Swirling Waters Part 14

When he came face to face with her, perhaps it would be best to give a cold bow of formal recognition--the kind of bow that says "Good morning.

I'm busy. You're not wanted."

And yet, there was news for him in her possession of which he ought to be informed. It was only fair to the man who had defended her at considerable personal risk that she should do him this small service in return. In her pocket was a cutting of an advertis.e.m.e.nt in a Parisian paper, several days old, asking for the whereabouts of John Riviere.

Very possibly he had not seen it himself. It was only fair to let him know of it. The st.i.tches in his forehead, which she had noted as she hurried past--these called mutely for the small service in return.

Elaine decided to wait until he recognized her, to give him the advertis.e.m.e.nt, and then to conclude their acquaintanceship with a few formal words of which the meaning would be unmistakable. Accordingly she set her campstool not far away from him, and began her sketching in a vigorous, characteristic fashion.

It was an hour or more before her intuition warned her that Riviere was approaching from behind. As he pa.s.sed, she raised her eyes quite naturally as though to look at the subject she was finishing. Their eyes met. Riviere raised his hat politely but without any special significance. His att.i.tude conveyed no desire to renew their acquaintance. He did not stop to exchange a few words, as she expected.

Elaine was hurt. She felt that he should at least have given her the opportunity to refuse acquaintanceship. And a sudden resolve fired up within her to humble this man of ice--to melt him, and bring him to her feet, and then to dismiss him.

"Mr Riviere," she called.

He stopped, and answered with a formal "Good morning."

"I have something for you--some news."

"Yes?"

"Do you know that your friends are getting anxious about you?"

Riviere's attention concentrated. "Which friends?" he asked.

"I don't know which friends. But there's an advertis.e.m.e.nt in a Paris paper asking for your whereabouts."

"Thank you for letting me know. What does it say?"

She produced the cutting and handed it to him. He studied it in silence.

There was no hint in its wording as to who was making inquiry--the advertis.e.m.e.nt merely asked for replies to be sent to a box number care of the journal. It struck Riviere that it must have been inserted by Olive.

"Thank you," he said. "I hadn't seen it before."

"I'm going to ask something in return," said Elaine, and smiled at him frankly. "I want to know why you're running away from your Monte Carlo friends."

Most women of Riviere's world would have cloaked their curiosity under some conventional, indirect form of question. Her frank directness struck him as refreshing, and he answered readily: "The lady you saw in the Cote d'Azur Rapide was my sister-in-law, Mrs Matheson. Mrs Clifford Matheson."

"The wife of that man!" she interrupted. There was anger and contempt in her voice.

"You know him?"

"My father lost the last remains of his money in one of that man's companies. It hastened his death."

"Which company?"

"The Saskatchewan Land Development Co. My father bought during the early boom in the shares."

Riviere remembered that he himself had cleared 50,000 over the flotation, and the remembrance jarred on him. The company was a moderately successful one, but in its early days the shares had been "rigged" to an unreal figure. Still, he felt compelled, almost against his will, to defend his past action.

"Did he buy for investment or merely for speculation?" asked Riviere.

"I know very little about such matters."

"As an investment, it would to-day be paying a moderate dividend."

"My father had to sell again at a big loss."

"It sounds very like speculation."

"Possibly."

"I'm very sorry to hear of the loss; but a man who speculates in the stock market must look out for himself. It's a risky game for the outsider to play."

Elaine silently recognized the truth of his words. Then it came to her suddenly that Riviere had, a few moments ago, used the word "sister-in-law," and she said: "I was forgetting that Mr Matheson must be a relative of yours."

"My half-brother."

She looked at him with a searching frankness that was in its way a tacit compliment. He was radically different to the mental picture she had formed of the financier.

He continued: "The lady you saw in the train was my sister-in-law. As you already know, she expects me to join her at Monte Carlo. I don't want to be drawn into that kind of life. I want to remain quiet. I have important work to do."

"Scientific work, isn't it?"

"Yes. And there's a big stretch of it in front of me. That's why I'm not travelling on to Monte Carlo. You understand my position now, Miss Verney?"

"Quite."

"I'm right in calling you _Miss_ Verney?"

"Yes." Then she added: "And you're wondering why an unmarried woman should be wandering alone amongst the by-ways of France?"

"I can see that you also have work to do."

Riviere looked towards her almost finished sketch of the Roman baths.

She removed it and pa.s.sed him the rest of the book. He found the book filled with curiously formal sketches and paintings of scenery--woodland glades, open heaths, temples, arenas, and so on. These sketches caught boldly at the high-lights of what they pictured, and ignored detail. The colouring was also very noticeably simplified--"impressionistic" would better express it.

"They look like stage scenes," he commented.

"They are. Sketches for stage scenes. I'm a scene painter. Just now I'm gathering material for the staging of a Roman drama with a setting in Roman Provence. Barreze is to produce it at the Odeon. It's my first big chance."

Riviere pointed to one of her sketches. "Wasn't this worked into a scene for 'Ames Nues,' at the Chatelet?"

"Quite right!"

"I remember being very much impressed by it at the time.... Yours must be particularly interesting work?"

"The work one likes best is always peculiarly interesting. That's happiness--to have the work one likes best."

Seeing that Riviere was genuinely interested, she began to dilate on her work, explaining something of its technique, telling of its peculiar difficulties. She showed him her sketches taken at Arles; mentioned Orange, for its Roman arch and theatre, as a stopping-place on her return journey to Paris. There was a glow in her voice that told clearly of her absorption in her chosen work.