“By the way,” he said at last when coffee was served, “you know Mirette is here?”
“Mirette? Who is Mirette?”
“Why, good gad! My dear fellow, Mirette is Mirette; the one adorable, unique, divine Mirette. You don’t mean to say you never heard of her!”
“I do, though perhaps she may have had the good fortune to hear of me.”
“Heavens alive, man! don’t you read the papers?”
Lenox smiled. “Why should I? I am not interested in the community. It might be stricken with dry-rot, elephantiasis and plica polonica for ought I care. Besides, there is nothing in them; the English papers are all advertisements and aridity, the French are frivolous and obscene. I mind neither frivolity nor obscenity; both have their uses, as flowers and cesspools have theirs; but I object to them served with my breakfast. I think if once a year a man would read a summary of the twelvemonth, he would get in ten minutes a digest of all that might be necessary to know, and what is more to the point, he would have to his credit a clear profit of two hundred hours at the very least, and two hundred hours rightly employed are sufficient for the acquirement of such a knowledge of a foreign language as will permit a man to make love in it gracefully. No, I seldom read the papers, so forgive my ignorance as to Mirette.”
“After such an explanation I shall have to. But if you care to learn by word of mouth that which you decline to read in print, Mirette is premier sujet.”
“In the ballet, you mean.”
“Yes, in the ballet, and I can’t for the life of me think of a ballet without her.”
“She must have gone to your head.”
“And to everyone’s who has seen her.”
“You say she is here?”
“Yes, she’ll be at the Casino tonight; I’ll present you if you say so.”
“I might take a look at her, but I fancy I shalt be occupied elsewhere.”
“As you like.” May drew out his watch. “It’s after nine,” he added, “if we are going to the Casino we had better be t-toddling.”
On the way there May entered a tobacconist’s, and Lenox waited for him without. As he loitered on the curb, Blydenburg rounded an adjacent corner.
“Well,” exclaimed the latter, “you didn’t see our friends off.”
“What friends?”
“The Incouls of course; didn’t you know that they had gone?”
Lenox looked at him blankly. “Gone,” he echoed.
“Yes, they must have sent you word. Incoul seemed to expect you. They have gone up to Paris. If I had known beforehand—”
Mr. Blydenburg rambled on, but Lenox no longer listened. It was for this then that he had been bothering himself the entire day. The abruptness of the departure mystified him, yet he comforted himself with the thought that had there been anything abnormal, it could not have escaped Blydenburg’s attention.
“And you say they expected me?” he asked at last.
“Yes, they seemed to. Incoul left goodbye for you. When you get to Paris look them up.”
While he was speaking May came out from the tobacconist’s.
“I will do so,” Lenox said, and with a parting nod he joined his friend.
As he walked on down the road to the Casino, Mr. Blydenburg looked musingly after him. He would not be a bad match for Milly, he told himself, not a bad match at all; and thinking that perhaps it might be but a question of bringing the two young people together, he presently started off in search of his daughter and led her, lamblike, to the Casino. But once there he felt instinctively that for that evening at least any bringing together of the young people was impossible. Lenox was engaged in an animated conversation with a conspicuously dressed lady, whom, Mr. Blydenburg learned on inquiry, was none other than the notorious Mlle. Mirette, of the Théâtre National de l’Opéra.
XI
The House in the Parc Monceau
There had been a crash in Wall Street. Two of the best houses had gone under. Of one of these the senior partner had had recourse to the bare bodkin. For several years previous his wife had dispensed large hospitality from a charming hotel just within the gates of the Parc Monceau. At the news of her ruined widowhood she fled from Paris. In a week it was only her creditors that remembered her. The hotel was sold under the hammer. A speculator bought it and while waiting a chance to sell it again at a premium, offered it for rent, fully furnished, as it stood. This by the way.
After the dinner in Spain, Mr. Incoul passed some time in thought. The next morning he sent for Karl, and after a consultation with him, he went to the square that overhangs the sea, entered the telegraph office, found a blank, wrote a brief message, and after attending to its despatch, returned to the villa. His wife was in the library, and as he entered the room the maître d’hôtel announced that their excellencies were served.
Maida had never been more bewildering in her beauty. Her lips were moist, and under her polar-blue eyes were the faintest of semicircles.
“Did you enjoy your trip to Fuenterrabia?” she asked.
“Exceedingly,” he answered. But he did not enter into details and the breakfast was done before either of them spoke again.
At last as Maida rose from the table Mr. Incoul said: “We leave for Paris at five this afternoon. I beg you will see to it that your things are ready.”
She steadied herself against a chair, she would have spoken, but he had risen also and left the room.
For the time being her mind refused to act. Into the fibres of her there settled that chill which the garb and aspect of a policeman produces on the conscience of a misdemeanant. But the chill passed as policemen do, and a fever came in its place.
To
