Miranda of the Balcony Part 17

"A woman very often has friends," he hinted.

He saw her face grow rosy and then pale.

"Yes, but I have lost the glove," she cried impulsively, and as she turned towards the perplexed M. Fournier, the blood rushed back into her cheeks. "I mean," she stammered, and broke off suddenly into a question which was at once an accusation and a challenge.

"And men, have they no friends?"

Fournier did not affect to misunderstand her.

"Here and there, perhaps a man has one friend who will deliberately risk much, even life, for him, but in those cases he has only one such friend. Warriner has one, but alas! that one friend is myself.

Already, it is true, I have risked my life for him at the Scillies, and I would gladly lose it for him now, if I could only lose it without foreknowledge. But what can I do? A little fat Belgian bourgeois, of middle age, who speaks no language correctly but his own, and has only a few poor words of Arabic, a man of no strength, and, Madame, a coward,--what could I do inland in Morocco?" He made no parade of humility as he described himself; he used the simple, straightforward tone of one who advances cogent arguments. Miranda was moved by an impulse to hold out her hand to him.

"I beg your pardon," she said.

M. Fournier was encouraged to continue his plea.

"But to possess sufficient friends so that one may choose the adequate instrument,--ah, that is the privilege of women!" He added timidly, "Of women who have youth and beauty," but in a voice so low that the words hardly reached Miranda's ears, and their significance was not understood by her at all.

"I have not many friends," she returned frankly, "but I have one who would be adequate. I cannot tell whether I can bring myself to--I mean I cannot tell whether he could go; he has duties. It is asking much to ask any man to set out into Morocco on such an errand. However, I must think of it; I could at all events send for him and tell him of my husband--"

M. Fournier interposed quickly: "He knows nothing of Ralph Warriner?"

"He believes my husband dead."

"Then why should he not continue to believe your husband dead?" asked Fournier, with a sly cunning. "It is Mr. Jeremy Bentham he goes out to find,--a friend of yours--a relation perhaps--is it not so? We can keep Ralph Warriner dead for a while longer."

The little man's intention was becoming obvious.

"Why?" asked Miranda, sharply.

"It would be more prudent."

"I don't understand."

Her voice was cold and dangerous.

"A man has one friend, a woman many," explained M. Fournier; "but there are compensations for the man in that his friend will serve him for friendship's sake. But a man will not serve a woman for friendship's sake. Not if he serve her well."

M. Fournier was prepared for an outburst of indignation; he was not prepared for the expression which came over Miranda's face, and he could not understand it. She looked at him fixedly and, as it seemed, in consternation. "That is not true," she said; "it is not true.

Surely, surely it cannot be true."

M. Fournier made no answer. She turned away from him and walked along the flagged pathway, turned at the end and came slowly back. "A man will only serve a woman if he cares for her?"

M. Fournier bowed.

"And men can be made to care?"

M. Fournier smiled.

"But it needs time?"

M. Fournier shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands.

"And it needs tricks?"

M. Fournier made a pun.

"Nature, Madame, has put the tricks in your hand."

Miranda nodded her head once or twice, and made a remark which M.

Fournier was at a loss to apply. "The old question," said she, "and the old answer;" and at once an irrational anger flamed up within her, anger with M. Fournier for posing the question again, anger with herself for her perplexity, anger even against Charnock, because he did not magically appear in the garden and answer the question and dissolve her perplexity. But M. Fournier alone was in the garden with her, and the full force of her anger broke upon him. "I am to throw out my net," she cried, "and catch my friend! I am to trick him, to lie to him, and to earn with the lie the use of his life and his brains and his time and his manhood. How dare you come to me with such a thought? A coward's thought indeed!"

"The thought of a man who loves his friend," said M. Fournier, stubbornly; and he continued without any sarcasm: "Your sentiments, Madame Warriner, are most correct; they do you honour, but I love my friend."

To his surprise Miranda suddenly smiled at him, and then laughed. "I was never treated with such absolute disregard in all my life," she said. "No, don't apologise, I like you for it."

"Then you will do as I propose?" he exclaimed.

Miranda grew serious. "I cannot. If I ask my friend to go upon this errand, he must know before he goes who it is I ask him to bring back.

I must think what can be done. You will go back to Tangier; perhaps you may find Ralph there when you return. I will write to you at Tangier."

M. Fournier had plainly no opinion of her plan; but he saw that he could not dissuade her. He took the hand which she held out to him, and returned sorrowfully through the patio to the street.

CHAPTER XI

IN WHICH MIRANDA ADOPTS A NEW LINE OF CONDUCT AND THE MAJOR EXPRESSES SOME DISCONTENT

Miranda was left with two convictions, of which she was very certain.

Somehow, somewhither, help must be sent to Ralph; and if Charnock carried the help, he must know why and for whom before he went.

She stood in the patio until the outer door closed behind M. Fournier.

A local newspaper lying upon a wicker chair caught her eye, and hara.s.sed and unresolved as she was, she turned eagerly for rest to its commonplaces. She read an anecdote about an unknown politician, and a summary of Don Carlos's prospects, with extreme care and concentration; for she knew that her perplexities lay in wait for her behind the screen of the news sheet, and she was very tired.

She turned over the sheet, and in spite of herself, began to feel at a third idea. She applied herself consequently to the first paragraph which met her eye, and read it over with great speed, perhaps ten times. But the words she read were not the printed words. They were these:--

"Send me the glove, and when I come up to Ronda, it will be understood without a word why I have come. There will be no need for me to speak at all, and you will only have to tell me the particular thing that wants doing."

And the idea became distinct. She could choose her own time for telling Charnock the particular thing which wanted doing. He would ask no questions; he had indeed hit upon that device of the glove to spare her; she could send the glove, and she could tell him after he had come in answer, but at her own discretion, why she had sent it.

Therefore she had time--she had time.

She turned to her paragraph again, read it with comprehension, and from the paragraph her trouble sprang at her and caught her by the heart. For what she read was the account of the opening of the branch line to Algeciras. Charnock's work was done, then; he would be leaving Algeciras. Even at that moment her first feeling was one of approaching loneliness, so closely had the man crept into her thoughts. She took a step towards her parlour, stopped, stood for a moment irresolute, ran up the winding iron staircase to the landing half-way up the patio, and fetched a new long white kid glove from her dressing-room. She moulded it upon her hand, soiled it by a ten minutes' wearing, ripped it across the palm, and sealed it up in an envelope.

Jane Holt came into the patio while Miranda was still writing the address.

"What's that?" she asked.