Captain Macedoine's Daughter Part 9

"'You used to know a Miss Macedoine, I believe.'

"'Yes, to my cost,' he retorted, sharply. 'Miss Bailey, will you go and have your tea? Come back in an hour, say five sharp.' She stepped down and went to the back of the studio, and Mr. Kelly pulled a green curtain across behind her. 'It's very inconvenient you know,' he said, 'the first decent day I've had for weeks. I don't suppose you realize what light means to an artist.'

"'I was sent by Miss Macedoine,' I began and he interrupted me: 'Oh, she's got you, too, has she? Well, look here my friend, I don't know who you are or what particular hold she's obtained over you, but if you take my advice you'll get out while the getting's good. And I can tell you this before you go any further, she's had all the money she's going to get from me.'

"'Well,' I said, 'you needn't get excited about it. I haven't come to ask you for money.'

"'Oh, I'm not excited,' he responded, grimly. 'I'm in full possession of all my faculties. One needs them when she's round. Where is she now? In the cab waiting to hear the result of the interview?'

"'No,' I said; 'she's residing in Saloniki now.'

"'Saloniki! Snakes! She's a wonder! Why, I understood the money she had from me and some others was to start her father in an oil business in Egypt. Are _you_ in the oil business? Or are you her father?'

"'No, only a friend,' I said.

"'Oh, only a friend. Poor chap! Well, that's all I was when she--wait a bit, will you? Have a peg?' And he brought out a bottle and some gla.s.ses. While we were drinking, Miss Bailey came out in her walking costume, and looking pleasantly at each of us in turn, went out to get her tea. When the door closed, Mr. Kelly flung back the curtain and sat down on the bed, indicating an easy chair.

"'Look here,' said he, lighting a cigarette and throwing the package toward me. 'I'm not grousing you know. I tell you frankly, I was infatuated with her. I neglected my work. I spent my money. I wanted to marry her. She's that sort. Drives you mad. But she wouldn't. Nothing doing. She's like that. She makes you feel like one of these old knights. You want to protect her from the cruel world. You want to fling everything you've got at her feet, lie down and let her walk over you.

Well, take my advice and don't do it!'

"I thought it as well to interrupt him here and give him a more correct estimate of my part in the affair. He smoked his cigarette out and flung it in the fireplace.

"'Oh,' he said. 'I see. Well, all I can say is you are very lucky. But you're mistaken about me, my friend. I'm not to be bled. I'm not grousing. I don't even regret the money she cost me, though it would be very useful to me now, when I'm driven to do posters instead of my real work. I believe it does a man good to go off his head sometimes about a woman. What I feel so disgusted about is the lies she told me. That's one of her characteristics, you know. She really believes them herself at the time. She's imaginative, if you like. Spins the most circ.u.mstantial terradiddles. For instance, how do you know her story is true? Have you seen ... eh?'

"'No,' I admitted. 'I haven't.' He laughed and nursed his knee, rocking to and fro.

"'She's clever!' he said, smiling. 'Mind, you're not to be blamed at all. As far as I can gather, you have nothing to regret. But if you get to Saloniki again, give her my love, and tell her I'm too poor, too busy, and too wise to be led into a mess like that again. I can't be angry with her because I'm so grateful to her for not taking me at my word, and hanging like a mill-stone on my neck for ever. Phew! The thought of it makes me cold all over! And yet....' And he held out his hand for the cigarettes. 'Isn't she beautiful? Eh? Isn't she wonderful?

Man, I tell you I used to feel like crying sometimes, she was so lovely!

Saloniki, eh? Well, she'll go far. She has the temperament and the talent. I wish her luck.'

"'I am convinced,' I said, 'that you are taking a mistaken view of her.

For instance, I certainly gathered that she was in love with you and believes you to be....' He stood up suddenly.

"'In love with me? She may have been. I daresay she can convince herself she's in love with all of us. I told you she's imaginative. In love with me? Golly, I don't blame her. I nearly went out of my mind about her. There isn't a folly I didn't commit for--how long was it?--say six weeks. I shall never forget it. But a man in my position can't afford many of these episodes. They're too strenuous. I've got to work. If you'll excuse me, your cab is waiting and Miss Bailey will be back in a few minutes. She costs me three shillings an hour. You see,' he added, smiling, 'she's not in love with me! Love! My friend, the love those sort of women inspire never got a man anywhere. You can't escape it if it comes your way, it's true. You can only trust to the good Lord to let you off lightly. But flight is the bravest course. You have to be very rich and very strong in character if you are going in for that sort of thing. And this girl especially, because she does it by instinct. She works on you and gradually builds up in your mind an ideal woman who does duty for her. Oh, I know! She's a wonder. For instance,' and Mr.

Kelly turned to me and held his index finger against my breast, 'why does she send you to me? Is she in want of money? Is she in danger? No.

If she was, she knows I couldn't do anything for her if I would. She's doing it to impress you, to play up to the imaginary woman you've in your mind. As for this idea of sending a kid over here to be brought up an Englishman--phew! She's read something like that in a book, I'll bet.

Well, here's Miss Bailey. You must excuse me. If you're in London next month, come and see my show at the New Gallery. And Sunday nights at supper. How I envy you going to the Mediterranean. My dream ...

Good-bye.'

"Well," said Mr. Spenlove, after a moment of silent reflection, "I came out of the Kentish Studios and climbed into my cab feeling very much as though I had been skinned. That terrible young man seemed to have left me without a single illusion about myself. I have discovered since that he is recognized now as a painter of unusual power. He is making a name.

But to me he will always be the merciless a.n.a.lyst of human emotion. He had the bitterness of those who escape love. He spared neither himself, nor me, nor the girl. He almost frightened me with the accuracy of his diagnosis. As the cab sped along the Tottenham Court Road on its way back to the Strand I wondered what he would have thought of Captain Macedoine himself, that master of illusion who was always playing up to the imaginary being one had in one's mind. I suppose creative artists see through each other's tricks. An artist is one who imposes upon our legitimate aspirations.

"I paid off the cab in the Strand and walked into the hotel. Men and women in evening dress were alighting for early theatre-dinners. I sent up my name as before. I had no very clear idea what I wanted to do. Oh, of course I wanted to see her again. I had no scruples. She was more interesting, more her father's daughter, than ever, to me now. As Florian Kelly had said, she was a wonder, but she could do me no harm.

She was an artist, let us say, and as such I wished to see her at work.

Beyond that there was another feeling, a sort of fatherly affection--a silly notion of protecting her from herself. But that young devil of a painter had divined that, too, and I sat down to wait, ashamed, amused, astonished. I recalled the conversations we had had on the ship and on the cliff, the subtle implication in her voice, the pity she had inspired in me by the contemplation of her disastrous fate. I had put my arm round her, given her my address, behaved like a sentimental old fool. And all the time her brain had been working, weighing, comparing, judging chances, and leading me on. But had she done so? Oh, women are wonderful! Their emotional imperturbability defies a.n.a.lysis. They weep, confess, cajole, attack, reproach, renounce, and at the end of it all you are as baffled as ever. Their souls are like those extraordinary bronze mirrors one sees nowadays. You look and see a picture. You go off in amused annoyance, your head over your shoulder, and see another picture. And when you come back again determined to be fair and candid, you see yet another picture, or perhaps a mere shining blank, a dazzling and expensive enigma. I knew all this. I saw all this; and yet I lingered. I was unable to resist the piquant pleasure of watching the girl, of occupying the position of confidant. I understood how the obscure husband of a celebrated theatrical star must feel without experiencing his grim regret. And when the page, in his blue and silver, with his miraculously brushed hair, and his expression of almost unearthly cleanliness, carried me upward once more, I had attained the right mood again for meeting these adventures in vicarious emotion.

After all, for those of us to whom the avenues of fame, of wealth, of the domestic virtues are closed, there remains an occasional ramble in the romantic bye-ways of life. One may still meet young knights in shining armour, haughty kings and queens, and women with unfathomable eyes engaged upon mysterious quests. We can always run back to our old mother, the sea, and restore our souls upon her comfortable bosom.

"And I found myself again in that palatial apartment. There was no one there apparently. The page had closed the door and left me. I turned at the sound of a voice and saw her standing in the doorway of the next room, a figure in pale, shimmering gold, holding back a _portiere_ of heavy dark blue velvet. Holding it back for me to enter, and watching me with the old, derisive, questioning smile.

"'You have come back very quickly,' she said, going over to a lounge and patting a chair beside it.

"'Why did you send me to him?' I demanded, good-humouredly. She lay down on the lounge and turned toward me, her head on her palm.

"'What did he say?' she asked, and in her voice was that peculiar timbre of which I have already spoken, a delicate quality of tone that made one think of bells at a distance, a hint of fairy lands forlorn. I could understand how, to a young man in love with her, that exquisite modulation of tone would drive him mad.

"'He was not sympathetic,' I replied. 'He seemed to jump to the conclusion you didn't really need any a.s.sistance from him. Disclaims any responsibility, in fact.'

"'And you believed him?' she murmured.

"'He was very frank,' I answered. 'He spared neither you nor himself. He was good enough to warn me against your tricks.'

"'And you believed him?' she repeated with pa.s.sionate intensity, her eyes burning bright, her teeth closing over the full red lip. 'Men always believe another man about a woman.'

"'No, not altogether,' I protested. 'But he said you told him lies.'

"She lay there looking at me for a while without speaking and then she got up slowly, yawned with a deliberate gesture of extreme gracefulness, and shrugged her shoulders.

"'And _that's_ all it amounted to!' she remarked with a smile of disdain. 'He adored me, he said. Never, never would he forget. I was the only girl he ever really loved! He wanted me to marry him and live in that--that place you saw. And when I told him what my mother was, he nearly went mad, and wanted to kill me and commit suicide. Did he tell you that?'

"'No,' I admitted. 'He didn't become quite so confidential as that. But he accused you of faithlessness.'

"'Me! How could I be faithful to a lunatic? I had to run away from him.

He wasn't safe....'

"'And what do you want me to do now?' I enquired. 'You must know, my dear, that I can't stay away from the ship. We sail in a week.'

"'Oh,' she said, coming up to me and putting her hands on my shoulders so that the warm perfume of her body a.s.sailed me. 'To be my friend. A girl in my position, Mr. Chief, she needs to have a friend. I thought--well, I was mistaken. I thought he would have been different, a clever man like him. But they are all the same, all the same.' And her hands dropped.

"'I said I'd be your friend,' I protested, 'but you didn't seem to think me worth while.'

"'Always,' she whispered, regarding me, 'never mind what happens?'

"'Yes!' I said, putting my arm round her. 'Tell me whatever you like.

I'll always believe you,' She came close to me, and looking down she whispered in that sweet, resonant voice that made one think of distant chimes, 'For that I shall always love you.'"

CHAPTER VI

"Soft!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Spenlove, looking round into the darkness and feeling for a fresh cigarette. "You have said it. I was soft. But when you come to think of it, what else could I have been? I am confessing myself before you. What did you want me to do? Invent a tale? In which I play a n.o.ble and manly part? A red-blooded story, as they say? A story in which I rescue a virtuous maiden from a gross plutocrat and marry her, the light dying away on a close-up picture of me bending over her while she holds up a replica of Jack's angel child? Why, even Jack would not endorse a yarn like that. I have a very clear memory of him suddenly spoiling the idyllic peace of a summer afternoon in the Mediterranean by dashing his magazine down on the deck and uttering a profane objurgation against what he called 'muck.' We were sliding blissfully along a cobalt-blue floor, a floor without a ripple as far as the eye could see.

And there wasn't a woman or a baby, that we were aware of, within three or four hundred miles. Peace, perfect peace. And Jack, instead of realizing the extreme felicity of the actual moment, had been devouring a red-blooded story in which one of these dashing, daring, clean-cut merchant-captains had saved a beautiful virgin from a rascally foreigner. There was a picture of her being saved. Splendid! Specially written for people who love the sea!

"No, I am confessing myself before you. Truth can be served in many ways, and this is mine. The fortunate being whose characters consist of h.o.m.ogeneous heroism and are compact of courage seem to elude my scrutiny. And even when I meet a clever and sensible genius like Florian Kelly, I cannot honestly say I admire him unreservedly. He gets on. He succeeds. He arrives. But people who arrive with the convenient punctuality of a railway timetable do not interest me. They lack the weaknesses which make men fascinating to my amateur fancy.

"And so I am prepared to admit that she did what, in a previous moment of softness, I had asked her to do. She used me. She used me to feed her craving for influence over men, her inherited and insatiable desire for building up romantic and glamorous memories. Florian Kelly regarded her efforts with admiring exasperation, regretting their interference with his own designs upon our susceptibilities. Mrs. Evans had made a commotion like a bird defending her nest. Young Siddons had been bowled over, as he phrased it, and offered her something of no real value to an artist--a tender and inexperienced loyalty. Such women are episodic.

Their lives are a string of jewels of varying value connected by a thread of no value at all. And I confess that to me the shame of being used by her was not apparent. She, the leading lady, selected me for a slightly higher role than that of a super in the play, and I found the position singularly agreeable. I was afflicted at the time with no rash desire to supplant the princ.i.p.al protagonists. It was a piquant and persuasive proof of the infinite variety of human relationships that she could bring me to meet the wealthy and powerful individual over whom she had cast the spell of her radiant personality. I mean the gross and licentious plutocrat of the red-blooded story. He came in as I was standing, hat in hand, ready to go, and he heard me described as 'an old friend, who knew her father years ago.' Which was true, though I was not sure Captain Macedoine would have endorsed the statement. Mr. Kinaitsky came forward with his hat on, removed it and one of his gloves, and shook hands with a courtly gesture. He looked older than his photograph.

The fine gray hair fluffed out over the ears, the bushy brows shading voluptuous eyes, the swarthy cheeks and flexible lips gave him the air of a prosperous impresario. He brought in with him, however, an atmosphere of affairs. He nodded politely to the girl's explanation, patted her gently on the shoulder, and pa.s.sed on to his room. Returning for a cigarette, and offering me the box, he remarked that he hoped I would excuse him as he was dining out and had to dress at once. He had had a fatiguing day in the city. Did I know London? A fine day. Would I excuse him once more? Turning to the girl, who was sitting on the arm of a chair, he took her chin in his hand and favoured her with a swift, masculine, appraising glance. She gave him one of her delicious, derisive smiles and whispered something, her eyes flickering toward me for an instant. He patted her cheek and turned away, remarking, 'Of course if she wished.' He would not be in till late. 'Amuse yourself, _ma chere_,' he added, and bowing slightly to me, went away to his bath.