CHAPTER I

RE-ENTER A WAYFARING GOSSIP

The last of Miss Beauchamp's receptions for the season drew to a vivacious close. Sunday would witness the running of the _Grand Prix_. Then the world would begin to scatter, leaving Paris to the inquiring foreigner, the staggering sunshine, some few millions of the governing classes--new style--the smells, the sparrows, and the dust.

As a woman consciously looking threescore and ten in the face Anastasia felt very tired. Her throat was husky and her back ached. But, as a hostess, she felt elate, gratified, even touched. For everybody had come. Had worn their smartest new summer clothes. Had been animated, complimentary, appreciative. Had drunk China tea or iced coffee; eaten strawberries and cream, sweetmeats, ices, and wonderful little cakes, and declared "Mademoiselle Beauchamp's ravishing 'five-o'clock'" to be entirely different from and superior to any other "five-o'clock" of the whole of their united and separate experience.

Art and letters were, of course, fully represented; but politics and diplomacy made a fair show as well. Anastasia greeted three members of the Chamber, two of the Senate, a Cabinet Minister, and a contingent from the personnel of both the English and the Italian embassies. The coveted red ribbon was conspicuous by its presence. And all these delightful people had the good sense to arrive in relays; so that the rooms--the furniture of them disposed against the walls--had never throughout the afternoon been too crowded for circulation, had never been too hot.

Delicious Nanny Legrenzi, of the _Opéra Comique_, sang--and looked--like an impudent angel. Ludovico Müller played like a whirlwind, a zephyr, a lost soul, a quite rampantly saved soul--what you will! And every one talked. Heavenly powers, how they had talked!--their voices rising from a gentle adagio, through a tripping capriccioso, to the magnificently sustained fortissimo so welcome, so indescribably satisfying, to the ear of the practised hostess. Yes, all had gone well, excellently well, and now they were in act of departing.

Anastasia, weary, but genial and amused, on capital terms with her fellow-creatures and with herself, stood in the embrasure of one of the windows in the second room of the suite. Behind her red and pink rambler roses and ferns, in pots, formed a living screen against the glass, pleasantly tempering the light. Ludovico Müller had just made his bow and exit, leaving the music-room empty; while in the first and largest room Madame St. Leger, who helped her to receive to-day, bade farewell to the guests as they passed on into the cool, lofty hall.

"I have entertained him the best I know, Miss Beauchamp," Lewis Byewater said. "But he did not appear keen to converse on general topics. Seemed to need to specialize. Wanted to have me tell him just who every one present was."

"His talent always lay in the direction of biographical research--modern biography, well understood. And so, like a dear, kind young man, you told him who everybody was?"

"Within the limits of my own acquaintance, I did so. But, you see, in this crowd quite a number of persons were unknown to me," Byewater--a clean, fair, ingenuous and slightly unfinished-looking youth, with a candid, shining forehead, carefully tooled and gilded teeth, a meager allowance of hair, a permanent pince-nez, and a pronounced transatlantic accent--explained conscientiously. "I did my best, and when I got through with my facts I started out to invent. I believe I thickened up the ranks of the French aristocracy to a perfectly scandalous extent. But the Colonel appeared thirsty on titles."

"A form of thirst entirely unknown to your side of the Atlantic!" Anastasia retorted. "Never mind. If you have done violence to the purity of your republican principles by a promiscuous ennobling of my guests you have sinned in the cause of friendship, my dear Byewater, and I am infinitely obliged to you. But where is Colonel Haig now?"

"In the outer parlor, I believe, watching Madame St. Leger wish the rear-guard good-day. He proposes to remain to the bitter end of this reception, Miss Beauchamp. He confided as much to me. He is sensible of having the time of his life _re_ Parisian society people, so he proposes to stick. But you must be pretty well through with any wish for entertaining by this," the kindly fellow went on--"so you just tell me truly if you would prefer to have me go off right now, or have me wait awhile till the Colonel shows signs of getting more satiated and take him along too? I intended proposing to dine him somewhere, anyway, to-night."

"You are the very nicest of all nice young men, and unquestionably I shall meet you in heaven," Anastasia asserted, heartily. "And as I shall arrive there so long before you, you may count on my saying all manner of handsome things to St. Peter about you. Oh yes, stay, my dear boy, and carry the title-thirsty Colonel away with you. By all manner of means, stay."

Byewater flushed up to the top of his shining forehead. He looked at her shyly out of his clear, guileless eyes.

"I do not feel to worry any wearing amount over the Apostle, Miss Beauchamp," he said, slowly. "I believe it is more Mr. Adrian Savage at the present who stands to break up my rest. If you could say some favorable things about me to him, I own it would be a let up. He accepted my articles upon the Eighteenth-Century Stage; but I do not seem any forwarder with getting them positively published. I suppose he is holding them over for the dead season. Well, I presume there is appropriateness in that; for, seeing the time it has lain in his office, the manuscript must be very fairly moth-eaten by this."

"Oh, trust me!" Anastasia cried, genially. "I'll jog his memory directly I see him--which I shall do as soon as he returns from England. Never fear, I'll hustle him to some purpose if you'll stay now and deliver me from this military genealogical incubus. Look--how precious a contrast!--here they come."

Madame St. Leger entered the room, talking, smiling, while Rentoul Haig, short, but valiantly making the most of his inches, his chest well forward, neat as a new pin, his countenance rosy, furiously pleased and furiously busy, with something between a marching and a dancing step, paraded proudly beside her.

_La belle Gabrielle_ had discarded black garments, and blossomed delicately into oyster-gray chiffon and a silk netted tunic to match, finished with self-colored silk embroideries and deep, sweeping knotted fringe. The crown of her wide-brimmed gray hat was massed with soft, drooping ostrich plumes of the same reposeful tint, which lifted a little, waving slightly as she advanced. A scarlet tinge showed in the round of her charming cheeks. Mischief looked out of her eyes and tipped the corners of her smiling mouth. She was, indeed, much diverted by the small and pompous British warrior strutting at her side. He offered example of a type hitherto unknown to her. She relished him greatly. She also relished the afternoon's experiences. They were exhilarating. She felt deliciously mistress of herself and deliciously light-hearted. It is comparatively easy to despise the world when you are out of it. But now, the seclusion of her mourning being over, returning to the world, she could not but admit it a vastly pleasant place. This afternoon it had broadly smiled upon her; and she found herself smiling back without any mental reservation in respect of ideas and causes. At seven and twenty, though you may hesitate to circumscribe your personal liberty by marriage with one man, the homage of many men--if respectfully offered--is by no manner of means a thing to be sneezed at. Gabrielle St. Leger did not sneeze at it. On the contrary she gathered admiring looks, nicely turned compliments, emulous attentions, veiled ardors of manner and of speech, into a bouquet, so to speak, to tuck gaily into her waistband. The sense of her own beauty, and of the power conferred by that beauty, was joyful to her. Under the stimulus of success her tongue waxed merry, so that she came off with flying colors from more than one battle of wit. And, for some reason, all this went to make her think with unusual kindliness of her absent lover. In this vivacious, mundane atmosphere, Adrian Savage would be so eminently at home and in place! His presence, moreover, would give just that touch of romance, that touch of sentiment, to the sparkling present which--and there Gabrielle thought it safest to stop.

"Ah! it has been so very, very agreeable, your party, most dear friend," she said in her pretty careful English, taking her hostess's hand in both hers. "I find myself quite sorrowful that it should be at an end. I could say 'and please how soon may we begin all over again' like my little Bette when she too is happy."

"Dear child, dear child," Anastasia returned affectionately, almost wistfully, for nostalgia of youth is great in those who, though bravely acquiescent, are no longer young.

Gray hair happened to be the fashion in Paris this season. About a week previously Miss Beauchamp had mysteriously closed her door to all comers. To-day she emerged gray-headed. This transformation at once perplexed and pleased her many friends. If it admitted her age, and by lessening the eccentricity of her appearance made her less conspicuous, it gave her an added dignity, strangely softening and refining the expression of her large-featured, slightly masculine face. Just now, in a highly ornate black lace and white silk gown, and suite of ruby ornaments set in diamonds--whereby hung a tale not unknown to a certain hidden garden--Anastasia Beauchamp, in the younger woman's opinion, showed not only as an impressive but as a noble figure.

"Ah yes, and you should know, Colonel 'Aig," the latter continued, the aspirate going under badly in her eagerness, "since you have not for so long a time seen her, that it is always thus with Mademoiselle Beauchamp at her parties. She produces a mutual sympathy between her guests so that, while in her presence, they adore one another. It is her secret. She makes all of us at our happiest, at our best. We laugh, but we are also gentle-hearted. We desire to do good."

"That is so," Byewater put in nasally. "I indorse your sentiments, Madame St. Leger. When I came over I believed I should find I had left the finest specimens of modern woman behind in America. But I was mistaken. Miss Beauchamp is positively great."

"And--and me, Mr. Byewater?" Gabrielle asked with a naughty mouth.

"Oh! well, you--Madame St. Leger," the poor youth faltered, turning away modestly, his countenance flaming very bright red.

"I require no assurances regarding our hostess's brilliant social gifts," Rentoul Haig declared, mouthing his words so as to make himself intelligible to this foreign, or semi-foreign, audience. "My memory carries me back to--"

"The year one, my dear Colonel, the year one," Anastasia interrupted--"the old days at Beauchamp Sulgrave. Great changes there, alas, since my poor brother's death. Between Death Duties and Land Taxes, my cousin can't afford to keep the place up, or thinks he can't, which amounts to much the same thing. He is trying to sell a lot of the farms at Beauchamp St. Anne's hear.

"England is being ruined by those iniquitous Land Taxes, I give you my word, Miss Beauchamp, simply ruined. Take Beauchamp Sulgrave, for instance. Perfect example of an English country-house, amply large enough yet not too large for comfort, and really lovely grounds. Just the type of place that always has appealed to me. I remember every stick and stone of it. I give you my word, I find it difficult to speak with moderation of these Radical nobodies, whose thieving propensities endanger the preservation of such places on the old hospitable and stately basis. I remember my regiment was in camp at Beauchamp St. Anne's--I am afraid it was in the seventies--and your party from Sulgrave used kindly to drive over to tea, regimental sports, and impromptu gymkhanas. Charming summer! How it all comes back to me, Miss Beauchamp!"

He cleared his throat, pursing up his lips and nodding his head quite sentimentally.

"Really, I cannot say what a resuscitation of pleasant memories it gave me, when our mutual friend Savage mentioned your name one day at my cousin, the Smyrthwaites' house, at Stourmouth, this winter. Directly my doctor ordered me to Aix-les-Bains.--A touch of gout, nothing more serious. My health is, and always has been, excellent, I am thankful to say.--I determined to remain a few days in Paris on my way out, in the hope of renewing our acquaintance. Savage told me--"

Gabrielle had dropped her friend's hand.

"Ah! these climbing roses, are they not ravishing?" she exclaimed, advancing her nose to the pink clusters daintily. "See then, M. Byewater, if you please, can you tell me the name of them? I think I will buy some to decorate my own drawing-room. The colors would sympathize--'armonize--is it that, yes?--so prettily with my carpet.--You recall the tone of my carpet?--And of my curtains. Though whether it is worth while, since I so soon leave Paris!"

"Is that so, Madame St. Leger?" Byewater asked rather blankly.

"Savage is a delightful fellow, a really delightful fellow," Rentoul Haig asserted largely.

"For the summer, oh yes," _la belle Gabrielle_ almost gabbled. "I take my mother and my little girl to the--how do you say?--to the sea-bathings. On the Norman coast I have rented a _chalet_. The climate is invigorating. It will benefit my mother, whose health causes me anxieties. And my little girl will enjoy the society of some little friends, whose parents rent for this season a neighboring villa."

"Ah! precisely that is what I want to talk to you about. Come and sit down, Colonel Haig."

Anastasia raised her voice slightly.

"Here--yes--on the settee. And now about Adrian Savage. I confess I begin to look upon this executorship as an imposition. It is not quite fair on him, poor dear fellow. It occupies time and thought which would be expended much more profitably elsewhere. He is as good as gold about it all, but I know he feels it a most inconvenient tie. It interferes with his literary work, which is serious, and with his social life here--with his friendships."

"Yes, I do not usually go to the coast. I accompany my mother to her native province--to Savoy"--Madame St. Leger's voice had also risen. "To Chambéry, where we have relations. You are not acquainted with Chambéry, M. Byewater? Ah! but you make a mistake. You should be. It is quite the old France, very original, quite of the past ages. I love it; but this year--"

"In my opinion it is quite time Savage was set free." Anastasia's tone waxed increasingly emphatic. "You must forgive my saying the Smyrthwaite ladies are very exacting, Colonel Haig. They appear to trade upon his chivalry and forbearance to a remarkable extent. Doesn't it occur to them that a young man, in his position, has affairs of his own in plenty to attend to?"

"This year the sea-bathing will certainly be more efficacious. No doubt the mountain air in Savoy is also invigorating; but the changes of climate are so rapid, so injurious--"

"Perhaps there are other attractions, of a not strictly business character. One cannot help hearing rumors, you know. And recently I have been a good deal at the Miss Smyrthwaites' myself. As a connection of their mother's, in their rather unprotected condition, I have felt it incumbent upon me to keep my eye on matters."

Rentoul Haig settled himself comfortably upon the settee beside his hostess, inclining sideways, a little toward her. He spoke low, confidentially, as one communicating state secrets, his nose inquisitive, his mouth puckered, his whole dapper person irradiated by a positive rapture of gossip. He simmered, he bubbled, he only just managed not to boil over, in his luxury of enjoyment. Anastasia listened, now fanning herself, now punctuating his discourse with incredulous ejaculations and gestures descriptive of the liveliest dissent.

"Incredible! my dear Colonel," she cried. "You must be misinformed. Savage is regarded as a most desirable _parti_ here in Paris. He can marry whom he pleases. Impossible! I know better."

"Then do you tell me it is unhappily quite true that M. René Dax is ill, M. Byewater?" Gabrielle St. Leger inquired in unnecessarily loud, clear accents.

"Well, I would hesitate to make you feel too badly about him, Madame St. Leger," the conscientious youth returned cautiously. "I cannot speak from first-hand knowledge, since I would not presume to give myself out as among M. Dax's intimates. He has been a made man this long time, while I am only now starting out on schemes for arriving at fame myself way off in the far by and by."

"Never in life!" Anastasia cried, in response to further confidential bubblings. "You misread our friend Savage altogether if you suppose his heart could be influenced by the lady's wealth. He is the least mercenary person I know. The modern fortune-hunting madness has not touched him, I am delighted to say. Then, he is really quite comfortably off already. He has every reasonable prospect of being rich eventually. He is very shrewd in money matters; and he has friends whom, I can undertake to say, will not forget him when the final disposition of their worldly goods is in question. He is a man of sensibility, of deep feeling, capable of a profound and lasting attachment."

She paused, glancing at _la belle Gabrielle_.

"I would not like to have you think I underrate Mr. Dax's talent." This from Byewater. "I recognize he is just as clever as anything. But I am from a country where the standards are different, and much of Mr. Dax's art is way over the curve of the world where my sympathy fails to follow. This being so, I have never made any special effort to get into direct personal contact--"

"You may take it from me, my dear Colonel, that profound and lasting attachment is already in existence."

"But I was lunching with Lenty B. Stacpole, our leading black-and-white artist, yesterday. Maybe you are not acquainted with his work, Madame St. Leger? Most of the time he puts it right on the American market, and does not show here. And, Lenty told me Mr. Dax is so badly broken up with neurasthenia that if he does not quit work and exercise more, and cultivate normal habits generally, he risks soon being just as sick a man as any but a coroner's jury can have use for."

"It is a matter of fact, I may almost say of common knowledge"--fatigue and huskiness notwithstanding, Anastasia's voice rang out in a veritable war-cry. "All his friends are aware that for years he has been devoted--honorably and honestly devoted--to a most lovely woman, here, in Paris."

She paused, again looking the bubbling little warrior hard in the eye.

"Here," she repeated.

"But that pains me so much"--Gabrielle also spoke for the benefit of all and any hearers. "Without doubt I did know that M. René Dax was ailing; but that he was so very ill--no--no."

Miss Beauchamp laid her fan lightly upon Colonel Haig's coat-cuff, silently drawing his attention to the somewhat unfinished American youth and the perfectly finished young Frenchwoman, standing together in the embrasure of the window backed by the trellis of red and pink rambler roses. Again she looked him hard in the eye.

"Now does it occur to you why any other affair of the heart, in Mr. Savage's case, is preposterous and unthinkable?" she inquired. He swallowed, nodded: "Upon my word--indeed! Most interesting."

"And most convincing?"

"My dear lady, is it necessary to ask that question, in face of such remarkable charm and beauty? Enviable fellow! Upon my word, is it convincing?"

But here _la belle Gabrielle_, conscious alike of their scrutiny and the purport of their partly heard conversation, advanced from the window. The ostrich plumes upon her hat lifted and waved as she moved. The scarlet tinge in her cheeks had deepened, and her eyes were at once troubled and daring.

Rentoul Haig got upon his feet in a twinkling.

"Enviable fellow!" he repeated feelingly. Then added, "I--I am at liberty to mention this very interesting piece of information, Miss Beauchamp?"

"Cry it aloud from the housetops if you will. I vouch for the truth of it," Anastasia replied, rising also. "All her friends wish him success. I say advisedly friends. In such a case, as you can readily imagine, there are others"--she turned to Madame St. Leger. "Why, _ma toute belle_, is anything wrong? You appear a little disturbed, disquieted."

"M. Byewater has just communicated a very unhappy news to me," she replied.

"Heartless young man! As punishment let us send him packing instantly."

Anastasia smiled at the perplexed youth in the kindest and most encouraging fashion.

"I am ever so mortified to have caused Madame St. Leger to feel badly," he said.

"Oh! She will get over it. In time she will forgive you. Leave her to me! I will reason with her. You must be going, too, Colonel Haig?" Anastasia held out her hand, cheerfully enforcing farewell. "Ah! well, it has been very nice, very nice indeed, to see you and talk over old times and so on. Don't fail to look me up whenever you pass through Paris. I give you a standing invitation. You're sure to find me. I am as much a fixture as the _Bois_ or the river."

As the two men passed from the outer room into the hall Anastasia sank down on the settee again.

"Just Heaven!" she said, "but I expire with fatigue, simply expire."

Gabrielle looked at her mutinously. Then, sitting down beside her, she kissed her lightly on the cheek.

"You are malicious," she said; "you are very obstinate. Perhaps I too am obstinate. You will not succeed in driving me into--into marriage."

"Never a bit! I trust your own heart, dearest child, to do the driving."

"Ah! my heart--have I any left? Save where my mother and Bette are concerned, I sometimes wonder!"

"You don't give your heart the chance to speak. You are afraid of it, because you know beforehand what it would say, what it is already saying."

Madame St. Leger rose, shaking her head, big hat, waving plumes and all, with captivating petulance.

"How can I tell, how can I tell?" she exclaimed. "Is not marriage for me ancient history? Did I not read it all years ago, when I was still but an infant?"

"That is exactly the reason why you should read it again, now that you are no longer an infant--conceivably."

"But I do not care to read again that which I have already read. I have learned all the lessons that particular ancient history has to teach." Her tone and expression were not without a point of bitterness. "I want to go forward, to learn a new science, rather than to repeat discredited fables."

Anastasia sighed, raising her shoulders, smiling keenly and sadly.

"Ah! you are still a baby," she said; "very much a baby, stretching out soft, eager fingers toward any and every untried thing which sparkles, or jiggets, or rattles. Poor enough stuff, my dear, for the most part, when you do contrive to grasp it! Not new at all, either, save for the high-sounding modern names with which it is labeled--only old clothes made over to ape new fashions! Believe me, the love of a clever and handsome young man is a thousand times more satisfying, more entertaining, than any such sartorial reconstructions from the world-old rag-bag of social experiment. Ah! vastly more entertaining," she added, placing her fan against her lips, and looking at the younger woman over the top of it with meaning.

"M. Byewater informs me that M. René Dax is really, really ill," Gabrielle remarked rather hastily, her eyes turned upon the roses.

"Umph--and pray what, my dear, has that precious piece of information to do with it?"

"He may perhaps even die."

"I, for one, should survive his loss with conspicuous resignation and fortitude."

"But for the past week he has written to me almost daily."

"An impertinence which makes me the more resigned to his speedy demise."

"Yes--piteous, eloquent little letters, telling me how he suffers. And I have not answered."

"I take that for granted, _ma toute belle_."

"I did not reply because--I am sorry now--I did not quite believe him. His eloquence was affecting. But it was also misleading. I thought it improbable any person would write so very well if he were so very ill. I lament my suspicions. I have added to his sufferings. He implores me, in each letter, since it is impossible he should at present visit me, that I should go, if only for a few moments, to see him."

"Out of all question--a monstrous and infamous proposal!"

"So I myself thought at first. But if it is true that he may die? Listen, dear friend, tell me--"

With a rapid, sweeping movement Gabrielle again sat down beside her friend. Again kissed her lightly on the cheek, manoeuvering the wide-brimmed hat skilfully, so as to avoid scrapings and collisions.

"Listen," she repeated coaxingly--"for really I find myself in a dilemma. I cannot consult my mother. She is timid and diffident before questions such as these, of what is and is not socially permissible. Her charity, dear, sainted being, is limitless. It conflicts with her natural timidity. Between the two she becomes incapable of exercising clear judgment. She does not comprehend modern life."

"Few of us do," Anastasia commented.

"And her health is, alas, still far from being re-established. I desire to spare her all physical as well as all moral exertion. Therefore I cannot propose that she should accompany me to visit M. René Dax. That would render my position comparatively simple; but the excitement and fatigue of such a proceeding are practically prohibitive for her."

"Am I then to understand," Anastasia inquired somewhat grimly, "that you kindly propose I should play duenna, and call on that singularly objectionable young man in company with you?"

"Ah! if it only could be arranged! But I fear he might not improbably refuse to receive you."

"Execrable taste on his part, of course. Yet I thank him, for it disposes of the matter, since you cannot go alone."

"But if he should be dying? Ah, forgive me," she cried, with charming penitence. "I weary, I even annoy you, most dear Anastasia, most cherished, most valued friend. It is unconscionable to do so after you have given me the enjoyment of so charming, so inspiriting, an afternoon. You should rest. I will ask nothing more of you. I will go."

"But not to call on M. René Dax--" she caught _la belle Gabrielle's_ two hands in hers. "My darling child, you must surely perceive the impropriety, the scandal, of such a _démarche_ on your part--at your age, with your attractions, well known as you are--and, putting prejudice aside, with his reputation, whether deserved or not, for libertinism, for grossness of ideas, for reckless indiscretion--"

Madame St. Leger had risen. The elder woman still held her hands imprisoned. She stood looking down, the brim of her hat forming a gray halo about her abundant burnished hair, and pale, grave, heart-shaped face.

"I perceive all that," she answered quietly. "I have thought carefully of it. I did so while I yet was doubtful of the actuality of his illness. But now that I am no longer doubtful, that I am assured he is practising no deceit upon me, I ask myself whether I--who embrace the nobler and larger conceptions of the office of woman--am not thereby committed to disregard such conventions. Whether it is not of the essence of the reforms, the ideals for which we work that we should, each one of us, have the courage, when occasion arises, to defy tradition. Only to talk, is silly. To make a protest of action gives the true measure of our faith, our sincerity. The making of such a protest against current usages cannot be agreeable. I do not make it light-heartedly, with any satisfaction in my own audacity. To gratify myself, to obtain amusement or frivolous pleasure, I would never risk outraging the accepted code of conduct, the accepted proprieties. But for the sake of one who suffers, of one to whom--without vanity--I believe my friendship to have been helpful--for the sake of one whose attitude toward me has been irreproachable, and who, though so gifted, is in many ways so greatly to be pitied--"

She bent her head and kissed her hostess.

"Farewell," she said gently. "I shall not in any case go to-day. It is now too late. But, beyond that, I make no promises for fear I may perjure myself. Yes, I have been so happy, so happy this afternoon. For this, most dear friend, all my thanks."

Regardless of aching back and aching throat, Anastasia Beauchamp went to the telephone. First she told the operator, at the exchange, to ring up the number of Adrian's bachelor flat in the _rue de l'Université_. From thence no response was obtainable. Nothing daunted, Anastasia requested to be put into communication with the office in the _rue Druot_. Here with polite alacrity the good Konski's amiable voice answered her.

"Alas, no! To the desolation of his colleagues M. Savage had not yet returned. But in a few days he would without doubt do so. The conduct of the Review compelled it. Without him, the machine refused any longer to work. His presence became imperative. Madame would write? Precisely. Her letter should receive his," the good Konski's, "most eager attention. Let Madame repose entire confidence in his assiduity, resting assured that not an instant's delay should occur in the delivery of her distinguished communication."

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