In the little drama Gonfallon played the hero’s role. Of the jealousy which had sprung into being within him, that jealousy which spends itself not in a scene but in a crime, of the revulsion of feeling, of the anger and surprise, he gave no outward sign; not an eyelid had twitched, not a muscle of his face had altered. His observations, however long in the telling, had in reality not outlasted a moment; and Mrs. Manhattan, who had been expressing her views on some subject which was doubtless of importance, never dreamed that the guest who appeared to be giving her his fullest attention had in that moment traversed the world, unconscious of her presence, deaf to her speech.
“Perfectly, my dear Mrs. Manhattan,” he answered. “I agree with you in every respect.”
From the other end of the table came the falsetto laugh which Mrs. Fox used as fanfare to sound the retreat of some noble personage from her speech. She was in great good spirits, and looked around, for admiration perhaps, at Jones. Presumably she had been informed of his calling, one which doubtless was to her incompatible with the usages of the selectest set, for over the oysters she had ignored him entirely, over the roast she had given him a glance which she was prepared on the instant to bestow on someone else. But with the sweets she was surprised into remarking that he looked enough like the secretary of the Austrian Legation to be that gentleman’s brother.
“Who did you say he was?” she asked of her host.
“I call him Alphabet,” Manhattan answered, “but his name is Chisolm-Jones.”
“Not a nephew of Madame de Cinq-Cygne?”
“Her nephew.”
The questions and answers Gonfallon garnered unconsciously. He was in the cerebral condition of a chess-player whom the remark of a bystander addressed during the absorption of the game reaches only when the move is made. Do what he might, his attention was centred on Claire; and through that attention filtered the conversation of the other guests.
Miss Raritan was talking across the table, praising Massenet and the inspiration which that composer displays. Mrs. Manhattan had turned to the man on her left. For the moment both Claire and Yarde were silent. Mrs. Fox was captivating Jones.
“And that dear countess! How is she?”
“Better than she has been for some time,” Jones answered. “She is dead.”
“I am so glad,” Mrs. Fox rejoined: it was evident that only the initial sentence had reached her. “I am so glad. There are few whom I have known—among my own compatriots, of course—who speak French as well as she. Do you know, it is really difficult for me now to accustom myself to my own tongue? You must have experienced the same thing yourself.”
“Often, Mrs. Fox.”
“I was sure of it. Nous autres, n’est-ce pas? Mais tout le monde parle Français maintenant. Figurez-vous qu’à Cannes, l’hiver passé, j’étais vraiment étonnée de trouver ma langue dans la bouche du Prince de Galles!”
“Son Altesse aussi sans doute,” Jones answered, with a sniff.
“What do you think of her?” asked Miss Raritan, in a whisper.
“Fox et praeterea nihil,” he replied; a jest which the young lady did not wholly grasp, but at which, as was her wont, she smiled approvingly.
“And now, do tell me,” Mrs. Fox continued—“you know I have been away so long—what is the last scandal?”
“The last scandal? Let me see.” And the novelist seemed to meditate. “Ah, yes. You remember Mrs. Gwathmeys, don’t you?”
“Cynthia Van Dam that was?”
“Exactly. Well, the other day her husband picked her pocket.”
“Mr. Chisolm-Jones!”
“You don’t understand. It was a pleasantry on his part. He saw a bit of paper peeping out of her bodice, and snatched it from her.”
“You said her pocket.”
“Isn’t a bodice a woman’s pocket? However, Gwathmeys seized the paper, and suddenly he cried, ‘What is this? My love, my chosen, but not mine, I send my whole heart to you in these words I write.
—Who is it wrote that?’ ‘Owen Meredith,’ his wife answered.”
“The shameless thing!” interjected Mrs. Fox.
“ ‘I will kill him!’ shouted Gwathmeys.” As Jones spoke he imitated the voice of an ogre in a fairytale.
“And quite right, too.”
“As you say.”
“And did he?”
But Jones’s answer was lost. Mrs. Manhattan had moved, and at that signal her guests rose from the table. When the men, after accompanying the womenfolk into the drawing room, returned for coffee and liqueurs, the novelist seemed absorbed. He took little part in the conversation, and, until his host suggested that it might be well to join the ladies, he sat now puffing at a huge cigar, now flicking the ashes on the floor.
The drawing room which they then entered, the smallest of the three which the house contained, was so cunningly furnished with everything that you would have expected most, that it was even comfortable and unsuggestive of a sheriff’s sale. At one end a screen served as a partition between two sofas. Near to one of the sofas was a mantel, near to the other a piano. Throughout the room other nooks had been arranged. It was one of the few places where a tête-à-tête can be enjoyed in a crowd.
When the men entered, Miss Raritan was at the piano. On the sofa nearest the mantel Claire had just seated herself. The other women were in a group. Gonfallon at once took up a position by the mantel, on which he leaned, his back turned to his sister-in-law; Manhattan lounged near the piano; and Trement Yarde sat himself next to Claire.
For a moment the room was resonant with that accent which is peculiar to the after-dinner speech. Then, as Miss Raritan’s fingers strayed over the keys, there was a lull. Presently the girl’s voice sounded, low as yet, for she was heating her throat; then suddenly it rose, and dilating filled the room, and, as she sang, each note was evocative of fancies, each word clear as the token on a coin.
Baise-moy, mignonne, cent fois rebaise-moy.
The refrain of her
