The Beloved Traitor Part 29

She stepped quickly to Marie-Louise's side. "Look up at me!" she ordered curtly. "This man says that hat and cloak are mine, and it is true--they were mine. Tell him where you got them!"

Marie-Louise did not move, except that she clasped her hands together a little more tightly in her lap. She could not tell; for suddenly she thought of Father Anton, and a sense of loyalty to Father Anton insisted that she should not tell. If mademoiselle knew, as mademoiselle said, that was another matter, and she could not change that now; but to tell it herself--no, she could not do that, for that was to admit that the good cure was in the secret of her presence in Paris, and after that it would be known almost surely that he had arranged with Hector and Madame Mi-mi for her to come there to the _atelier_.

"Well?" prompted Myrna Bliss, sharply.

Marie-Louise shook her head.

Myrna Bliss stamped her foot angrily.

"Are you stupid enough to imagine that you are protecting Father Anton?

I promise you I shall have a word with that gentleman in the morning!

And since you could have got that hat and cloak nowhere else, tell Monsieur Valmain that Father Anton gave them to you, and have done with it!"

Marie-Louise looked up. Mademoiselle had said it, and--and Father Anton certainly would not deny it.

"Yes," she said under her breath. "Father Anton gave them to me."

"Well, why didn't you say so at first?" snapped Myrna. She turned again furiously on Paul Valmain. "You hear, Monsieur Valmain! You are well acquainted with Father Anton. Go to him, if you have any doubts.

You have only to know now how Father Anton obtained them"--her words were curling, biting, stinging like a whiplash in their bitter scorn.

"Well, listen! I and a few of my friends have become _charitable_ since father established his fund. It is contagious, Monsieur Valmain!

We, too, give bounteously to Father Anton for distribution amongst the poor--we give our discarded garments! I sent him that hat and cloak in a bundle with some other things, a few days ago. Is it quite plain, Monsieur Valmain? Are you satisfied? Well, then"--she swung an outstretched arm toward the door--"go!"

"But, mademoiselle--_pour l'amour de Dieu_!" he protested brokenly.

"Do you not see that I am in agony, in torment for what I have done, that--"

"Go!" she raged--and stamped with her foot upon the floor again.

For a moment he stood lurching a little on his feet, as though he had been struck a blow; and then, white-faced, he drew himself up and bowed to her.

"As you will, mademoiselle!" he said in a low voice, and walked past her toward the door.

Myrna Bliss turned to watch him--and halfway across the room halted him.

"Wait!"--she pointed to the rapiers lying on the floor. "Take those things with you! And one word more, Monsieur Valmain! I do not intend to pose in Paris in the abandoned role you were so quick to cast me for. You perhaps understand that! I do not propose that anything shall be known of what has happened here to-night. I shall see to it that nothing is said by the others, but a word of this from you, Monsieur Valmain, or from Monsieur LeFair, who Monsieur Vinailles tells me was acting as your second, and--"

"Mademoiselle might have spared me that!" he said monotonously--and, picking up the rapiers, walked on through the salon and out into the hall.

In a sort of miserably fascinated way Marie-Louise had followed him with her eyes. She heard the outer door close behind him--and then mechanically she rose to her feet, as Myrna Bliss came and stood before her.

"So"--Myrna's voice was quivering, tense with pa.s.sion--"so it remained for Monsieur Valmain to discover the secret of the wonderful, beautiful, entrancing model! Monsieur Valmain is right, of course. I knew it at once, the moment I heard him say so. I was not very clever, I suppose, or I should have seen it for myself long ago; only--you quite understand this of course--I had forgotten, utterly forgotten, that you even existed! But it seems that Jean could not live without his little peasant; nor the little peasant without Jean! It is perfectly comprehensible now why there should have been such secrecy about his model. And so you have been living with Jean, have you, ever since he came to Paris? The nave, innocent little _ingenue_ of Bernay-sur-Mer!"

And then Marie-Louise lifted her head high again, and, while the hot flushes came and swept her face, the great dark eyes held steadily on the grey ones that were hard and cold like steel. It was not mademoiselle of the _grand monde_ before her any more; it was a woman whose tongue was making a sacrilege of all that was holy and cherished in her life, making a hideous mockery of her love that was so sacred and pure to her, making it a foul thing, smirching it, defiling it--it was not Mademoiselle Bliss of another world than hers whom she approached with diffidence and awe; it was a woman taunting her with a shame from which her soul recoiled, and there came surging upon her, born of the primitive, elemental life that had been hers, the days upon the oars, the nights of rugged battling with the storms, a fury that was physical in its cry for expression.

"It is not true! It is not true!" she panted--and, her hands clenched tightly, raised as though to strike, she took a quick step forward.

Startled, Myrna Bliss involuntarily sprang back--but the next instant she was laughing threateningly.

"You little spitfire!" she exclaimed angrily. "And so it is not true!

Look at that statue behind you, look at any in this room, at any Jean has ever done since he has been in Paris, and--oh, yes, I see it quite plainly myself, now that I have been shown--it is you, you everywhere!

And you have the brazenness, the impudence to say that you have not been living with Jean, that you have not been coming here at all hours of the night for the last two years--as you have to-night--as you did last night! Bah, you pitiful little hypocrite, would any one believe you?"

"Yes, they would believe me!" Marie-Louise cried pa.s.sionately. "And _you_ will believe me! I will make you believe me! I will make you!

I will make you! I--" Her voice broke suddenly, and with a half sob she dropped her hands to her sides. Her fury had gone and in its place had come only a desperate earnestness to make mademoiselle believe.

She had been thinking of herself alone--and there was Jean! If mademoiselle would not believe her, the shame would be Jean's too, and the guilt that mademoiselle imagined would be Jean's guilt too. And even if she must tell all about Father Anton bringing her to Hector and Madame Mi-mi, she must make mademoiselle believe. "Mademoiselle"--she was pleading now, her voice choking as she spoke--"mademoiselle, see--listen! You must--you must believe! It is true, every word I have said is true! And it is true that I love Jean, and that that is why I came, but--but Jean has never seen me since that day he left Bernay-sur-Mer. See, mademoiselle--listen! It is only a few days since I came to Paris--see, mademoiselle, even this hat and cloak proves it. I did not know that it was cold, that one needed such things in Paris, and I had nothing except just the clothes I had worn in Bernay-sur-Mer, and the night I came I went to Father Anton and he gave the hat and cloak to me--but I did not know, mademoiselle, that they had been yours. I wanted to see Jean again, not to let him know that I was here, but only to see him, only to see his work. It was two years, mademoiselle, two years--and Father Anton understood, only he made me promise, mademoiselle, that I would not speak to Jean, that I would not let Jean know that I was here. Listen--listen, mademoiselle!" Marie-Louise's hands were raised again--but entreatingly now. "It was only to see Jean again, and see his work, and then I was going away. For nothing, for nothing in the world would I let Jean know that I had come. And so--and so, mademoiselle, so Father Anton arranged with Hector that I should do the work about the salon and the _atelier_, but very early in the mornings before Jean was up; and then because I came so early Hector gave me the key--and last night--oh, mademoiselle, mademoiselle, can you not understand?--I came here, and--and I came again to-night. See, mademoiselle--it is so easy to believe! You do believe! Father Anton will tell you that it is all true, and that I have been in Bernay-sur-Mer all this time.

Mademoiselle, mademoiselle--you do believe!"

Myrna Bliss was staring at Marie-Louise in startled amazement.

"You mean--you mean," she said, in a low, tense way; "you mean that Jean knows nothing of this--that he does not know that you are even in Paris, that he has not seen you since he left Bernay-sur-Mer?"

"But, yes; yes, yes, yes, mademoiselle, it is so, all that--it is so!"

Marie-Louise answered feverishly. "And--and he must not know now, mademoiselle--he must not know now."

And then Myrna Bliss smiled ironically.

"I will see to that!" she said grimly. "You need have no fear on that score, if what you say is true!" She turned abruptly from Marie-Louise, walked straight to the "_Fille du Regiment_," and gazed at it for a moment. Then, scarcely aloud: "'The womanhood of France,'

he had said ... 'The model in his heart.'" And so Jean did not know!

Well, if that were so, she would take very good care that he never did know! It seemed incredible, but the girl's sincerity was not to be denied. She laughed out sharply, and wheeled back upon Marie-Louise.

"Well, and what now?" she said coldly; and then, thrusting quickly: "Are you aware that I am to marry Monsieur Laparde?"

Marie-Louise's face blanched.

"Yes," she said faintly.

"And so"--the scathing tones were back in Myrna's voice--"and so you were just playing with fire! Well, are you satisfied with what you have done? If Jean Laparde lives it will be no thanks to you; if he dies it will be you who--"

Marie-Louise put out her hands as though to ward off a blow. She was swaying upon her feet.

"Not that--not that, mademoiselle!"--she could scarcely force the words to her lips. "Do not say it, mademoiselle! I know that it is true--G.o.d in his infinite pity, have pity on me!--but do not say it! I will go away, mademoiselle--I will go away--for always. I will wait only to know that--that Jean is well, for the _bon Dieu_ will not let him die--and then--and then I will go--and then I--" A great sob shook her frame, and covering her face with her hands she sank down again upon the modelling platform.

She was conscious that Mademoiselle Bliss was standing there, that the grey eyes were fixed upon her; and then that from the salon some one called to mademoiselle--but she did not hear mademoiselle go, only when she looked up again she was alone in the atelier. And it was very kind of mademoiselle to go so softly, and to say no more.

She rose slowly to her feet, and pa.s.sed through the atelier, and through the salon, and out into the hall, and to the stairs--and paused there to listen with pitiful eagerness. But there was no sound from above--there was only the voice of her soul that kept whispering so cruelly, "it is you ... it is you ... it is you ... it is not Paul Valmain who has done this ... it is you ... it is you."

And there at the foot of the stairs she knelt down for a moment; then rose, and crossed the hall slowly to the door, and opened it--and walked blindly out.

-- VIII --

FLIGHT

Madame Garneau's hair straggled untidily about her head, her hands were red, calloused, inclined indeed to be grimy, she had pa.s.sed even that poets'-consolation-prize age of forty, and she had no figure; but Madame Garneau was possessed of a heart. She pushed open the door of Marie-Louise's room, and dangled in her hand a yellow paper bag that was grease specked on the bottom.

"_Voila_, my little lodger!" she cried gaily. "I have this for you, and you will never guess what it is; and, besides, I have something else--a message for you from Father Anton. Now which will you have first?"

Marie-Louise, from her chair by the window, rose quickly to her feet, with a little exclamation of pleased surprise.