The End of Her Honeymoon by Marie Belloc Lowndes (books to read now .TXT) 📕

it likely that Madame Poulain would make such a suggestion if she were not telling the truth? Of course her view is that this Mr. Dampier will turn up, safe and sound, when he thinks he has sufficiently punished his poor little wife for her share in their ‘lovers’ quarrel.’”

But at this Gerald Burton shook his head. “We know nothing of this man Dampier,” he said, “but I would stake my life on Mrs. Dampier’s truthfulness.”

The Senator rose from his chair. Gerald’s attitude was generous; he would not have had him otherwise but still he felt irritated by his son’s suspicion of the Poulains.

“Well, it’s getting late, and I suppose we ought all to go to bed now, especially as they begin moving about so early in this place. As for you, my boy, I hope you’ve secured a good room outside, eh?”

Gerald Burton also got up. He smiled and shook his head.

“No, father, I haven’t found a place at all yet! The truth is I’ve been so tremendously taken up with this affair that I forgot all about having to find a room to-night.”

“Oh dear!” cried Daisy in dismay. “Won’t you find it very difficult? They say Paris is absolutely full just now. Why, a lot of people who have never let before are letting out rooms just now—so Madame Poulain says.”

“Don’t worry about me. I shall be all right,” said Gerald quickly. “I suppose my things have been moved into your room, father?”

Daisy nodded. “Yes, I saw to all that. In fact I did more—” she smiled; the brother and sister were very fond of one another. “I packed your bag for you, Ger.”

“Thanks,” he said. And then going quickly round the table, he bent down and kissed her. “I’ll be in early to-morrow morning,” he said, nodding to his father.

Then he went out.

Daisy Burton felt surprised. Gerald was the best of brothers, but he didn’t often kiss her good-night. There had been a strange touch of excitement, of emotion, in his manner to-night. It was natural that she herself should be moved by Nancy Dampier’s distress. But Gerald? Gerald, who was generally speaking rather nonchalant, and very, very critical of women?

“Gerald’s tremendously excited about this thing,” said Daisy thoughtfully. She was two years younger in years than her brother, but older, as young women are apt to be older, in all that counts in civilised life. “I’ve never seen him quite so—so keen about anything before.”

“I hope he will have got a comfortable room,” said the Senator a little crossly. Then fondly he turned and took his daughter’s hand. “Sleep well, my darling,” he said. “You two have been very kind to that poor little soul. And I love you both for it. Whatever happens, kindness is never lost.”

“Why, what d’you mean, father?” she looked down at him troubled, rather disturbed by his words.

“Well, Daisy, the truth is,”—he hesitated—“I can’t make out whether this Mrs. Dampier is all she seems to be. And I want to prepare you for a possible disappointment, my dear. When I was a young man I once took a great fancy to someone who—well, who disappointed me cruelly—” he was speaking very gravely. “It just spoilt my ideal for a time—I mean my ideal of human nature. Now I don’t want anything of that kind to happen to you or to our boy in connection with this—this young lady.”

“But, father? You know French people aren’t as particular about telling the truth as are English people. I can’t understand why you believe the Poulains’ story—”

“My dear, I don’t know what to believe,” he said thoughtfully.

She was twenty-four years old, this grey-eyed, honest, straightforward girl of his; and yet Senator Burton, much as he loved her, knew very little as to her knowledge of life. Did Daisy know anything of the ugly side of human nature? Did she know, for instance, that there are men and women, especially women, who spend their lives preying on the honest, the chivalrous, and the kind?

“The mystery is sure to be cleared up very soon,” he said aloud. “If what our new friend says is true there must be as many people in England who know her to be what she says she is, as there are people in Paris who evidently know all about the artist, John Dampier.”

“Yes, that’s true. But father?”

“Yes, my dear.”

“I am quite sure Mrs. Dampier is telling the truth.”

Somehow the fact that Daisy was anxious to say that she disagreed with him stung the Senator.

“Then what do you think of the Poulains?” he asked quietly—“the Poulains, whom you have known, my dear, ever since you were fifteen—on whose honesty and probity I personally would stake a good deal. What do you think about them?”

Daisy began to look very troubled. “I don’t know what to think,” she faltered. “The truth is, father, I haven’t thought very much of the Poulains in the matter. You see, Madame Poulain has not spoken to me about it at all. But you see that Gerald believes them to be lying.”

“Gerald,” said the Senator rather sharply, “is still only a boy in many things, Daisy. And boys are apt, as you and I know, to take sides, to feel very positive about things. But you and I, my darling—well, we must try to be judicial—we must try to keep our heads, eh?”

“Yes, father, yes—we must, indeed”; but even as she said the words she did not quite know what her father meant by “judicial.”

And Gerald Burton? For a while, perhaps for an hour, holding his heavy bag in his hand, he wandered about from hostelry to hostelry, only to be told everywhere that there was no room.

Then, taking a sudden resolution, he went into a respectable little café which was still open, and where he and his father, in days gone by, had sometimes strolled in together when Daisy was going about with friends in Paris. There he asked permission to leave his bag. Even had he found a room, he could not have slept—so he assured himself. He was too excited, his brain was working too quickly.

Talking busily, anxiously, argumentatively to himself as he went, he made his way to the river—to the broad, tree-lined quays which to your true lover of Paris contain the most enchanting and characteristic vistas of the city.

Once there, his footsteps became slower. He thrust his hands into his pockets and walked along, with eyes bent on the ground.

What manner of man could John Dampier be to leave his young wife—such a beautiful, trusting, confiding creature as was evidently this poor girl—in this cruel uncertainty? Was it conceivable that the man lived who could behave to this Mrs. Dampier with the unkindness Gerald’s father had suggested—and that as the outcome of a trifling quarrel? No! Gerald Burton’s generous nature revolted from such a notion.

And yet—and yet his father thought it quite possible! To Gerald his father’s views and his father’s attitude to life meant a great deal more than he was wont to allow, either to that same kind indulgent father or to himself; and now he had to admit that the Senator did believe that what seemed so revolting to him, Gerald, was the most probable explanation of the mystery.

The young man had stayed quite a while at the studio, listening to Mère Bideau’s garrulous confidences. Now and again he had asked her a question, forced thereto by some obscure but none the less intense desire to know what Nancy Dampier’s husband was like. And the old woman had acknowledged, in answer to a word from him, that her master was not a good-tempered man.

“Monsieur” could be very cross, very disagreeable sometimes. But bah! were not all gentlemen like that?—so Mère Bideau had added with an easy laugh.

On the whole, however—so much must be admitted—she had given Dampier a very good character. If quick-tempered, he was generous, considerate, and, above all, hard-working. But—but Mère Bideau had been very much surprised to hear “Monsieur” was going to be married—and to an Englishwoman, too! She, Mère Bideau, had always supposed he preferred Frenchwomen; in fact, he had told her so time and again. But bah! again; what won’t a pretty face do with a man? So Mère Bideau had exclaimed ‘twixt smile and sigh.

Gerald Burton began walking more quickly, this time towards the west, along the quay which leads to the Chamber of Deputies.

The wide thoroughfare was deserted save for an occasional straggler making his weary way home after a day spent in ministering to the wants and the pleasures of the strangers who now crowded the city….

How wise he, Gerald Burton, was now showing himself to be in thus spending the short summer night out-of-doors, à la belle étoile, as the French so charmingly put it, instead of in some stuffy, perhaps not overclean, little room!

But soon his mind swung back to the strange events of the past day!

Already Nancy Dampier’s personality held a strange, beckoning fascination for the young American. He hadn’t met many English girls, for his father far preferred France to England, and it was to France they sped whenever they had time to do so. And Gerald Burton hadn’t cared very much for the few English girls he had met. But Nancy was very, very different from the only two kinds of her fellow countrywomen with whom he had ever been acquainted—the kind, that is, who is closely chaperoned by vigilant mother or friend, and the kind who spends her life wandering about the world by herself.

How brave, how gentle, how—how self-controlled Mrs. Dampier had been! While it was clear that she was terribly distressed, and all the more distressed by the Poulains’ monstrous assertion that she had come alone to the Hôtel Saint Ange, yet how well she had behaved all that long day of waiting and suspense! How anxious she had been to spare the Burtons trouble.

Not for a single moment had he, Gerald Burton, felt with her as he so often felt with women—awkward and self-conscious. Deep in his inmost heart he was aware that there were women and girls who thought him very good-looking; and far from pleasing him, the knowledge made him feel sometimes shy, sometimes even angry. He already ardently wished to protect, to help, to shelter Mrs. Dampier.

Daisy had been out of the room for a moment, probably packing his bag, when he had come back tired and weary from his fruitless quest, and Mrs. Dampier, if keenly disappointed that he had no news, had yet thanked him very touchingly for the trifling trouble, or so it now seemed, that he had taken for her.

“I don’t know what I should have done if it hadn’t been for your kind father, for your sister, and—and for you, Mr. Burton.”

He walked across the bridge leading to the Champs Elysées, paced round the Arc de Triomphe, and then strolled back to the deserted quays. He had no wish to go on to the Boulevards. It was Paris asleep, not Paris awake, with which Gerald Burton felt in close communion during that short summer night.

And how short is a Paris summer night! Soon after he had seen the sun rise over an eastern bend of the river, the long, low buildings which line the Seine below the quays stirred into life, and he was able to enjoy a delicious, a refreshing plunge in the great swimming-bath which is among the luxuries Paris provides for those of her sons who are early-morning toilers.

Six o’clock found Gerald Burton at the café where he had left his bag, ready for a cup of good coffee.

The woman who served him—the waiters were still asleep—told him of a room likely to be