Huckaby’s lips twitched in a smile beneath his moustache. If all the tales that Billiter told of Lena Fontaine were true, a confessor would be exceedingly embarrassed. He regarded her with admiration. She was an entirely different woman from the hard and contemptuous partner in iniquity to whom Billiter had introduced him before he left London. It had not been a pleasant interview—just the details of their Paris meeting arranged, the story of their past acquaintance rehearsed, and nothing more. Huckaby, descending her stairs with Billiter, had felt as if he had been whipped, and prophesied failure. She was not the woman for Quixtus. But Billiter grinned and bade him wait. He had waited, and now had the satisfaction of seeing Quixtus caught immediately in the gossamer web of her charm. He wondered, too, how she could have maintained her relations with so undesirable a person as Billiter, for whom he himself entertained a profound contempt. Billiter was unusually silent on the matter, letting it be vaguely understood that he had been in the Dragoon Guardsman’s set before running through his money, and that he had accidentally done her a service in later years. What that service was he declined to mention. Huckaby sniffed blackmail. That was the more likely influence keeping together a well-received woman of hidden life and a shabby and unpresentable sot like Billiter. He remembered that Billiter had confessed to a mysterious source of income. What more natural an explanation thereof than the fact that, having once surprised a woman’s secret and holding her reputation in his hands, he should have been accepted by her, in desperation, as her paid doer of unavowable offices? He knew that a woman of Lena Fontaine’s type, with an assured social position in the great world, does not descend into the half-world without a desperate struggle. Her back is against the wall, and she uses any weapon to hand. Hence her use of Billiter. At all events, in the present case there had been no pretence of friendship. To her it had obviously been a hateful matter of business, which she had been anxious to conclude as soon as possible. One condition she rigorously exacted; that her acquaintance with Billiter should not be revealed to Quixtus. She was not proud of Billiter. Huckaby took what comfort he could from the thought.
Mrs. Fontaine sat talking to the two men until the tea-drinking and chattering crowd had melted away. Then she rose, thanked them prettily for wasting their science-filled time on an irresponsible woman’s loneliness, and expressed to Huckaby the hope that she would see him again before he left Paris.
“I trust I, too, may have the pleasure,” said Quixtus.
“You might lead us to the Fountain of Youth one of these evenings,” said Huckaby.
“It would be delightful,” said the lady, with a questioning glance at Quixtus.
“I could dream of nothing more pleasant,” he replied, bowing in his old-fashioned way.
When she had gone, the men resumed their seats. Quixtus lit a cigarette.
“A very charming woman.”
Huckaby agreed. “It has been one of my great regrets of the past few years that I have not been able to keep up our old friendship. We moved in different worlds.” He paused, as if thinking sorrowfully of his misspent life. “I hope you don’t mind my suggesting the little dinner-party,” he said, after a while. “My position was a delicate one.”
“It was a very good idea,” said Quixtus.