"I have called to see the editor, Mr. Curtis," said she.
"The editor is not here."
"Oh, isn"t he? I"m sorry for that. When is he likely to be in? I want to see him particularly."
"He only comes here once a week, for about an hour,"
replied the little man, reluctant even to say so much.
"But I could see that he got a letter."
"Thanks," returned Elfrida. "At what time and on what day does he usually come?"
"That I"m not at liberty to say," the occupant of the desk replied briefly, and sat down again.
"Where _is_ Mr. Curtis?" Elfrida asked. She had not counted upon this. To the physical depression of her walk there added itself a strong disgust with the unsuccessful situation. She persisted, knowing what she would have to suffer from herself if she failed.
"Mr. Curtis is in the country. I cannot possibly give you his address. You can write to him here, and the letter will be forwarded. But he only sees people by appointment--especially ladies," the little man added, with a half-smile which had more significance in it than Elfrida could bear. Her face set itself against the anger that burned up in her, and she walked quickly from the door to the desk, her wet skirts swishing with her steps.
She looked straight at the man, and began to speak in a voice of constraint and authority.
"You will be kind enough to get up," she said, "and listen to what I have to say." The man got up instantly.
"I came here," she went on, "to offer your editor an article--this article;" she drew out the ma.n.u.script and laid it before him. "I thought from the character of the contributions to last week"s number of the _Consul_ that he might very well be glad of it."
Her tone reduced the man to silence. Mechanically he picked up the ma.n.u.script and fingered the leaves.
"Read the first few sentences, please," said Elfrida.
"I"ve nothing to do with that department, miss--"
"I have no intention whatever of leaving it with you.
But I shall be obliged if you will read the first few sentences." He read them, the girl standing watching him.
"Now," said she, "do you understand?" She took the pages from his hand and returned them to the envelope.
"Yes, miss--it"s certainly interesting, but--"
"Be quite sure you understand," said Elfrida, as the ground-gla.s.s door closed behind her.
Before she reached the foot of the staircase she was in a pa.s.sion of tears. She leaned, against the wall in the half darkness of the pa.s.sage, shaking with sobs, raging with anger and pity, struggling against her own contempt.
Gradually she gained a hold upon herself, and as she dried her eyes finally she lost all feeling but a heavy sense of failure. She sat down faintly on the lowest step, remembering that she had eaten nothing since breakfast, and fanned her flushed face with the sheets of her ma.n.u.script. She preferred that even the unregarding London streets should not see the traces of her distress.
She was still sitting there, ten minutes later, when the door opened and threw the gray light from outside over her. She had found her feet before Mr. Curtis had fairly seen her. He paused, astonished, with his gloved hand upon the k.n.o.b. The girl seemed to have started out of the shadows, and the emotion of her face dramatized its beauty. She made a step toward the door.
"Can I do anything for you?" asked the editor of the _Consul_, taking off his, hat.
"Nothing, thank you," Elfrida replied, looking beyond him. "Unless you will kindly allow me to pa.s.s."
It was still raining doggedly, as it does in the the late afternoon. Elfrida thought with a superlative pang of discomfort of the three or four blocks that lay between her and the nearest bake-shop. She put up her umbrella, gathered her skirts up behind, and started wearily for the Haymarket. She had never in her life felt so tired.
Suddenly a thrill of consciousness went up from her left hand--the hand that held her skirts--such a thrill as is known only to the s.e.x that wills to have its pocket there. She made one or two convulsive confirmatory clutches at it from the outside, then, with a throe of actual despair, she thrust her hand into her pocket. It was a crushing fact, her purse was gone--her purse that held the possibilities of her journalistic future molten and stamped in eight golden sovereigns--her purse!
Elfrida cast one hopeless look at the pavement behind her before she allowed herself to realize the situation.
Then she faced it, addressing a dainty French oath to the necessity. "Come," she said to herself, "now it begins to be really amusing--_la vraie comedie_." She saw herself in the part--it was an artistic pleasure--alone, in a city of melodrama, without a penny, only her brains.
Besides, the sense of extremity pushed and concentrated her; she walked on with new energy and purpose. As she turned into the Haymarket a cab drew up almost in front of her. Through its rain-beaten gla.s.s front she recognized a face--Kendal"s. His head was thrown back to speak to the driver through the roof. In the instant of her glance Elfrida saw that he wore a bunch of violets in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and that he was looking splendidly well.
Then, with a smile that recognized the dramatic value of his appearance at the moment, she lowered her umbrella and pa.s.sed on, unseen.
Almost gaily she walked into a p.a.w.nbroker"s shop, and obtained with perfect nonchalance five pounds upon her mother"s watch. She had no idea that she ought to dispute the dictum of the bald young man with the fishy eyes and the high collar. It did not occur to her that she was paid too little. What she realized was that she had wanted to p.a.w.n something all her life--it was a deliciously effective extremity. She reserved her rings with the distinct purpose of having the experience again. Then she made a substantial lunch at a rather expensive restaurant. "It isn"t time yet," she thought, "for crusts and dripping," and tipped the waiter a shilling, telling him to get her a cab. As she turned into the Strand she told the cabman to drive slowly, and made him stop at the first newspaper office she saw. As she alighted a sense of her extravagance dawned upon her, and she paid the man off. Then she made a resolutely charming ascent to the editorial rooms of the _Ill.u.s.trated Age_.
Twenty minutes later she came down again, and the door was opened for her by Mr. Arthur Rattray, one of the sub-editors, a young man who had already distinguished himself on the staff of the _Age_ by his intelligent perception of paying matter, and his enterprise in securing it. Elfrida continued to carry her opinions upon the social ideals of her native democracy in their much stained envelope, but there was a light in her eyes which seemed to be the reflection of success.
"It"s still raining," said the young man cheerfully.
"So it is," Elfrida responded. "And--oh, how atrocious of me!--I"ve left my umbrella in the cab!"
"Hard luck!" exclaimed Mr. Rattray; "an umbrella is an organic part of one in London. Shall I stop this "bus?"
"Thanks, no. I"ll walk, I think. It"s only a little way.
I shan"t get wet. Good-afternoon!" Elfrida nodded to him brightly and hurried off; but it could not have occasioned her surprise to find Mr. Rattray beside her a moment later with a careful and attentive umbrella, and the intention of being allowed to accompany her that little way. By the time they arrived Mr. Rattray had pledged himself to visit Scotland Yard next day in search of a dark brown silk _en tout cas_ with a handle in the similitude of an ivory mummy.
"Are these your diggings?" he asked, as they reached the house. "Why, Ticke lives here too--the gentle Golightly--do you know him?" Elfrida acknowledged her acquaintance with Mr. Ticke, and Mr. Rattray hastened to deprecate her thanks for his escort. "Remember," he said, "no theories, no fine writing, no compositions. Describe what you"ve seen and know, and give it a tang, an individuality.
And so far as we are concerned, I think we could use that thing you proposed about the Latin Quarter, with plenty of anecdote, very well. But you must make it short."
CHAPTER X.
Kendal mounted to Elfrida"s _appartement_ in the Rue Porte Royale to verify the intimation of her departure, or happily to forestall its execution the morning after her note reached him. He found it bare and dusty. A workman was mending the stove; the concierge stood looking on, with her arms folded above the most striking feature of her personality. Every vestige of Elfrida was gone, and the tall windows were open, letting the raw February air blow through. Outside the sunlight lay in squares and triangles on the roofs, and gave the place its finishing touch of characterlessness. Yes, truly, mademoiselle had gone, the evening before. Was monsieur then not aware? The concierge was of opinion that mademoiselle had had bad news, but her tone implied that no news could be quite bad enough to justify the throwing up of such desirable apartments upon such short notice.
Mademoiselle had left in such haste that she had forgotten both to say where she was going and to leave an address for letters; and it would not be easy to surpa.s.s the consciousness of injury with which the concierge demanded what she was to say to the _facteur_ on the day of the post from America, when there were always four or five letters for mademoiselle. Monsieur would be _bien amiable_, if he would allow that they should be directed to him.
Upon reflection monsieur declined this responsibility.
With the faintest ripple of resentment at being left out of Elfrida"s confidence, he stated to himself that it would be intrusive. He advised the concierge to keep them for a week or two, during which Miss Bell would be sure to remember to send for them, and turned to go.
"_Mademoiselle est allee a la Gare du Nord_," added the concierge, entirely aware that she was contributing a fact to Kendal"s mental speculation, and wishing it had a greater intrinsic value. But Kendal merely raised his eyebrows in polite acknowledgment of unimportant information. "En effet!" he said, and went away.
Nevertheless he could not help reflecting that _Gare du Nord_ probably meant Calais, and Calais doubtless meant England, probably London. As he thought of it he a.s.sured himself that it was London, and his irritation vanished at the thought of the futility of Elfrida in London. It gave him a half curious, half solicitous amus.e.m.e.nt instead.
He pictured her with her Hungarian peasant"s cloak and any one of her fantastic hats in the conventional highways he knew so well, and smiled. "She will have to take herself differently there," he reflected, without pausing to consider exactly what he meant by it, "and she"ll find that a bore." As yet he himself had never taken her differently so far as he was aware, and in spite of the obvious provocation of her behavior it did not occur to him to do it now. He reflected with a shade of satisfaction that she knew his London address. When she saw quite fit she would doubtless inform him as to what she was doing and where she might be found. He smiled again at the thought of the considerations which Elfrida would put into the balance against the pleasure of seeing him. They were not humiliating; he was content to swing high on the other side indefinitely; but he admitted to himself that she had taken a pleasure out of Paris for him, and went back to his studio missing it. He went on missing it for quite two days, at the end of which he received an impetuous visit--excessively impetuous considering the delay--from Nadie Palicsky. In its course Mademoiselle Palicsky declared herself robbed and wronged by "_cette incomprise d"Americaine_," whom she loved--but _loved_, did he understand? No, it was not probable that he understood--what did a man know of love? As much perhaps as that flame--Kendal permitted himself the luxury of an open fire. Nadie stared into it for a moment with cynical eyes. Under the indirect influence of Kendal"s regard they softened.
"She always understood. It was a joy to show her anything.
She interpreted Bastien Lepage better than I--indeed that is true--but only with her soul, she had no hands. Yes, I loved her, and she was good for me. I drew three breaths in her presence for one in her absence. And she has taken herself away; even in her letter--I had a line too--she was as remote as a star! I hope," continued Nadie, with innocent candor, as she swung her little feet on the corner of Kendal"s table, "that you do not love her too.
I say prayers to _le bon Dieu_, about it. I burn candles."
"And why?" Kendal asked, with a vigorous twist of his palette knife.
"Because you are such a beast," she responded calmly, watching his work with her round cleft chin in the sh.e.l.l of her hand. "That"s not bad, you know. That nearest girl sitting on the gra.s.s is almost felt. But if you show it to the English they will be so shocked that they will use lorgnettes to hide their confusion. Ah!" she said, jumping down, "here am I wasting myself upon you, with a carriage _a l"heure!_ You are not worth it," and she went. After that it seemed to Kendal that he did not miss Elfrida so much. Certainly it never occurred to him to hasten his departure by a day on her account, and there came a morning when he drove through Bloomsbury and realized that he had not thought about her for a fortnight.
The British Museum suggested her to him there--the British Museum, and the certainty that within its ma.s.sive walls a number of unimaginative young women in collarless sage-green gowns were copying casts of antique sculptures at that moment. But he did not allow himself to suppose that she could possibly be among them.
He sniffed London all day with a home-returning satisfaction in her solidity and her ugliness and her low-toned fogs and her great throbbing unostentatious importance, which the more flippant capital seemed to have intensified in him. He ordered the most British luncheon he could think of, and reflected upon the superiority of the beer. He read the leaders in the _Standard_ through to the bitter end, and congratulated himself and the newspaper that there was no rag of an absurd _feuilleton_ to distract his attention from the importance of the news of the day.
He remembered all sorts of acquaintances that Paris had foamed over for months; his heart warmed to a certain whimsical old couple who lived in Park Street and went out to walk every morning after breakfast with their poodle. He felt disposed to make a formal call upon them and inquire after the poodle. It was--perhaps with an unconscious desire to make rather more of the idyl of his homecoming that he went to see the Cardiffs instead, who were his very old friends, and lived in Kensington Square.
As he turned out of Kensington High Street into a shoppy little thoroughfare, and through it to this quiet, neglected high-nosed old locality, he realized with an added satisfaction that he had come back to Thackeray"s London. One was apt, he reflected, with a charity which he would not have allowed himself always, to undervalue Thackeray in these days. After all, he once expressed London so well that now London expressed him, and that was something.
Kendal found the Cardiffs--there were only two, Janet and her father--at tea, and the Halifaxes there, four people he could always count on to be glad to see him.
It was written candidly in Janet"s face--she was a natural creature--as she asked him how he dared to be so unexpected.