I went back to Royat feeling miserable. I was not elated by finding a letter from Lady Auriol which had been forwarded from my St. James's Street chambers. She was in Paris organising something in connection with the devastated districts. She reproached me for not having answered a letter written a month ago, written at her ancestral home where she had been summoned to her father's gouty chair side. I might, she said, have had the politeness to send a line of condolence.... Well, I might: but whether to her or to Lord Mountshire, whose gout was famous in the early nineties, I did not know. Yes, I ought to have answered her letter. But then, you see, I am a villainous correspondent: I was running about, and doctors were worrying me: and I could not have answered without lying about Andrew Lackaday who, leaving her without news of himself, had apparently vanished from her ken. She had asked me all sorts of pointed questions about Lackaday which I, having by that time read his manuscript, found very embarrassing to answer. Of course I intended to write. One always does, in such cases. There was nothing for it now but to make immediate and honourable amends.
I explained my lack of courtesy, as best I could, bewailed her father's gout and her dreary ministrations on that afflicted nobleman, regretted incidentally her lack of news of the gallant General and spread myself over my own sufferings and my boredom in a little hole of a place, where no one was to be seen under the age of seventy-three--drew, I flattered myself, rather a smart picture of the useless and gasping ancients flocking pathetically to the futile Fons Juventutis (and what business had they to be alive anyhow during this world food shortage?) and then, commending her devotion to the distressed and homeless, expressed the warm hope that I should meet her in Paris on my way back to England.
It was the letter of a friend and a man of the world. It put me into a better humour with myself. I dined well on the broad terrace of the hotel, smoked a cigar in defiance of doctor's orders, and after an instructive gastronomical discussion with a comfortable old Bordeaux merchant with whom I had picked acquaintance, went to bed in a selfishly contented frame of mind.
Two or three mornings later, going by tram into Clermont-Ferrand and passing by the great cafe on the east side of the Place de Jaude opposite the statue of Vercingetorix, I ran literally, stumbling over long legs outstretched from his chair to the public danger, into Andrew Lackaday. It was only at the instant of disentanglement and mutual apologies that we were aware of each other. He sprang to his great height and held out-both his long arms, and grinned happily.
"My dear fellow, what a delight. Fancy seeing you here! Elodie----"
If he had given me time, I should have recognized her before he spoke. There she was in the flesh--in a great deal of flesh--more even than I had pictured. She had a coarse, dark face, with the good humour written on it that loose features and kind soft eyes are able so often to express--and white teeth rather too much emphasized by carmined lips above which grew the faint black down of many women of the South. She was dressed quite tastefully: white felt hat, white skirt, and a silken knitted yellow chandail.
"Elodie--I present Monsieur le Capitaine Hylton, of whom you have heard me speak so much." To me--"Madame Patou," said he.
"Madame," said I. We shook hands. I professed enchantment.
"I have spoken much about you to Captain Hylton," said Lackaday quickly.
"So it seems," said I, following the good fellow's lead, "as if I were renewing an old acquaintance."