“I can hardly afford myself tobacco any longer,” he declared, “smokable tobacco. Thought I’d economize on these, and they’re beastly, like all economical things!” And the Captain cast away the cigar with a look of disgust.
Peter offered him a substitute.
“You are a lucky dog, Odd, to come to contrasts,” the Captain paused to shield his lighted match as he applied it to the fresh cigar; “I don’t see why things should be so deuced uneven in this world. One fellow born with a silver spoon in his mouth—and you’ve got a turn for writing, too; once one’s popular, that’s the best paying thing going, I suppose—and the other hunted all over Europe, through no fault of his own either. Rather hard, I think, that the man who doesn’t need money should be born with a talent for making it.”
“It certainly isn’t just.”
“Damned unjust.”
Odd felt that he was decidedly a culprit, and smiled as he smoked and walked beside the rebellious Captain. He was rather sorry for him. Odd had wide sympathies, and found whining, feeble futility pathetic, especially as there was a certain amount of truth in the Captain’s diatribes, the old eternal truth that things are not evenly divided in this badly managed world. It would be kinder to immediately offer the loan for which the Captain was evidently paving the way to a request. But he reflected that the display of such quickness of comprehension might make the request too easy; and in the future the Captain might profit by a discovered weakness a little too freely. He would let him ask. And the Captain was not long in coming to the point. He was in a devilish tight place, positively couldn’t afford a pair of boots (Peter’s eyes involuntarily sought the Captain’s feet, neatly shod in social patent-leather), could Odd let him have one hundred pounds? (The Captain was frank enough to make no mention of repayment) etc., etc.
Peter cut short the explanation with a rather unwise manifestation of sympathetic comprehension; the Captain went upstairs with him to his room when the hotel was reached, and left it with a check for 3000 francs in his pocket; the extra 500 francs were the price of Peter’s readiness.
CHAPTER II
IT rained next day, and Peter took a fiacre from the Bibliothèque Nationale, where he had spent the afternoon diligently, and drove through the gray evening to the Rue Pierre Charron. It was just five when he got there, and already almost dark. There were four flights to be ascended before one reached the Archinards’ apartment; four steep and rather narrow flights, for the house was not one of the larger newer ones, and there was no lift. Wilson, whom Odd remembered at Allersley, opened the door to him. Captain Archinard had evidently not denuded himself of a valet when he had parted with his horses; that sacrifice had probably seemed too monstrous, but Peter wondered rather whether Wilson’s wages were ever paid, and thought it more probable that a mistaken fidelity attached him to his master. In view of year-long arrears, he might have found it safer to stay with a future possibility of payment than, by leaving, put an end forever to even the hope of compensation.
The little entrance was very pretty, and the drawing-room, into which Peter was immediately ushered, even prettier. Evidently the Archinards had brought their own furniture, and the Archinards had very good taste. The pale gray-greens of the room were charming. Peter noticed appreciatively the Copenhagen vases filled with white flowers; he could find time for appreciation as he passed to Mrs. Archinard’s sofa, for no one else was in the room, a fact of which he was immediately and disappointedly aware. Mrs. Archinard was really improved. Her husband’s monetary embarrassments had made even less impression on her than upon the surroundings, for though the little salon was very pretty, it was not the Priory drawing-room, and Mrs. Archinard was, if anything, plumper and prettier than when Peter had last seen her.