CHAPTER X
Across twenty years a man made an obeisance to a woman for risking what she had risked that she might comfort a boy's pain. Conrad got up from the club chair and crossed over to the bookcase. He pulled out the Post Office Directory—and it sprawled open on the top shelf. Would he find the name under "A?" ... "Grice Ewart Adaile, M.P., 62 Norfolk Street, Park Lane." And she? Was she alive? could she be there, so close to him as that?
He mourned to think how different she must be to-day. The woman had changed, and the boy had changed, and though he didn't know it, the town had changed the most. The ubiquitous rush and whir of electric trams, the ceaseless clangour of their bells beating through the brain, had turned peace into a pandemonium. Rouen had acquired all the noise of New York without any of its gaiety. Telegraph wires and telephone wires spanned the tops of the churches, and a mesh-work of iron ropes obscured the sky.
He strolled to Norfolk Street the next afternoon. There was a half hope in his mind of finding a carriage at the door waiting to take the lady for her drive. If Mrs. Adaile came out—Oh, if Mrs. Adaile came out he would be well repaid; it would be exciting to recognise her, although she wouldn't recognise him!
But she did not come out. The door was shut fast, and no familiar face happened to gaze pensively over the window boxes. He was disappointed. In the evening he went to another theatre. The hero of the comedy was supposed to be a man of his own age, and talked about himself as if he were a centenarian. He said he was thirty-seven and had "lived his life," and he called the heroine "Child." His hair was silvered at the temples, and he depressed Conrad exceedingly.
The situation of Norfolk Street was so convenient, however, that Conrad took to passing through it rather often. And though he was old enough to know better, he certainly looked young enough to be the hero's son. One day he found the windows of No. 62 blank behind shutters. So the family had left town! He sauntered on, and hesitated, and went back. Here was an opportunity to ascertain what he wanted to know. He rang the bell, and asked a solemn functionary when Mrs. Adaile was expected home.
"I can't say, sir," said the man; "Mrs. Adaile is on the Continent."
"Oh," said Conrad, with a heart-prank. She did live! He vacillated—and obeyed a second impulse; "Can you give me Mrs. Adaile's address?"
The solemn person noted the pearl in the stranger's tie, the silk lining of the coat he unbuttoned, and the direction in which his hand was travelling. Mrs. Adaile was in Ostend. "Thenk you, sir." He named the hotel, and Conrad proceeded to Piccadilly enamoured of temptation. How tired he was of London! In any case he would go away; why shouldn't he go to Ostend? He had never been there—and he might sit next to her at dinner. It would be an absurdity of course, but——
The hero of thirty-seven with hair silvered at the temples, admonished him from every hoarding and he took a hansom to avoid his sedate contemporary's reproof. Entering the club, he walked through an avenue of decorators' ladders; the smoking-room was full of paint and pails. What could be more absurd than to remain in town?
He winced as it occurred to him that Adaile might have been married twice. Supposing the "Mrs. Adaile" in Ostend proved to be a stranger, an unfamiliar person profaning a hallowed name? How complete a fool he would feel when he arrived! But he would not dwell on that contingency. "Far fetched," he said. Even a fate that showered disappointments as freely as if they were confetti must draw the line somewhere.
He was among the tourists, and the luggage-thieves at Charing Cross by ten o'clock next morning. When he reached Ostend it was a fine afternoon, and the town was baking. By comparison London had been pleasant, so a multitude of Londoners had flocked to Ostend. With trepidation he beheld the hotel that sheltered her—what if he were unable to obtain a room in it? But no—so far, so good. Fate was, perhaps, napping in the heat—a room was to be had. He washed his face in No. 17 victoriously, and overlooked the scarlet geraniums, and the Faience fountain, glistening in a grass plot, and the red-striped sun-umbrellas that sprouted through the little tables. Nobody was visible among the basket chairs. A starling's twittering in a lilac bush, was the only voice. The number of his room chimed with his mood—a happy coincidence. To the manager's mind, at least, he was "seventeen" again. Again he stood in an hotel bedroom preparing to join her downstairs! Had she changed very much?
Presently he wandered into the salon, and lounged round the reading-room. Everywhere it was unpromisingly quiet. A hint of siesta pervaded the hotel. Should he go out? He sauntered through the hall, but the dazzle of the Plage blistering in the glare made his eyes ache. He went back to the shade, and ruffled newspapers, and smoked cigarettes. A child came into the scorching courtyard that was called a "garden," and hopped round on one leg, and said to another child, "Can you do that?" The starling twittered imperturbably. Who said Ostend was gay?
Benighted male! the women weren't asleep, they were all changing their frocks again. When he woke he had missed one of the sights of the day—the "creations" that vie with another between five o'clock and seven. A gong was booming. Only the first gong. Good! There was time for him to dress before the room began to fill. He sought the head-waiter, and inquired if a place facing the door could be arranged. The headwaiter had house property, and two sons at college, but he was the urbanest of head-waiters. A novice tips the servants when he leaves an hotel, and, if he is a generous novice, pays for attention which he hasn't received; a traveller of experience tips them when he arrives, and gets the liver wing and a seat by the window.
The second gong was still reverberating when No. 17 descended to dinner. The urbanest of head-waiters hovered on the threshold. For scrutinising the company Conrad had scarcely time to glance at the menu. The doorway was as dazzling as the Plage had been: a cinematograph of toilettes, a succession of audacities—only clusters of diamonds seemed to keep some of the bodices up. Man formed a shifting background to an exhibition of jewels, a pageant of skirts and breasts. Still more gowns. The humming room was the apotheosis of Clothes—until the women sat down, and then it was the apotheosis of Bosom.
She came in late. She wore white satin, embroidered in silver, and a "collar" of emeralds. He recognised her at once. There was no hesitation in his mind—he had expected to hesitate—he knew her the instant she appeared. She had altered certainly—even pathetically; the girl of twenty years ago was lost; but in the flash of the moment the difference in her face startled him less than the difference in her figure. A shade too stout. Yes, a shade too stout for his taste! And—and had her hair been copper colour in Rouen?
But a pretty woman, nobody could deny it. She didn't look a day more than thirty-five—might pass for thirty now the rose glow of the lamps was on her! ... Well—almost!
Her table was well in view. She was with another woman—perhaps younger, a brunette, vivacious—and an elderly man with projecting teeth, and eyes like a fish. Adaile? How grotesque he must have looked making love! He had a nose as long as the one in Blake's portrait of the man who built the Pyramids. And he used to be unkind to her!—one could read that he was a cold-blooded, unappreciative stick.... Now he was talking to her. On second thoughts, perhaps he wasn't her husband—he displayed the projecting teeth to her in so many smiles. The other woman's husband then! Quite a good chap in his way, no doubt. He was doing them very well in the matter of wine.
Would there be a chance to speak to her to-night? Abominably hard lines if he had to wait till to-morrow, but he wanted to find her alone—in the garden, for preference, in the moonlight.... No—no—thirty-five; but no more, not an hour. How beautiful she used to be! She didn't know she was sitting in the room with a man she had kissed. Rather an amusing reflection that! ... Scores of men in the room, though; perhaps she did. How sick he would have felt to think so once! Where was the splendid jealousy he ought to feel this evening?
"'Dead as the bulrushes round little Moses
On the old banks of the Nile!'"
He made his coffee last till the party got up, and then followed them to the salon. The salon did not keep them—they drifted to the hall. They disappeared. The hall was a bevy of women who had been upstairs to put on hats, and were desiring to be taken to the Kursaal. "Poppa" was in constant demand. Conrad observed that all the family men seemed inclined to loll where they were, and that all the unaccompanied men made sprightly departures. In the concert-room he found her again, but he didn't find his opportunity. To be sure, he had hardly expected one there. Still he felt rather hipped the last thing at night as he sat among a crowd, and the popping of champagne corks, in a buffet where the casks were utilised as seats, and the ladies' toilettes were as gorgeous—and as modest—as the ladies' toilettes in the hotel.
In the morning he met her coming back from the sands with an enormous sunshade, in the "early bath" costume; and he met her later wearing a picture hat in the "after bath" costume: also he saw her in the costume she put on when déjeuner was over—and still she was unapproachable. If she proved too elusive, he'd be tempted to swim after her next day and try his luck in the water. But could he be sentimental with his hair dripping? And even in Ostend it wouldn't be—Oh, in the wrong key altogether!
She was scribbling on a picture postcard at one of the little writing tables, and there was nobody else there.
"May I remind Mrs. Adaile that I have had the happiness of being presented to her?"
She turned her head, and there was approval in the lady's gaze. There was, however, not a scintilla of recognition in it.
"My name is Warrener," he said.
"Oh yes," she murmured; "I'm so short-sighted——how d'ye do?" But he saw that she was twenty years away from knowing who he was.
"This is tremendously nice of you," he exclaimed; "I was afraid you wouldn't remember me."
"How absurd!" she said perfunctorily. "Why shouldn't I? We met at——?"
"But so long ago. I was afraid, really. I've been warning myself that you couldn't be expected to remember—and yet I knew I should be so pained if you forgot."
She made a little amiable movement of her hands. He understood it to signify that his doubts had done injustice to them both. Inwardly he laughed.
"Is your husband in Ostend, Mrs. Adaile?"
"No," she said, "no, he's in the Tyrol—Innsbruck. I'm here with my sister and my brother-in-law. You know them, don't you?"
"No, I've never had the pleasure. They weren't with you there."
"Ah, no," she said, "no, they weren't.... Ostend is very dull this year, don't you think?"
"I've found it very exciting; I saw you yesterday at dinner, and I've been trying to meet your eyes ever since."
"Really?" said the lady. She allowed him to meet them, and looked away, her expression vacillating between a pucker and a smile.
"My courage wasn't equal to risking a snub from you publicly, and you were never alone. You balked me last night, you escaped me this morning, and you drove me to desperation this afternoon. I ought to have known you wouldn't forget, but I always had misgivings, hadn't I?"
"Had you?" she said. The pucker was getting the upper hand. She played with the postcard.
"Confess!" said Conrad.
"I remember you perfectly," she insisted with transparent hypocrisy, "but just for the moment I'm fogged where it was we met."
"Will it help me if I mention Normandy?"
"Normandy?" she echoed vaguely.
"Rouen—the Hôtel Britannique—a boy who was called 'Con.'"
"Con?" she cried. And the smile had things all its own way with her; for an instant the spirit of his youth flashed so close that he nearly captured it. "You are 'Con?'"
"Still," he affirmed earnestly. "And you are still—Mrs. Adaile."
"You are Con," she repeated, wondering, "that boy! And did you remember me directly you saw me last night?"
"No—I've remembered you all the time."
"Ah," she laughed reproval, "what a long while ago that makes it seem!—the boy never told me pretty falsehoods."
"The boy never told you half the truth; he was a very backward boy."
"If we are to be friends you mustn't run him down, Mr. Warrener," she said; "I was very fond of Con.... 'Rouen!' Have you ever been there since?"
"No; I was abroad for years—out of Europe, I mean."
"You were going to be an artist?"
"I hoped to be."
"Aren't you?"
"No; I haven't the artist's temperament—I'm too constant."
She regarded the postcard on the table again, and he did justice to her eyelashes.
"Ostend is going down dreadfully, isn't it?" she remarked. "All the ridiculous people who have just got titles have brought them here. We're leaving on Thursday."
He sighed.
"Don't be foolish," she said, not too flippantly.
"Ah," said Conrad now, "what a long while ago that makes it seem!—the boy was not told he was foolish."
"No one could be so unkind to him—and he wasn't."
"You'll make me jealous of that boy before you've done. Don't you believe you could?"
"I don't know what you mean," she declared.
"You used to take him seriously."
"Oh yes, we were capital friends."
"Did he deserve your friendship more than I?"
"You're absurd," she smiled. Her eyes were as blue as they had been in the Solférino Garden. He looked into them, wishing he could feel the despair that had been his that radiant morning.
"Is a wretched boy you only knew for a few weeks to be privileged above a man who has thought of you for years?" Within an ace he had said "for twenty years," but the blunder was nipped in time.
"You mean 'hours,'" she said. "We dined last night at eight o'clock—it's just four now."
"You don't believe me—you think I'm making the most of a happy accident? What if I gave you a conclusive, an overwhelming proof?"
"A proof of what?"
"Of what? That I am constancy itself! Supposing I told you that my only reason for coming here was to see you again. What would you say to that?"
"I hope I should answer quite politely," she murmured.
"Ah, you didn't doubt me once!" he exclaimed with grave reproach.
"You didn't tell such tarra-diddles once," she urged.
"I came here simply and solely to see you. Look at me. Will you give me your hand?—I want to repeat it solemnly." She glanced at the door, and yielded him her hand. It was very soft and agreeable to hold; he continued with no undue haste: "Now, holding your hand, and with my eyes meeting yours, I say that I came here to see you—for no one, and nothing else—that I had no idea of coming to the place till I knew you were here. That isn't all!" he detained her hand gently. "For an age I have been trying to see you. I knew none of your friends—it was awfully difficult for me. Could I call upon you and begin 'Once upon a time?' Should I write to you? You might read my note in the wrong mood. Oh, I tell you I racked my brains! That isn't all!"—her hand had been retreating again. "The day before yesterday as I passed your house—No. 62; you have window boxes, the flowers are calceolarias and marguerites this season—the day before yesterday as I passed, I saw the shutters were closed. I rang the bell. I deceived your servant, I led him to imagine you—you would be glad to welcome me. I wormed your address from him and threw myself onto the boat rejoicing. That isn't all——"
She drew the hand free, nevertheless, and realising that it wasn't coming back to him yet, he concluded, "But it is enough to show you that you've been cruel."
At this moment they were interrupted, and she said, "Oh, let me—Mr. Warrener, my sister, Lady Bletchworth."
"How d' ye do," said Lady Bletchworth. "Ostend is very dull this year, don't you think?"
"I've just said that," Mrs. Adaile told her.
"It doesn't matter," said Lady Bletchworth. "It's a very good opening remark, and I make it to everybody."
"Won't you put me up to the correct answer?" asked Conrad; "I've only just come, and I should like to catch the tone."
"Most of them say, 'Oh, my dear!'" she replied; "but our latest novelty is, 'Southend! What?'"
"Mr. Warrener's people and I used to be very chummy ages ago," said Mrs. Adaile. "I am afraid to inquire, Mr. Warrener?"
"No," he said, "I—I am alone."
"He was quite nice in those days," she added to her sister.
"What has spoilt you, Mr. Warrener?"
"I find my world so sceptical, Lady Bletchworth."
"Not here," she said; "they can even believe Ostend is smart. Can you do a sum? If 'it takes three generations to make a gentleman,' how many shops does it take to make a knight?"
"One: England," said Conrad.
"I don't believe he's spoilt after all, Joan," said Lady Bletchworth. "There's hope for him yet."
"It's much too early to say that," murmured Mrs. Adaile. But the glance she cast at him was not discouraging.