The Custom of the Country Part 50

Undine's heart was beating excitedly. She knew the old Marquise was taking her afternoon nap in her room, yet each sound in the silent house seemed to be that of her heels on the stairs.

"Ah--" said the visitor.

He had begun to pace slowly down the gallery, keeping his face to the tapestries, like an actor playing to the footlights.

"AH--" he said again.

To ease the tension of her nerves Undine began: "They were given by Louis the Fifteenth to the Marquis de Ch.e.l.les who--"

"Their history has been published," the visitor briefly interposed; and she coloured at her blunder.

The swarthy stranger, fitting a pair of eye-gla.s.ses to a nose that was like an instrument of precision, had begun a closer and more detailed inspection of the tapestries. He seemed totally unmindful of her presence, and his air of lofty indifference was beginning to make her wish she had not sent for him. His manner in Paris had been so different!

Suddenly he turned and took off the gla.s.ses, which sprang back into a fold of his clothing like retracted feelers.

"Yes." He stood and looked at her without seeing her. "Very well. I have brought down a gentleman."

"A gentleman--?"

"The greatest American collector--he buys only the best. He will not be long in Paris, and it was his only chance of coming down."

Undine drew herself up. "I don't understand--I never said the tapestries were for sale."

"Precisely. But this gentleman buys only this that are not for sale."

It sounded dazzling and she wavered. "I don't know--you were only to put a price on them--"

"Let me see him look at them first; then I'll put a price on them," he chuckled; and without waiting for her answer he went to the door and opened it. The gesture revealed the fur-coated back of a gentleman who stood at the opposite end of the hall examining the bust of a seventeenth century field-marshal.

The dealer addressed the back respectfully. "Mr. Moffatt!"

Moffatt, who appeared to be interested in the bust, glanced over his shoulder without moving. "See here--"

His glance took in Undine, widened to astonishment and pa.s.sed into apostrophe. "Well, if this ain't the d.a.m.nedest--!" He came forward and took her by both hands. "Why, what on earth are you doing down here?"

She laughed and blushed, in a tremor at the odd turn of the adventure.

"I live here. Didn't you know?"

"Not a word--never thought of asking the party's name." He turned jovially to the bowing dealer. "Say--I told you those tapestries'd have to be out and outers to make up for the trip; but now I see I was mistaken."

Undine looked at him curiously. His physical appearance was unchanged: he was as compact and ruddy as ever, with the same astute eyes under the same guileless brow; but his self-confidence had become less aggressive, and she had never seen him so gallantly at ease.

"I didn't know you'd become a great collector."

"The greatest! Didn't he tell you so? I thought that was why I was allowed to come."

She hesitated. "Of course, you know, the tapestries are not for sale--"

"That so? I thought that was only his dodge to get me down. Well, I'm glad they ain't: it'll give us more time to talk."

Watch in hand, the dealer intervened. "If, nevertheless, you would first take a glance. Our train--"

"It ain't mine!" Moffatt interrupted; "at least not if there's a later one."

Undine's presence of mind had returned. "Of course there is," she said gaily. She led the way back into the gallery, half hoping the dealer would allege a pressing reason for departure. She was excited and amused at Moffatt's unexpected appearance, but humiliated that he should suspect her of being in financial straits. She never wanted to see Moffatt except when she was happy and triumphant.

The dealer had followed the other two into the gallery, and there was a moment's pause while they all stood silently before the tapestries. "By George!" Moffatt finally brought out.

"They're historical, you know: the King gave them to Raymond's great-great-grandfather. The other day when I was in Paris," Undine hurried on, "I asked Mr. Fleischhauer to come down some time and tell us what they're worth ... and he seems to have misunderstood ... to have thought we meant to sell them." She addressed herself more pointedly to the dealer. "I'm sorry you've had the trip for nothing."

Mr. Fleischhauer inclined himself eloquently. "It is not nothing to have seen such beauty."

Moffatt gave him a humorous look. "I'd hate to see Mr. Fleischhauer miss his train--"

"I shall not miss it: I miss nothing," said Mr. Fleischhauer. He bowed to Undine and backed toward the door.

"See here," Moffatt called to him as he reached the threshold, "you let the motor take you to the station, and charge up this trip to me."

When the door closed he turned to Undine with a laugh. "Well, this beats the band. I thought of course you were living up in Paris."

Again she felt a twinge of embarra.s.sment. "Oh, French people--I mean my husband's kind--always spend a part of the year on their estates."

"But not this part, do they? Why, everything's humming up there now.

I was dining at the Nouveau Luxe last night with the Driscolls and Shallums and Mrs. Rolliver, and all your old crowd were there whooping things up."

The Driscolls and Shallums and Mrs. Rolliver! How carelessly he reeled off their names! One could see from his tone that he was one of them and wanted her to know it. And nothing could have given her a completer sense of his achievement--of the number of millions he must be worth.

It must have come about very recently, yet he was already at ease in his new honours--he had the metropolitan tone. While she examined him with these thoughts in her mind she was aware of his giving her as close a scrutiny. "But I suppose you've got your own crowd now," he continued; "you always WERE a lap ahead of me." He sent his glance down the lordly length of the room. "It's sorter funny to see you in this kind of place; but you look it--you always DO look it!"

She laughed. "So do you--I was just thinking it!" Their eyes met. "I suppose you must be awfully rich."

He laughed too, holding her eyes. "Oh, out of sight! The Consolidation set me on my feet. I own pretty near the whole of Apex. I came down to buy these tapestries for my private car."

The familiar accent of hyperbole exhilarated her. "I don't suppose I could stop you if you really wanted them!"

"n.o.body can stop me now if I want anything."

They were looking at each other with challenge and complicity in their eyes. His voice, his look, all the loud confident vigorous things he embodied and expressed, set her blood beating with curiosity. "I didn't know you and Rolliver were friends," she said.

"Oh JIM--" his accent verged on the protective. "Old Jim's all right.

He's in Congress now. I've got to have somebody up in Was.h.i.+ngton." He had thrust his hands in his pockets, and with his head thrown back and his lips shaped to the familiar noiseless whistle, was looking slowly and discerningly about him.

Presently his eyes reverted to her face. "So this is what I helped you to get," he said. "I've always meant to run over some day and take a look. What is it they call you--a Marquise?"

She paled a little, and then flushed again. "What made you do it?" she broke out abruptly. "I've often wondered."

He laughed. "What--lend you a hand? Why, my business instinct, I suppose. I saw you were in a tight place that time I ran across you in Paris--and I hadn't any grudge against you. Fact is, I've never had the time to nurse old scores, and if you neglect 'em they die off like gold-fish." He was still composedly regarding her. "It's funny to think of your having settled down to this kind of life; I hope you've got what you wanted. This is a great place you live in."

"Yes; but I see a little too much of it. We live here most of the year."

She had meant to give him the illusion of success, but some underlying community of instinct drew the confession from her lips.