But before I could, it was Kate who called on me.
Now, as she sat in my library, she told me what little she knew, which, summarily, was to the effect that Herbert had certainly arrived the day before and since then had as certainly disappeared.
“He is dead,” she repeated.
So he was, at least so far as she was concerned, but I had not yet got my wind, and in sparring for it, I again asked why she said that.
The dangers of Paris, she explained, the Apaches, the demon chauffeurs, the tiger bandits, adding that Herbert always had a lot of money with him and concluding with the perhaps natural suggestion that I accompany her to the police.
“I will do better than that,” I replied. “I will take you to Madame de Trèfle.”
She had been looking down and away, but at this she looked up. I could see she was rememorating what I had told her of the prophetess, and I could not but reflect that, coming from anyone but me, the story might have seemed a bit fantastic. But precisely as no grammarian ever wrote a line that was fit to read, so has no historian ever displayed a minimum of imagination. That reassuring fact was in my favor. Her face brightened. She rose to the bait.
Yet at once I realized that, however lacking in imagination I may be, I had been lacking also in forethought. I had neglected to dust the shop, and I asked Kate to be good enough to wait a second while I went and inquired whether Madame de Trèfle were free.
To this Kate assented, and presently I was again in the cornflower and silver salon where the prophetess received. It was a minute or two before she appeared, and meanwhile I looked out on the avenue which, on this high noon, was flooded with sunshine, filled with people, shuttled with fleeting cars.
But now a door was opening. I turned. Madame de Trèfle was before me, and I bowed over her jeweled hand.
“Madame,” I said as I straightened, “I have come to ask a favor. A girl has been thrown over for another. She is unaware of it. She thinks that the brute is dead. Will you let me bring her to you? And when I have, will you tell her—well—whatever you like: that he has tuberculosis, anything gentlemanly and contagious, and that for her own sake she must never see him again.”
As I spoke, I got out my card-case. “Your usual fee is fifty francs. In this instance permit me to make it a hundred.”
Madamie de Trèfle half raised a finger. “Not for a thousand.”
“But,” I protested, “it is an act of charity that I ask.”
She sniffed at me. “Mistaken charity! Truth should never be withheld from those who are worthy to receive it.”
“No doubt,” I retorted. “But it is not a question of that. The girl could not be worthier. The point is, she isn’t fit.”
“Ta-ta-ta!” Madame de Trèfle, in mounting crescendo, replied. With an uplift of the chin she considered me. Her eyes narrowed. “Bring her here; I will judge of that.”
I did not like it—I did not like it in the least; but there was no way out of it. I went across the hall and brought Kate back.
“My child,” that woman said to her, “seat yourself in the chair here by the window and, for a little, while I am looking at you, I beg of you do not speak.”
I stationed myself behind Kate and for a moment stared out at the avenue. Then I turned to Madame de Trèfle, who was not looking at Kate at all. On the contrary, she was comfortably seated, her eyes closed, and appeared to be asleep. But presently and monotonously she began to speak.
“My dear, you are but recently come to Paris. Before coming you thought yourself interested in a man. But he is not good enough for you. You will not marry him. You will marry a man of mark.”
Whether Kate heard or not, certainly she did not heed. She half turned to me and indicated the window, through which, in the avenue below, suddenly I saw my cousin, seated in a heliotrope car, side by side with Jenny Price, whose hand he was holding and in whose face he was gazing with that cannibal expression which men cannot help displaying when they feel that they could eat the lady up.
There is no mistaking that expression—no one could mistake it; and as a congestion of traffic held the motor there, I saw that Kate had not mistaken it; that in spite of my precautions now, at last, she understood. Would she, I wondered, faint? But I should have known her better than to fancy she could do anything so inane. Besides, had her pride needed a moxa, instantly it was supplied. The traitorous pair, shelled by vibrations from the batteries of our eyes, simultaneously looked up. They saw us, flushed, turned and, the congestion relieved, shot on.
“Yes,” Madame de Trèfle was saying, “you will marry a marked man—a man
