Despite the terrific interest of the adventure of the cigarette girl, disappointment began immediately after landing. This France, of which Audrey had heard so much and dreamed so much, was a very ramshackle and untidy and one-horse affair. The custom-house was rather like a battlefield without any rules of warfare; the scene in the refreshment-room was rather like a sack after a battle; the station was a desert with odd files of people here and there; the platforms were ridiculous, and you wanted a pair of steps to get up into the train. Whatever romance there might be in France had been brought by Audrey in her secret heart and by Lady Southminster.
Audrey had come to France, and she was going to Paris, solely because of a vision which had been created in her by the letters and by the photographs of Madame Piriac. Although Madame Piriac and she had absolutely no tie of blood, Madame Piriac being the daughter by a first husband of the French widow who became the first Mrs. Moze—and speedily died, Audrey persisted privately in regarding Madame Piriac as a kind of elder sister. She felt a very considerable esteem for Madame Piriac, upon whom she had never set eyes, and Madame Piriac had certainly given her the impression that France was to England what paradise is to purgatory. Further, Audrey had fallen in love with Madame Piriac’s portraits, whose elegance was superb. And yet, too, Audrey was jealous of Madame Piriac, and especially so since the attainment of freedom and wealth. Madame Piriac had most warmly invited her, after the death of Mrs. Moze, to pay a long visit to Paris as a guest in her home. Audrey had declined—from jealousy. She would not go to Madame Piriac’s as a raw girl, overdone with money, who could only speak one language and who knew nothing at all of this our planet. She would go, if she went, as a young woman of the world who could hold her own in any drawing-room, be it Madame Piriac’s or another. Hence Miss Ingate had obtained the address of a Paris boarding-house, and one or two preliminary introductions from political friends in London.
Well, France was not equal to its reputation; and Miss Ingate’s sardonic smile seemed to be saying: “So this is your France!”
However, the excitement of escorting the youngest English peeress to Paris sufficed for Audrey, even if it did not suffice for Miss Ingate with her middle-aged apprehensions. They knew that Lady Southminster was the youngest English peeress because she had told them so. At the very moment when they were dispatching a telegram for her to an address in London, she had popped out the remark: “Do you know I’m the youngest peeress in England?” And truth shone in her candid and simple smile. They had not found the peer, neither on the ship, nor on the quay, nor in the station. And the peeress would not wait. She was indeed obviously frightened at the idea of remaining in Calais alone, even till the next express. She said that her husband’s “man” would meet the train in Paris. She ate plenteously with Audrey and Miss Ingate in the refreshment-room, and she would not leave them nor allow them to leave her. The easiest course was to let her have her way, and she had it.
By dint of Miss Ingate’s unscrupulous tricks with small baggage they contrived to keep a whole compartment to themselves. As soon as the train started the peeress began to cry. Then, wiping her heavenly silly eyes, and upbraiding herself, she related to her protectresses the glory of a new manicure set. Unfortunately she could not show them the set, as it had been left in the cabin. She was actually in possession of nothing portable except her clothes, some English magazines bought at Calais, and a handbag which contained much money and many bonbons.
“He’s done it on purpose,” she said to Audrey as soon as Miss Ingate went off to take tea in the tea-car. “I’m sure he’s done it on purpose. He’s hidden himself, and he’ll turn up when he thinks he’s beaten me. D’you know why I wouldn’t bring that luggage away out of the cabin? Because we had a quarrel about it, at the station, and he said things to me. In fact we weren’t speaking. And we weren’t speaking last night either. The radiator of his—our—car leaked, and we had to come home from the Coliseum in a motor-bus. He couldn’t get a taxi. It wasn’t his fault, but a friend of mine told me the day before I was married that a lady always ought to be angry when her husband can’t get a taxi after the theatre—she says it does ’em good. So first I told him he mustn’t leave me to look for one. Then I said I’d wait where I was, and then I said we’d walk on, and then I said we must take a motor-bus. It was that that finished him. He said: ‘Did I expect him to invent a taxi when there wasn’t one?’ And he swore. So of course I sulked. You must, you know. And my shoes were too thin and I felt chilly. But only a fortnight before I was making cigarettes in the window of Constantinopoulos’s. Funny, isn’t it? Otherwise he’s behaved splendid. Still, what I do say is a man’s no right to be ill when he’s taking you to Paris on your honeymoon. I knew he was going to be ill when I left him in the cabin, but he stuck me out he wasn’t. A man that’s so bad he can’t come to his wife when she’s bad isn’t a man—that’s what I say. Don’t you think so? You know all about that sort of thing, I lay.”
Audrey said briefly that she did think so, glad that the peeress’s intense and excusable interest in herself kept her from being curious about others.
“Marriage ain’t all chocolate-creams,” said the peeress after a pause. “Have one?” And she opened her bag very hospitably.
Then she turned to her magazines. And no sooner had she glanced at the cover of the second one than she gave a squeal, and, fetching deep breaths, passed the periodical to Audrey. At the top of the cover was printed in large letters the title of a story by a famous author of short tales. It ran:
“MAN OVERBOARD.”