"Why not?"
"He is not fit."
As she realised my meaning a look of great pain and repulsion pa.s.sed over her face.
"But he must come. Perhaps he will be better presently. You will accompany us and help me, Mr. Asticot, won"t you?"
As usual the frost melted from her eyes and her voice--the silvery English voice--went to my heart. I bent over Paragot and whispered.
"Take her from this pigstye and the sight of the hog," muttered Paragot.
His hands were clenched in a mighty effort to concentrate his wits.
Joanna approached and touched him on the shoulder.
"Gaston."
Suddenly he relaxed his grip and broke into a stupid laugh.
"Very well. What does it matter? Sorry haven"t got--velveteen suit."
"What does he say?" she asked turning to me.
"That he will come, Madame," said I.
Hercule aided me to frog-march him out of the cafe and across the pavement to the waiting carriage. Joanna took her seat by his side and I sat opposite. Hercule shut the carriage door and we drove off. Paragot relapsed into stupor.
"I don"t know how to ask you to forgive me, Mr. Asticot, for keeping you out of your bed at this time of night," said Joanna. "But I am very friendless here in Paris."
We went along the Boul" Mich" by the quais to the Pont de la Concorde, crossed the vast and now silent expanse of the Place de la Concorde and, going by the Rue Royale and the long dull Boulevard Malesherbes and the Boulevard Haussmann, entered the Avenue de Messine. It is a long drive under the most cheerful circ.u.mstances; but at one o"clock in the morning in the company of the dearest thing in the world to me half drunk, and the dear lady whom he wors.h.i.+pped horrified and disgusted at the thought thereof, it seemed interminable. At last we arrived at No. 7. At my ring the door swung open drawn by the concierge within. I helped Paragot out of the carriage. He made a desperate effort to stand and walk steadily.
Heaven knows how he managed to clamber with not too great indecency up the stairs to the Comte de Verneuil"s flat on the first floor. Joanna opened the door with her latch key and we entered a softly-lit drawing room.
"Let me sit down," said Paragot. "I shall be better presently."
He sank an ashamed heap on a sofa by the wall, and with his fingers through his long black hair fought for mastery over his intoxication.
The Comtesse de Verneuil left us and presently returned, having taken off her hat and evening wrap. She brought a little silver tray with Madeira wine and biscuits.
"We need something, Mr. Asticot," she said graciously.
We drank the wine and sat down to wait for Paragot"s recovery. Although it was late May, a wood fire glowed beneath the great chimney-piece.
This made of blue and white ware with corbels of cherubs caught my attention. I had seen things like it in the stately museums of Italy.
"But this is Della Robbia," I exclaimed.
She smiled, somewhat surprised. "You are a connoisseur as well as a philosopher, Mr. Asticot? Yes, it is Della Robbia. The Comte de Verneuil is a great collector."
Then for the first time I looked about the room, and I caught my breath as I realised its wealth and luxury. For a time I forgot Paragot, lost in a dream of Florentine tapestries, priceless cabinets, porcelain, silver, pictures, richly toned rugs, chairs with rhythmic lines, all softened into harmonious mystery by the shaded light of the lamps. At the end of a further room just visible through the looped curtains a great piece of statuary gleamed white. I had never entered such a room in my life before. My master had taken me through the show apartments of great houses and palaces, but they were uninhabited, wanted the human touch. It had not occurred to me that men and women could have such wonder as their daily environment, or could invest it with the indefinable charm of intimacy. I turned and looked at Joanna as she sat by the Della Robbia chimney-piece, gracious and distinguished, and Joanna became merged in the Countess de Verneuil, the great lady, as far removed from me as my little bare attic from this treasure house of luxury. She wore the room, so to speak, as I wore the attic. Overcome by sudden timidity I could barely reply to her remarks.
She was in no mood for conversation, poor lady; so there dropped upon us a dead silence, during which she stared frozenly into the fire while I, afraid to move, occupied the time by storing in my memory every bewitching detail of her dress and person. The oil sketch of her I made a day or two afterwards hangs before me as I write these lines. I prided myself on having caught the colour of her hair--black with the blue reflections like the blue of cigarette smoke.
Suddenly the quietness was startled by loud groans of agony and unintelligible speech coming from some room of the flat. Paragot staggered noisily to his feet, a shaking, hairy, dishevelled spectre, blinking glazed eyes.
Madame de Verneuil started and leaned forward, her hands on the arms of her chair.
"My husband," she whispered, and for a few seconds we all listened to the unearthly sounds. Then she rose and turned to me.
"You had better see it through."
She crossed to Paragot.
"Are you better now?"
"I can do what is required of me," said my master, humbly, though in his ordinary voice. He was practically sober.
"Then come," said Joanna.
We followed her out of the room, through softly carpeted corridors full of pictures and statues and beautiful vases, and entered a dimly lit bedroom. A nurse rose from a chair by the bed, where lay a bald-headed, beaky-nosed man groaning and raving in some terrible madness. Joanna gripped my arm as Paragot went to the bedside.
"I am Gaston de Nerac," said he.
The Comte de Verneuil raised himself on his elbow and looked at him in a wild way. I too should have liked to grip someone"s arm, for the sight of the man sent a shudder through me, but I braced myself up under the consoling idea that I was protecting Joanna.
"You are not dead then? I did not kill you?" said the Comte de Verneuil.
"No, since I am here to tell you that I am alive."
The sweat poured off the man"s face. He lay back exhausted.
"I do not know why," he gasped, "but I thought I had killed you." He closed his eyes.
"That is enough," said the nurse.
Without a word, we all returned to the drawing-room. It was an astounding comedy.
"I am grateful," said Joanna to my master. "I wish there were some means of repaying you."
"I thought," said he, with a touch of irony which she did not notice, "that it was I who was paying for a wrong I did you."
She drew herself up and surveyed him from head to foot, with a little air of disdain.
"I forget," she said icily, "that you ever did me any wrong."
"And I can"t," said he; "I wish to heaven I could. You beheld me to-night in the process of trying--an unedifying sight for Madame la Comtesse de Verneuil."
"An unedifying sight for anybody," said Joanna.
He bowed his head. Something pathetic in his att.i.tude touched her. She was a tender-hearted woman. Her hand caught his sleeve.
"Gaston, why have you come down to this? You of all men?"
"Because I am the one poor fool of all poor fools who takes life seriously."