Then gradually he pulled himself together, and unable to escape the influence by which he was surrounded, he tried to take his little part in the common effort. But his training was against him. At forty-five years of age it is no easy task for any man to put the past behind him and begin afresh; for Bobby to have done so would have needed a strength of will and character which he never at any time in his life possessed. He did succeed in getting various jobs, but one after another he threw them up. In each case he found a suitable excuse for himself and an explanation for his friends; there was always some insuperable reason why he was “obliged to chuck it,” and he finally resigned himself to a form of existence which differed from his former one, but only in degree.
In the early months of the War, before restrictions were placed upon ordinary travellers, Bobby began going to Paris again, for although he felt if possible even more there than in London the changes brought about by the War, the old habit was too strong to resist; the journey itself provided a reaction against the depression which overshadowed him.
Some time after von Kluck had been hurled back from the gates of Paris—it must have been shortly after the return of the French Government from Bordeaux—Bobby found himself arriving at the Gare du Nord. He had engaged his apartment, as usual, at the Hôtel Ritz, and was about to step into the car which even in such times as these was sent to meet him, when a lady approached and asked him if he would mind taking her to her destination, as there was neither cab nor car to be found at the station. Bobby’s experienced eye took in the stranger at a glance; she was unquestionably attractive, and with something of the old spirit he placed himself and his car at her disposal. It so happened that there was no inconvenience attached to the favour, which the lady acknowledged with becoming grace, for her destination was the same as his, and by the time Bobby had deposited her and her maid at the hotel they had struck up a quite promising acquaintance.
Several days passed, and Bobby’s chance meeting ripened into an engrossing adventure.
Many officers in those early days were continually passing through Paris on their way to the Front or arriving there on short leave. There were all sorts of other visitors—officials and bearers of dispatches, diplomatists and cosmopolitan adventurers out for gain, not to speak of their wives, sisters, and other female attachments. Some of these Bobby knew, others he met, and not a few of them were well enough pleased to accept his society, if only to profit by his ciceronage as evening advanced. But on this occasion Bobby had no eyes for chance encounters. His time was fully occupied, and he had come to the conclusion that his new acquaintance was the most tempting and fascinating creature Fate had ever cast across his path. He had, in fact, constituted himself her permanent escort.
Her chief occupation seemed to consist in visiting people who lived in various parts of Paris, where Bobby invariably accompanied her in the car he had engaged chiefly for her benefit, and he observed that she had a considerable acquaintance among people whom she came across at the hotel or in the various restaurants and theatres they frequented. But she never seemed to do more than bow to them, and though it was evident that her appearance aroused flattering notice, she discouraged attentions and was smilingly evasive when approached. Nevertheless, she was full of engagements. One day she would have an appointment at eleven in the morning near the Arc de Triomphe, in the afternoon in the Boulevard Malesherbes; the next day it would be near the Odéon in the morning and at a turning out of the Place Pigalle in the afternoon. On such occasions she would sweetly ask him to drop her at a certain place and to fetch her at a certain time; then she would disappear and Bobby would be left to spend the interval kicking his heels.
She dressed modestly in a taste that was quiet and restrained. Without being beautiful, her features were clear-cut, almost strong, and there was a radiancy about her smile and a gaiety in her brown eyes that Bobby found perfectly entrancing. She was no longer quite young; she might have been thirty; indeed, her hair, which was dark brown, was ever so slightly touched with silver, but this seemed to add to her attractiveness, which resided perhaps more in her complete naturalness than in any other quality. Bobby noticed that, unlike nearly all the women he knew, she used no colour on her lips, and only lightly dusted her face with powder, but her cheeks seemed always to have a bloom upon them as on grapes from a hothouse.
He found her a most delightful companion, always ready to talk about the things that interested him most and to go anywhere he liked, provided that it did not clash with any of her private engagements.
But never in his experience had Bobby been so puzzled. He simply could not make out who or what she really was. This mystery, if anything, deepened her attraction for him. Her name was Madame de Corantin, and in answer to his inquiry she told him her Christian name was Francine, but he had not so far dared to call her by it. She had an extraordinary power of quietly checking any attempt on his part to make tender advances. He could not himself have explained how it was done, but she contrived to make him feel that any suggestion of familiarity would put an end to their intercourse, and for nothing in the world would he have risked it. Indeed, in his loose-endedness, he looked upon the whole adventure as a special dispensation of Providence in his favour. Madame de Corantin was to him like a beacon to a lonely wayfarer who has lost his way in the night. To act as her escort and protector was, quite apart from the deeper feeling she inspired, a new object in life for him. Ever since their first meeting his depression had left him; his existence had once more regained its savour.
She had frequently asked him to post letters for her, and sometimes to call at the hotel for them; her correspondence seemed to be large, and the envelopes bore the stamps of various countries, chiefly Russia. She spoke English and French equally well, with a slight foreign accent, which she explained by saying that she was Russian by birth, but had married a French diplomatist, who died in Brazil; she said, too, that she had travelled a great deal, and had spent much of her time in South America, where she had been in the habit of speaking Spanish. Perhaps, had Bobby’s companion been less attractive, he might have been more interested in these matters, but he was absorbed by her personality and troubled little about anything else.