Part 11

“Very well then, it isn’t. And I don’t care. I only know I want to see her again,--horribly. And she’ll be here to-night, thank goodness, and I’m going to meet her at the station.”

François shrugged his shoulders, and continued to paint.

“Where’s her hotel? Oh, the Impérial. She’s got that out of Baedeker.” He laughed.

“Come now, François. Own that sweet Anne Page in Paris will be rather nice!”

“You’d better ask her to tea here to-morrow. Your place is even more of a pig-sty than mine. We shall see Dacier and Thouret at the _Lilas_ this evening. We can ask them then.”

“All right. But I’m not going to have you about all the time mind!”

“You won’t,” returned his friend briefly. “I can’t stand fools.”

René’s face darkened for a moment, but the retort died on his lips.

“Look here, old man,” he urged. “Don’t be a beast. I’m serious.”

“_Tant pis_,” was François’ implacable reply.

But when next day Anne was actually in his studio, and he heard her voice, and saw her smile, and listened to the laughing clamour around her, as she sat in the only armchair that was not broken, and drank execrable tea out of a cup which did not match its saucer, it was difficult even for Fontenelle to be anything but gay and pleased.

With an odd mixture of sensations, he noticed how fair her skin looked against her black dress. The fur she wore on her shoulders was also exceedingly becoming. François, who as a painter of many women’s portraits knew something of the cost of feminine apparel, looked at it with a certain surprise. Either the old lady had been fairly generous, or Anne in her one day’s shopping, had been disgracefully extravagant. In either case the result was admirable. He emerged from his reflections to find a furious discussion raging as to which restaurant she should be taken to dine.

“_Café de la Régence_,” said François authoritatively, “and afterwards we’ll drive back to the _Lilas_.”

* * * * *

It was several days before Anne found herself alone with René.

He came to her hotel one morning, and carried her off to lunch with him at a little restaurant in the neighbourhood of his studio.

“You have such a devoted body-guard, that I never get a word with you,” he complained. “And I want you to see my pictures. We must get in before the light goes. It gets so confoundedly dark in the afternoons now.”

Later on in the great gaunt studio at the top of the pile of buildings in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, Anne stood before some of the pictures which in after years were to fetch great sums from art collectors, which were to be discussed by connoisseurs, to be execrated, loved, praised, condemned, admired.

She did not see them. For her at the moment, they were non-existent.

One thing only was in her mind; one idea, and that in the form of a question.

How should she accomplish what she had come to do?

This was the first time René had deliberately sought her alone, and in the circumstance, without malice, she divined the influence of François Fontenelle.

He had meant to be careful. He had meant to see her only in the presence of others, but,--she knew him so well that she could have smiled,--to-day he had thrown prudence to the wind.

Tenderness was in his voice, in his eyes, even while he kept tender words from his lips.

It grew dusk while she lingered. The blue of twilight filled the windows, and a ruddy gleam from the stove lay along the floor. Anne sat down on the couch, and René settled cushions at her back.

His hand touched her arm, and for a moment it rested there, before he turned abruptly away.

Earlier in the day, Anne had spoken of returning to Dymfield.

“You mustn’t go yet,” he broke out all at once. “You won’t leave Paris yet?”

The words were an appeal, and his voice was not steady.

“I came to see you,” said Anne deliberately.

He turned to her sharply. It was too dark to see his face, but she heard the anxiety in his tone.

“All of us--or me?”

“To see you.”

He threw himself on his knees beside her. “Anne,” he whispered, “stay. I want you. Will you marry me?”

He had taken her hands and was holding them tight against his breast.

“No, René.”

The words were decisive, but she made no effort to release herself, and her hands rested quietly in his.

“Sit here, beside me,” she said, moving a little on the couch. “I want to talk to you.”

Wondering at something in her voice, he obeyed in silence, and she went on speaking, still very quietly.

“I won’t marry you, dear, because I’m too old for you. I will never marry you. But if you want me, I will stay.”

In his amazement, he let her hands drop, and bent forward to see her face.

Quite quietly, Anne got up. “It’s very dark,” she said. “I’ll light the candles. I saw where you put the matches.”

He watched her in a sort of stupor as she went to a side table for the matches, and lighted one after another of the candles in a sconce on the opposite side of the room.

Did she know what she had said? Had he understood her?

He sat staring at her as she reached up to the sconce, the movement throwing into relief the lines of her beautiful figure.

When the last candle was lighted, she turned to him smiling.

“No. You haven’t misunderstood me,” she said. “Now you can see my face you will know you have not.”

She came swiftly across the room, and sat down beside him.

“Listen, René. I will not marry you, for many reasons. Two months ago I was prepared never to see you again. But things have altered. I haven’t told you yet, but all my circumstances have changed. I’m a rich woman now, and my life is my own, to do what I like with it. And because I love you, I propose to give it to you, for a little while at least. As long as you want me. Until----”

Her voice, quite calm and quiet at first, broke at the last words, and she paused abruptly.

René sprang to his feet, and drew her quickly up from the sofa into his arms.

“Anne!” he cried. “Sweet Anne Page!” the words came brokenly between tremulous laughter. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You will marry me, of course, because we love each other, because----”

She put one hand on his shoulder, and so kept him at arm’s length.

“I will never marry you,” she repeated. “If you won’t consent to let me stay as I suggest, I shall say good-bye to you now, and I will not see you again.

“Remember René, you’re not talking to a girl. You’re dealing with a woman who knows her own mind, and will have this or nothing. If I stay we both have perfect freedom. I am old enough to do what I please with my life. And I please to do this. René,” for the first time the colour came to her cheeks, and her eyes wavered, “you’ll make me shy if I have to ask you so many times to let me stay.”

She looked suddenly so like a child as she spoke, that in spite of his perplexed amazement, Dampierre smiled.

He kissed her soft hair, and then her lips. “You’re adorable,” he murmured. “But you amazing woman, you’re an _enfant terrible_! What am I to do with you?”

“Don’t you see how simple it is?” she asked. “I’m rich now, so I can stay as long as you--as long as I please.” She altered the pronoun hurriedly. “And you have plenty of money, too, René, haven’t you? I mean that we are each quite independent. It makes it all so easy.”

He laughed again as the only expression of his otherwise inexpressible emotions.

She was as guileless, as simple as a child. Yet she was proposing----Good God, what was she not proposing? And above all she meant what she proposed; meant it absolutely. He looked into her eyes, and knew that no words of his would move her.

“But Anne, Anne!” he stammered. “You’re saying awful things. Not from my point of view, but as an Englishwoman. _Mon Dieu!_ as an Englishwoman with the fear of Mrs. Grundy if not the fear of God before her eyes!”

She looked at him, and his words, which amazement and uncertainty had made flippant, died before the sadness of her glance.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “Nobody troubles about me. Nobody has ever troubled. I have never been happy all my life. And now when I could have happiness without hurting any one, why must I give it up because of a world in which I have no concern?” She paused a moment, and looked at him uncertainly.

“You think I ought to feel I’m doing wrong? Perhaps I ought. But I _don’t_ feel it, René. I should be doing wrong if I married you, because----” She left the sentence unfinished, forbearing to tell him that he would some day thank her for his freedom.

“Don’t argue about it,” she said, smiling, though her eyes were full of tears. “It’s my last word. If you won’t agree, I shall go back to Dymfield to-morrow.”

“No. Don’t let us waste time now, at any rate,” he exclaimed eagerly. “We shall have plenty of time to talk and argue. Just now I’m too absurdly happy!”

He drew her down beside him on the sofa, and covered her eyes with kisses.

“Anne! do you know what a sweet thing you are? No, of course you don’t know, and that’s what make you so delicious!”

Even while she thrilled from head to foot with an almost unbearable happiness, Anne remembered the price at which it was bought, and told herself that it was not too dear.

“I only know I’m happy,” she whispered. “But I’m afraid of waking up and finding it’s a dream.”

* * * * *

Again and again, through the years as they passed, her own words came back to her.

In the summer evenings at Dymfield, she thought of them. When she travelled, they often came to her as she stood before some picture in church or gallery. She thought of them sometimes at night, when on some Italian terrace she sat watching the sunset.

To-day she remembered them, as she walked home through the sunshine, and mounted the stately Spanish steps towards her apartment on the heights.

“Twenty years ago!” She repeated the words to herself in wonder.

“It was a beautiful dream, and thank God, I never waked.”

XVI

Dr. Dakin was spending the night in town on his way to Paris.

For the previous fortnight, urged not so much by the impressive hints concerning his duty thrown out by Mrs. Carfax, as by a curious change in his wife’s letters to him, he had been on thorns of impatience to join her in Paris, and bring her home.

The serious illness of a patient, an exasperating case which always seemed on the point of mending, only to sink into another relapse, kept him prisoner.

Not till the previous day had he considered it safe to telegraph for the doctor he had engaged to look after his practice during his own absence, and a still further delay had been occasioned by the necessity of meeting this man in London to explain the peculiar nature of the case under treatment.

Leaving his hotel in the evening, he walked westward in search of a place to dine, meditating in a troubled fashion as he walked. His wife had been away more than three months, and he had made no effort to recall her. The visit, accepted ostensibly at least, partly on the ground of her health, was in any case to have been a long one. Then followed the plea of the cure which a certain well-known physician had prescribed, and again her husband had agreed to her wishes. He told himself to be patient. After his talk with Miss Page, he had been full of hope. But it would not do to annoy Madge by bringing her home again before she wished to come. It would be wiser to let her tire of Paris, and then when she returned, he would take the advice of a wise and charming woman, and perhaps there might yet be happiness for Madge,--and for him too.

So he had waited, forcing himself to self-control through his hourly longing for her.

At first, for many weeks, her letters were discouraging;--hurried and indifferent. She was enjoying Paris. She felt better, or not so well. They were the letters of a woman who writes perfunctorily, from a sense of duty. Quite lately they had altered, and though the change in them filled him with delight, it was joy mingled with uneasiness. They were hysterical letters, composed of vague self-reproaches about her selfish neglect of him, mingled with terms of endearment, and assertions of her own unworthiness.

Fatal letters to write to a man who possessed a trace of cynicism, or of what is commonly called knowledge of the world, but to the simple mind of her husband, they suggested only alarming fears for her bodily health. He must go and fetch her home immediately. Poor little Madge! In the midst of his anxiety, he was not insensible of a thrill of joy at the thought that from whatever cause, her heart had turned to him.

With this thought in his mind, he again dismissed as an impertinence, a letter he had lately read containing more than a hint that his wife’s protracted stay in Paris was due to a certain bad influence exercised upon her in the past.

He had never considered the matter seriously, yet as he entered the dining-room a moment later, the whole circumstance of the letter and its accusation, was recalled by the sight of a face he remembered.

He had turned into a restaurant in the Haymarket, to which on their rare visits to town, he had once taken Madge to dine.

With the sentimental idea at which he scarcely smiled, of finding the exact place they had on that occasion occupied, he went upstairs, and was glad to find the table in the corner disengaged. He had given his order to the waiter, before seated at some little distance across the room, he saw the man he recognized.

For the moment he was puzzled, then like a flash came the memory of a dinner party at Fairholme Court six months ago, and with it in a flood the further memory of other things he had for the moment forgotten.

Monsieur Fontenelle apparently did not see him, but apart from the fact that he had liked him, Dr. Dakin was quite determined to recall their previous meeting to his consciousness.

Madge had sometimes mentioned him in letters. If he had recently come from Paris, he would have news of her. He left his place and crossed to his neighbour’s table, with outstretched hand.

“We met at a very pleasant little dinner at Fairholme Court, some months ago,” he began. “My name is Dakin. I expect you’ve forgotten it. Yours is a name one can’t forget.”

Fontenelle gave him a hasty glance; then took the hand he offered, with a charming smile.

“But of course! When Miss Page was our hostess. Have you heard from her lately? I am told she is coming back.”

“Won’t you come to my table, as we have neither of us begun to feed?” suggested Dr. Dakin. “It’s quieter there. Out of the draught.”

“Delighted!” François assured him.

The change was effected.

“I can give you the latest news of your wife,” he said almost before he was seated. “I saw her only yesterday. I called in fact to make my farewells.”

“How is she?” inquired the doctor anxiously. It was the one question that concerned him.

“Not altogether well, I fancy. A little homesick. Paris possibly a little on her nerves.”

He took up the wine list. “Can we agree as to wine?”

The doctor made a hasty gesture. “Anything you like. I’m on my way to bring her home,” he observed.

Fontenelle, who was giving the waiter elaborate directions about warming the Burgundy he had selected, did not at once reply.

When the man had hurried off with a _Bien Monsieur!_ he looked at his companion.

“You are going to fetch her you say? Good! I think all she wants is the rest and quiet of your charming village. Paris is not the place for nervous women, doctor. The atmosphere is too exciting--too distracting.” He made a little comprehensive gesture with both hands.

“But you don’t think she’s ill?”

In spite of himself, in spite of his British horror of displaying emotion, the doctor’s voice shook a little.

“_Mais non! Mais non. Rien de tout_,” returned his companion, with a reassuring smile. “Madame is suffering a little from her ‘cure.’ That is only to be expected. Pardon!” he laughed genially. “For the moment I forgot I was not speaking to a layman.”

The doctor laughed also, and tried to forget that the mere mention of his wife’s name had set his heart beating.

He applied himself to his dinner.

“Did I understand that you’re going to leave Paris for long?” he asked. “I think you said you had been to say good-bye to Madge--to my wife?”

“I’m really uncertain,” returned François, regarding him with keen smiling eyes. “I’m over here on business connected with the exhibition to which your countrymen with more politeness than discretion have elected me President. After that?” He shrugged his shoulders with a characteristic gesture. “I don’t know. A journey to Egypt, perhaps. But that depends on circumstances. Did I tell you that Miss Page is coming home? She may even be in Paris by this time. Mrs. Dakin is evidently looking forward to seeing her.”

For a moment the doctor was silent.

“Miss Page is an old friend of yours--a great friend?” he asked suddenly.

“I think I may say my best and dearest friend.”

At the mention of Anne’s name an imperceptible change crept into his manner. An undercurrent of irony, too subtle for his companion’s apprehension, vanished from his voice and from his words, which were grave and deliberate.

“I might with truth repeat what you have said,” returned the doctor slowly.

He took up his knife and fork, and absently replaced them on his plate, into which he stared, as though lost in thought.

“And so,” said François, watching him, “you are naturally indignant about a certain story----”

The other man looked up quickly.

“I know all about it,” Fontenelle went on. “Madame Didier, who belongs to a certain feminine type indigenous to every country, has worked with great industry, and Fortune has favoured her. During her visit to England, she came across a certain Mrs. Crosby, the wife of old Mrs. Burbage’s nephew.”

He paused, and critically tasted the wine which the waiter had just poured into his glass.

“_Bon!_” he exclaimed appreciatively.

“This woman,” he continued, “convinced that her husband’s inheritance was stolen from him by our friend, naturally paints her in the glaring colours of an adventuress.”

Both men smiled.

“The character suits Anne Page, doesn’t it? At any rate it suited Madame Didier, who with unfailing resource has patiently unearthed the story of twenty years ago. This story, I understand, she has lost no time in communicating to the wife of the vicar of your idyllic village, whence having reached the fountain head, I imagine it is flowing in refreshing streams through the entire county?”

“No,” returned the doctor quickly. “The vicar, whatever qualities he may lack, happens to be a gentleman, and is moreover one of Miss Page’s many friends. Fortunately this woman, Madame Didier, wrote to him, not to Mrs. Carfax, and as the letter to some extent concerned my wife, he brought it to me.”

Fontenelle gently raised his eyebrows, but refrained from comment.

“The vicar,” Dr. Dakin went on with a half smile, “is filled with righteous indignation about what he naturally believes an impudent lie. He has written to his correspondent, threatening pains and penalties if she communicates with his wife, or tries in any way to spread the scandal. He’s a wise man,” he added dryly. “Mrs. Carfax is not the woman to be trusted with the reputation of her dearest friends.”

There was a moment’s silence.

“I didn’t tell him,” continued the doctor, “that I had previously heard the story from my wife, who assures me it is true.”

François’s expression was inscrutable.

“And--pardon me--you, I imagine, regard the matter as, well let us say as an Englishman?”

“If as I suppose I am to understand, you mean that I’m naturally a hypocrite,” returned the doctor rather stiffly, “you are mistaken. Miss Page is the best, the most generous woman I have ever met. Whatever her life may have been, that is the result. The rest doesn’t concern me.”

A sudden light sprang into the other man’s eyes.

“I beg your pardon,” he said simply, in a tone of sincerity.

He looked round the room which was now hot, crowded, and noisy with the clink of glasses, and the babel of talk.

“Have you anything to do this evening? If not, will you come round to my club where we can smoke in peace?”

“I should like nothing better,” returned Dr. Dakin.

XVII

“I’m going to tell you the story of Anne Page as I know it,” said Fontenelle, as they sat in a corner of the almost deserted smoking-room. “You may hear all sorts of versions, and I should like you to listen now to the true one.”

He smiled, as he lighted a cigarette.

“You, also, are a student of psychology, doctor, and it has always seemed to me that Anne Page is a singularly interesting study.

“Nowadays in this age of modern thought, perhaps I should rather say in this age of fads and cranks, through which men and women are groping towards a different conception of life, her conduct would not have been so amazing.

“If she had been a modern woman, filled with the latest ideas of the sanctity of passion, whatever that may mean; the duty of leading her own life, and so forth, one might class her with a number of earnest feminine enthusiasts whose brains, like the old bottles of Scripture, are unequal to the strain of the new wine of recent ideas.”

“She doesn’t fit in _there_,” returned the doctor, smiling.

“Think of it!” exclaimed François with sudden animation. “A simple gentle woman of twenty years ago. A woman who had led the narrowest of lives; ignorant of men; ignorant of passion--till at the age of thirty-seven she falls in love, and is loved by a man ten years younger than herself. And that man, René Dampierre.”

The doctor started. “You mean the painter?”

François nodded. “She was his mistress for three years.”

Both men smoked in silence for a few moments.

“One might have guessed,” said the doctor quietly, “that she would choose a lover worthy of her.”

“Anne is an unconscious artist,” returned Fontenelle. “It was the most beautiful love affair I have ever known. The only perfect one--thanks to her courage and self-sacrifice.

“Anne is a simple woman in the sense that all her emotions are unsophisticated, original, generous. But she is also the wisest woman I ever met.