After being gently and permanently relieved of their light hand-baggage, the mistress and maid, who seemed greatly overwhelmed by the sight of Africa, and who moved--or rather were carried--as in a dream, were placed reverently in the nearest omnibus, and conveyed to the farthest hotel, which was situated upon a lofty hill above the town. Here a slightly painful scene took place.
Having been a.s.sisted by the staff into a Moorish hall, Mrs. Greyne inquired in a reticent voice for her husband, and was politely informed that there was no person of the name of Greyne in the hotel. For a moment she seemed threatened with dissolution, but with a supreme effort calling upon her mighty brain she surmised that her husband was possibly pa.s.sing under a pseudonym in order to throw America off the scent. She, therefore, demanded to have the guests then present in the hotel at once paraded before her. As there was some difficulty about this--the guests being then at dinner--she whispered for the visitors" book, thinking that, perchance, Mr. Greyne had inscribed his name there, and that the staff, being foreign, did not recognise it as murmured by herself. The book was brought, upon its cover in golden letters the words: "Hotel Loubet et Majestic." Then explanations of a somewhat disagreeable nature occurred, and Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes, after a heavy payment had been exacted for their conveyance to a place they had desired not to go to, were carried forth, and consigned to another vehicle, which at length brought them, on the stroke of nine, to the Grand Hotel.
Having been placed reverently in the brilliantly-lighted hall, they were surrounded by the proprietor, the _maitre d"hotel_ and his a.s.sistants, the porters, and the cha.s.seurs, with all of whom Mr. Greyne was now familiar. Brandy and water having been supplied, together with smelling-salts and burnt feathers, Mrs. Greyne roused herself from an acute attack of lethargy, and asked for Mr. Greyne. A joyous smile ran round the circle.
"Monsieur Greyne," said the proprietor, "who is living here for the winter?" 4
"Mr. Eustace Greyne," murmured the great novelist, grasping her bonnet with both hands.
The _maitre d"hotel_ drew nearer.
"Madame wishes to see Monsieur Greyne?" he asked.
"I do--at once."
A blessed consciousness of Mother Earth was gradually beginning to steal over her. She even strove feebly to sit up on her chair, a German-Swiss porter of enormous size a.s.sisting her.
"But Monsieur Greyne is out."
"Out?"
"Yes, madame. Monsieur Greyne is always out at night."
The eyes of the little cha.s.seur who knew no better began to twinkle.
Mrs. Forbes gave a slight cough. Tears filled the novelist"s eyes.
"G.o.d bless my Eustace!" she murmured, deeply touched by this evidence of his devotion to her interests.
"Madame says----" asked the proprietor.
"Where does Mr. Greyne go?" inquired the novelist.
"To the Kasbah, madame."
"I knew it!" cried Mrs. Greyne, with returning animation. "I knew it would be so!"
"Madame is acquainted with Monsieur Greyne?" said the _maitre d"hotel_, while the little crowd gathered more closely about the wave-worn group.
"I am Mrs. Eustace Greyne," returned the great novelist recklessly. "I am the wife of Mr. Eustace Greyne."
There was a moment of supreme silence. Then a loud, an even piercing "_Oh, la, la,_ broke upon the air, succeeded instantaneously by a burst of laughter that seemed to thrill with all the wild blessedness of boyhood. It came, of course, from the little cha.s.seur; it came, and stayed. Nothing could stop it, and eventually the happy child had to be carried forth upon the sea-front to enjoy his innocent mirth at leisure and in solitude beneath the African stars. Mrs. Greyne did not notice his disappearance. She was intent upon important matters.
"At what time does Mr. Greyne usually set forth?" she asked of the proprietor, whose face now bore a strangely twisted appearance, as if afflicted by a toothache.
"Immediately after dinner, madame, if not before. Of late it has generally been before."
"And he stays out late?"
"Very late, madame."
The twisted appearance began to seem infectious. It was visible upon the faces of most of those surrounding Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes. Indeed, even the latter showed some signs of it, although the large shadow cast over her features by the hind side of her Mother Hubbard bonnet to some extent disguised them from the public view.
"Till what hour?" pursued Mrs. Greyne in a voice of almost yearning tenderness and pity.
"Well, madame"--the proprietor displayed some slight confusion--"I really can hardly say. The _maitre d"hotel_ can perhaps inform you."
Mrs. Greyne turned her ox-like eyes upon the enlarged edition of Napoleon the First.
"Monsieur Greyne seldom returns before seven or eight o"clock in the morning, madame. He then retires to bed, and comes down to breakfast at about four o"clock in the afternoon."
Mrs. Greyne was touched to the very quick. Her husband was sacrificing his rest, his health--nay, perhaps even his very life--in her service.
It was well she had come, well that a period was to be put to these terrible researches. They should be stopped at once, even this very night. Better a thousand literary failures than that her husband"s existence should be placed in jeopardy. She rose suddenly from her chair, tottered, gasped, recovered herself, and spoke.
"Prepare dinner for me at once," she said, "and order a carriage and a competent guide to be before the door in half-an-hour."
"Madame is going out? But madame is ill, tired!"
"It matters not."
"Where does madame wish to go?"
"I am going to the Kasbah to find my husband."
"I will escort madame."
The proprietor, the _maitre d"hotel_, the waiters, the porters, the cha.s.seurs, Mrs. Greyne and Mrs. Forbes, all turned about to face the determined speaker.
And there before them, his dark eyes gleaming, his long moustaches bristling fiercely--here stood Abdallah Jack.
VII
Man is a self-deceiver. It must, therefore, ever be a doubtful point whether Mr. Eustace Greyne, during his residence in Africa, absolutely lost sight of his sense of duty; whether, beguiled by the lively attentions of a fiercely foreign town, he deliberately resolved to take his pleasure regardless of consequences and of the sacred ties of Belgrave Square. We prefer to think that some vague idea of combining two duties--that which he owed to himself and that which he owed to Mrs.
Greyne--moved him in all he did, and that the subterfuge into which he was undoubtedly led was not wholly selfish, not wholly criminal.
Nevertheless, that he had lied to his beloved wife is certain. Even while she sat over a cutlet and a gla.s.s of claret in the white-and-gold dining-room of the Grand Hotel, preparatory to her departure to the Kasbah with Abdallah Jack, the dozen of Merrin"s exercise-books lay upstairs in Mr. Greyne"s apartments filled to the brim with African frailty. Already there was material enough in their pages to furnish forth a library of "Catherines." Yet Mr. Greyne still lingered far from his home, and wired to that home fabricated accounts of the singular innocence of Algiers. He even allowed it to be supposed that his own innocence stood in the way of his fulfilment of Mrs. Greyne"s behests--he who could now have given points in knowledge of the world to whole regiments of militiamen!
It was not right, and, doubtless, he must stand condemned by every moralist. But let it not be forgotten that he had fallen under the influence of a Levantine.
Mademoiselle Verbena"s mother, hidden in some unnamed hospital of Algiers, appeared to be one of those ingenious elderly ladies who can hover indefinitely upon the brink of death without actually dying.
During the whole time that Mr. Greyne had been in Africa her state had been desperate, yet she still clung to life. As her daughter said, she possessed extraordinary vitality, and this vitality seemed to have been inherited by her child. Despite her grave anxieties Mademoiselle Verbena succeeded in sustaining a remarkable cheeriness, and even a fascinating vivacity, when in the company of others. As she said to Mr. Greyne, she did not think it right to lay her burdens upon the shoulders of her neighbours. She, therefore, forced herself to appear contented, even at various moments gay, when she and Mr. Greyne were lunching, dining, or supping together, were driving upon the front, sailing upon the azure waters of the bay, riding upon the heights beyond El-Biar, or, ensconced in a sumptuous private box, listening to the latest French farce at one or another of the theatres. Only one day, when they had driven out to the monastery at La Trappe de Staoueli, did a momentary cloud descend upon her piquant features, and she explained this by the frank confession that she had always wished to become a nun, but had been hindered from following her vocation by the necessity of earning money to support her aged parents. Mr. Greyne had never seen the Ouled since his first evening in Algiers, but he still paid her a weekly salary, through Abdallah Jack, who explained to him that the interesting lady, in a discreet retirement, was perpetually occupied in arranging the exhibitions of African frailty at which he so frequently a.s.sisted.
She was, in fact, earning her liberal salary. Mademoiselle Verbena and Abdallah Jack had met on several occasions, and Mr. Greyne had introduced the latter to the former as his guide, and had generously praised his abilities; but in Mademoiselle Verbena took very little notice of him, and, as time went on, Abdallah Jack seemed to conceive a most distressing dislike of her. On several occasions he advised Mr.
Greyne not to frequent her company so a.s.siduously, and when Mr. Greyne asked him to explain the meaning of his monitions he took refuge in vague generalities and Eastern imagery. He had a profound contempt for women as companions, which grieved Mr. Greyne"s Western ideas, and evidently thought that Mademoiselle Verbena ought to be clapped forthwith into a long veil, and put away in a harem behind an iron grille. When Mr. Greyne explained the English point of view Abdallah Jack took refuge in a sulky silence; but during the week immediately preceding the arrival of Mrs. Greyne his temper had become actively bad, and Mr. Greyne began seriously to consider whether it would not be better to pay him a last _douceur_, and tell him to go about his business.
Before doing this, however, Mr. Greyne desired to have one more interview with the mysterious Ouled on the heights, to whom he owed the knowledge which would henceforth enable him to cut out the militia. He said so to Abdallah Jack. The latter agreed sulkily to arrange it; and matters so fell out that on the night of Mrs. Greyne"s arrival her husband was seated in a room in one of the remotest houses of the Kasbah, watching the Ouled"s mysterious evolutions, while Mademoiselle Verbena--as she herself had informed Mr.4 Greyne--sat in the hospital by the bedside of her still dying mother. Abdallah Jack had apparently been most anxious to a.s.sist at Mr. Greyne"s interview with the Ouled, but Mr. Greyne had declined to allow this. The evil temper of the guide was beginning to get thoroughly upon his employer"s nerves, and even the natural desire to have an interpreter at hand was overborne by the dislike of Abdallah Jack"s morose eyes and sarcastic speeches about women. Moreover, the Ouled spoke a word or two of uncertain French.
Thus, therefore, things fell out, and such was the precise situation when Mrs. Greyne flicked a crumb from her chocolate brocade gown, tied her bonnet strings, and rose from table to set forth to the Kasbah with Abdallah Jack.