The Primadonna Part 38

'All that doesn't help us, as you have not the diary, but I should really be curious to know what he had to say about the accident, since some of the articles hint that Mr. Van Torp made it happen.'

'My doctor and I took the liberty of confiscating the papers, and we set a very good man to work on the cypher at once. So your curiosity shall be satisfied. I said it should, didn't I? And you are not so dreadfully bored after all, are you? Do say that I'm very nice!'

'I won't!' Margaret answered with a little laugh. 'I'll only admit that I'm not bored! But wasn't it rather a high-handed proceeding to carry off Mr. Feist like that, and to seize his papers?'

'Do you call it high-handed to keep a man from cutting his throat?'

'But the letters--?'

'I really don't know. I had not time to ask a lawyer's opinion, and so I had to be satisfied with my doctor's.'

'Are you going to tell Mr. Van Torp what you've done?'

'I don't know. Why should I? You may if you like.'

Logotheti was eating a very large and excellent truffle, and after each short sentence he cut off a tiny slice and put it into his mouth. The Primadonna had already finished hers, and watched him thoughtfully.

'I'm not likely to see him,' she said. 'At least, I hope not!'

'My interest in Mr. Feist,' answered Logotheti, 'begins and ends with what concerns you. Beyond that I don't care a straw what happens to Mr. Van Torp, or to any one else. To all intents and purposes I have got the author of the stories locked up, for a man who has consented to undergo treatment for dipsomania in a private hospital, by the advice of his friends and under the care of a doctor with a great reputation, is as really in prison as if he were in gaol. Legally, he can get out, but in real fact n.o.body will lift a hand to release him, because he is shut up for his own good and for the good of the public, just as much as if he were a criminal. Feist may have friends or relations in America, and they may come and claim him; but as there seems to be n.o.body in London who cares what becomes of him, it pleases me to keep him in confinement, because I mean to prevent any further mention of your name in connection with the Van Torp scandals.'

His eyes rested on Margaret as he spoke, and lingered afterwards, with a look that did not escape her. She had seen him swayed by pa.s.sion, more than once, and almost mad for her, and she had been frightened though she had dominated him. What she saw in his face now was not that; it was more like affection, faithful and lasting, and it touched her English nature much more than any show of pa.s.sion could.

'Thank you,' she said quietly.

They did not talk much more while they finished the short dinner, but when they were going back to the drawing-room Margaret took his arm, in foreign fas.h.i.+on, which she had never done before when they were alone. Then he stood before the mantelpiece and watched her in silence as she moved about the room; for she was one of those women who always find half a dozen little things to do as soon as they get back from dinner, and go from place to place, moving a reading lamp half an inch farther from the edge of a table, shutting a book that has been left open on another, tearing up a letter that lies on the writing-desk, and slightly changing the angle at which a chair stands. It is an odd little mania, and the more people there are in the room the less the mistress of the house yields to it, and the more uncomfortable she feels at being hindered from 'tidying up the room,' as she probably calls it.

Logotheti watched Margaret with keen pleasure, as every step and little movement showed her figure in a slightly different att.i.tude and light, indiscreetly moulded in the perfection of her matchless gown.

In less than two minutes she had finished her trip round the room and was standing beside him, her elbows resting on the mantelpiece, while she moved a beautiful Tanagra a little to one side and then to the other, trying for the twentieth time how it looked the best.

'There is no denying it,' Logotheti said at last, with profound conviction. 'I do not care a straw what becomes of any living creature but you.'

She did not turn her head, and her fingers still touched the Tanagra, but he saw the rare blush spread up the cheek that was turned to him; and because she stopped moving the statuette about, and looked at it intently, he guessed that she was not colouring from annoyance at what he had said. She blushed so very seldom now, that it might mean much more than in the old days at Versailles.

'I did not think it would last so long,' she said gently, after a little while.

'What faith can one expect of a Greek!'

He laughed, too wise in woman's ways to be serious too long just then.

But she shook her head and turned to him with the smile he loved.

'I thought it was something different,' she said. 'I was mistaken. I believed you had only lost your head for a while, and would soon run after some one else. That's all.'

'And the loss is permanent. That's all!' He laughed again as he repeated her words. 'You thought it was "something different"--do you know that you are two people in one?'

She looked a little surprised.

'Indeed I do!' she answered rather sadly. 'Have you found it out?'

'Yes. You are Margaret Donne and you are Cordova. I admire Cordova immensely, I am extremely fond of Margaret, and I'm in love with both.

Oh yes! I'm quite frank about it, and it's very unlucky, for whichever one of your two selves I meet I'm just as much in love as ever!

Absurd, isn't it?'

'It's flattering, at all events.'

'If you ever took it into your handsome head to marry me--please, I'm only saying "if"--the absurdity would be rather rea.s.suring, wouldn't it? When a man is in love with two women at the same time, it really is a little unlikely that he should fall in love with a third!'

'Mr. Griggs says that marriage is a drama which only succeeds if people preserve the unities!'

'Griggs is always trying to coax the Djin back into the bottle, like the fisherman in the _Arabian Nights_,' answered Logotheti. 'He has read Kant till he believes that the greatest things in the world can be squeezed into a formula of ten words, or nailed up amongst the Categories like a dead owl over a stable door. My intelligence, such as it is, abhors definitions!'

'So do I. I never understand them.'

'Besides, you can only define what you know from past experience and can reflect upon coolly, and that is not my position, nor yours either.'

Margaret nodded, but said nothing and sat down.

'Do you want to smoke?' she asked. 'You may, if you like. I don't mind a cigarette.'

'No, thank you.'

'But I a.s.sure you I don't mind it in the least. It never hurts my throat.'

'Thanks, but I really don't want to.'

'I'm sure you do. Please--'

'Why do you insist? You know I never smoke when you are in the room.'

'I don't like to be the object of little sacrifices that make people uncomfortable.'

'I'm not uncomfortable, but if you have any big sacrifice to suggest, I promise to offer it at once.'

'Unconditionally?' Margaret smiled. 'Anything I ask?'

'Yes. Do you want my statue?'

'The Aphrodite? Would you give her to me?'

'Yes. May I telegraph to have her packed and brought here from Paris?'

He was already at the writing-table looking for a telegraph form.

Margaret watched his face, for she knew that he valued the wonderful statue far beyond all his treasures, both for its own sake and because he had nearly lost his life in carrying it off from Samos, as has been told elsewhere.

As Margaret said nothing, he began to write the message. She really had not had any idea of testing his willingness to part with the thing he valued most, at her slightest word, and was taken by surprise; but it was impossible not to be pleased when she saw that he was in earnest. In her present mood, too, it restored her sense of power, which had been rudely shaken by the att.i.tude of the public on the previous evening.

It took some minutes to compose the message.

'It's only to save time by having the box ready,' he said, as he rose with the bit of paper in his hand. 'Of course I shall see the statue packed myself and come over with it.'