And when he had sealed this letter he wrote another:
“Dear Babette,
I hear that you arrived in Paris with Horace yesterday. By the time you get this letter I shall have left my house in the clouds. Last night I found Madelaine at The Golden Sun. She was without home, without means, except the sweating pay of mean industries on which no honest woman can live; she was without a bed. But her blood is dancing with life—not with a desire to cower in sweating-dens. She was drifting. I gave her all these things that I might, last night—and she is now asleep here.
Come to her as soon as you get this, and let her feel that she is not alone. She will babble all her news to you—it will be better for her than babbling it to me.
Tell Horace not to go back to the haunts of his youth. The wine is not nearly so good as we thought it. The illusion is the sweet thing. Don’t break the butterfly.
Tell him also that both of you have much of my heart.
Yours,
Noll.P.S.—I am tired of myself. I am off to find Betty.”
Noll sealed the letter and wrote a third—to the concierge:
“Madame,
I am called away to England. Mademoiselle Madelaine Le Trouvé has been good enough to take charge of the rooms until madame and myself return. Pray give the enclosed to your little ones ‘from the Englishman who knows how to laugh.’
Agréez, etc.,
Oliver Baddlesmere.”
He stole to where Madelaine slept, and on the chair by her bed he put her letter and some banknotes.
He collected clothes from about the room, packed them into his large leather kit-bag, and carried it to where the candle gave light. From the walls he took down the portraits of Betty and one or two trinkets, and very carefully wrapped them up. They too went into the bag.
He was near singing more than once. The place was astir with the sound of Betty’s skirts, the echo of her gaiety, the sound of her light footstep. The air was sweet with the breath of her uncomplaining good-nature.
He shut up the bag, tied a label upon it, put on his cloak and hat, blew out the candle, and softly let himself out of the room.
In the darkness Noll stood upon the bridge at the end of the Boule Miche, the pleasant highway of youth. But he now knew no indecisions.
He realized that his mere intellect had led him into the veriest pedantries—had nearly led him into irretrievable blunders. He saw that man’s highest was rooted in the body, that heaven was no fantastic dream, but here and now for the winning on this healthy brown earth. He had been letting it slip by him, whilst he dreamed of pasteboard nothingnesses.