The Beautiful Miss Brooke Part 4

"How could I?" he asked, annoyed at the mention of the man's name, reminding him, as it did, of the apparent and inexplicable intimacy between the two, and also telling him they must already have seen each other.

"You could easily have found him if you had inquired among the boys. He lives in his studio and he has scarcely left it the whole time I've been away. By the way, you remember Katharine, don't you? She's married again. To her editor this time. This is my school."

They came to a standstill and faced each other to say "good-bye."

"I scarcely feel like working this afternoon," observed Miss Brooke. "My laziness really overpowers my ambition. Did you not say something before, Mr. Middleton, about your being tempted to cut the Beaux Arts?

Do be nice and yield to that temptation. I want to give way to mine so badly, but being a woman I daren't do anything unless somebody else is doing it at the same time."

Paul's fibres of resistance did not relax gradually; they collapsed all at once.

"Well," he laughed. "I've been so good all along, I think I've earned the right to play truant for once."

"Mr. Middleton! That's bringing morality into it again, and I wanted to indulge in undiluted wickedness. You have to carry my box as I'm sufficiently occupied in holding up my skirts. I'll give you some tea afterwards as a reward."

They strolled slowly in the sunshine, making for the river and crossing by the Pont des Arts; and pa.s.sed through the Jardins des Tuileries, where the freshness of the greens, and the playing fountains, and the leafy trees, and the pretty children, and the odour of lilac proclaimed the spring. They sauntered across the Place de la Concorde and into the shady avenues of the Champs Elysees, where huge spots of sunlight freckled the ground; talking the while of the life of the city, of the foreign elements, of the Old and New Salons. Miss Brooke explained how her own day was spent. Seven o'clock in the morning found her punctually at school, and she worked two hours before taking her _cafe au lait_, afterwards continuing till midday. In the afternoon she usually copied and studied at the Louvre or Luxembourg. Such had been the routine of her work before, and she had had no difficulty in falling into it again.

She could not hope to exhibit even next year, as she could neither afford a studio nor the expense of models. At the present she was living with some friends at their _appartement_ in the Avenue de Wagram. After their departure at the end of May she would enter into the _pension_, which was within a stone's throw of her school.

Paul, eagerly listening to all these details, was only conscious in a far-off way of the eternal roll of smart carriages in the roadway, or of the mult.i.tude of children playing under the trees in charge of _bonnes_, whilst the mammas sat about on chairs, chatting, or with books or needlework. Onward the pair strolled past the Arc de Triomphe and down the great Avenue into the Bois de Boulogne, only stopping to rest by the laughing lake. Here the appeal of the water and the moored boats soon became irresistible. They fleeted the remainder of the afternoon ideally, till Miss Brooke announced it was time to repair to the Avenue de Wagram. Paul was afraid of her friends--he was scarcely presentable.

"Be calm, my friend," she rea.s.sured him. "We shall have a nice little tea all to ourselves. The others have gone to Versailles and are only coming back in time to dine. We dine _chez nous_, as we have a _bonne_ who cooks. Of course I can't be in to _dejeuner_, as the distance is too great from my school. You must come one evening and I'll present you."

He thanked her for the suggestion, glad to welcome every arrangement that promised in any way to throw their lives together, for he had been not a little afraid he might not after all have the opportunity of seeing very much of her.

As Miss Brooke made the tea in the pretty drawing room of the cosy flat, Paul began to realise with surprise how much progress their friendship had made in that one day. His dream had turned out true! He was so happy that the consciousness of all but the moment faded from him. London, his mother, Celia, and even chess were for the time absolutely non-existent.

"Charlie," too, was forgotten, as the obnoxious name had not again dropped from Miss Brooke's lips.

He took his leave at last, filled with joy by Miss Brooke's promise to run in on the morrow to _dejeuner_ at the same little restaurant. But as he turned from the broad stairway into the hall, he almost collided in his pre-occupation with a tall well-dressed man. Both murmured "_Pardon!_" and pursued their ways. Paul had seen the other's face, but he had taken several steps forward before the features sank into his brain, and he realised with a great shock they were those of "Charlie."

CHAPTER V.

HOWEVER, Miss Brooke said nothing to him about Charlie in the days that followed, though he saw her often. Without it being specially mentioned again, it was somehow understood they were, for the present, to meet at mid-day at the little restaurant, and, moreover, she allowed him to take her several times to the two Salons. He might easily have dragged in references to Pemberton, but he felt it would not be right to do so for the mere purpose of discovering what it would have been an impertinence to demand outright.

And the more his _camaraderie_ with Miss Brooke became an established fact, the more did this question of Charlie disturb him. He had discovered by this time that a harmless friendship between a man and a girl was by no means unusual among the students and was not necessarily a.s.sumed to imply matrimonial intentions. He knew, moreover, that such friendships grew rapidly on this soil where the English-speaking students gravitated together during the years of their voluntary exile.

But, if this thought pacified him as to Miss Brooke and Charlie, the very pacification carried with it a sting. For it led to the further tormenting suspicion that Miss Brooke did not take the relationship between her and himself as seriously as he would have liked her to. Her conduct and bearing towards him were all he could wish, yet he seemed to feel behind them a stern limit to the intimacy, a barrier, as it were, that might bear on its face: "I am put here by way of giving you a reminder you are not to make any mistakes as to the extent of your rights over this property."

Sometimes, indeed, in envisaging the position, he came to the conclusion that this was entirely due to his own imagination and that he might safely ask her to share his life. But at that point uncertainty would rise again, warning him that to make any such impulsive proposition just then might be to jeopardise the future of his romance. The remembrance of the distress caused him by his effort to determine the precise degree of Celia's claim on him by reason of his having engaged her for five dances in the same evening intruded in grotesque contrast now that he was endeavouring to determine the precise degree of his claim on Miss Brooke.

Despite these p.r.i.c.kings, and despite Charlie, sweetness predominated in his life. He felt untrammelled and unwatched over, recalling with a shudder the old strands that had tethered him. Though he wrote regularly to his mother, whom he had seen twice last autumn, on her way southward and on her return, all reference to Miss Brooke was excluded from his letters. He would not discuss his relation to her with anybody else, foreseeing that would only lead to a deal of useless and perhaps endless talk.

After Miss Brooke had moved to the _pension_, where she had arranged to take all her meals, he no longer saw her every day. But it was understood he could take his chance of finding her at home whenever he chose to call in the evenings. She generally received him in her little oblong sitting-room on the second floor, that opened out on a pleasant balcony, overlooking the street. He soon grew to love this room, to the decorations of which she had added a huge j.a.panese umbrella, which hung from the ceiling, and two j.a.panese lights, and a piece of Oriental tapestry, besides her personal nicknacks. Paul's usual lounging-place, whilst Miss Brooke gave him his after-dinner coffee, was an old cretonne-covered ottoman, on which a broken spring made a curious hump, and over his head were suspended some book-shelves. Now and again he would find other callers, of both s.e.xes, for Miss Brooke was "at home"

once a week to all her friends. Of course, Paul did not abuse his privilege, but firmly restricted the number of his visits. Occasionally, too, he had the happiness of taking her to dine at some one or other of the great cafes on the Grands Boulevards, and they would stroll back together along the river bank, enchanted by the wonderful nocturnes. On Sunday sometimes, they would make an excursion beyond the fortifications to some rural spot, she taking her paint-box and sketching lazily whilst they talked; and if, on rare afternoons, he left his work, and looked in at the Luxembourg to find her deftly plying her brush in her big blue coa.r.s.e linen ap.r.o.n, with its capacious pockets, she seemed by no means displeased.

Every legitimate topic was talked over between them. He had long since exhausted the theme of his own life, that is, he had told it so far as he cared to tell it. Celia, for one thing, did not appear in it, and there were one or two little matters he was especially careful to suppress. He felt vaguely saint-like, when, in the course of this judicious selection from his biography, he arrived at his slumming experiences, and hinted at his charities, which were being continued during his absence. Miss Brooke repaid the confidence in kind, enabling him, by her various reminiscences, to reconstruct a fairly continuous account of her existence, which, it never struck him, might also be selected.

They drifted, too, into the realm of ideas, exchanging their notions on--among other things--love and platonic friendship. They discussed the last-mentioned phenomenon in great detail, Paul, aflame with self-consciousness, but quite unable to pierce beneath the sphinx-like demeanour with which Miss Brooke made her impartial and freezingly impersonal statements. From ideas they pa.s.sed on to the consideration of conduct and how it should be determined under divers subtle conditions.

"Yes, but don't you really think that one _ought_ to listen to such an appeal _if_....," she would gravely interpose with her sweet voice as her brush made sensuous strokes on the canvas. And Paul became more and more impressed with the n.o.bility of her soul, and strove likewise--as was but natural in the circ.u.mstances--to impress her with the n.o.bility of his. He usually felt ethically perfect after such conversations, and, had the occasion immediately arisen, it would have found him equal to acting along the lines of the "ought" laid down by Miss Brooke. He imagined that he certainly was receiving endless benefit from this threshing out of things with a quick and sympathetic personality.

So ran by a couple of months, "Charlie" continuing to be the chief cause of disturbance in Paul's existence. The two men had by now met several times at Miss Brooke's, had saluted civilly, but had little to say to each other. Paul felt sure his hatred was returned, and neither showed the least disposition to become better acquainted. Neither asked the other to dine or drink, or play billiards, or even to walk with him, and if rarely they pa.s.sed in the street a nod was all they exchanged.

The lines of their lives occasionally met in a point, but never ran together.

The enmity between them only became irksome when no others were present, but never did Miss Brooke herself manifest the least suspicion of it.

Whatever the relation between Miss Brooke and Pemberton, it never seemed to interfere in practice with the relation between Miss Brooke and himself. She alluded to "Charlie" in her talk much more freely than heretofore, but always apropos, always impersonally, just as she might casually mention Katharine, who was so happy now. Charlie had such and such a habit, such and such a way of looking at things, such and such ideas of art.

But Paul's jealousy grew till he became well-nigh intolerable to himself. It made him resort to underhand watchings, from the mere thought of which, in saner moments, he shrank with shame and remorse.

But he had thus ascertained that Charlie was, if anything, a more frequent visitor than himself, and had less scruples in the matter of standing on ceremony.

CHAPTER VI.

ONE night Paul was at the Opera when he caught sight of Miss Brooke and Pemberton with her. His evening was spoilt and he left at once. He felt both angry and hurt, for he had seen her for a few minutes in the afternoon, and she had said nothing about her plans for the evening beyond warning him it was highly probable she might not be at home.

The climax had come. He was determined that things should not continue as they were. If Miss Brooke simply regarded their connection as a mere students' companionship, agreeable to both parties but strictly temporary, then he must end it immediately. Miss Brooke must at once be made aware of what this friendship meant to him. What he had so far deemed inexpedient seemed to him the only expediency--to stake all on one coup.

In the stress of the crisis the prejudices that were his by inheritance and teaching, and that his new life had caused to slumber, a.s.serted themselves again, crying aloud against these friendships. Miss Brooke ought never to have expected him to be proof against that sort of thing, of which he had never had experience. Pemberton might be able and content to flutter round without hurt, but he himself had been a lost man from the beginning.

It soothed him to map out the future as he wished it to be, and all seemed so natural and reasonable that, if she cared for him in the least, she could not but admit his views on every point. He felt himself filled with an infinite longing, an infinite tenderness. He would surround her with his love so that escape from it should be impossible.

It should permeate every fibre of her being, and she should in the end come to him and give up everything to fulfil the duties of a wife, presiding over his household, absorbing herself in his career, and giving all her thought to the unity their two lives would const.i.tute. Of course, she could paint in such time as was left to her, and any glory she might achieve would redound to the credit of his name. Still when a woman had once become a wife, he argued, her ambition generally faded.

Wifehood was absorbing. Greater glory than that of being a perfect wife there could not be.

A few days later, when his emotion had somewhat calmed down, and he could trust himself sufficiently to see her, he called at the _pension_, but, as had happened occasionally from the beginning, he did not find her at home. So the next morning he sent her a great heterogeneous ma.s.s of flowers with the half-jesting, half-reproachful hope they might meet with better fortune than he. Whereupon he immediately received a letter explaining she had pa.s.sed the previous evening with some very nice people in the Avenue Kleber, and announcing her intention of taking him there on the morrow. Would he dine early and call for her? She thanked him for the flowers in a postscript, saying they had transformed her room into a veritable bower.

At the time appointed he climbed the well-known two flights of stairs and the _bonne_ showed him into the little room, saying _mademoiselle_ would join him "in a little minute." Several big minutes pa.s.sed, and then the door-hanging was pushed aside and Miss Brooke stood smiling at him. She had always appealed to his aesthetic side, giving him the sense of contemplating an exquisite piece of art-work; but the particular impression he had to-night differed from all previous ones. Her figure seemed slenderer in its black net evening dress, covered with bead-work that glistened with a wonderful shading of green into blue and blue into green. Above the turquoise-blue velvet tr.i.m.m.i.n.g of the bodice, her long neck made a dazzling whiteness, and her face looked pink and babyish, whilst her curls lay about with just a shade more severity than usual.

She wore a necklace of turquoises set in antique gold, and in her hair was a big gold comb inset with the same stones, irregularly cut. The note of colour thus given made her blue eyes appear like two large jewels amid the constellation. Paul told himself he had never realised before _how_ beautiful those eyes were. The lightly-parted lips intensified the babyishness, so that she ceased to be the independent, self-willed girl, fitting in rather with that other conception he had lingered on as the ideal she might develop into as his wife--a woman clinging to her husband and glad of his strength.

He was sure he saw her now as she really was. The conditions of her life were alone to blame for forcing on her the necessity of a career.

Woman's true sphere was the home. An outside existence subjected to hardening influences a delicate soul whose very nature was to thirst for tender nurture and love. Such had always been his mother's conviction; such was his fervent belief. The a.s.sociation of Miss Brooke with money-earning seemed an ugly blot on the universe.

There seemed, too, a tenderer, more intimate quality in her voice, and a sort of clinging in her touch as she went down the stairway with her hand on his arm. That forbidding barrier of which he had always been conscious had vanished!

"It's the McCook's last 'At-Home,'" she explained, as the _voiture_ began to move. "They are such nice people--I'm sure you'll like them.

Dora's an old college chum of mine, and she's asked me to stay with her to-night. Dora and I chat such a deal when we get together, and we always enjoy sitting up nice and quiet by ourselves after everybody else has gone. I told her you would escort me home, but she seemed quite shocked at the idea. As if you haven't escorted me back from the theatre! Dora has become quite conventional since her marriage. She used to argue with her mother and do pretty well as she liked not so very long ago. Now I believe her mother shocks her sometimes. She's leaving with her husband in a few days for Perros-Guirec, and they're going to take me with them."

Her words rang with a childlike joy. He asked where Perros-Guirec was in a voice that was somewhat desolate at the prospect of losing her.

"It's in Brittany--a whole day's journey from Paris. I was there two years ago, and sketched most of the time. Everybody is thinking of leaving now, the heat will soon be getting unbearable. The Grand Prix has been run, the Battle of Flowers has been fought, and the Allee de Longchamps is deserted. All the smart people are in _villegiature_. How nice is the evening after the sultry day!"

They were pa.s.sing through the Boulevard St. Germain. Miss Brooke was sitting just close enough to Paul for them to touch with the swaying of the carriage. He felt singularly happy. The hushed sounds of the city over which the dusk hung mystic came to him like a soft sustained tone of music; its lights gleamed in upon them with magic rays. He was conscious of the great dark ma.s.ses of palaces, of shadowy pedestrians moving noiselessly on the side-paths. No fever in the air now, only a far-reaching calm.

"The night makes one almost sorry to leave Paris," resumed Miss Brooke.

Her voice made the harmonies sweeter, blending them all into one perfect harmony.