“No,” Leilah from over her shoulder answered. “Nor do I care.”
“Forgive me, cara mia. You mean that you do not care to be informed. Yet you should know, for you could if you wished have me fined. Yes, that is what you could do. You could have me fined.
“But I,” he resumed. “Do you know in similar circumstances what I could do? Do you know rather what the law says I may do? Do you, cara mia? Do you? For really you ought to.”
But Leilah now was approaching the entrance.
“What!” Barouffski exclaimed. “You are not interested? You are really going?”
As he spoke, he bowed. “Bon, à ce soir, cara mia. And a last word. If I may advise, do not be led into indiscretions.”
“Do not,” he repeated, while shrilly from the adjacent church came the voices of boys chanting the final phrase of the Pater Noster:
“Sed libera nos a malo.”
“That is it,” he called at Leilah’s retreating back. “Pray rather to be delivered of them. Otherwise—”
But Leilah now had entered the house.
“Otherwise,” he continued to himself and moving to the kennels, patted the dogs, “otherwise a sojourn in Poland may improve you.”
IX
“The strawberries were delicious,” Violet, the following day, remarked to Leilah.
The two women were seated in the garden of the house in the Rue de la Pompe. It was just after luncheon and between them was a table on which coffee had been served. From without came the whirr of passing motors, the cries of those hawkers who are never still. But the garden itself was quiet, scented too and the day superb.
Violet, patting a yawn, resumed: “One never really gets strawberries except in Paris. They are so big! And so expensive, aren’t they? I know that in a restaurant a man gave one to the waiter for a tip.”
She looked about her. “But, mercy! What can have become of Aurelia? She was to have stopped for me.”
“Don’t you think it unwise to let her go on the stage?” Leilah, with an air of talking for talk’s sake, inquired.
“Let her! But she’s got her head. I can’t prevent her. She’ll never come to any harm though. She isn’t the kind to want to do anything she thought was wrong. No indeed. She would never think anything wrong that she wanted to do. But tell me. I could not very well ask before the servants. What are you going to do?”
For a moment Leilah did not answer. Then, a bit resignedly, she folded her hands.
“I do not see that I have the ability to do anything.”
The pause, the gesture, the reply, angered Violet. She bristled.
“Don’t be so modest, you make me nervous!”
For a moment she also paused. Then, ruminantly, as though in self communion, the lady uttered these cryptic words:
“But perhaps—”
Leilah, who had turned away, turned to her. “Perhaps what?”
But Violet, compressing her lips, assumed the appearance which a very worldly, exquisitely gowned and beautiful Sphinx might present.
“Perhaps what?” Leilah, puzzled by the attitude, repeated.
“Oh, nothing. That is, nothing in particular. I was merely thinking from battle, murder and sudden death, Good Lord deliver us! And yet—”
“Well?”
Violet looked her over. “I know I ought not to tell and for that very reason I will. Your two husbands are to fight today. They may be at it now—”
Abruptly she made a face, dropped her voice and threw out:
“No such luck.”
In the doorway Barouffski stood.
Leilah had not seen. Inwardly she had shrivelled. To the sudden knowledge that the two men were to fight, fear, as suddenly, superposed the conviction that Verplank would be killed. It stirred in her a wholly animal longing to get away from herself; to be rid, however transiently, of that sense of horror and helplessness which only the tortured know. In an effort to shut out the pain of it, she closed her eyes.
When she opened them, Barouffski was before her. Affably he was addressing her friend.
“Beautiful day, Lady Silverstairs. In London you do not often have such weather. I hope Lord Silverstairs is planning to keep you here a very long time.”
“What? What?” Violet in a crescendo of surprise, exclaimed.
Affably, smilingly, unperturbedly, Barouffski reiterated the expression of his hope.
Icily Violet cut him short. “With us it is the woman who makes and unmakes plans.”
Barouffski, unabashed and smiling, plucked at his beard. “A most excellent custom. Yes. For when has reason governed the world? It is only by the heartstrings that men can be led and women alone can lead them.”
But now Violet with the air of an empress had risen. “Leilah, my motor is at the door. Let me take you for a turn in the Bois.”
“Do,” Barouffski exclaimed, looking as he spoke at Leilah. “You are a trifle pale, cara mia. A turn or two now in the Bois—”
With a gesture he signified, that is what you need.
Turning to Violet he added: “So thoughtful of you, Lady Silverstairs.”
In speaking he bowed for Violet now was vacating the garden and Leilah who had risen was following her.
Barouffski bowed again. “Cara mia, a pleasant drive to you.”
But, when both women had entered the house, he sighed, sighed with relief, looked about him, consulted his watch, looked again about him, moved to the entrance, touched a bell which presently a footman answered.
Barouffski indicated the table and chairs. “Get all that out of here.”
“Perfectly, monsieur le comte,” the man, with marked deference, answered and started to do as bidden.
Barouffski checked him. “In five or ten minutes some gentlemen will come by the main entrance. Show them in the reception room. About the same time others will come by the gate. When they do, see that I am notified at once.”
“Perfectly, monsieur
