Simon the Jester Part 14

"But I tell you I've lost sight of him altogether."

"Are you quite so sure," I asked, regaining my sanity by degrees, "that Captain Vauvenarde has lost sight of you?"

She turned quickly. "What do you mean?"

"You have given him no chance as yet of recovering his freedom."

She pa.s.sed her hand over her face, and sat down on the sofa. "Do you mean--divorce?"

"It's an ugly word, dear Madame Brandt," said I, as gently as I could, "but you and I are strong people and needn't fear uttering it. Don't you think such a scandal would ruin Dale at the very beginning of his career?"

There was a short silence. I was glad to see she was feminine enough to twist and tear her handkerchief.

"What am I to do?" she asked at last. "I can't live this awful lonely life much longer. Sometimes I get the creeps."

I might have given her the sound advice to find healthy occupation in training crocodiles to sit up and beg; but an idea which advanced thinkers might cla.s.sify as more suburban was beginning to take shape in my mind.

"Has it occurred to you," I said, "that now you have a.s.sumed the qualifications imposed by Captain Vauvenarde for bearing his name?"

"I don't understand."

"You no longer perform in public. He would have no possible grievance against you."

"Are you suggesting that I should go back to my husband?" she gasped.

"I am," said I, feeling mighty diplomatic.

She looked straight in front of her, with parted lips, fingering her handkerchief and evidently pondering the entirely new suggestion. I thought it best to let her ponder. As a general rule, people will do anything in the world rather than think; so, when one sees a human being wrapped in thought, one ought to regard wilful disturbance of the process as sacrilege. I lit a cigarette and wandered about the room.

Eventually I came to a standstill before the Venus of Milo. But while I was admiring its calm, mysterious beauty, the development of a former idea took the shape of an inspiration which made my heart sing. Fate had put into my hands the chance of complete eumoiriety.

If I could effect a reconciliation between Lola Brandt and her husband, Dale would be cured almost automatically of his infatuation, and I should be the Deputy Providence bringing happiness to six human beings--Lola Brandt, Captain Vauvenarde, Lady Kynnersley, Maisie Ellerton, Dale, and Mr. Anastasius Papadopoulos, who could not fail to be delighted at the happiness of his G.o.ddess.

There also might burst joyously on the earth a brood of gleeful little Vauvenardes and merry little Kynnersleys, who might regard Simon de Gex as their mythical progenitor. It might add to the gaiety of regiments and the edification of parliaments. Acts should be judged, thought I, not according to their trivial essence, but by the light of their far-reaching consequences.

Lola Brandt broke the silence. She did not look at me. She said:

"I can't help feeling that you're my friend."

"I am," I cried, in the exultation of my promotion to the role of Deputy Providence. "I am indeed. And a most devoted one."

"Will you let me think over what you've said for a day or two--and then come for an answer?"

"Willingly," said I.

"And you won't----?"

"What?"

"No. I know you won't."

"Tell Dale?" I said, guessing. "No, of course not."

She rose and put out both her hands to me in a very n.o.ble gesture. I took them and kissed one of them.

She looked at me with parted lips.

"You are the best man I have ever met," she said.

At the moment of her saying it I believed it; such conviction is induced by the utterances of this singular woman. But when I got outside the drawing-room door my natural modesty revolted. I slapped my thigh impatiently with what I thought were my gloves. They made so little sound that I found there was only one. I had left the other inside. I entered and found Lola Brandt in front of the fire holding my glove in her hand. She started in some confusion.

"Is this yours?" she asked.

Now whose could it have been but mine? The ridiculous question worried me, off and on, all the evening.

CHAPTER VII

The murder is out. A paragraph has appeared in the newspapers to the effect that the marriage arranged between Mr. Simon de Gex and Miss Eleanor Faversham will not take place. It has also become common knowledge that I am resigning my seat in Parliament on account of ill-health. That is the reason rightly a.s.signed by my acquaintances for the rupture of my engagement. I am being rapidly killed by the doleful kindness of my friends. They are so dismally sympathetic. Everywhere I go there are long faces and solemn hand-shakes. In order to cheer myself I gave a little dinner-party at the club, and the function might have been a depressed wake with my corpse in a coffin on the table. My sisters, dear, kind souls, follow me with anxious eyes as if I were one of their children sickening for chicken-pox. They upbraid me for leaving them in ignorance, and in hushed voices inquire as to my symptoms. They both came this morning to the Albany to see what they could do for me.

I don't see what they can do, save help Rogers put studs in my s.h.i.+rts.

They expressed such affectionate concern that at last I cried out:

"My dear girls, if you don't smile, I'll sit upon the hearthrug and howl like a dog."

Then they exchanged glances and broke into hectic gaiety, dear things, under the impression that they were brightening me up. I am being deluged with letters. I had no idea I was such a popular person. They come from high placed and lowly, from const.i.tuents whom my base and servile flattery have turned into friends, from Members of Parliament, from warm-hearted dowagers and from little girls who have inveigled me out to lunch for the purpose of confiding to me their love affairs. I could set up as a general pract.i.tioner of medicine on the advice that is given me. I am recommended cod-liver oil, lung tonic, electric ma.s.sage, abdominal belts, warm water, mud baths, Sandow's treatment, and every patent medicament save rat poison. I am urged to go to health resorts ranging geographically from the top of the Jungfrau to Central Africa.

All kinds of worthy persons have offered to nurse me. Old General Wynans writes me a four-page letter to a.s.sure me that I have only to go to his friend Dr. Eustace Adams, of Wimpole Street, to be cured like a shot. I happen to know that Eustace Adams is an eminent gynecologist.

And the worst of it all is that these effusions written in the milk of human kindness have to be answered. Dale is not here. I have to sit down at my desk and toil like a galley slave. I am being worn to a shadow.

Lola Brandt, too, has heard the news, Dale in Berlin, and the London newspapers being her informants. Tears stood in her eyes when I called to learn her decision. Why had I not told her I was so ill? Why had I let her worry me with her silly troubles? Why had I not consulted her friend, Sir Joshua Oldfield? She filled up my chair with cus.h.i.+ons (which, like most men, I find stuffy and comfortless), and if I had given her the slightest encouragement, would have stuck my feet in hot mustard and water. Why had I come out on such a dreadful day? It was indeed a detestable day of raw fog. She pulled the curtains close, and, insisting upon my remaining among my cus.h.i.+ons, piled the grate with coal half-way up the chimney. Would I like some eucalyptus?

"My dear Madame Brandt," I cried, "my bronchial tubes and lungs are as strong as a hippopotamus's."

I wish every one would not conclude that I was going off in a rapid decline.

Lola Brandt prowled about me in a wistful, mothering way, showing me a fresh side of her nature. She is as domesticated as Penelope.

"You're fond of cooking, aren't you?" I asked suddenly.

She laughed. "I adore it. How do you know?"

"I guessed," said I.

"I'm what the French call a _vraie bourgeoise_."

"I'm glad to hear it," said I.

"Are you? I thought your cla.s.s hated the _bourgeoisie_."