to drive him to his hotel, but he declined politely. We shook hands.

"Monsieur," said he, "I have to make my heartfelt apologies for having caused you so painful, so useless, and so expensive an evening. As for the last aspect I will repay you."

"You will do no such thing, Professor," said I. "My evening has, on the contrary, been particularly useful and instructive. I wouldn't have missed it for the world."

And I drove off homewards, glad to be in my own company.

Here was an imbroglio! The missing husband found and, like most missing husbands, found to be entirely undesirable. And Lola, obviously imagining her summons to be from me, was at that moment speeding hither as fast as the Marechal Bugeaud could carry her. If I had discovered Captain Vauvenarde instead of Anastasius I would have anathematised him as the most meddlesome, crazy little marplot that ever looked like Napoleon the Third. But as the credit of the discovery belonged to him and not to me, I could only anathematise myself for my dilettanteism in the capacity of a private inquiry agent.

I went to bed and slept badly. The ludicrous scenes of the evening danced before my eyes; the smoke-filled, sordid room, the ignoble faces round the table, the foolish hullaballoo, the collapse of Anastasius, my melodramatic intervention, and the ironical courtesy of the fleshy Captain Vauvenarde. Also, in the small hours of the night, Anastasius's gigantic combinations assumed a less trivial aspect. What lunatic scheme was being hatched behind that dome-like brow? His object in taking me to the club was obvious. He could not have got in save under my protection. But what he had reckoned upon doing when he got there Heaven and Anastasius Papadopoulos only knew. I was also worried by the confounded little pain inside.

On the following afternoon I went down to meet the steamer from Marseilles. I more than expected to find the dwarf on the quay, but to my relief he was not there. I had purposely kept my knowledge of Lola's movements a secret from him, as I desired as far as possible to conduct affairs without his crazy intervention. I was not sorry, too, that he had not availed himself of my proposal to visit me that morning and continue our conversation of the night before. The grotesque as a decoration of life is valuable; as the main feature it gets on your nerves.

I stood on the sloping stone jetty among the crowd of Arab porters and Europeans and watched the vessel waddle in. Lola and I, catching sight of each other at the same time, waved handkerchiefs in an imbecile manner, and when the vessel came alongside, and during the tedious process of mooring, we regarded each other with photographic smiles. She was wearing a squirrel coat and a toque of the same fur, and she looked more like a splendid wild animal than ever. Something inside me -- not the little pain -- but what must have been my heart, throbbed suddenly at her beauty, and the throb was followed by a sudden sense of shock at the realisation of my keen pleasure at the sight of her. A wistful radiance shone in her face as she came down the gangway.

"Oh, how kind, how good, how splendid of you to meet me!" she cried as our hands clasped. "I was dreading, dreading, dreading that it might be some one else."

"And yet you came straight through," said I, still holding her hand -- or, rather, allowing hers to encircle mine in the familiar grip.

"Didn't you command me to do so?"

I could not explain matters to her then and there among the hustle of passengers and the bustle of porters. Besides, Rogers, who had come down with the hotel omnibus, was at my side touching his hat.

"I have ordered you a room and a private sitting-room with a balcony facing the sea. Put yourself in charge of me and your luggage in charge of Rogers and dismiss all thoughts of worry from your mind."

"You are so restful," she laughed as we moved off.

Then she scanned my face and said falteringly. "How thin and worn you look! Are you worse?"

"If you ask me such questions," said I, "I'll leave you with the luggage in charge of Rogers. I am in resplendent health."

She murmured that she wished she could believe me, and took my arm as we walked down the jetty to the waiting cab.

"It's good to hear your voice again," I said. "It's a lazy voice and fits in with the lazy South." I pointed to the burnous-enveloped Arabs sleeping on the parapet. "It's out of place in Cadogan Gardens."

She laughed her low, rippling laugh. It was music very pleasant to hear after the somewhat shrill cachinnation of the Misses Bostock of South Shields. I was so pleased that I gave half a franc to a pestilential Arab shoeblack.

"That was nice of you," she said.

"It was the act of an imbecile," I retorted. "I have now rendered it impossible for me to enter the town again. How is Dale?"

She started. "He's well. Busy with his election. I saw him the day before I left. I didn't tell him I was coming to Algiers. I wrote from Paris."

"Telling him the reason?"

She faced me and met my eyes and said shortly: "No."

"Oh!" said I.

This brought us to the cab. We entered and drove away. Then leaning back and looking straight in front of her, she grasped my wrist and said:

"Now, my dear friend, tell me all and get it over."

"My dear Madame Brandt -- " I began.

She interrupted me. "For goodness' sake don't call me that. It makes a cold shiver run down my back. I'm either Lola to you or nothing."

"Then, my dear Lola," said I, "the first thing I must tell you is that I did not send for you."

"What do you mean? The telegram?"

"It was sent by Anastasius Papadopoulos."

"Anastasius?" She bent forward and looked at me. "What is he doing here?"

"Heaven knows!" said I. "But what he has done has been to find Captain Vauvenarde. I am glad he has done that, but I am deeply sorry he sent you the telegram."

"Sorry? Why?"

"Because there was no reason for your coming," I said with unwonted gravity. "It would have been better if you had stayed in London, and it will be best if you take the boat back again to-morrow."

She remained silent for a while. Then she said in a low voice:

"He won't have me?"

"He hasn't been asked," I said. "He will, as far as I can command the situation, never be asked."

On that I had fully determined; and, when she inquired the reason, I told her.

"I proposed that you should reunite yourself with an honourable though somewhat misguided gentleman. I've had the reverse of pleasure in meeting Captain Vauvenarde, and I regret to say, though he is still misguided, he can scarcely be termed honourable. The term 'gentleman' has still to be accurately defined."

She made a writhing movement of impatience.

"Tell me straight out what he's doing in Algiers. You're trying to make things easy for me. It's the way of your class. It isn't the way of mine. I'm used to brutality. I like it better. Why did he leave the army and why is he in Algiers?"

"If you prefer the direct method, my dear Lola," said I -- and the name came quite trippingly on my tongue -- "I'll employ it. Your husband has apparently been kicked out of the army and is now running a gambling- hell."

She took the blow bravely; but it turned her face haggard like a paroxysm of physical pain. After a few moments' silence, she said:

"It must have been awful for him. He was a proud man."

"He is changed," I replied gently. "Pride is too hampering a quality for a knight of industry to keep in his equipment."

"Tell me how you met him," she said.

I rapidly sketched the whole absurd history, from my encounter with Anastasius Papadopoulos in Marseilles to my parting with him on the previous night. I softened down, as much as I could, the fleshiness of Captain Vauvenarde and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck, but I portrayed the villainous physiognomies of his associates very neatly. I concluded by repeating my assertion that our project had proved itself to be abortive.

"He must be pretty miserable," said Lola.

"Devil a bit," said I.

She did not answer, but settled herself more comfortably in the carriage and relapsed into mournful silence. I, having said my say, lit a cigarette. Save for the clanging past of an upward or downward tram, the creeping drive up the hill through the long winding street was very quiet; and as we mounted higher and left the shops behind, the only sounds that broke the afternoon stillness were the driver's raucous admonition to his horses and the wind in the trees by the wayside. At different points the turns of the road brought to view the panorama of the town below and the calm sweep of the bay.

"Exquisite, isn't it?" I said at last, with an indicative wave of the hand.

"What's the good of anything being exquisite when you feel mouldy?"

"It may help to charm away the mouldiness. Beauty is eternal and mouldiness only temporal. The sun will go on shining and the sea will go on changing colour long after our pains and joys have vanished from the world. Nature is pitilessly indifferent to human emotion."

"If so," she said, her intuition finding the weakness of my slipshod argument, "how can it touch human mouldiness?"

"I don't know," said I. "The poets will tell you. All you have to do is to lie on the breast of the Great Mother and your heartache will go from you. I've never tried it myself, as I've never been afflicted with heartache."

"Is that true?" she asked, womanlike catching at the personal.

I smiled and nodded.

"I'm glad on your account," she said sincerely. "It's the very devil of an ache. I've always had it."

"Poor Lola," said I, prompted by my acquired instinct of eumoiriety. "I wish I could cure you."

"You?" She gave a short little laugh and then turned her head away.

"I had a very comfortable crossing," she remarked a moment later.

I gave her into the keeping of the manager of the hotel and did not see her again until she came down somewhat late for dinner. I met her in the vestibule. She wore a closely fitting brown dress, which in colour matched the bronze of her hair and in shape showed off her lithe and generous figure.

I thought it my duty to cheer her by a well-deserved compliment.

"Are you aware," I said, with a low bow, "that you're a remarkably handsome woman?"

A perfectly unnecessary light came into her eyes and a superfluous flush to her cheeks. "If I'm at least that to you, I'm happy," she said.

"You're that to the dullest vision. Follow the maitre d'hotel ," said I, as we entered the salle a manger, "and I'll walk behind in reflected glory."

We made an effective entrance. I declare there was a perceptible rattle of soup-spoons laid down by the retired Colonels and maiden ladies as we passed by. Colonel Bunnion returned my nod of greeting in the most distracted fashion and gazed at Lola with the frank admiration of British Cavalry. I felt foolishly proud and exhilarated, and gave her at my table the seat commanding a view of the room. I then ordered a bottle of champagne, which I am forbidden to touch.

"It isn't often that I have the pleasure of dining with you," I said by way of apology.

"This is the very first time," she said.

"And it's not going to be the last," I declared.

"I thought you were going to ship me back to Marseilles to-morrow."

She laughed lazily, meeting my eyes. I smiled.

"It would be inhuman. I allow you a few day's rest."

Indeed, now she was here I had a curious desire to keep her. I regarded the failure of my eumoirous little plans with more than satisfaction. I had done my best. I had found (through the dwarf's agency) Captain Vauvenarde. I had satisfied myself that he was an outrageous person, thoroughly disqualified from becoming Lola's husband, and there was an end of the matter. Meanwhile Fate (again through the agency of Anastasius) had brought her many hundreds of miles away from Dale and had moreover brought her to me. I was delighted. I patted Destiny on the back, and drank his health in excellent Pommery. Lola did not know in the least what I meant, but she smiled amiably and drank the toast. It was quite a merry dinner. Lola threw herself into my mood and jested as if she had never heard of an undesirable husband who had been kicked out of the French Army. We talked of many things. I described in fuller detail my adventure with Anastasius and Saupiquet, and we laughed over the debt of fifteen sous and the elaborate receipt.

"Anastasius," she said, "is childish in many ways -- the doctors have a name for it."

"Arrested development."

"That's it; but he is absolutely cracked on one point -- the poisoning of my horse Sultan. He has reams of paper which he calls the dossier of the crime. You never saw such a collection of rubbish in your life. I cried over it. And he is so proud of it, poor wee mite." She laughed suddenly. "I should love to have seen you hobnobbing with him and Saupiquet."

"Why?"

"You're so aristocratic-looking," she did me the embarrassing honour to explain in her direct fashion. "You're my idea of an English duke."

"My dear Lola," I replied, "you're quite wrong. The ordinary English duke is a stout, middle-aged gentleman with a beard, and he generally wears thick knickerbockers and shocking bad hats."

"Do you know any?"

"Two or three," I admitted.

"And duchesses, too?"

I again pleaded guilty. In these democratic days, if one is engaged in public and social affairs one can't help running up against them. It is their fault, not mine.

"Do tell me about them," said Lola, with her elbows on the table.

I told her.

"And are earls and countesses just the same?" she asked with a disappointed air.

"Just the same, only worse. They're so ordinary you can't pick them out from common misters and missuses."

Saying this I rose, for we had finished our dessert, and proposed coffee in the lounge. There we found Colonel Bunnion at so wilful a loose end that I could not find it in my heart to refuse him an introduction to Lola. He manifested his delight by lifting the skirt of his dinner-jacket with his hands and rising on his spurs like a bantam cock. I left her to him for a moment and went over to say a civil word to the Misses Bostock of South Shields. I regret to say I noticed a certain frigidity in their demeanour. The well-conducted man in South Shields does not go out one night with a revolver tucked away in the pocket of his dress-suit, and turn up the next evening with a striking-looking lady with bronze hair. Such goings-on are seen on the stage in South Shields in melodrama, and they are the goings-on of the villain. In the eyes of the gentle ladies my reputation was gone. I was trying to rehabilitate myself when the chasseur brought me a telegram. I asked permission to open it, and stepped aside.

The words of the telegram were like a ringing box on the ears.

Not "Dale," mark you, as he has signed himself ever since I knew him in Eton collars, but "Kynnersley." Why has Lola joined you? Why have you run off with Lola? What's the reason of this treacherous abduction? Account for yourself immediately. Stand and deliver. I stood there gaping at the words like an idiot, my blood tingling at the implied accusation. The peremptoriness of it! The impudence of the boy! The wild extravagance of the idea! And yet, while my head was reeling with one buffet a memory arose and gave me another on the other side. I remembered the preposterous attitude in which Dale had found us when he rushed from Berlin into Lola's drawing-room.

I took the confounded telegram into a remote corner of the lounge, like a dog with a bone, and growled over it for a time until the humour of the situation turned the growl into a chuckle. Even had I been in sound health and strength, the idea of running off with Lola would have been absurd. But for me, in my present eumoirous disposition of mind; for me, a half-disembodied spirit who had cast all vain and disturbing human emotions into the mud of Murglebed-on- Sea; for me who had a spirit's calm disregard for the petty passions and interests of mankind and walked through the world with no other object than healing a few human woes; for me who already saw death on the other side of the river and found serious occupation in exchanging airy badinage with him; for me with an abominable little pain inside inexorably eating my life out and wasting me away literally and perceptibly like a shadow and twisting me up half a dozen times a day in excruciating agony; for me, in this delectable condition of soul and this deplorable condition of body, to think of running hundreds of miles from home with -- to say the least of it -- so inconvenient a creature as a big, bronze-haired woman, the idea was inexpressibly and weirdly comic.

I stepped into the drawing-room close by and drew up a telegram to Dale.

Then I joined Lola and Colonel Bunnion. She was lying back in her laziest and most pantherine attitude, and she looked up at me as I approached with eyes full of velvet softness. For the life of me I could not help feeling glad that they were turned on me and not on Dale Kynnersley.

Almost immediately the elder Miss Bostock came up to claim the Colonel for bridge. He rose reluctantly.

"I suppose it's no use asking you to make a fourth, Mr. de Gex?" she asked, after the subacid manner of her kind.

"I'm afraid not," I replied sweetly. Whereupon she rescued the Colonel from the syren and left me alone with her. I lit a cigarette and sat by her side. As she did not stir or speak I asked whether she was tired.

"Not very. I'm thinking. Do you know you've taught me an awful lot?"

"I? What can I have taught you?"

"The way people like yourself look at things. I'm treating Dale abominably. I didn't realise it before."

Now why on earth did she bring Dale in just at that moment.

"Indeed?" said I.

She nodded her head and said in her languorous voice:

"He's over head and ears in love with me and thinks I care for him. I don't. I don't care a brass button for him. I'm a bad influence in his life, and the sooner I take myself out of it the better. Don't you think so?"

"You know my opinions," I said.

"If I had followed your advice at first," she continued, "we needn't have had all this commotion. And yet I'm not sorry."

"What do you propose to do?" I asked.

"Before deciding, I shall see my husband."

"You shall do no such thing."

She smiled. "I shall."

I protested. Captain Vauvenarde had put himself outside the pale. He was not fit to associate with decent women. What object could she have in meeting him?

"I want to judge for myself," she replied.

"Judge what? Surely not whether he is eligible as a husband!"

"Yes," she said.

"But, my dear Lola," I cried, "the notion is as crazy as any of Anastasius Papadopoulos's. Of course, as soon as he learns that you're a rich woman, he'll want to live with you, and use your money for his gaming-hell."

"I am going to meet him," she said quietly.

"I forbid it."

"You're too late, dear friend. I wrote him a letter before dinner and sent it to the Cercle Africain by special messenger. I also wrote to Anastasius. I asked them both to see me to-morrow morning. That's why I've been so gay this evening."

At the sight of my blank face she laughed, and with one of her movements rose from her chair. I rose too.

"Are you angry with me?"

"I thought I had walked out of a nightmare," I said. "I find I'm still in it."

"But don't be angry with me. It was the only way."

"The only way to, or out of, what?" I asked, bewildered.

"Never mind."

She looked at me with a singular expression in her slumbrous eyes. It was sad, wistful, soothing, and gave me the idea of a noble woman making a senseless sacrifice.

"There is no earthly reason to do this on account of Dale," I protested.

"Dale has nothing to do with it."

"Then who has?"

"Anastasius Papadopoulos," she said with undisguised irony.

"I beg your pardon," I said rather stiffly, "for appearing to force your confidence. But as I first put the idea of joining your husband into your head and have enjoyed your confidence in the matter hitherto, I thought I might claim certain privileges."

As she had done before, she laid her hands on my shoulders -- we were alone in the alcove -- and looked me in the eyes.

"Don't make me cry. I'm very near it. And I'm tired to-night, and I'm going to have a hellish time to-morrow. And I want you to do me a favour."

"What is that?"

"When I'm seeing my husband, I'd like to know that you were within call -- in case I wanted you. One never knows what may happen. You will come won't you, if I send for you?"

"I'm always at your service," I said.

She released my shoulders and grasped my hand.

"Good-night," she said, abruptly, and rushed swiftly out of the room, leaving me wondering more than I had ever wondered in my life at the inscrutable ways of women.

Chapter XIV

I am glad I devoted last night and the past hour this morning to bringing up to date this trivial record, for I have a premonition that the time is rapidly approaching when I shall no longer have the strength of will or body to continue it. The little pain has increased in intensity and frequency the last few days, and though I try to delude myself into the belief that otherwise I am as strong as ever, I know in my heart that I am daily growing weaker, daily losing vitality. I shall soon have to call in a doctor to give me some temporary relief, and doubtless he will put me to bed, feed me on slops, cut off alcohol, forbid noise and excitement, and keep me in a drugged, stupefied condition until I fall asleep, to wake up in the Garden of Prosperpine. Death is nothing; it is the dying that is such a nuisance. It is going through so much for so little. It is as bad as the campaign before a parliamentary election. It offends one's sense of proportion. In a well-regulated universe there would be no tedious process of decay, either before or after death. You would go about your daily avocation unconcerned and unwarned, and then at the moment appointed by an inscrutable Providence for your dissolution -- phew! -- and your clothes would remain standing for a surprised second, and then fall down in a heap without a particle of you inside them. If we have to die, why doesn't Providence employ this simple and sensible method? It would save such a lot of trouble. It would be so clean, so painless, so picturesque. It would add to the interest of our walks abroad. Fancy a stout, important policeman vanishing from his uniform -- the helmet falling over the collar, the tunic doubling in at the belt, the knees giving way, and the unheard, merry laughter of the disenuniformed spirit winging its way truncheonless into the Empyrean.

But if you think you are going to get any fun out of dying in the present inconvenient manner, you are mistaken. Believe one who is trying.

I will remain on my feet, however, as long as my will holds out. In this way I may continue to be of service to my fellow creatures, and procure for myself a happy lot or portion. Even this morning I have been able to feel the throb of eumoiriety. A piteous letter came from Latimer, and a substantial cheque lies on my table ready to be posted. I wonder how much I have left? So long as it is enough to pay my doctor's bills and funeral expenses, what does it matter?

The last line of the above was written on December 21st. It is now January 30th, and I am still alive and able to write. I wish I weren't. But I will set down as plainly as I can what has happened in the interval.

I had just written the last word, seated at my hotel window in the sunshine, and enjoying, in spite of my uncheerful thoughts, the scents that rose from the garden, when I heard a knock at my door. At my invitation to enter, Anastasius Papadopoulos trotted into the room in a great state of excitement carrying the familiar bunch of papers. He put his hat on the floor, pitched the papers into the hat, and ran up to me.

"My dear sir, don't get up, I implore you. And I won't sit down. I have just seen the ever beautiful and beloved lady."

I turned my chair away from the table, and faced him as he stood blowing kisses with one little hand, while the other lay on his heart. In a flash he struck a new gesture; he folded his arms and scowled.

"I was with her. She was opening her inmost heart to me. She knows I am her champion. A servant came up announcing Monsieur Vauvenarde. She dismissed me. I have come to my patron and friend, the English statesman. Her husband is with her now."

I smiled. "Madame Brandt told me that she had asked for an interview."

"And you allow it? You allow her to contaminate her beautiful presence with the sight of that traitor, that cheat at cards, that murderer, that devil? Ah, but I will not have it! I am her champion. I will save her. I will save you. I will take you both away to Egypt, and surround you with my beautiful cats, and fan you with peacock's feathers."

This was sheer crackedness of brain. For the first time I feared for the little man. When people begin to talk that way they are not allowed to go about loose. He went on talking and the three languages he used in his jargon got clotted to the point of unintelligibility. He spoke very fast and, as far as I could understand, poured abuse on the head of Captain Vauvenarde, and continued to declare himself Lola's champion and my devoted friend. He stamped up and down the room in his tightly buttoned frock-coat from the breastpocket of which peeped the fingers of his yellow dogskin gloves. At last he stopped, and drawing a chair near the window perched on it with a little hop like a child. He held out his hand.

"Do you believe I am your friend?"

"I am sure of it, my dear Professor."

"Then I'll betray a sacred confidence. The carissima signora loves you. You didn't know it. But she loves you."

I stared for a moment at the dwarf as if he had been a reasonable being. Something seemed to click inside my head, like a clogged cog- wheel that had suddenly freed itself, and my mind went whirling away straight through the past few weeks. I tried to smile, and I said:

"You are quite mistaken."

"Oh, no," he replied, wagging his Napoleonic head. "Anastasius Papadopoulos is never mistaken. She told me so herself. She wept. She put her beautiful arms round my neck and sobbed on my shoulder."

I found myself reproving him gently. "You should not have told me this, my dear Professor. Such confidences are locked up in the heart of un galant homme, and are not revealed even to his dearest friend."

But my voice sounded hollow in my own ears, and what he said for the next few minutes I do not remember. The little man had told the truth to me, and Lola had told the truth to him. The realisation of it paralysed me. Why had I been such a fool as not to see it for myself? Memories of a hundred indications came tumbling one after another into my head -- the forgotten glove, the glances, the changes of mood, the tears when she learned of my illness, the mysterious words, the abrupt little "You?" of yesterday. The woman was in love, deeply in love, in love with all the fervour of her big nature. And I had stood by and wondered what she meant by this and by that -- things that would have been obvious to a coalheaver. I thought of Dale and I felt miserably guilty, horribly ashamed. How could I expect him to believe me when I told him that I had not wittingly stolen her affections from him. And her affections? Bon Dieu! What on earth could I do with them? What is the use of a woman's love to a dead man? And did I want it even for the tiny remainder of life?

Anastasius, perceiving that I paid but scant attention to his conversation, wriggled off his chair and stood before me with folded arms.

"You adore each other with a great passion," he said. "She is my Madonna, and you are my friend and benefactor. I will be your protection and defence. I will never let her go away with that infamous, gambling and murdering scoundrel. My gigantic combinations have matured. I bless your union."

He lifted his little arms in benediction. The situation was cruelly comical. For a moment I hated the mournful-visaged, posturing monkey, and had a wild desire to throw him out of the window and have done with him. I rose and, towering over him, was about to lecture him severely on his impertinent interference, when the sight of his scared face made me turn away with a laugh. What would be the use of reproaching him? He would only sit down on the floor and weep. So I paced the room, while he followed me with his eyes like an uncertain spaniel.

"Look here, Professor," said I at last. "Now that you've found Captain Vauvenarde, brought Madame Brandt and him together, and told me that she is in love with me, don't you think you've done enough? Don't you think your cats need your attention? Something terrible may be happening to them. I dreamed last night," I added with desperate mendacity, "that they were turned into woolly lambs."

"Monsieur," said the dwarf loftily, "my duty is here. And I care not whether my cats are turned into the angels of Paradise."

I groaned. "You are wasting a great deal of money over this affair," I urged.

"What is money to my gigantic combinations?"

"Tell me," I cried with considerable impatience. "What are your confounded combinations?"

He began to tremble violently. "I would rather die," said he, "than betray my secret."

"It's all some silly nonsense about that wretched horse!" I exclaimed.

He covered his ears with his hands. "Blasphemy! Blasphemy! Don't utter it!"

In another moment he was cowering on his knees before me.

"You, of all men, mustn't blaspheme. You whom I love like my master. You whom the divine lady loves. I can't bear it!" He continued to gibber unintelligibly.

He was stark mad. There was no question of it. For a moment I stood irresolute. Then I lifted him to his feet and patted his head soothingly.

"Never mind," said I. "I was wrong. It was a beautiful horse. There never was such a horse in the world. If I had a picture of him I would hang it up on the wall over my bed."

"Would you?" he cried joyfully. "Then I will give you one."

He trotted over to the bundle of papers that reposed in his hat on the floor, searched through them, and to my dismay handed me a faded, unmounted, and rather torn and crumpled photograph of the wonderful horse.

"There!" said he.

"I could not rob you of it," I protested.

"It will be my joy to know that you have it -- that it is hanging over your bed. See -- have you a pin? I myself will fix it for you."

While he was searching my table for pins the chasseur of the hotel came with a message from Madame Brandt. Would Monsieur come at once to Madame in her private room?

"I'll come now," I said. "Professor, you must excuse me."

"Don't mention it. I shall occupy myself in hanging the picture in the most artistic way possible."

So I left him, his mind apparently concentrated on the childish task of pinning the photograph of the ridiculous horse on my bedroom wall, and went with the most complicated feelings downstairs and through the corridors to Lola's apartments.

She rose to meet me as I entered.

"It's very kind of you to come," she said in her fluent but Britannic French. "May I present my husband, Monsieur Vauvenarde."

Monsieur Vauvenarde and I exchanged bows. I noticed at once that he wore the Frenchman's costume when he pays a visite de ceremonie , frock-coat and gloves, and that a silk hat lay on the table. I was glad that he paid her this mark of respect.

"I have had the pleasure of meeting you before, Monsieur," said he, "in circumstances somewhat different."

"I remember perfectly," said I.

"And your charming but inexperienced little friend -- is he well?"

"He is at present decorating my room with photographs of Madame's late horse, Sultan," said I.

He was startled, and gave me a quick, sharp look. I did not notice it at the time, but I remembered it later. Then he broke into an indulgent laugh.

"The poor animal!" He turned to Lola. "How jealous I used to be of him! And how quickly the time flies. But give yourself the trouble of seating yourself, Monsieur."

He motioned me to a chair and sat down. He was a man of polished manner and had a pleasant voice. I guessed that in the days when he paid court to Lola, he had been handsome in his dark Norman way, and possessed considerable fascination. Evil living and sordid passions had coarsened his features, produced bagginess under the eyes and a shiftiness of glance. Idleness and an inverted habit of life were responsible for the nascent paunch and the rolls of fat at the back of his neck. He suggested the revivified corpse of a fine gentleman that had been unnaturally swollen. I had disliked him at the Cercle Africain; now I detested him heartily. The idea of Lola entering the vitiated atmosphere of his life was inexpressibly repugnant to me.

Contrary to her habit, Lola sat bolt upright on the stamped-velvet suite, the palms of her hands pressing the seat on either side of her. She caught the shade of disgust that swept over my face, and gave me a quick glance that pleaded for toleration. Her eyes, though bright, were sunken, like those of a woman who has not slept.

"Monsieur," said Vauvenarde, "my wife informs me that to your disinterested friendship is due this most charming reconciliation."

"Reconciliation?" I echoed. "It was quickly effected."

"Mon Dieu," he said. "I have always longed for the comforts of a home. My wife has grown tired of a migratory existence. She comes to find me. I hasten to meet her. There is nothing to keep us apart. The reconciliation was a matter of a few seconds. I wish to express my gratitude to you, and, therefore, I ask you to accept my most cordial thanks."

"It has always been a pleasure to me," said I very frigidly, "to place my services at the disposal of Madame Brandt."

"Vauvenarde, Monsieur," he corrected with a smile.

"And is Madame Vauvenarde equally satisfied with the -- reconciliation?" I asked.

"I think Monsieur Vauvenarde is somewhat premature," said Lola, with a trembling lip. "There were conditions -- "

"A mere question of protocol." He waved an airy hand.

"I don't know what that is," said Lola. "There are conditions I must fix, and I thought the advice of my friend, Monsieur de Gex -- "

"Precisely, my dear Lola," he interrupted. "The principle is affirmed. We are reconciled. I proceed logically. The first thing I do is to thank Monsieur de Gex -- you have a French name, Monsieur, and you pronounce it English fashion, which is somewhat embarrassing -- But no matter. The next thing is the protocol. We have no possibility of calling a family council, and therefore, I acceded with pleasure to the intervention of Monsieur. It is kind of him to burden himself with our unimportant affairs."

The irony of his tone belied the suave correctitude of his words. I detested him more and more. More and more did I realise that the dying eumoirist is capable of petty human passions. My vanity was being sacrified. Here was a woman passionately in love with me proposing to throw herself into another man's arms -- it made not a scrap of difference, in the circumstances, that the man was her husband -- and into the arms of such a man! Having known me to decline -- etcetera, etcetera! How could she face it? And why was she doing it? To save herself from me, or me from herself? She knew perfectly well that the little pain inside would precious soon settle that question. Why was she doing it? I should have thought that the first glance at the puffy reprobate would have been enough to show her the folly of her idea. However, it was comforting to learn that she had not surrendered at once.

"If I am to have the privilege, Monsieur," said I, "of acting as a family council, perhaps you may forgive my hinting at some of the conditions that doubtless are in Madame's mind."

"Proceed, Monsieur," said he.

"I want to know where I am," said Lola in English. "He took everything for granted from the first."

"Are you willing to go back to him?" I asked also in English.

She met my gaze steadily, and I saw a woman's needless pain at the back of her eyes. She moistened her lips with her tongue, and said:

"Under conditions."

"Monsieur," said I in French, turning to Vauvenarde, "forgive us for speaking our language."

"Perfectly," said he, and he smiled meaningly and banteringly at us both.

"In the first place, Monsieur, you are aware that Madame has a little fortune, which does not detract from the charm you have always found in her. It was left her by her father, who, as you know, tamed lions and directed a menagerie. I would propose that Madame appointed trustees to administer this little fortune."

"There is no necessity, Monsieur," he said. "By the law of France it is hers to do what she likes with."

"Precisely," I rejoined. "Trustees would prevent her from doing what she liked with it. Madame has indeed a head for affairs, but she also has a woman's heart, which sometimes interferes with a woman's head in the most disastrous manner."

"Article No. 1 of the protocol. Allez toujours, Monsieur."

I went on, feeling happier. "The next article treats of a little matter which I understand has been the cause of differences in the past between Madame and yourself. Madame, although she has not entered the arena for some time, has not finally abandoned it." I smiled at the look of surprise on Lola's face. "An artist is always an artist, Monsieur. She is willing, however, to renounce it for ever, if you, on your side, will make quite a small sacrifice."

"Name it, Monsieur."

"You have a little passion for baccarat -- -- "

"Surely, Monsieur," said he blandly, "my wife would not expect me to give up what is the mere recreation of every clubman."

"As a recreation pure and simple -- she would not insist too much, but -- -- " I shrugged my shoulders. I flatter myself on being able to do it with perfect French expressiveness. I caught, to my satisfaction, an angry gleam in his eye.

"Do you mean to say, Monsieur, that I play for more than recreation?"

"How dare I say anything, Monsieur. But Madame is prejudiced against the Cercle Africain. For a bachelor there is little to be said against it -- but for a married man -- you seize the point?" said I.

"Bien, Monsieur," he said, swallowing his wrath. "And Article 3?"

"Since you have left the army -- would it not be better to engage in some profession -- unless your private fortune dispenses you from the necessity."

He said nothing but: "Article 4?"

"It would give Madame comfort to live out of Algiers."

"Moi aussi," he replied rather unexpectedly. "We have the whole of France to choose from."

"Would not Madame be happier if she lived out of France, also? She has always longed for a social position."

"Eh, bien/? I can give her one in France."

"Are you quite sure?" I asked, looking him in the eyes.

"Monsieur," said he, rising and giving his moustache a swashbuckler twist upward, "what are you daring to insinuate?"

I leaned back in my chair and fingered the waxed ends of mine.

"Nothing, Monsieur; I ask a simple question, which you surely can have no difficulty in answering."

"Your questions are the height of indiscretion," he cried angrily.

"In that case, before we carry this interview further, the Family Council and Madame would do well to have a private consultation."

"Monsieur," he cried, completely losing his temper. "I forbid you to use that tone to me. You are making a mock of me. You are insulting me. I bore with you long enough to see how much further your insolence would dare to go. I'm not to have a hand in the administration of my wife's money? I'm to forsake a plentiful means of livelihood? I'm to become a commercial traveller? I'm to expatriate myself? I'm to explain, too, the reasons why I left the army? I would not condescend. Least of all to you."

"May I ask why, Monsieur?"

"Tonnerre de Dieu!" He stamped his foot. "Do you take me for a fool? Here I am -- I came at my wife's request, ready to take her back as my wife, ready to condone everything -- yes, Monsieur, as a man of the world -- you think I have no eyes, no understanding -- ready to take her off your hands -- "

I leaped to my feet.

"Monsieur!" I thundered.

Lola gave a cry and rushed forward. I pushed her aside, and glared at him. I was in a furious rage. We glared at each other eye to eye. I pointed to the door.

"Monsieur, sortez!"

I went to it and flung it wide. Anastasius Papadopoulos trotted into the room.

His entrance was so queer, so unexpected, so anti-climatic, that for the moment the three of us were thrown off our emotional balance.

"I have heard all, I have heard all," shrieked the little man. "I know you for what you are. I am the champion of the carissima signora and the protector of the English statesman. You are a traitor and murderer -- "

Vauvenarde lifted his hand in a threatening gesture.

"Hold your tongue, you little abortion!" he shouted.

But Anastasius went on screaming and flourishing his bundle of papers.

"Ask him if he remembers the horse Sultan; ask him if he remembers the horse Sultan!"

Lola took him by the shoulders.

"Anastasius, you must go away from here -- to please me. It's my orders."

But he shook himself free, and the silk hat which he had not removed fell off in the quick struggle.

"Ask him if he remembers Saupiquet," he screamed, and then banged the door.

A malevolent devil put a sudden idea into my head and prompted speech.

"Do you remember Saupiquet?" I asked ironically.

"Monsieur, meddle with your own affairs and let me pass. You shall hear from me."

The dwarf planted himself before the door.

"You shall not pass till you have answered me. Do you remember Saupiquet? Do you remember the five francs you gave to Saupiquet to let you into Sultan's stable? Ah! Ha! Ha! You wince. You grow pale. Do you remember the ball of poison you put down Sultan's throat?"

Lola started forward with flaming eyes and anguished face.

"You -- you?" she gasped. "You were so ignoble as to do that?"

"The accursed brute!" shouted Vauvenarde. "Yes, I did it. I wish I had burned out his entrails."

Anastasius sprang at him like a tiger cat. I had a quick vision of the dwarf clinging in the air against the other's bulky form, one hand at his throat, and then of an incredibly swift flash of steel. The dwarf dropped off and rolled backwards, revealing something black sticking out of Vauvenarde's frock-coat -- for the second I could not realise what it was. Then Vauvenarde, with a ghastly face, reeled sideways and collapsed in a heap on the ground.