There was the critique of René Dax's picture-show to be written, too!
Adrian rose from the table and walked restlessly, almost distractedly, about the room. For where exactly, in respect of the resistance of that beloved beleaguered city, did René come in? Oh! that Tadpole of perverted genius, that perniciously clever Tadpole, who from childhood he had protected and befriended, whose fortunes he had so assiduously pushed! And again now, as when staring forth blindly from the high-set windows of la belle Gabrielle's thrice-sacred drawing-room at Paris, glittering in the sharp-edged sunshine, Adrian's whole being cried aloud against the blasphemy of a certain conceivable, yet inconceivable, combination in a passionate, agonized "God forbid!"
But verbal protest against that combination, however loud-voiced and vehement, ranging ineffectually within the narrow confines of his office, was a transparently inadequate mode of self-expression. His native impetuosity rendered uncertainty and suspense intolerable to him. He must act, must make a reconnaissance, must discover some means of ascertaining whether anything had occurred during his absence which served to explain the apparently existing situation. But, here, the intrinsic delicacy of the said situation asserted itself; since precisely those questions to which an answer is most urgently needed are the questions which a person of fine feeling cannot ask. Good breeding, sensibility, a chivalrous regard for the feelings of others are, as he reflected, at times a quite abominable handicap.
He sat down once again at the writing-table. What should he do? At his elbow stood the ebonized upright of the telephone, the long, green, silk-covered wire of it trailing away across the parquet floor to the plug in the wainscot. From a man he could not ask advice or information. But from a woman—surely it was different, permissible? Adrian left off pulling the ends of his upturned mustache and meditated. Distraction slightly lifted and lessened. He looked up an address in the directory; and, after an at first polite then slightly acrimonious parley with the operator at the exchange, got into communication with the person wanted. Would she be at home to-night after dinner, say about eight forty-five? Might he call? And, with multiplied apologies, might he depend upon finding her alone? To these questions the replies proved satisfactory, so that, in a degree solaced, his thirst for immediate action in a measure appeased and his scattered wits consequently once more fairly at command, Adrian resolutely turned his attention to the affairs of neglected Morocco.
As to René Dax's exhibition? Well, till to-morrow, at all events, it must wait.
Ever since he could remember, Miss Beauchamp had occupied the same handsome, second-floor flat in a quiet street just off the Parc Monceau. Adrian recalled a visit, in company with his mother, made to her there at a period when he still wore white frilled drawers and long-waisted holland tunics. Later, during his early school-days, he vaguely recollected a period during which his grandmother rarely mentioned Anastasia, and then with a suggestive pursing up of the lips and lift of the eyebrows. Afterward he came to know how, for some years, Miss Beauchamp's name had been rather conspicuously associated with that of a certain famous Hungarian composer resident in Paris. But the said composer had long since gone the way of all flesh, and the question as to whether his and Anastasia's friendship was, or was not, strictly platonic in character had long since ceased to interest society. Other stars rose and set in the musical firmament. Other scandals, real or imaginary, offered food for discussion to those greedy of such fly-blown provender. Miss Beauchamp, meanwhile, had become an institution; was received—as the phrase goes—everywhere. Report declared her rich. Her generosity to young musicians, artists, and literati was, unquestionably, large to the verge of prodigality.
The aspect of her domicile, when he entered it this evening, struck Adrian as much the same now as on that long-ago visit with his mother. The suite of living-rooms was lofty, having coved and painted ceilings, captivating to his childish fancy. The rooms opened one from another in a sequence of three. The two first, both somewhat encumbered with furniture, pictures, and bric-à-brac—of very varying value and merit—were dimly lighted and vacant, places of silence and shadows, the atmosphere of them impregnated with a scent of cedar and sandal wood. From the third, the doorway of which was masked by thick curtains of Oriental embroidery, came the sound of a grand piano, played, and in masterly fashion, by a man's hands.
Adrian stopped abruptly, turning to the elderly maid.
"Miss Beauchamp informed me she would be alone," he said.
"Mademoiselle is alone," the maid answered. "She gave instructions no one was to be admitted save monsieur."