II
Never, never, did they go anywhere, together: neither to the play, nor to a restaurant, nor to a ball; and only very seldom was he at her house, a guest among many. But every afternoon Fay Avalon would steal to her lover’s studio in a quiet street in Hampstead. Not, of course, in her car, but in a taxi.
And what a relief it was, to enter the dim, bare silence of that studio! The clatter of the voices of the luncheon-party she had just left faded instantly from her mind, a lovely mist came in between the unquiet delight of her heart and the usual labours of her life. She rested on a divan in a corner of that secret studio, while Shuvarov would pace about in his feverish way. It was a very bare studio, but it would not have remained so bare if she had had her way. Though, indeed, Fay Avalon, she who had so despised “the private life,” would have been shocked, she simply could not have helped being shocked, if he had not impatiently dismissed her offer to make of the studio a pavilion worthy of Babylonian lovers. “I make just enough money not to starve,” said Shuvarov. “And that is enough for any man.”
They were, of course, quite often unhappy, for Russians are like that. There were scenes, introspective and bitter, there were accusations, quarrels, reconciliations. It was some time before Mrs. Avalon realised that it is in the Slav Temperament to make violent scenes about nothing and then to yield adorably to passionate reconciliations. It was rather wearing for the nerves, she protested. “You have lived smoothly for too long,” he retorted in a harsh moment. “You have known no wretchedness, Fay, because you have felt nothing! God, you Englishwomen! In Russia our women live, they feel....”
But Fay Avalon only sighed at that, certain that no woman anywhere could feel so much as she ... and she was a little afraid for herself, the way this thing she had not known before, this thing called love, had taken hold of her.
One day their privacy suffered a shock. Mrs. Avalon had just left the studio, in the evening, and had turned the corner into a more frequented street in search for a taxi, when a tall, shabby young man confronted her. He stood before her so that she could not pass, and his face mocked her, a lean face made very sinister by his nose, perhaps a fine nose once but now broken so that it inclined noticeably to one side. He examined her with a sneer in his eyes. She did not at first know it for a sneer, for no man had ever sneered at Fay Avalon before. He swept off his hat, a sardonic gesture, and he replaced it. It was a soft, dirty, dilapidated hat of the rakish sort, such as has been worn by every pirate that has ever been heard of.
“Good-evening, Mrs. Avalon,” said the shabby young man.
“I am afraid ...” doubtfully began Fay Avalon.
“Not at all!” said the shabby young man. He smiled graciously.
“It is my misfortune,” he said, “that we have not been introduced. I have not been going about very much in society lately, because of one thing and another. And I called you by your name merely to show you that I know who you are. I also know where you have been. I can’t, of course, say that I know exactly what you have been doing, but I can’t help thinking that your husband would have no doubt about it. Husbands are like that, madam. Juries are also like that. I wonder, Mrs. Avalon, if you will think me very boorish if I, well, insist on your lending me fifty pounds?”
The young man was very shabbily dressed, but he was so very unpleasant, so entirely and symmetrically unpleasant, that, she thought, he must once have been a gentleman. She stared at him, and she shivered a little. Perhaps, she thought, this is the first man I have ever met who has simply no desire to please me. Perhaps most men are only possible because they desire to please women. This one is unaffectedly foul....
“You are blackmailing me, then?” she asked him: and her voice did not tremble more than ever so little.
“Yes,” said the shabby young man. “And I am doing it as unpleasantly as I know how. I am sure, Mrs. Avalon, that you had rather I was unpleasant than that I made love, like the greasy blackmailers one meets in books. And, anyhow, I could not possibly compete with Prince Nicholas Pavlovitch Shuvarov. These foreigners, I am told, have the technique....”
She stared at him with unbelieving eyes. Could there be men such as this, so foul! To what awful depths of bitterness must this revolting man have sunk, that he could so wantonly and cruelly insult a stranger!
“I realise you dislike me very much,” said the young man with the broken nose. “But, even so, I should prefer that that matter of the fifty pounds should engage your attention more or less immediately.”
Mrs. Avalon shivered a little.
“Don’t, please, speak any more!” she breathed at last. “You seem to know so much that I am sure you know the address of my house. The telephone-book will, however, provide you with any details that may have escaped your attention. If you will call at noon to-morrow you will be given an envelope at the door. May I pass now, please?”
“Why, of course!” said he, and stood aside.
But somehow she did not pass immediately. She stared into his face with very wide, childish eyes, and there was a queer sort of hurt smile crucified in their depths.
“I have never been spoken to like this before,” she said. “Who are you?”
“I am the cavalier of the streets, madam,” said the tall shabby man with the broken nose. She stared at him very thoughtfully.
“And is that a good thing to be?”
The cavalier of the streets smiled curiously.
“I had thought, Mrs. Avalon, that it was I who was detaining you....”
“You see,” said Mrs. Avalon gently, “you are the vilest man I have ever met. You are probably the vilest man in the world, and so I am curious. You will have your fifty pounds. Or would you not prefer a hundred?”
But the ice of Fay Avalon did not freeze the cavalier of the streets.
“I do not accept presents from ladies,” he said. “Fifty is business, but the extra fifty is an insult to a gentleman.” He smiled right into her face. “You may pass, Mrs. Avalon.”
“You are a gentleman? You were, perhaps, you mean?”
“A gentleman,” said the shabby young man, “is a man who is never unintentionally rude to any one. I am a gentleman.”
He stood aside, and swept off his dilapidated hat. She took one step, two, three....
“I do hope,” she murmured swiftly, “that I will never see you again.”
The lean, weathered face with the fantastic nose mocked her. Fay Avalon had never been mocked before.
“Didn’t I tell you,” he said, “that I was the cavalier of the streets? I am alone, the solitary supporter of chivalry and all manner of outdoor manliness. Thus, it will be very difficult to resist the pleasure of seeing you again, Mrs. Avalon, for you are, without a doubt, a darling. But I will try to resist it, really I will....”
“Please,” said Mrs. Avalon, and went swiftly.