The Lion's Share by Arnold Bennett (booksvooks TXT) 📕

sincerity. Audrey knew how polite the French were. "But truly circumstances were too much for me. Those two Russian princesses--they came to me through a mutual friend, a dear old friend of mine, very closely attached also to them. They leave to-morrow morning by the St. Petersburg express, on which they have engaged a special coach. What was I to do? I tried to tear myself away earlier, but of course there were the portrait sketches to finish, and no doubt you know the usage of the best society in Russia."

"Yes," murmured Audrey.

"Come up on the dais, will you?" he suggested. "And let us survey the scene together."

They surveyed the scene together. The snouted band was having supper on the floor in a corner, and many of the guests also were seated on the floor. Miss Ingate, intoxicated by the rapture of existence, and Miss Thompkins were carefully examining the frescoes on the walls. A young woman covered from head to foot with gold tinsel was throwing chocolates into Musa's mouth, or as near to it as she could.

"What a splendid player Mr. Musa is!" Audrey inaugurated her career as a woman of the world. "I doubt if I have ever heard such violin playing."

"I'm so glad you think so," replied Monsieur Dauphin. "Of course you know I'm very conceited about my painting. Anybody will tell you so. But beneath all that I'm not so sure. I often have the gravest doubts about my work. But I never had any doubt that when I took Musa out of the orchestra in the Cafe de Versailles I was giving a genius to the world. And perhaps that's how I shall be remembered by posterity. And if it is I shall be content."

Never before had Audrey heard anybody connect himself with posterity, and she was very much impressed. Monsieur Dauphin was resigned and yet brave. By no means convinced that posterity would do the right thing, he nevertheless had no grudge against posterity.

Just then there was a sharp scream at the top of the spiral staircase. With a smile that condoned the scream and excused his flight, Monsieur Dauphin ran to the staircase, and up it, and disappeared on to the roof. Nobody seemed to be perturbed. Audrey was left alone and conspicuous on the dais.

"Charming, isn't he?" said Miss Thompkins, arriving with Miss Ingate in front of the flower-screened platform.

"Oh! he is!" answered Audrey with sincerity, leaning downwards.

"Has he told you all about the Russian princesses?"

"Oh, yes," said Audrey, pleased.

"I thought he would," said Miss Thompkins, with a peculiar intonation.

Audrey knew then that Miss Thompkins, having first maliciously made sure that she was a ninny, was now telling her to her face that she was a ninny.

Tommy continued:

"Then I guess he told you he'd given Musa to the world."

Audrey nodded.

"Ah! I knew he would. Well, when he comes back he'll tell you that you must come to one of his _real_ entertainments here, and that this one is nothing. Then he'll tell you about all the nobs he knows in London. And at last he'll say that you have a strangely expressive face, and he'd like to paint it and show the picture in the Salon. But he won't tell you it'll cost you forty thousand francs. So I'll tell you that, because perhaps later on, if you don't know, you might find yourself making a noise like a tenderfoot. You see, Miss Ingate hasn't concealed that you're a lady millionaire."

"No, I haven't," said Miss Ingate, glowing and yet sarcastic. "I couldn't bring myself to, because I was so anxious to see if human nature in Paris is anything like what it is in Essex."

"And why should you hide it, Winnie?" Audrey stoutly demanded.

"Well, au revoir," Tommy murmured delicately, with a very original gesture. "He's coming back."

As Monsieur Dauphin, having apparently established peace on the roof, approached again, Audrey discreetly examined his face and his demeanour, to see if she could perceive in him any of the sinister things that Tommy had implied. She was unable to make up her mind whether she could or not. But in the end she decided that she was as shrewd as anybody in the place.

"Have you been to my roof-garden, Mrs. Moncreiff?" he asked in a persuasive voice, raising his eyebrows.

She said she had, and that she thought the roof was heavenly.

Then from the corner of her eye she saw Miss Ingate and Tommy sidling mischievously away, like conspirators who have lighted a time fuse. She considered that Tommy, with her red hair and freckles, and strange glances and strange tones full of a naughty and malicious sweetness, was even more peculiar than Miss Ingate. But she was not intimidated by them nor by the illustrious Monsieur Dauphin, so perfectly master of his faculties. Rather she was exultant in the contagion of their malice. Once more she felt as if she had ceased to be a girl a very long time ago. And she was aware of agreeable and exciting temptations.

"Are you taking a house in Paris?" inquired Monsieur Dauphin.

Audrey answered primly:

"I haven't decided. Should you advise me to do so?"

He waved a hand.

"Ah! It depends on the life you wish to lead. Who knows--with a young woman who has all experience behind her and all life before her! But I do hope I may see you again. And I trust I may persuade you to come to my studio again." Audrey felt the thrill of drama as he proceeded. "This is scarcely a night for you. I ought to tell you that I give three entertainments during the autumn. To-night is the first. It is for students and those English and Americans who think they are seeing Paris here. Then I give another for the political and dramatic worlds. Each is secretly proud to meet the other. The third I reserve to my friends. Some of my many friends in London are good enough to come over specially for it. It is on Christmas Eve. I do wish you would come to that one."

"I suppose," she said, catching the diabolic glances of Miss Ingate and Tommy, "I suppose you know almost more people in London than in Paris?"

He answered:

"Well, I count among my friends more than two-thirds of the subscribers to Covent Garden Opera.... By the way, do you happen to be connected with the Moncreiffs of Suddon Wester? They have a charming house in Hyde Park Terrace. But probably you know it?"

Audrey burst out laughing. She laughed loud and violently till the tears stood in her eyes.

"Well," he said, at a loss, deprecatingly. "Perhaps these Moncreiffs _are_ rather weird."

"I was only laughing," she said in gasps, but with a complete secret composure. "Because we had such an awful quarrel with them last year. I couldn't tell you the details. They're too shocking."

He gave a dubious smile.

"D'you know, dear young lady," he recommenced after a brief pause, "I should adore to paint a portrait of you laughing. It would be very well hung in the Salon. Your face is so strangely expressive. It is utterly different, in expression, from any other face I ever saw--and I have studied faces."

Heedless of the general interest which she was arousing, Audrey leaned on the rail of the screen of flowers, and gave herself up afresh to laughter. Monsieur Dauphin was decidedly puzzled. The affair might have ended in hysteria and confusion had not Miss Ingate, with Nick and Tommy, come hurrying up to the dais.


CHAPTER XI


A POLITICAL REFUGEE

"Rosamund has come to my studio and wants to see me at once. _She has sent for me._ Miss Ingate says she shall go, too."

It was these words in a highly emotionalised voice from Miss Nickall that, like a vague murmured message of vast events, drew the entire quartet away from the bright inebriated scene created by Monsieur Dauphin.

The single word "Rosamund" sufficed to break one mood and induce another in all bosoms save that of Audrey, who was in a state of permanent joyous exultation that she scarcely even attempted to control. The great militant had a surname, but it was rarely used save by police magistrates. Her Christian name alone was more impressive than the myriad cognomens of queens and princesses. Miss Nickall ran away home at once. Miss Thompkins was left to deliver Miss Ingate and Audrey at Nick's studio, which, being in the Rue Delambre, was not far away. And not the shedding of the kimono and the re-assumption of European attire could affect Audrey's spirits. Had she been capable of regret in that hour, she would have regretted the abandonment of the ball, where the refined, spiritual, strange faces of the men, and the enigmatic quality of the women, and the exceeding novelty of the social code had begun to arouse in her sentiments of approval and admiration. But she quitted the staggering frolic without a sigh; for she carried within her a frolic surpassing anything exterior or physical.

The immense flickering boulevard with its double roadway stretched away to the horizon on either hand, empty.

"What time is it?" asked Miss Ingate.

Tommy looked at her wrist-watch.

"Don't tell me! Don't tell me!" cried Audrey.

"We might get a taxi in the Rue de Babylone," Tommy suggested. "Or shall we walk?"

"We _must_ walk," cried Audrey.

She knew the name of the street. In the distance she could recognise the dying lights of the cafe-restaurant where they had eaten. She felt already like an inhabitant of the dreamed-of city. It was almost inconceivable to her that she had been within it for only a few hours, and that England lay less than a day behind her in the past, and Moze less than two days. And Aguilar the morose, and the shuttered rooms of Flank Hall, shot for an instant into her mind and out again.

The other two women walked rather quickly, mesmerised possibly by the magic of the illustrious Christian name, and Audrey gave occasional schoolgirlish leaps by their side. A little policeman appeared inquisitive from a by-street, and Audrey tossed her head as if saying: "Pooh! I belong here. All the mystery of this city is mine, and I am as at home as in Moze Street."

And as they surged through the echoing solitude of the boulevard, and as they crossed the equally tremendous boulevard that cut through it east and west, Tommy told the story of Nick's previous relations with Rosamund. Nick had met Rosamund once before through her English chum, Betty Burke, an art student who had ultimately sacrificed art to the welfare of her sex, but who with Mrs. Burke had shared rooms and studio with Nick for many months. Tommy's narrative was spotted with hardly perceptible sarcasms concerning art, women, Betty Burke, Mrs. Burke, and Nick; but she put no barb into Rosamund. And when Miss Ingate, who had never met Rosamund, asked what Rosamund amounted to in the esteem of Tommy, Tommy evaded the question. Miss Ingate remembered, however, what she had said in the cafe-restaurant.

Then they turned into the Rue Delambre, and Tommy halted them in the deep obscurity in front of another of those huge black doors which throughout Paris seemed to guard the secrets of individual life. An automobile was waiting close by. A little door in the huge one clicked and yielded, and they climbed over a step into black