CHAPTER XXI

But, when she was gone, St Armand stood under a gas lamp, and leant against the post, and laughed, held his sides with laughing, just as Marigold had done--only from different reasons. Then, when he had laughed, he went off to the Priest’s Palace and his own private apartments, because he and his holiness were not really on the best of terms just then, because the High Priest persisted in sacrificing his inclinations to respectability and habit, and St Armand would have kicked the last two to Jericho--that is, from one planet on to another, you perceive. True, the morning after meeting Marigold, and the bitter jealousy occasioned in Alphonso by St Armand’s conversation of that night, he had gone again with his strange lingering guest into the Temple grounds. But no vision in rags appeared upon the scene. Piqued, as a child might be, after an hour’s wait he insisted on going home. And not all St Armand’s persuasion could get him to repeat his visit to the cottage. It is likewise true the lithe octogenarian had frequently passed through Friar’s Court to try his blandishments upon the lady. But she, as has been said, was passing through those fires invisible to the mortal eye, which he, by long experience, had learnt not to burn his hands upon.

“Good fit, this,” said he whimsically to himself; “I wonder when it will pass away? One of these days she’ll feel too good, then the reaction will set in. Meanwhile I must lie cooped up in that wretched hen-roost of a monastery--_waiting_. Of all things I detest, it’s waiting. There’s one thing, though. When I have properly subdued them, I make them wait--to the wretched state of being forgotten.”

When Alice left him she hurried home, conscious of being much later than she had any excuse for being. And when she got there, she found that Marigold had lit the lamp, laid the cloth, and set the tea-cups, all to her unutterable surprise.

“Why,” said she in amazement, “I thought you were on the brink of high fever?”

Marigold smiled.

“Oh no! I’m not one of those women with a convenient constitution that breaks down just when things get unendurable.”

“Are things unendurable to you, Princess?”

“They are just about. If I were a real beggar girl, I think I should take poison.”

“Heaven forbid!”

“As it is, I’m going back to my own house to-morrow.”

“To Fairy Sky?”

“Oh no! Here. You can send them word to-night. There are one or two more interesting people this side of Lucifram than there were a month or two ago. I shall stay here a little longer.”

“I’ll be glad to be back again, Princess.”

“So shall I. I consider the life of the poor unendurable. Or perhaps it is you’re flattered so idiotically when you’re rich that you can’t stand the other thing after. I know quite well, if all these people had known who I was in reality, they would have treated me quite differently. I always thought women were stupid enough, but _men_, oh! defend me from them. They’re ten times worse.”

“Yes. I always think the best men die young like Timothy, Princess.”

“Timothy?” and there was a strange recklessness and rage in her voice and eyes. “Don’t mention him to me, Alice--never again. When--when he was dying he turned away from me--on his side--away to the doctor. He had forgotten me. I wanted him to turn my way.”

“I’d be more inclined to blame the doctor than him.”

A queer vivid light flashed into Marigold’s wonderful eyes.

“I don’t blame the doctor. He is an ignorant quack, who wants teaching manners.”

And then she laughed with a little panting breath.

“Did you see those ugly marks on my neck?--that’s the doctor. Did you see me lying in a heap upon yonder floor?--that’s the doctor. Did you see that picture gone?--that’s the doctor. Did you see Timothy lying dead?--that’s the doctor too. He wouldn’t let him live--wouldn’t even prolong his life by sending him away--when once I asked him to.”

“Ah! he’s a bad lot,” said Alice mournfully; “a bad, bad lot. How did he make those ugly marks upon your neck?”

“Finger-nails. He shook me like a rat, just because I wanted Timothy.”

She was standing there, her fingers clasped, more like a child than a woman--exquisitely beautiful in this recklessness--something that made Alice tremble, because she knew that at the back of it there was nothing but smarting, unendurable pain.

But she knew it would be dangerous to offer sympathy, so, like the sensible woman she was, she began stirring round, making the tea. “I met Mr St Armand to-night as I came across the square.”

“Oh! he isn’t _Mr_ St Armand. He is Saint Armand. That’s his title--just in the same way that---- Well, go on, Alice. What did he say to you?”

“Nothing! He asked me how you were, Princess; and I said the little boy you were nursing was dead, and you felt it.”

“How ridiculous! I shall go out to-morrow with the hope of meeting him to contradict it. Now, I like St Armand--he is the only man who has treated me the same, princess or beggar maid. If he was rude to me, it was the rudeness of equality; and his politeness had no sticky condescension in it. I wonder how the High Priest is getting on? I’ve learnt a tremendous lot this last two months, Alice. The only thing I need now to become a fully-fledged woman is practical experience--experience and inches.”

“Will you be ordering a wreath for Timothy?” asked Alice later, as she ate the tea that Marigold could scarcely touch.

“No.”

And then, in a different tone, after some minutes had elapsed:

“Alice, I’m very ill--in mind and spirit--not in body--and I can’t think properly at all. I used to love Timothy--I loved him more this morning than ever I had done, and now, and now I can’t do. It is the thought of that--that last time. He could lie there without a tear--without a word, and see me trampled on and hurt. I know it’s reasonless. You’ll say that he was dead. It’s the strange power of the doctor’s words, I think. For, even in those last few days he would repeat them--almost hypnotically: ‘I’ll come for you and take you away, Timothy’--‘I’ll come for you and take you away.’ And he did come, and--I--I was left behind. But that’s not the worst. I can’t explain to you the worst--it was so--so unexpected. And I daren’t sleep in that bedroom next to his to-night. I dare not--for I have always prayed for him at night--night and morning--and to-night I cannot. He has gone away, and he doesn’t want my prayers. And I can’t think at all, I can only feel. So I’ll come and sleep with you. You won’t mind for one night? I’ll be better to-morrow. For lately I haven’t slept well at all of nights. I have felt so ill and weak. And every night just after midnight I awake with such a terrible feeling of fear--as if something were drawing all the life out of me, and leaving nothing but a paralysed skeleton behind. And, and--I think I’m like Timothy. If you will only put your arm around me whilst we sleep, I think I shall feel safer.”

And then suddenly she buried her face in her hands.

“Oh, Alice! Alice!” she cried; “if only he would have loved me, how I would have loved him!”

And then as suddenly she got up, a certain stiffness in her movements, as if she suffered from some cramping pain.

“I’ll wash the tea things. I want something to do. You write the letter and get a boy to take it to the post. I don’t want you to go out again. Thank Heaven we go to-morrow! This little cottage stifles me. It has been a nightmare, and I thought it was to be a novel holiday.”

And that night, when everything was silent, St Armand took his usual midnight stroll, calling upon his neighbours. And when he came to that sad room where Marigold and Alice slept, he stared with much surprise and some amusement.

“Here’s a sight to gladden the heart of the most rabid anarchist,” said he. “Who would have thought that Royalty could so far forget itself? But illness makes strange creatures of us, and the little girl _is_ ill. Very different from my first visit here. I must see what I can do. Even the devil is not so black as he is painted--unless he gets the opportunity!”

Then, from curiosity only, he passed into Timothy’s silent room--like a shadow lost on the wall.

“Not the stereotyped death-smile at all, Timothy,” said he. “They rave so here on Lucifram about the smile of death, which is at best as hollow and vacuous as that of the best painted society dame. But you’ve managed differently, somehow or other--thanks to the quack doctor, I suppose. Now, I wonder how those two parted this morning, for I presume they parted here--there’s so much electricity about. Misunderstanding, probably vowing they hated one another--for this isn’t all the Positive current of love.” And for the second time that day he held his sides with laughing, and instead of leaning on a lamp-post, he sat upon the bed. And the thin, wasted figure of little Patches lay quite still, content and peace and ineffable sweetness on his tiny baby face, for he had grown so very small of late.

And at last St Armand rose, and before going, stooped over him again. And he patted the cold cheek almost kindly.

“Well, well, my little boy, you’re out of it. If I could have done you an ill turn, I would have done--but, unavoidably, I couldn’t.”