Before any of the others left the boat, he got up, made a gracious and formal farewell and went away. That was as it should be. Family and friends were delighted to see him go.
Half an hour later, as the boat was making its way down the bay, from somewhere behind my deck-chair a faint but unmistakable 'miaw' pierced the vibration of the propeller. I turned. Cap in one hand and steamer rug in the other, there stood Mr. Saltus, smiling at my bewilderment.
"I am the cat who came back," he said laughing, "and I am going to sit at your side and purr for a whole blissful week, and the future can take care of itself."
Though it carried conflict and confusion into the party with me, one cannot be ejected from a ship for effrontery. The weather was perfect, the water like glass, and the sunshine uninterrupted. Mr. Saltus was so carefree and happy that he romped and played like a child. He would attempt to hide and then jump out from an unexpected place. He pretended to lose my books and find them in queer corners. He played hide-and-seek and would run up the companion-way like a boy, saying he was going to catch me by the ankles.
Upon reaching London however he found himself de trop again. From the home of Lady C——, where I was stopping, to his hotel in Victoria Street one could walk without fatigue. A taxi could make it in five minutes. With the exception however of a few formal dinners Mr. Saltus was not urged to consider himself at home there. On the contrary, he was given to understand that his presence was a decided embarrassment and that free from his influence I would probably annex one of the eligibles, who, outclassing him, he was told, in name, money and position, were always pushed to the fore.
All this he knew, but what was more important, he knew me, and the others did not. Hunting up his old rooms in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, he re-engaged the suite he had occupied years before while writing "Mary Magdalen." Announcing that he expected to remain all summer, he put in his mornings at the British Museum studying cuneiform.
What Mr. Saltus did with his mornings did not concern Lady C—— in the least. She was determined however that the balance of his time should be as harmless. Months before we had planned to spend our summer in Germany that year. In order that he should not conflict with these arrangements, a fortnight later saw us all in Homburg. For reasons of finance Mr. Saltus was unable to follow. He could write however, and he could send wires, and he did both rather continuously. After one of the eligibles joined our party he frequently wrote twice a day.
It was in Paris during the end of August, that he crossed our orbit again. We were stopping at the Elysée Palace Hotel, and he at the St. James and Albany. I had advised him of our plans in time.
However unwelcome he had been before, it was hospitality compared to the hostility he encountered then, when members of the Diplomatic Corps, King's Messengers and the younger sons of the nobility were welcomed. The absence of money and the existence of a wife combined to put him in the category of undesirable things. It was an unpleasant situation all around.
To thrash it out every day was too much of a fag. It was easier to say nothing and do as one pleased, and Paris is wonderfully adapted to teas and tête-à-'têtes.