Part 10

'It's no business of mine,' I said. 'But don't you think yourself it was playing it a bit low down? Didn't the thought present itself to you in a shadowy way that it was rather rough on the bird?'

'It did, monsieur. But what would you? It is necessary to break eggs in order to make an omelette. All is fair, you say, in love and war, and this was both. Moreover, you must understand, I do not dictate his movements to the parrot. He is free agent. I do but open the cage-door. Should he 'op out and proceed to the floor where is the cat, that is his affair. I shall continue, yes?'

* * * * *

_Alors!_ I open the cage-door and disappear discreetly. It is not politic that I remain to witness what shall transpire. It is for me to establish an alibi. I go to the drawing-room, where I remain.

At dinner that night Mr 'Enderson has laughed.

'In the 'all this afternoon,' he has said, 'I have seen by chance the dickens of a funny occurrence. That parrot of yours, Marion, had escaped once again from its cage and was 'aving an argument with that cat which Captain Bassett has given to you.'

'Oh! I hope that Alexander 'as not hurt poor Polly, of whom I am very fond,' she has said.

'The affair did not come to blows,' has said Mr 'Enderson. 'You may trust that bird to take care of himself, my dear. When I came upon the scene the cat was crouching in a corner, with his fur bristling and his back up, while Polly, standing before 'im, was telling 'im not to move or he would shoot. Nor did he move, till I 'ad seized the parrot and replaced him in the cage, when he shot upstairs like a streak of lightning. By sheer force of character that excellent bird 'ad won the bloodless victory. I drink to 'im!'

You can conceive my emotion as I listen to this tale. I am like the poet's mice and men whose best-kid schemes have gone away. I am baffled. I am discouraged. I do not know what I shall do. I must find another plan, but I do not know what.

How shall I remove the cat? Shall I kill 'im? No, for I might be suspect.

Shall I 'ire someone to steal 'im? No, for my accomplice might betray me.

Shall I myself steal 'im? Ah! that is better. That is a very good plan.

Soon I have it perfected, this plan. Listen, monsieur; it is as follows. It is simple, but it is good. I will await my opportunity. I will remove the cat secretly from the 'ouse. I will take him to an office of the District Messenger Boys. I will order a messenger to carry him at once to the Cats' House, and to request M. le Directeur immediately to destroy him. It is a simple plan, but it is good.

I carry it through without a 'itch. It is not so difficult to secure the cat. 'E is asleep in the drawing-room. There is nobody at hand. I have in my bedroom a 'at-box which I have brought from Paris. I have brought it with me to the drawing-room. I have placed in it the cat. I have escaped from the 'ouse. The cat has uttered a cry, but none has 'eard. I have reached the office of the District Messenger Boys. I have 'anded over the cat in its box. The manager is courteous, sympathetic. A messenger has started in a cab for the Cats' House. I have breathed a sigh of relief. I am saved.

That is what I say to myself as I return. My troubles are over, and once more I can be gay, debonair, vivacious with Miss Marion, for no longer will there be present the cat Alexander to 'arass me.

When I have returned there is commotion in the 'ouse. I pass on the stairs domestics calling 'Puss, puss!' The butler is chirruping loudly and poking beneath the furniture with a umbrella. All is confusion and agitation.

In the drawing-room is Miss Marion. She is distressed.

'Nowhere,' she has said, 'can there be found the cat Alexander of whom I am so fond. Nowhere in the 'ouse is he, Where can he be? He is lost.'

I am gentle, sympathetic. I endeavour to console her. I 'int to her that am I not sufficient substitute for a beastly cat? She is, however, inconsolable. I must be patient. I must wait my time.

Captain Bassett is announced. He is informed of what has 'appened. He is distressed. He has the air as if he, too, would endeavour to be gentle, sympathetic. But I am Johnny-on-the-spot. I stay till he 'as gone.

Next day again it is 'Puss, puss!' Again the butler has explored under the furniture with the umbrella. Again Miss Marion is distressed. Again 'ave I endeavoured to console.

This time I think I am not so unsuccessful. I am, you understand, young, 'andsome, sympathetic. In another two ticks I am about to seize 'er 'and and declare my passion.

But, before I can do so, Captain Bassett is announced.

I gaze at him as at unsuccessful rival. I am confident. I am conqueror. Ah, I little know! It is in the moments of our highest 'ope, monsieur, that we are destroyed.

Captain Bassett, he, too, 'as the air of the conqueror.

He has begun to speak.

'Miss 'Enderson,' he has said, 'I have once more the bally good news. I rather fancy that I 'ave tracked down the missing Alexander, do you not know?'

Miss Marion 'as cried out with joy. But I am calm, for is not Alexander already yesterday destroyed?

'It is like this,' he has resumed. 'I have thought to myself where is lost cat most likely to be? And I have answered, "In the Cats' House." I go this morning to the Cats' House, and there I see a cat which is either lost Alexander or his living image. Exactly is he the same to all appearances as the lost Alexander. But there is, when I try to purchase 'im, some curious 'itch which they do not explain. They must 'ave time, they say, to consider. They cannot at once decide.'

'Why, what nonsense!' Miss Marion 'ave cried. 'If the cat is my cat, surely then must they return 'im to me! Come,' she has said, 'let us all three at once in a taxi-cab go to the Cats' House. If the all three of us identify the lost Alexander, then must they return 'im.'

Monsieur, I am uneasy. I have foreboding. But I go. What choice? We go in a taxi-cab to the Cats' House.

The _directeur_ is courteous and sympathetic. He has introduced us to the cat, and my 'eart 'as turned to water, for it is Alexander. Why has he not been destroyed?

The _directeur_ is speaking. I 'ear him in a dream.

'If you identify 'im as your cat, miss,' he has said, 'the matter is ended. My 'esitation when you, sir, approached me this morning on the matter was due to the fact that a messenger was sent with instructions that he be destroyed at once.'

'Rather rough, wasn't it, that, on the messenger, yes,' Captain Bassett has said. He is facetious, you understand, for he is conqueror.

I am silent. I am not facetious. For already I feel--how do you say?--my fowl is cooked.

'Not the messenger, sir,' the _directeur_ has said. 'You 'ave misunderstood me. It was the cat which was to be destroyed as per instructions of the anonymous sender.'

'Who could have played such a wicked trick?' Miss Marion has asked, indignant.

The _directeur_ has stooped, and from behind a table he has brought a 'at-box.

'In this,' he has said, 'the above animal was conveyed. But with it was no accompanying letter. The sender was anonymous.'

'Per'aps,' Captain Bassett has said--and still more in a dream I 'ear him--'per'aps on the 'at-box there is some bally name or other, do you not know--what?'

I clutch at the table. The room is spinning round and round. I have no stomach--only emptiness.

'Why, bless me,' the _directeur_ has said, 'you're quite right, sir. So there is. Funny of me not to have before observed it. There is a name, and also an address. It is the name of Jean Priaulx, and the address is the Hotel Jules Priaulx, Paris.'

My companion stopped abruptly. He passed a handkerchief over his forehead. With a quick movement he reached for his glass of liqueur brandy and drained it at a gulp.

'Monsieur,' he said, 'you will not wish me to describe the scene? There is no need for me--_hein?_--to be Zolaesque. You can imagine?'

'She chucked you?' In moments of emotion it is the simplest language that comes to the lips.

He nodded.

'And married Captain Bassett?'

He nodded again.

'And your uncle?' I said. 'How did he take it?'

He sighed.

'There was once more,' he said, 'blooming row, monsieur.'

'He washed his hands of you?'

'Not altogether. He was angry, but he gave me one more chance. I am still 'is dear brother's child, and he cannot forget it. An acquaintance of his, a man of letters, a M. Paul Sartines, was in need of a secretary. The post was not well paid, but it was permanent. My uncle insist that I take it. What choice? I took it. It is the post which I still 'old.'

He ordered another liqueur brandy and gulped it down.

'The name is familiar to you, monsieur? You 'ave 'eard of M. Sartines?'

'I don't think I have. Who is he?'

'He is a man of letters, a _savant_. For five years he has been occupied upon a great work. It is with that that I assist him by collecting facts for 'is use. I 'ave spent this afternoon in the British Museum collecting facts. Tomorrow I go again. And the next day. And again after that. The book will occupy yet another ten years before it is completed. It is his great work.'

'It sounds as if it was,' I said. 'What's it about?'

He signalled to the waiter.

'_Garcon_, one other liqueur brandy. The book, monsieur, is a '_Istory of the Cat in Ancient Egypt._'

RUTH IN EXILE

The clock struck five--briskly, as if time were money. Ruth Warden got up from her desk and, having put on her hat, emerged into the outer office where M. Gandinot received visitors. M. Gandinot, the ugliest man in Roville-sur-Mer, presided over the local _mont-de-piete_, and Ruth served him, from ten to five, as a sort of secretary-clerk. Her duties, if monotonous, were simple. They consisted of sitting, detached and invisible, behind a ground-glass screen, and entering details of loans in a fat book. She was kept busy as a rule, for Roville possesses two casinos, each offering the attraction of _petits chevaux_, and just round the corner is Monte Carlo. Very brisk was the business done by M. Gandinot, the pawnbroker, and very frequent were the pitying shakes of the head and clicks of the tongue of M. Gandinot, the man; for in his unofficial capacity Ruth's employer had a gentle soul, and winced at the evidences of tragedy which presented themselves before his official eyes.

He blinked up at Ruth as she appeared, and Ruth, as she looked at him, was conscious, as usual, of a lightening of the depression which, nowadays, seemed to have settled permanently upon her. The peculiar quality of M. Gandinot's extraordinary countenance was that it induced mirth--not mocking laughter, but a kind of smiling happiness. It possessed that indefinable quality which characterizes the Billiken, due, perhaps, to the unquenchable optimism which shone through the irregular features; for M. Gandinot, despite his calling, believed in his fellow-man.

'You are going, mademoiselle?'

As Ruth was wearing her hat and making for the door, and as she always left at this hour, a purist might have considered the question superfluous; but M. Gandinot was a man who seized every opportunity of practising his English.

'You will not wait for the good papa who calls so regularly for you?'

'I think I won't today, M. Gandinot. I want to get out into the air. I have rather a headache. Will you tell my father I have gone to the Promenade?'

M. Gandinot sighed as the door closed behind her. Ruth's depression had not escaped his notice. He was sorry for her. And not without cause, for Fate had not dealt too kindly with Ruth.

It would have amazed Mr Eugene Warden, that genial old gentleman, if, on one of those occasions of manly emotion when he was in the habit of observing that he had been nobody's enemy but his own, somebody had hinted that he had spoiled his daughter's life. Such a thought had never entered his head. He was one of those delightful, irresponsible, erratic persons whose heads thoughts of this kind do not enter, and who are about as deadly to those whose lives are bound up with theirs as a Upas tree.

In the memory of his oldest acquaintance, Ruth's father had never done anything but drift amiably through life. There had been a time when he had done his drifting in London, feeding cheerfully from the hand of a long-suffering brother-in-law. But though blood, as he was wont to remark while negotiating his periodical loans, is thicker than water, a brother-in-law's affection has its limits. A day came when Mr Warden observed with pain that his relative responded less nimbly to the touch. And a little while later the other delivered his ultimatum. Mr Warden was to leave England, and to stay away from England, to behave as if England no longer existed on the map, and a small but sufficient allowance would be made to him. If he declined to do this, not another penny of the speaker's money would he receive. He could choose.

He chose. He left England, Ruth with him. They settled in Roville, that haven of the exile who lives upon remittances.

Ruth's connexion with the _mont-de-piete_ had come about almost automatically. Very soon after their arrival it became evident that, to a man of Mr Warden's nature, resident a stone's-throw distant from two casinos, the small allowance was not likely to go very far. Even if Ruth had not wished to work, circumstances could have compelled her. As it was, she longed for something to occupy her, and, the vacancy at the _mont-de-piete_ occurring, she had snatched at it. There was a certain fitness in her working there. Business transactions with that useful institution had always been conducted by her, it being Mr Warden's theory that Woman can extract in these crises just that extra franc or two which is denied to the mere male. Through constantly going round, running across, stepping over, and popping down to the _mont-de-piete_ she had established almost a legal claim on any post that might be vacant there.

And under M. Gandinot's banner she had served ever since.

* * * * *

Five minutes' walk took her to the Promenade des Anglais, that apparently endless thoroughfare which is Roville's pride. The evening was fine and warm. The sun shone gaily on the white-walled houses, the bright Gardens, and the two gleaming casinos. But Ruth walked listlessly, blind to the glitter of it all.

Visitors who go to Roville for a few weeks in the winter are apt to speak of the place, on their return, in a manner that conveys the impression that it is a Paradise on earth, with gambling facilities thrown in. But, then, they are visitors. Their sojourn comes to an end. Ruth's did not.

A voice spoke her name. She turned, and saw her father, dapper as ever, standing beside her.

'What an evening, my dear!' said Mr Warden. 'What an evening! Smell the sea!'

Mr Warden appeared to be in high spirits. He hummed a tune and twirled his cane. He chirruped frequently to Bill, the companion of his walks abroad, a wiry fox-terrier of a demeanour, like his master's, both jaunty and slightly disreputable. An air of gaiety pervaded his bearing.

'I called in at the _mont-de-piete_ but you had gone. Gandinot told me you had come here. What an ugly fellow that Gandinot is! But a good sort. I like him. I had a chat with him.'

The high spirits were explained. Ruth knew her father. She guessed, correctly, that M. Gandinot, kindest of pawnbrokers, had obliged, in his unofficial capacity, with a trifling loan.

'Gandinot ought to go on the stage,' went on Mr Warden, pursuing his theme. 'With that face he would make his fortune. You can't help laughing when you see it. One of these days--'

He broke off. Stirring things had begun to occur in the neighbourhood of his ankles, where Bill, the fox-terrier, had encountered an acquaintance, and, to the accompaniment of a loud, gargling noise, was endeavouring to bite his head off. The acquaintance, a gentleman of uncertain breed, equally willing, was chewing Bill's paw with the gusto of a gourmet. An Irish terrier, with no personal bias towards either side, was dancing round and attacking each in turn as he came uppermost. And two poodles leaped madly in and out of the melee, barking encouragement.

It takes a better man than Mr Warden to break up a gathering of this kind. The old gentleman was bewildered. He added his voice to the babel, and twice smote Bill grievously with his cane with blows intended for the acquaintance, but beyond that he effected nothing. It seemed probable that the engagement would last till the combatants had consumed each other, after the fashion of the Kilkenny cats, when there suddenly appeared from nowhere a young man in grey.

The world is divided into those who can stop dog-fights and those who cannot. The young man in grey belonged to the former class. Within a minute from his entrance on the scene the poodles and the Irish terrier had vanished; the dog of doubtful breed was moving off up the hill, yelping, with the dispatch of one who remembers an important appointment, and Bill, miraculously calmed, was seated in the centre of the Promenade, licking honourable wounds.

Mr Warden was disposed to effervesce with gratitude. The scene had shaken him, and there had been moments when he had given his ankles up for lost.

'Don't mention it,' said the young man. 'I enjoy arbitrating in these little disputes. Dogs seem to like me and trust my judgement. I consider myself as a sort of honorary dog.'

'Well, I am bound to say, Mr--?'

'Vince--George Vince.'

'My name is Warden. My daughter.'

Ruth inclined her head, and was conscious of a pair of very penetrating brown eyes looking eagerly into hers in a manner which she thoroughly resented. She was not used to the other sex meeting her gaze and holding it as if confident of a friendly welcome. She made up her mind in that instant that this was a young man who required suppression.

'I've seen you several times out here since I arrived, Miss Warden,' said Mr Vince. 'Four in all,' he added, precisely.

'Really?' said Ruth.

She looked away. Her attitude seemed to suggest that she had finished with him, and would be obliged if somebody would come and sweep him up.

As they approached the casino restlessness crept into Mr Warden's manner. At the door he stopped and looked at Ruth.

'I think, my dear--' he said.

'Going to have a dash at the _petits chevaux?_' inquired Mr Vince. 'I was there just now. I have an infallible system.'

Mr Warden started like a war-horse at the sound of the trumpet.

'Only it's infallible the wrong way,' went on the young man. 'Well, I wish you luck. I'll see Miss Warden home.'

'Please don't trouble,' said Ruth, in the haughty manner which had frequently withered unfortunate fellow-exiles in their tracks.

It had no such effect on Mr Vince.

'I shall like it,' he said.

Ruth set her teeth. She would see whether he would like it.

They left Mr Warden, who shot in at the casino door like a homing rabbit, and walked on in silence, which lasted till Ruth, suddenly becoming aware that her companion's eyes were fixed on her face, turned her head, to meet a gaze of complete, not to say loving, admiration. She flushed. She was accustomed to being looked at admiringly, but about this particular look there was a subtle quality that distinguished it from the ordinary--something proprietorial.

Mr Vince appeared to be a young man who wasted no time on conventional conversation-openings.

'Do you believe in affinities, Miss Warden?' he said,

'No,' said Ruth.

'You will before we've done,' said Mr Vince, confidently. 'Why did you try to snub me just now?'

'Did I?'

'You mustn't again. It hurts me. I'm a sensitive man. Diffident. Shy. Miss Warden, will you marry me?'

Ruth had determined that nothing should shake her from her icy detachment, but this did. She stopped with a gasp, and stared at him.

Mr Vince reassured her.

'I don't expect you to say "Yes". That was just a beginning--the shot fired across the bows by way of warning. In you, Miss Warden, I have found my affinity. Have you ever considered this matter of affinities? Affinities are the--the--Wait a moment.'

He paused, reflecting.

'I--' began Ruth.

''Sh!' said the young man, holding up his hand.

Ruth's eyes flashed. She was not used to having ''Sh!' said to her by young men, and she resented it.

'I've got it,' he declared, with relief. 'I knew I should, but these good things take time. Affinities are the zero on the roulette-board of life. Just as we select a number on which to stake our money, so do we select a type of girl whom we think we should like to marry. And just as zero pops up instead of the number, so does our affinity come along and upset all our pre-conceived notions of the type of girl we should like to marry.'

'I--' began Ruth again.

'The analogy is in the rough at present. I haven't had time to condense and polish it. But you see the idea. Take my case, for instance. When I saw you a couple of days ago I knew in an instant that you were my affinity. But for years I had been looking for a woman almost your exact opposite. You are dark. Three days ago I couldn't have imagined myself marrying anyone who was not fair. Your eyes are grey. Three days ago my preference for blue eyes was a by-word. You have a shocking temper. Three days ago--'

'Mr Vince!'

'There!' said that philosopher, complacently. 'You stamped. The gentle, blue-eyed blonde whom I was looking for three days ago would have drooped timidly. Three days ago my passion for timid droopers amounted to an obsession.'

Ruth did not reply. It was useless to bandy words with one who gave such clear evidence of being something out of the common run of word-bandiers. No verbal attack could crush this extraordinary young man. She walked on, all silence and stony profile, uncomfortably conscious that her companion was in no way abashed by the former and was regarding the latter with that frank admiration which had made itself so obnoxious to her before, until they reached their destination. Mr Vince, meanwhile, chatted cheerfully, and pointed out objects of interest by the wayside.

At the door Ruth permitted herself a word of farewell.

'Good-bye,' she said.

'Till tomorrow evening,' said Mr Vince. 'I shall be coming to dinner.'