Since the night of the ball, they had shunned each other, by tacit consent. But, though she could avoid him in person, Madeleine could not close her cars to the gossipy tales that circulated. In the last few weeks, too, the rumours had become more clamatory: these two misguided creatures had obviously no regard for public opinion; and several times, Madeleine had been obliged to go out of her own way, to escape meeting them face to face. On these occasions, she told herself that she had done with Maurice Guest; and this decision was the more easy as, since the beginning of the year, she had moved almost entirely in German circles. But now the distasteful tattle was thrust under her very nose. It seemed to put things in a different light to hear Maurice pitied and discussed in this very room. In listening to her visitor, she had felt once more how strong her right of possession was in him; she was his oldest friend in Leipzig. Now she was ready to blame herself for having let her umbrage stand in the way of them continuing friends: had he been dropping in as he had formerly done, she might have prevented things from going so far, and certainly have been of use in hindering them from growing worse; for, with Louise, one was never sure. And so she determined to write to him, without delay. In this, though, she was piqued as well by a violent curiosity. Louise said to have given up a good match for his sake! x.x.x she could not believe it.
It was incredible that she could care for him as he cared for her.
Madeleine knew them both too well; Maurice was not the type of man by whom Louise was attracted.
She wrote in a guarded way.
IT SEEMS ABSURD THAT OLD FRIENDS SHOULD BEHAVE AS WE ARE DOING. IF ANYTHING THAT HAPPENED WAS MY FAULT, FORGIVE IT, AND SHOW ME YOU DON"T BEAR ME A GRUDGE, BY COMING TO SEE ME TO-MORROW AFTERNOON.
They had not met for close on four months, and, for the first few minutes after his arrival, Madeleine was confused by the change that had taken place in Maurice. It was not only that he was paler and thinner than of old: his boyish manner had deserted him; and, when he forgot himself, his eyes had a strange, brooding expression.
"Other-worldly ... almost," thought Madeleine; and, in order to surmount an awkwardness she had been resolved not to feel, she talked glibly. Maurice said he could not stay long, and wished to keep his hat in his hand; but before he knew it, he was sitting in his accustomed place on the sofa.
As they stirred their tea, she told him how annoyed she had felt at having recently had a performance postponed in favour of Avery Hill: and how the latter was said to be going crazy, with belief in her own genius. Maurice seemed to be in the dark about what was happening, and made no attempt to hide his ignorance. She could see, too, that he was not interested in these things; he played with a ta.s.sel of the sofa, and did not notice when she stopped speaking.
It is his turn now, she said to herself, and left the silence that followed unbroken. Before it had lasted long, however, he looked up from his employment of twisting the ta.s.sel as far round as it would go, and then letting it fly back. "I say, Madeleine, now I"m here, there"s something I should like to ask you. I hope, though, you won"t think it impertinence on my part." He cleared his throat. "Once or twice lately I"ve heard a report about you--several times, indeed. I didn"t pay any attention to it--not till a few days back, that is--when I saw it--or thought I saw it--confirmed with my own eyes. I was at Bonorand"s on Monday evening; I was behind you."
In an instant Madeleine had grasped what he was driving at. "Well, and what of that, pray?" she asked. "Do you think I should have been there, if I had been ashamed of it?"
"I saw whom you were with," he went on, and treated the ta.s.sel so roughly that it came away in his hand. "I say, Madeleine, it can"t be true, what they say--that you are thinking of ... of marrying that old German?"
Madeleine coloured, but continued to meet his eyes. "And why not?" she asked again.--"Don"t destroy my furniture, please."
"Why not?" he echoed, and laid the ta.s.sel on the table. "Well, if you can ask that, I should say you don"t know the facts of the case. If I had a sister, Madeleine, I shouldn"t care to see her going about with that man. He"s an old ?? ??--don"t you know he has had two wives, and is divorced from both?"
"Fiddle-dee-dee! You and your sister! Do you think a man is going to come to nearly fifty without knowing something of life? That he hasn"t been happy in his matrimonial relations is his misfortune, not his fault."
"Then it"s true?"
"Why not?" she asked for the third time.
"Then, of course, I"ve nothing more to say. I"ve no right to interfere in your private affairs. I hoped I should still be in time--that"s all."
"No, you can"t go yet, sit still," she said peremptorily. "I too, have something to say.--But will you first tell me, please, what it can possibly matter to you, whether you are in time, as you call it, or not?"
"Why, of course, it matters.--We haven"t seen much of each other lately; but you were my first friend here, and I don"t forget it.
Particularly in a case like this, where everything is against the idea of you marrying this man: your age--your character--all common sense."
"Those are only words, Maurice. With regard to my age, I am over twenty-seven, as you know. I need no boy of eighteen for a husband.
Then I am plain: I shall never attract anyone by my personal appearance, nor will a man ever be led to do foolish things for my sake. I have worked hard all my life, and have never known what it is to let to-morrow take care of itself.--Now here, at last, comes a man of an age not wholly unsuitable to mine, whatever you may say. What though he has enjoyed life? He offers me, not only a certain social standing, but material comfort for the rest of my days. Whereas, otherwise, I may slave on to the end, and die eventually in a governesses" home."
"YOU would never do that. You are not one of that kind. But do you think, for a moment, you"d be happy in such a position of dependence?"
"That"s my own affair. There would certainly be nothing extraordinary in it, if I were."
"As you put it, perhaps not. But------If it were even some one of your own race! But these foreigners think so queerly. And then, too, Madeleine, you"ll laugh, I daresay, but I"ve always thought of you as different from other women--strong and independent, and quite sure of yourself. The kind of girl that makes others seem little and stupid. No one here was good enough for you."
Madeleine"s amazement was so great that she did not reply immediately.
Then she laughed. "You have far too high an opinion of me. Do you really think I like standing alone? That I do it by preference?--You were never more mistaken, if you do. It has always been a case of necessity with me, no one ever having asked me to try the other way. I suppose like you, they thought I enjoyed it. However, set your mind at rest. Your kind intervention has not come too late. There is still nothing definite."
"I"m glad to hear it."
"I don"t say there mayn"t be," she added. "Herr Lohse and I are excellent friends, and it won"t occur to me not to accept the theatre-tickets and other amus.e.m.e.nts he is able to give me.--But it is also possible that for the sake of "your ideals, I may die a solitary old maid."
Here she was overcome by the comical side of the matter, and burst out laughing.
"What a ridiculous boy you are! If you only knew how you have turned the tables on me. I sent for you, this afternoon, to give you a sound talking-to, and instead of that, here you sit and lecture me."
"Well, if I have achieved something----"
"It"s too absurd," she repeated more tartly. "For you to come here in this way to care for my character, when you yourself are the talk of the place."
His face changed, as she had meant it to do. He choked back a sharp rejoinder. "I"d be obliged, if you"d leave my affairs out of the question."
"I daresay you would. But that"s just what I don"t intend to do. For if there are rumours going the round about me, what on earth is one to say of you? I needn"t go into details. You know quite well what I mean. Let me tell you that your name is in everybody"s mouth, and that you are being made to appear not only contemptible, but ridiculous."
"The place is a hot-bed of scandal. I"ve told you that before," he cried, angry enough now. "These dirty-minded MUSIKER think it outside the bounds of possibility for two people to be friends." But his tone was unsure, and he was conscious of it.
"Yes--when one of the two is Louise."
"Kindly leave Miss Dufrayer out of the question."
"Oh, Maurice, don"t Miss Dufrayer me!--I knew Louise before you even knew that she existed.--But answer me one question, and I"m done. Are you engaged to Louise?"
"Most certainly not."
"Well, then, you ought to be.--For though you don"t care what people say about yourself, your conscience will surely p.r.i.c.k you when you hear that you"re destroying the last shred of reputation Louise had left.--I should be sorry to repeat to you what is being said of her."
But after he had gone, she reproached herself for having put such a question to him. At the pa.s.s things had reached, it was surely best for him to go through with his infatuation, and get over it. Whereas she, in a spasm of conventionality, had pointed him out the sure road to perdition; for the worst thing that could happen would be for him to bind himself to Louise, in any fashion. As if her reputation mattered!
The more rapidly she got rid of what remained to her, the better it would be for every one, and particularly for Maurice Guest.
Had Maurice been in doubt as to Madeleine"s meaning, it would have been removed within a few minutes of his leaving the house. As he turned a corner of the Gewandhaus, he came face to face with Krafft. Though they had not met for weeks, Heinrich pa.s.sed with no greeting but a disagreeable smile. Maurice was not half-way across the road, however, when Krafft came running back, and, taking the lappel of his friend"s coat, allowed his wit to play round the talent Maurice displayed for wearing dead men"s shoes.
CARMEN was given that night in the theatre; Maurice had fetched tickets from the box-office in the morning. An ardent liking for the theatre had sprung up in Louise of late; and they were there sometimes two or three evenings in succession. Besides this, CARMEN was her favourite opera, which she never missed. They heard it from the second-top gallery. Leaning back in his corner, Maurice could see little of the stage; but the bossy waves of his companion"s head were sharply outlined for him against the opposite tier.
Louise was engrossed in what was happening on the stage; her eyes were wide open, immovable. He had never known anyone surrender himself so utterly to the mimic life of the theatre. Under the influence of music or acting that gripped her, Louise lost all remembrance of her surroundings: she lived blindly into this unreal world, without the least attempt at criticism. Afterwards, she returned to herself tired and dispirited, and with a marked distaste for the dullness of real life. Here, since the first lively clash of the orchestra, since the curtain rose on gay Sevilla, she had been as far away from him as if she were on another planet. Not, he was obliged to confess to himself, that it made very much difference. Though he was now her constant companion, though his love for her was stronger than it had ever been, he knew less of her to-day than he had known six months ago, when one all-pervading emotion had made her life an open book.
Since that unhappy afternoon on which he learnt the contents of the letter from Dresden, they had spent a part of nearly every day in each other"s company. Louise had borne him no malice for what he had said to her; indeed, with the generous forgetfulness of offence, which was one of the most astonishing traits in her character, she met him, the day after, as though nothing had pa.s.sed between them. By common consent, they never referred to the matter again; Maurice did not know to this day, whether or how she had answered the letter. For, although she had forgiven him, she was not quite the same with him as before; a faint change had come over their relation to each other. It was something so elusive that he could not have defined it; yet nevertheless it existed, and he was often acutely conscious of it. It was not that she kept her thoughts to herself; but she did not say ALL she thought--that was it.
And this shade of reserve, in her who had been so frank, ate into him sorely. He accepted it, though, as a chastis.e.m.e.nt, for he had been in a very contrite frame of mind on awakening to the knowledge that he had all but lost her. And so the days had slipped away. An outsider had first to open his eyes to the fact that it was impossible for things to go on any longer as they were doing; that, for her sake, he must make an end, and quickly.
And yet it had been so easy to drift, so hard to do otherwise, when Louise accepted all he did for her as a matter of course, in that high-handed way of hers which took no account of details. He felt sorry for her, too, for she was not happy. There was a gnawing discontent in her just now, and for this, in great measure, he held himself responsible: for a few weeks she had been buoyed up by the hope of a new life, and he had been the main agent in destroying this hope. In return, he had had nothing to offer her--nothing but a rigid living up to certain uncomfortable ideals, which brought neither change nor pleasure with them: and, despite his belief in the innate n.o.bility of her nature, he could not but recognise that ideals were for her something colder and sterner than for other people.
She made countless demands on his indulgence, and he learnt to see, only too clearly, what a dependent creature she was. It was more than a boon, it was a necessity to her, to have some one at her side who would care for her comfort and well-being. He could not picture her alone; for no one had less talent than she for the trifles that compose life.
Her thoughts seemed always to be set on something larger, vaguer, beyond.
He devoted as much time to her as he could spare from his work, and strove to meet her half-way in all she asked. But it was no slight matter; for her changes of mood had never been so abrupt as they were now. He did not know how to treat her. Sometimes, she was cold and unapproachable, so wrapped up in herself that he could not get near her; and perhaps only an hour later, her lips would curve upwards in the smile which made her look absurdly young, and her eyes, too, have all the questioning wonder of a child"s. Or she would be silent with him, not unkindly, but silent as a sphinx; and, on the same day, a fit of loquacity would seize her, when she was unable to speak quickly enough for the words that bubbled to her lips. He managed to please her seldomer than ever. But however she behaved, he never faltered. The right to be beside her was now his; and the times she was the hardest on him were the times he loved her best.
As spring, having reached and pa.s.sed perfection, slipped over into summer, she was invaded by a restlessness that nothing could quell. It got into her hands and her voice, into all her movements, and worked upon her like a fever-like a crying need. So intense did it become that it communicated itself to him also. He, too, began to feel that rest and stillness were impossible for them both, and to be avoided at any cost.
"I have never really seen spring," Louise said to him, one day, in excuse of some irrational impulse that had driven her out of the house.