The Man with the Double Heart Part 14

A sudden moodiness beset him. Was he never to understand himself? To be swayed with every turn of the wind at the mercy of his temperament?

For the foreign blood in his veins warred perpetually with the Scotch.

It was in truth a heady mixture, typical South and typical North. With the pa.s.sion of the former, its restless fiery love of beauty, were blent the caution and the strength and something vaguely religious--'dour'--tinged with a faint melancholy, the heritage with his blue eyes from a long-dead Covenanter.

Never, he said to himself, should he find a woman who suited both sides; gave him ardour and left him respect, satisfying body and soul...

Fantine, with her subtle instinct, divined the change in his mood. She swept aside personalities and started to talk of the Russian Ballet.

"It's curious how it has left its mark. It seems to have bitten and to have scratched!"

McTaggart, despite himself, smiled at the clever, brutal touch. This was Fantine at her best.

"To succeed now one must surprise!--the days of Mendelssohn are past.

I suppose the world is getting old with emotions that Time has dulled."

"Or the Worldlings too degenerate." McTaggart still felt gloomy.

"These Cubists now ... What do you think of their pictures? Do you call it really Art?"

"I can't somehow make up my mind. I like the idea at the back of it.

I think they're groping in the dark for a sign not yet vouchsafed to us."

McTaggart tried to follow her thought, failed and asked for a nearer clue.

Fantine's eyes were far away, the fine brows drawn together in an effort of concentration. She pushed her plate away from her and, with hands clasped on the table, leaned unconsciously toward him.

"Have you ever read Swedenborg? His 'Heaven and h.e.l.l!' No? What a pity! Well one of his favourite theories is on what he calls 'Correspondences.' He thinks that everything lovely here is the symbol, materialized, of a higher, more exquisite spiritual force--known to angels in Paradise. For instance, a rose--with its perfect shape, its colour, its scent, has a counterpart--a _'Correspondence_' is his word--with a '_state_'--it's difficult to explain---a ... sense of happiness above. Well, it seems to me that artists now, in music and painting--in all the arts--are trying to get away from _form_ to express the _meaning_ in their work. It's a wireless message to the mind away beyond the animal senses; something above the mere glamour of appeal to the flesh--it's 'correspondence.'"

McTaggart nodded his head gravely.

"It sounds bigger than I imagined." He felt a half-ashamed surprise at these depths in a woman he deemed light.

And, as if in answer to his thought, the old mocking look returned to the painted lips that smiled at him. But scorn was in her half-veiled eyes. For Fantine knew the ways of men: the forfeit that her cla.s.s must pay--to be used and loved and set aside as a thing of nought when custom staled.

She felt a keen stab of revolt, a fierce desire to extort to the full her share of the bargain, blow for blow, to prey on the weaknesses she served.

And McTaggart's next careless remark sealed his fate as far as it lay in the hands of the shrewd adventuress, turning the scales against the man.

"I didn't know you read so much. How on earth do you find the time?"

The speech, innocently meant, stung the wound in her heart.

But she gave him a daring glance.

"Mon cher--I _am_ alone ... sometimes!"

"You wouldn't be if I had my way." He checked himself as the waiter poured the fragrant coffee into their cups.

"Talking of the Cubists' work"--Fantine reverted to the subject. "I was over in Paris last year when they held their exhibition. Rather a funny thing happened." She dipped the long slab of sugar daintily into her cup and sucked it like a wilful child, conscious of stolen pleasure. "We used to call that a 'canard,' Pierrot----" laughingly, she interjected--"Well, revenons! There was a picture--I can't quite remember the name. But I think it was called 'A woman, falling downstairs.' There was always a little crowd before it--the artist was the 'dernier cri'--and I stood one day and amused myself by listening to their remarks. One man said: 'There--don't you _see_? It's her head--and that touch of white is an arm--and, well, of course! her foot is plain against the background of the wall.' The poor lady by his side tried in vain to see the outline. She screwed up both her eyes and looked like a child with a jig-saw puzzle. As to myself----"

Fantine laughed--"I must confess I could make out nothing but a blur of colour and sharp lines without the slightest human form. Well, some months later I happened to meet this very artist and I told him of the enthusiasm in Paris and the remarks I had overheard. Ma foi!--I thought he would have slain me. He said:

"'Madame--They are fools, fools, fools! There is no woman--But--of course! It's the feeling ... the fear ... I have painted. The _sense_ of falling down steep stairs.'"

McTaggart laughed heartily.

"Well--it's a bit above my head! I'm afraid I've no artistic merit. I like a picture I understand."

"I know." Fantine's voice was sweet, but malice lay underneath--"a picture that tells its own story--like that famous Scotch cow lost in the snow."

But her host's attention was wandering. The t.i.tian "Flora" had caught his eye. With flushed cheeks and an air of pride she was smoking her first cigarette. He pointed it out to his companion.

"Let's hope it will agree with her. Hullo! she's choked--poor child!

She's really quite a pretty girl--I don't know why you find fault with her."

"Not with her face," Fantine corrected--"one sees that the Bon Dieu modelled that. It's the sinful clothes she makes for herself--without celestial inspiration! She reminds me of an English girl my husband used to adore in Algiers."

McTaggart felt a sudden curiosity. This was the first time Mrs. Merrod had mentioned to him the late partner of her married joys and cares.

"Yes? And what did _you_ say to that?"

"I? why nothing." She laughed lightly. "I'm not jealous--pas si bete!

He was always very kind to me and I liked to watch his little affairs.

But in this instance it proved tragic..."

She smiled the meaning out of the word.

"What happened?" McTaggart asked, his eyes still on the distant "Flora."

"She was very pretty--the wild-rose type--and poor Gustave was quite captured. You see, she always wore gloves..." She paused with a pensive, teasing air.

"Too tight, perhaps? or shabby, eh?" He remembered her sweeping remarks.

"Oh, dear, no--far worse than that! One evening she took them off and he found ... that she actually _bit her nails_!"

"And that finished it?"

Fantine nodded as the waiter handed McTaggart's bill.

"But, of course! Gustave wept with chagrin. But I told him it was his own fault. He should have laid his volatile heart at the feet of a Parisienne."

"The love then was only skin-deep?"

Obedient to her little sign, he handed his guest her furs, watching her with amused blue eyes as she powdered her face in the gla.s.s.

"Not ever, that, mon cher Pierrot"--she flashed him a mocking glance, hard and brilliant, holding a hint of the resentment in her heart.

Then she rose to her feet with a supple movement, gathering her furs about her.

"He loved her," she volunteered--"as far as--jusqu'aux bouts des ongles!"