The Sentimental Adventures of Jimmy Bulstrode Part 11

"Would you believe it, I haven't seen my portrait, Miss Desprey."

Dan Gregs grinned.

"Don't," he said, "don't look at it. It's what made all the trouble.

When I saw it yesterday and Laura told me it had drawn a thousand dollars--why I said 'there isn't a man living who would give you fifty cents for it.' That made her mad at first. Then she told me you thought she was a great portrait-painter, and I knew you must be sweet on her. I'm fond of her all right, but I decided that you were bound to have her and didn't care how you dealt your cards, and I thought I'd clear out."

His face fell and threatened to cloud over, but it cleared again as with the remembrance of his doubts came the actual sense of the woman whose face was hidden on his breast, and he lightly touched the dusty golden hair.

When in a few seconds Bulstrode took leave of them, Miss Desprey, in her dingy painting-dress, seemed completely swallowed up in the embrace of the big Dan Gregs. From where he stood by the door Bulstrode could see the white corner of his _fiancailles_ bouquet sticking out from the draperies of the couch. The paper was open and in the heat of the warm little _atelier_ the fresh odor of the pungent flowers came strongly on the air.

Bulstrode as he said good-by seemed to say it--and to look at the lovers--through a haze of perfume--a perfume that, like the most precious things in the world, pervades and affects, suggests and impresses, while its existence is unseen, unknown to the world.

Once in his train, he had been able to catch it at the Invalides after all, Jimmy drew a long breath and settled back into himself, for, he had been, poor dear, during the past three weeks, in another man's shoes and profiting by another man's ident.i.ty. It was perfectly heavenly to feel that he had been liberated by the merciful providence which takes care to provide the right lover for the right place. He couldn't be too grateful for the miracle which saved him from a sacrifice alongside of which Abraham's would have been a jest indeed.

The June morning was warm and through the open car window, as the train went comfortably along, the perfume of the country came into him where he sat. Opposite, a pair of lovers frankly and naturally showed their annoyance at the third person's intrusion, and Bulstrode, sympathetically turned himself about and became absorbed in Suburban Paris. His heart beat high at the fact of his deliverance. His grat.i.tude was sincere--moreover, his thoughts were of an agreeable trend, and he was able to forget everybody else within twelve miles.

Secure in his impersonality and in the indifference of his broad unseeing back, the lovers kissed and held hands.

Bulstrode wandered slowly up from the Versailles station to the Hotel des Reservoirs, crossed the broad square of the Palace Court, found the pink and yellow facade more mellow and perfect than ever, and toward twelve-thirty strolled into the yard of the old hostelry. Breakfast had been set for twelve-thirty, but his host was not there.

"Ah--mais, bon jour, Monsieur Bulstrode!" The proprietor knew and appreciated this client greatly.

Monsieur Falconer, it seemed, had been called suddenly to Paris....

Yes--well--there were, now and then, in the course of life, bits of news that could be borne with fort.i.tude. "And Madame has also been called to Paris?"

"Mais non!" Madame had a few minutes since gone out in the Park, the proprietor thought she would not be very far away.

Bulstrode thanked him, and crossed over to the hedge and the gateway and through it to the Palace Gardens. On all sides the paths stretched broad and inviting toward the various alleys, and upon the terrace to his left there shone a thousand flowers in June abundance. The gentleman chose the first path that opened, and went carelessly down it, and in a few moments the pretty ring of an embowered circle spread before him, but, although there was an inviting marble bench under a big tree at one side, and several eighteenth century marbles on their pedestals, illuminated by the bland eighteenth century smile, there was not a living woman in sight to make him, the visitor, welcome! He went a little further along and found another felicitous, harmonious circle, where a small fountain threw its jets on the June air. At the sound of the water Bulstrode remembered that the Grands Eaux were to play on this afternoon at Versailles.

"Ah, _that_ is why they especially wanted me to come out to-day," he decided.

On the other side of the fountain, the vivid white of her summer dress making a flash like moonlight on the obscurity of the woods, a lady was standing looking across at Mr. Bulstrode.

"Hus.h.!.+" she said; "come over softly, Jimmy; there is a timid third party here."

On a branch at her side, where an oriole sat, his head thrown back, his throat swelling, there was a little stir and flutter of leaves, for although the lady had put her finger to her lips, her voice broke the spell, and a bit of yellow flashed through the trees.

"I don't believe _he_ will ever forgive you!" she cried; "you spoiled his solo, but I'll forgive you. What brought you out to Versailles to-day?"

"The fountains," Bulstrode told her; "I have never seen them play.

Then, too--there are certain places to which, when I am asked to luncheon, I always go."

"That's quite true," she accepted; "you _were_ invited!--but, to be perfectly frank, I did not expect you, so your coming on this occasion has only the pleasure of a surprise. As a rule, I hate them. My husband informed me that he would telephone you to meet him in Paris, but I think he must have forgotten you, Jimmy."

She was taking him in from his fresh panama to his boots, and she apparently found an air of festivity about him.

"Was it," she asked, "in honor of the fountains' playing that you have made yourself so beautiful?"

Bulstrode took the boutonniere out of his coat lapel and handed it to her. "Can't you pin it in somewhere?" Mrs. Falconer laughed and thrust the carnation into her bodice.

"I dressed to-day, more or less," Mr. Bulstrode confessed, "in order to attend--well, what shall I call it--a betrothal? That's a good old-fas.h.i.+oned word."

"Oh!" exclaimed the lady, "a _fiancailles_?"

"Yes."

The two had wandered slowly along, out of the Bosquet towards the ca.n.a.ls.

"They make a great deal of these functions in France," Mrs. Falconer said.

Her companion agreed. "They made a great deal, rather more than usual, out of this one." And his tone was so suggestive that his companion looked up at him quickly.

"Who _are_ your mysterious lovers?" she asked, "are they French? Do I know them?"

"They are not in the least mysterious," Bulstrode a.s.sured her. "I never saw anything less complex and more simple. They are Americans."

She seemed now to understand that she was to hear of "one of Jimmy's adventures," as she called his dashes in other people's affairs.

"I hope, Jimmy, in this case, that you have pulled the affair off to your credit, and that if you have made a match the creatures will be grateful to you for once! And, by the way," she bethought; "whatever has happened to the pretty girl whom you were quixotic enough to think you had to marry?"

"The last time I saw her she appeared to be in the best of circ.u.mstances," Bulstrode answered cheerfully. "In point of fact--it was, singularly enough, to _her_ engagement party that I went to-day!"

And Mrs. Falconer now showed real interest and feeling. "No! how delightful. So she is really off your hands, Jimmy. Well, that is too good to be true. There's one at least whom you don't have to marry, Jimmy!"

"Oh, they grow beautifully less," he agreed.

Mrs. Falconer smiled softly.

"They are narrowing down every year," Jimmy went on; "when I am about sixty the number will be reduced, I dare say, to the proper quant.i.ty."

"What a goose you are," she said jestingly. "What a tease and a bother you are, Jimmy Bulstrode; _I'll_ find you a proper wife!"

He accepted warmly. "Do, do! I leave myself quite in your hands."

His companion extended him her hand as she spoke, and after lifting it to his lips, Bulstrode drew it through his arm. It was clothed in a glove of pale coffee-color suede. It was a soft, dear hand, and rested as if it were at home on Bulstrode's gray sleeve. Side by side the two friends walked slowly out toward the broader avenues leading to the ca.n.a.ls. The sky was faintly blue, touched with the edges of some drifting cloud, like dashes of foam. The trees about them lifted dark velvet ma.s.ses and the air was sweet with the scent of the woods and flowers.

"Isn't this the most beautiful garden in the world?" murmured Mrs.

Falconer. "Isn't it _too_ beautiful!"

"Very," he incorrectly and vaguely answered. And the lady went on to say how brilliant she found the place with the suggestions and memories of the past royal times, whilst Bulstrode said nothing at all, because he did not want to tell her that Versailles and the charming alleys, and France, and the great big world, from limit to limit, was full of no ghosts to him, but of just one woman.

THE THIRD ADVENTURE