The Quest: A Romance

by Justus Miles Forman

Above, in the long shallow front room of his flat, with the three windows overlooking the Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly delectable flavour, which had been sent him by a friend in the Khedivial household. He allowed himself one or two of them now and then, usually in sorrowful moments, as an especial treat. And this seemed to him to be the moment for smoking all there were left. Surely his need had never been greater. In England he had, of course learnt to smoke a pipe, but pipe smoking always remained with him a species of accomplishment; it never brought him the deep and ruminative peace with which it enfolds the Anglo-Saxon heart. The vieux Jacob of old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia inspired in him unconcealed horror, of cigars he was suspicious because, he said, most of the unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars: so he soothed his soul with cigarettes, and he was usually to be found with one between his fingers.

He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and after a first ecstatic inhalation went across to one of the long windows, which was open, and stood there with his back to the room, his face to the peaceful fragrant night. A sudden recollection came to him of that other night a month before, when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with his eyes upon the stars, his feet upon the ladder thereunto. His heart gave a sudden exultant leap within him when he thought how far and high he had climbed, but after the leap it shivered and stood still when this evening's misadventure came before him.

Would she ever understand? He had no fear that Hartley would not do his best with her. Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend was in this world. He would do his best. But even then—— It was the girl's inflexible nature that made the matter so dangerous. He knew that she was inflexible, and he took a curious pride in it. He admired it. So must have been those calm-eyed ancient ladies for whom other Ste. Maries went out to do battle. It was wellnigh impossible to imagine them lowering their eyes to silly revelry. They could not stoop to such as that. It was beneath their high dignity. And it was beneath hers also. As for himself, he was a thing of patches. Here a patch of exalted chivalry—a noble patch—there a patch of bourgeois child-like love of fun; here a patch of melancholic asceticism, there one of something quite the reverse. A hopeless patchwork he was. Must she not shrink from him when she knew? He could not quite imagine her understanding the wholly trivial and meaningless impulse that had prompted him to ride a galloping pig and cast paper serpentines at the assembled world.

Apart from her view of the affair he felt no shame in it. The moment of childish gaiety had been but a passing mood. It had in no way slackened his tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his spirit, lowered his high flight. He knew that well enough. But he wondered if she would understand, and he could not believe it possible. The mood of exaltation in which they had parted that afternoon came to him, and then the sight of her shocked face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd in the Place Blanche.

"What must she think of me?" he cried aloud. "What must she think of me?"

So for an hour or more he stood in the open window staring into the fragrant night, or tramped up and down the long room, his hands behind his back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things which impeded him—torturing himself with fears and regrets and fancies, until at last in a calmer moment he realised that he was working himself up into an absurd state of nerves over something which was done and could not now be helped. The man had an odd streak of fatalism in his nature—that will have come of his southern blood—and it came to him now in his need. For the work upon which he was to enter with the morrow he had need of clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm judgment, not disordered nerves. So he took himself in hand, and it would have been amazing to any one unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the Latin temperament, to see how suddenly Ste. Marie became quiet and cool and master of himself.

"So for an hour or more he stood in the open window staring into the fragrant night."

"It is done," he said with a little shrug, and if his face was for a moment bitter it quickly enough became impassive. "It is done, and it cannot be undone—unless Hartley can undo it. And now, revenons à nos moutons!

"Or at least," said he, looking at his watch—and it was between one and two—"at least to our beds!"