Joyselle started in the act of shaking scent on his handkerchief. "Of course I remember them. But what have they to do with Brigitte?"
"Only this, Victor. The poor child is in love with you, _vieux vaurien_!
And that is why she is so savage."
She sat quite still, looking up at him with an indulgent smile, into which the maternal element largely entered. He was a fatal person, this great fiddler of hers; but to her he was also a child to be cared for, and a not quite normal being, to whose absent mind much must be explained.
Her charming face, almost old in spite of its fresh colour, was touched, as she watched his back, with a flicker of kindly mischief.
"And to think that you did not know, blind one," she teased.
"It--it is your imagination," he returned with a slight stammer, turning and facing her.
"No, no. Also I did not imagine that at first you, too, were a little _epris_. It was most natural, my dear. She is so very beautiful. I was glad when it pa.s.sed. It was the day of the long discussion about the wedding--the day of the letter from your mother--do you remember? When you rushed away like a whirlwind?"
"Yes--I remember."
"Well, when you returned, you were quiet and a little pale, and I understood. The talk about Theo"s wedding had put things into their right places in your mind, silly old child, _pas_? And then you brought her back here after the dance, and--all was well."
Joyselle stood quite still. He was bitterly ashamed of himself for deceiving this dear, good woman, who was so innocently believing in him, but he could say nothing. All was well, she said, when he came home that evening after Brigit had come to him in the studio. Yes, but it was because he knew then that she loved him; because his scruples were for the time overwhelmed by the irresistible force of their pa.s.sion for each other; because the glory of the present blinded his eyes to any visualising of the future.
That love, like everything else, must go through a series of mathematically exact evolutions, Joyselle of course, in his present frame of mind, could not realise. To him, as to every lover, the happenings and exigencies of his situation seemed those of pure hazard, and this phase, as he listened to his wife"s interpretation of it, appeared to him absolutely the result of a chance quarrel with Brigit.
"She is distressed and very tragic about it all," continued Felicite.
"Of course she _would_ be tragic; it is her nature. She no doubt believes that she will never get over it. It is a pity, isn"t it?"
"_Oui, oui._" He had again turned away, and stood by the window polishing his nails, of which he was very vain, in the palm of his hand.
"The only thing that troubles me is--Theo. It would break his heart, poor child. He, too," she added, still with her kindly cynicism, "would think she will never get over it. It is thus that all lovers think.
But--what are we to do, Victor? I have been thinking much about it.
Shall we try separation--from you--for her? Or would that make it worse?
She is not patient, and she has no discipline or self-control. She might do something foolish."
"Why should she do something foolish, if it is only a--pa.s.sionette?" he asked harshly, for he did not enjoy his wife"s hypothesis.
"It is not the greatest loves that are the most desperate, my dear. But we must go down. Be kind to her. Remember that she is young, and that her imagination has made a king of you."
Joyselle frowned ferociously as he followed his wife downstairs. He did not like being taken into her confidence in this way, and her calm a.s.sumption that he, too, regarded Brigit as a silly schoolgirl who must be managed into giving up a childish fancy for an old man cut him to the quick. When they reached his study they found Theo sitting at the piano playing with the parrot, while Brigit stood, looking like a thunder cloud, at an open window. Joyselle started as he saw her face. Surely its expression must rouse even Felicite"s slow suspicion!
And never, for his sins, he told himself grimly, had she been more beautiful. Her storm of tears had left her eyes unswollen, but shadowy and unusually melting, while her face, as white as paper, was the face of one who had been face to face with a horrible death.
"I beg your pardon for having been--rude," she said to him sulkily, holding out her hand, which was as cold as ice.
"But it is I," he murmured, touching his lips to her fingers and feeling her quiver as he did so. "It is that we both have what you English call bad tempers, _pas_?"
"You must have been very bad this time, papa," commented Theo, closing the cage door on le Conquerant and joining them. "Brigit is very angry.
Look at her!"
"I am not angry, Theo. But--quarrelling is disgusting."
Why she had stayed the girl hardly knew. She had not forgiven Joyselle, and her apology was a mere concession to the feelings of Felicite and Theo.
Joyselle had hurt her, but her treatment of him had so wounded herself that she could not forgive him. All of which is quite illogical and quite feminine.
"I will go away--anywhere--to-morrow," she told herself as she ate her supper. "Theo will not know why, and Felicite will not tell. This sort of thing cannot go on. This is the fifth row in the last month. We are both too pig-headed. It"s no use trying to keep the peace. I suppose if I were his mistress he would be easier to manage--or I should. The truth is, we are both struggling for supremacy, and we can neither of us drive the other."
Joyselle, with a great effort, chattered gaily throughout the meal. His thoughts, too, were in a turmoil, for he knew that her apology had been offered merely on Theo"s account, and he also knew that something was going to happen.
Felicite, sincerely sorry for Brigit and anxious anent Theo, talked more than usual, so that the uncongenial gathering was more voluble and noisy than usual.
At its close Felicite called her son to her room under some pretext or other, and Joyselle and Brigit went alone to his study. He closed the door very quietly, and then turning to her, caught her hands threateningly.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Do?" She raised her eyebrows. "I am going, of course."
"Where?"
She smiled.
"_Sais pas._ Let go my hands, please; you hurt me--Beau-papa!"
He flung away from her and stood by the window, staring with blinded eyes into the street.
"This is really no good, you know," she went on in a conversational tone; "we quarrel and squabble and are no earthly use to each other--the whole position is bad. I think I will tell Theo, and go."
He did not answer, and after a pause she added: "Or marry him by special license the day after to-morrow, and make him take me--somewhere--for a few months."
"A--ah!"
She smiled at his groan.
"You and I have made fools of ourselves, haven"t we? But it was natural.
I am very beautiful, and you are a very great genius, so----"
Maddened at her tone of indifferent justice, he turned, his face drawn with pain.
"So it was natural? A childish fancy on your part, a senile one on mine?
A thing to--laugh at already! Oh, how _can_ you torture me like this?
You--you----"
"Devil? Or demon?" Her voice was mocking, but her lips had paled, and she gasped a little as if breathless.
"Let"s not be melodramatic, _please_. Call it what you like. I was at least perfectly sincere."
"You were sincere----"
"Yes. Listen." Advancing swiftly to where he stood, she had the amazing courage to give a little laugh. Then she laid her hand on his shoulder.
"Seriously, let"s be good friends and forget all--the rest. I have been a fool, but you have not; for after all, I am fairly attractive, and you are not the first! So let"s make a bargain: I will never again attract you; you will never again _play at me_. And then things will be quite comfy. Shall we? I have been an awful pig to Theo, who is a darling, and from now on I shall try to make up to him."