“I haven’t seen him come out yet, Madame la Comtesse.”
“Tell your wife not to wait for me, Bernard.”
“Yes, Madame la Comtesse.” Bernard backed out respectfully through the door.
“How fat he is, and what sleek hair,” marvelled Cosmo. “And what a solemn manner. No wonder I did not recognize him at once. He showed me into your father’s room, you know. He looks a Special Envoy’s confidential man all over. And to think that he is your household spy! I wonder at your patience.”
“Perhaps if I had anything to conceal I would have had less patience with the spy,” she said, equably. “I believe that when we lived in Paris he wrote every week to M. de Montevesso, because, you know, he can write quite well. I wonder what he found to write about. Lists of names, I suppose. Or perhaps his own views of the people who called with bits of overheard conversations.”
“It’s incredible,” murmured Cosmo. “It’s fantastic. What contempt he must have for your husband.”
“The most remarkable thing,” said Madame de Montevesso, “is that I am convinced that he doesn’t write any lies.”
“Yes,” said Cosmo, “I assume that. And do you mean that the Count is paying him every week for that sort of thing. It’s an ugly farce.”
“Don’t you think,” said the Countess, “that something serious may come of it some day?” Cosmo made a hopeless gesture.
“The man you married is mad,” he said with intense conviction.
“There have been times when I felt as if I were mad myself,” murmured Madame de Montevesso. “Take up your hat,” she added quickly.
She had heard footsteps outside the door. A moment after, Count Helion came in and fixed his black glance on his wife and Cosmo. He did not open his lips and remained ominously by the door for a time. The strain of the silence was made sinister by the stiff bearing of the man, the immobility of the carven brown face, crossed by the inky-black moustache in harsh contrast with the powdered head. He might have been a sergeant come at the stroke of the hour to tell those two people that the firing squad was waiting for them outside the door. Madame de Montevesso broke the dumb spell.
“I did my best to entertain Mr. Latham, but we had given you up. He was just going.”
She glanced serenely at Cosmo, whom the sweetness of her tone, her easy self-possession before that barrack-room figure, stung to the heart. At that moment no words could have expressed the intensity of his hatred for the Count of Montevesso, at whom he was looking with a smile of the utmost banality. The latter moved forward stiffly.
“Your father hopes you will see him for a moment presently,” he said to his wife. “He has not gone to bed yet.”
“Then I will go to him at once.”
Madame de Montevesso extended her hand to Cosmo, who raised the tips of her fingers to his lips ceremoniously.
“I will see Mr. Latham out,” said the Count, bowing to his wife, who went out of the room without looking at him. Cosmo, following her with his eyes, forgot Count Helion’s existence. He forgot it so thoroughly that it was with a perceptible start that he perceived the Count’s eyes fixed on him in an odd way. “He will never look at ease anywhere,” thought Cosmo scornfully. A great part of his hatred had evaporated. “I suppose he means to be pilot. I wonder how he looked on the back of an elephant.”
“It was very good of you to wait so long for my return,” said Count Helion. “I have been detained by an absurd discussion arising out of probably false reports.”
“The time passed quickly,” said truthful Cosmo; but, before the black weary glance of the other, hastened to add with assumed care, “We talked of old times.”
“Old times,” repeated Count Helion without any particular accent. “My wife is very young yet, though she must be older than you are. Isn’t she older?”
Cosmo said curtly that he really did not know. When they were running about as children together she was the tallest of the three.
“And now,” took up the inexpressive voice of Count de Montevesso, “without her high heels she would be a little shorter than you. As you stood together you looked to me exactly the same height. And so you renewed the memories of your youth. They must have been delightful.”
“They were no doubt more delightful for me than they could have been for Mme. la Comtesse,” said Cosmo, making a motion towards taking leave.
“A moment. Let me have the honour to see you out.” Count Helion walked round the room blowing out the candles in three candelabras in succession and taking up the fourth in his hand.
“Why take this trouble?” protested Cosmo. “I know my way.”
“Every light has been extinguished in the reception rooms; or at least ought to have been. I detest waste of all kinds. It is perhaps because I have made my own fortune, and by God’s favour it is so considerable in its power for good that it requires the most careful management. It is perhaps a peculiar point of view, but I have explained it to Mme. de Montevesso.”
“She must have been interested,” muttered Cosmo between his teeth, following across the room and round the screen the possessor of these immensely important riches, who, candelabra in hand, preceded him by a pace or two and threw open the door behind the screen. Cosmo, crossing in the wake of Count Helion the room of the evening reception, saw dimly the disarranged furniture about the mantelpiece, the armchair in which Lady William had sat, the great sofa in which little Countess Bubna had been shyly ensconced, the card table with the chairs pushed back and all the cards in a heap in the middle. The swaying flames of the candles, leaping from one long strip of mirror to another, preceded him into the next salon
