CHAPTER XXIV
RELAPSE
"How shall I trace the change, how bear to tell
How he broke faith——"
The Hotel Champlain is a hostelry not on the list which promises the highest class of entertainment for the tourist; one has not to go there unless one is French or in some way connected with or interested in French life and character, yet the cuisine is excellent and the rooms clean and neat. The occasional presence of pompous Senators from the provinces on their way to the legislative halls of the capital ensures a certain average of cooking and attendance; at other times prevail the naturally comfortable instincts of the host and hostess, M. and Mme. Alphonse Prefontaine, a couple bearing the same initials as the Poussettes, the wife a Natalie too, but extremely different in ideals and character. Thus, monsieur, the host, had voyaged, been to "Paris, France," emphasized in case you should think he meant that village, Paris, Ontario; had written a brochure on his travels and was a great patron of such arts as at that time the French population of Montreal were privileged to offer. Madame, the wife, with well-frizzed black hair, strong features and kindly dark eyes, was handsome enough for a Lady Mayoress, had excellent if a little showy taste in dress and had reared a large and healthy family.
To their comfortable roof Crabbe repaired rather than to any English one, because he was not yet completely reinstated in his own self-respect, and to patronize places suited to him in a prosperous future might now invite too much criticism. The Prefontaines knew Miss Clairville well and had heard from her of the rich Englishman to whom she was about to be married, and Crabbe was therefore received with more than Gallic fervour, assigned one of the best rooms, and after seeing a clergyman and attending to other matters touching the approaching ceremony, shut himself up with certain manuscripts that he wished to look over before mailing them to England. He had arrived at noon on the day of Henry Clairville's death and the next morning accordingly brought him the news in print. He grew thoughtful for a while, meant to dispatch a telegram of condolence to Pauline, then forgot it as he became interested in his work. Two poems in particular came in for much revision: "The Lay of an Exiled Englishman," and "Friends on the Astrachan Ranch," pleased him with their lines here and there, yet the general and final effect seemed disappointing to his fine critical side; like many another he saw and felt better than he could perform.
"A Tennysonian ring, I fear. Yet what man alive and writing now can resist it? It slides into the veins, it creeps along the nerves, it informs us as we speak and move and have our being. I'll read aloud—ghastly perhaps, but the only way to judge effect."
He began, and the long lines rose and fell with precision and academic monotony; he was no elocutionist, but read as authors read their own works, as Schubert played his own music, and as he read the snow fell in thick swirling masses outside his window and the cold grew more and more penetrating and intense. A knock at the door roused him. It was a servant of the house who spoke English. The host had sent to know whether the guest was warm.
"Well, come to think of it," said Crabbe, "I'm not too warm, by any means. You can tell them to fire up downstairs, certainly. What time is luncheon here?"
"Do you mean dinner, sir?"
"Oh, yes, dinner, of course. One o'clock? Very well."