The Man and the Moment Part 10

Henry tried to get her to tell him some more of the secrets of her countrywomen, but she would not be serious. She was in a merry mood, and turned the fire into the enemy's camp, making him disclose the ways of Englishmen.

"I believe you like us as a rule because we are such casual creatures!"

he said at last, "rather indifferent about _pet.i.ts soins_, and apt to seize what we desire, or take it for granted."

A sudden shadow came into her face which puzzled him, and she did not answer, but went on to talk of Brittany and the place which she had bought. Heronac--just a weird castle perched right upon a rock above a fis.h.i.+ng village, with the sea das.h.i.+ng at its base and the spray rising right to her sitting-room windows.

"I have to go across a causeway to my garden upon the main land--and when it is very rough, I get soaking wet--it is the wildest place you ever saw."

"What on earth made you select it?" Lord Fordyce asked. "You, who look like a fresh rose, to choose a grim brigand's stronghold as a residence!"

"It suited my mood on the day I first saw it--and I bought it the following week. I make up my mind in a minute as to what I want."

"You must let me motor past and look at it," he pleaded, "and when my twenty-one days of drinking this uninteresting water is up, I intend going back in my car to Paris, and from there down to see Mont St.

Michel."

"You shall not only look at it--you may even come in--if you are nice and do not bore me between now and then," and she glanced up at him slyly. "I have an old companion, Madame Imogen Aubert--who lives with me there--and she always hopes I shall one day have visitors!"

Lord Fordyce promised he would be a pure sage, and if she would put him on probation, and really take pains to sample his capabilities of not boring in a few more walks, he would come up for judgment at Heronac when it was her good pleasure to name a date.

"I shall be there toward the middle of August. After we leave here, the Princess and dear Cloudie go to Italy with her little son, the baby Torniloni: he is such a darling, nearly three years old--he is at Heronac now with his nurses."

"And you go back to Brittany alone?"

"Yes----"

"Then I shall come, too."

"If, at the end of your cure, you have not bored me!"

By this time they had got down to the Savoy gate--and there found Moravia and Mr. Cloudwater waiting for them on the balcony--clamoring for lunch.

Princess Torniloni gave a swift, keen glance at the two who had entered, but she did not express the thought which came to her.

"It is rather hard that Sabine, who does not want him and is not free to have him, should have drawn him instead of me."

That night in the restaurant there came in and joined their party one of those American men who are always to be met with in Paris or Aix or Carlsbad or Monte Carlo, at whatever in any of these places represents the Ritz Hotel, one who knew everybody and everything, a person of no particular s.e.x, but who always would make a party go with his stories and his gaiety, and help along any hostess. Cranley Beaton was this one's name. The Cloudwater party were all quite glad to welcome him and hear news of their friends. One or two decent people had arrived that afternoon also, and Moravia felt she could be quite amused and wear her pretty clothes. Sabine hated the avalanches of dinners and lunches and what not this would mean. Her sense of humor was very highly developed, and she often laughed in a fond way over her friend, who was, in her search for pleasure, still as keen as she had been in convent days.

"You do remain so young, Morri!" she told her, as they linked arms going up to bed. Their rooms were on the first floor, and they disdained the lift. "Do you remember, you used to be the mother to all of us at St.

Anne's--and now I am the mother of us two!"

"You are an old, wise-headed Sibyl--that is what you are, darling!" the Princess returned. "I wish I could ever know what has so utterly changed you from our convent days," and she sighed impatiently. "Then you were the merriest madcap, ready to tease any one and to have any lark, and for nearly these four years since we have been together again you have been another person--grave and self-possessed. What are you always thinking of, Sabine?"

They had reached their sitting-room, and Mrs. Howard went to the window and opened it wide.

"I grew up in one year, Moravia--I grew a hundred years old, and all the studies which I indulge in at Heronac teach me that peace and poise are the things to aim at. I cannot tell you any more."

"I did not mean to probe into your secrets, darling," the Princess exclaimed hastily. "I promised you I never would when you came to me that November in Rome--we were both miserable enough, goodness knows! We made the bargain that there should be no retrospects. And your angelic goodness to me all that time when my little Girolamo was born, have made me your eternal debtor. Why, but for you, darling, he might have been s.n.a.t.c.hed from me by the hateful Torniloni family!"

"The sweet cherub!"

Then their conversation turned to this absorbing topic, the perfections of Girolamo! and as it is hardly one which could interest you or me, my friend, let us go back to the smoking-room and listen to a conversation going on between Cranley Beaton and Lord Fordyce. The latter, with great skill, had begun to elicit certain information he desired from this society register!

"Yes, indeed," Mr. Beaton was saying. "She is a peach--The husband"--and he looked extremely wise. "Oh! she made some frightful mesalliance out West, and they say he's shut in a madhouse or home for inebriates. Her entrance among us dates from when she first appeared in Paris, about three years ago, with Princess Torniloni. She is awfully rich and awfully good, and it is a real pity she does not divorce the ruffian and begin again!"

"She is not free, then?" and Lord Fordyce felt his heart sink. "I thought, probably, she had got rid of any enc.u.mbrance, as it is fairly easy over with you."

"Why, she could in a moment if she wanted to, I expect," Mr. Beaton a.s.sured his listener. "She hasn't fancied anyone else yet; when she does, she will, no doubt."

"Her husband is an American, then?"

"Why, of course--didn't I tell you she came from the West? Why, I remember crossing with her. She was in deep mourning--in the summer of 1908. She never spoke to anyone on board, and it was about eighteen months after that I was presented to her in Paris. She gets prettier every day."

Lord Fordyce felt this was true.

"So she could be free if she fancied anyone, you think?" he hazarded casually, as though his interest in the subject had waned--and when Mr.

Beaton had answered, "Yes--rather," Lord Fordyce got up and sauntered off toward bed.

"One has to be up so early in the morning, here," he remarked agreeably.

"See you to-morrow at the Schlossbrunn?--Good-night!"

CHAPTER VII

After this, for several days Mrs. Howard made it rather difficult for Lord Fordyce to speak to her alone, although he saw her every day, and at every meal, and each hour grew more enamored. She, for her part, was certainly growing to like him. He soothed her; his intelligence was highly trained, and he was courteous and gentle and sympathetic--but for some reason which she could not explain, she had no wish to precipitate matters. Her mind was quite without any definite desire or determination, but, being a woman, she was perfectly aware that Henry was falling in love with her. A number of other men had done so before, and had then at once begun to be uninteresting in her eyes. It was as if she were numb to the attraction of men--but this one had qualities which appealed to her. Her own countrymen were never cultivated enough in literature, and were too absorbed in stocks and shares to be able to take flights of sentiment and imagination with her. Lord Fordyce understood in a second--and they could discuss any subject with a refined subtlety which enchanted her.

Henry had not spent his life maneuvring love affairs with women, and was not very clever at manipulating circ.u.mstance. He fretted and fumed at not getting his desired tete-a-tete, but with all the will was too hedged in by conventionality and a sense of politeness to force matters, as his friend, Michael Arranstoun, would have done with high-handed unconcern. Thus, his cure at Carlsbad was drawing to a close before he again spent an afternoon quite alone with Sabine Howard. They had gone to the Aberg to tea, and the Princess had expressed herself too tired to walk back, and had got into the waiting carriage, making Cranley Beaton accompany her. She was not in a perfectly amiable temper. Lord Fordyce attracted her strongly, and it was plain to be seen he had only eyes for Sabine--who cared for him not at all. The Princess found Cranley Beaton absolutely tiresome--no better than the _New York Herald_, she thought pettishly, or the _Continental Daily Mail_--to be with! The waters were getting on her nerves, too; she would be glad to leave and go to Sorrento with that Cupid among infants, Girolamo. Sabine had better divorce her horror of a husband, and marry the man and have done with it!

Now the walk from the Aberg down through the woods is a peculiarly delightful one and, even in the season at Carlsbad, not over-crowded by people. Henry Fordyce felt duly elated at the prospect, and Mrs. Howard had an air of pensive mischief in her violet eyes. Lord Fordyce, who had been accustomed for years to making speeches for his party, and was known as a ready orator, found himself rather silent, and even a little nervous, for the first hundred yards or so. She looked so bewitching, he thought, in her fresh white linen, showing up the round peachiness of her young cheeks, and those curling, childish, brown lashes making their shadow. He was overcome with a desire to kiss her. She was so supremely healthy and delectable. He felt he had been altogether a fool in his estimate of the serious necessities of life hitherto. Woman was now one of them--and this woman supremely so. Why, if she could be freed from bonds, should she not become his wife? But he felt it might be wiser not to be too precipitate about suggesting the thing to her. She had certainly given him no indication that she would receive the idea favorably, and appeared to be of the type of character which could not be coerced. He felt very glad Michael Arranstoun had not responded to his pressing request to join him. It would be far better that that irritatingly attractive specimen of manhood should not step upon the scene, until he himself had some definite hope of affairs being satisfactorily settled.

They began their talk upon the lightest subjects, and gradually drifted into one of the discussions of emotions in the abstract which are so fascinating--and so dangerous--and which require skill to direct and continue.

Mrs. Howard held that pleasure could alone come from harmony of body and spirit, while Lord Fordyce maintained that wild discords could also produce it, and that it could not be defined as governed by any law.

"One is sometimes full of pleasure even against one's will," he said.

"Every spiritual principle and conviction may be outraged, and yet for some unaccountable reason pleasure remains."

Mrs. Howard opened her eyes wide as if at a sudden thought.

"Yes," she said. "I wish it were not true what you say, but it is--and it is a great injustice."

"What makes you say that?" Henry asked, quickly. "You were thinking of some particular thing. Do tell me."

"I was thinking how some people can sin and err in every way, and yet there is something about them which causes them to be forgiven, and which even causes pleasure while they are sinning; and there are others who might do the same things and would be anathematised at once--and no joy felt with them at any time. Moravia and I call it having 'it'--some people have it, and some people have not got it, and that is the end of the matter!"

"It is a strange thing, but I know what you mean. I know one particular case of it in a friend of mine. No matter what he does, one always forgives him. It does not depend upon looks, either--although this actual person is abominably good-looking--it does not depend upon intelligence or character or--anything--as you say, it is just 'it.' Now you have it, and the Princess, perfectly charming though she is, has not."