The Moonlit Way Part 12

"That's rotten, Thessa!" he said, turning very red.

"Oh, go lightly, please, my friend Garry. I have no claim on you.

Besides, I know men----"

"You don't appear to!"

"Tiens! Our first quarrel!" she exclaimed, laughingly. "This is indeed serious----"

"If you need aid----"

"No, I don't! Please, why do you scowl at me? Do you then wish I needed aid? Yours? Allez, Monsieur Garry, if I did I'd venture, perhaps, to say so to you. Does that make amends?" she added sweetly.

She clasped her white hands on the cloth and looked at him with that engaging, humorous little air which had so easily captivated her audiences in Europe--that, and her voice with the hint of recklessness ever echoing through its sweetness and youthful gaiety.

"What are you doing in New York?" she asked. "Painting?"

"I have a studio, but----"

"But no clients? Is that it? Pouf! Everybody begins that way. I sang in a cafe at Dijon for five francs and my soup! At Rennes I nearly starved. Oh, yes, Garry, in spite of a number of obliging gentlemen who, like you, offered--first aid----"

"That is absolutely rotten of you, Thessa. Did I ever----"

"No! For goodness' sake let me jest with you without flying into tempers!"

"But----"

"Oh, pouf! I shall not quarrel with you! Whatever you and I were going to say during the next ten minutes shall remain unsaid!... Now, the ten minutes are over; now, we're reconciled and you are in good humour again. And now, tell me about yourself, your painting--in other words, tell me the things about yourself that would interest a friend."

"Are you?"

"Your friend? Yes, I am--if you wish."

"I do wish it."

"Then I am your friend. I once had a wonderful evening with you....

I'm having a very good time now. You were _nice_ to me, Garry. I really was sorry not to see you again."

"At the fountain of Marie de Medicis," he said reproachfully.

"Yes. Flatter yourself, monsieur, because I did _not_ forget our rendezvous. I might have forgotten it easily enough--there was sufficient excuse, G.o.d knows--a girl awakened by the crash of ruin--springing out of bed to face the end of the world without a moment's warning--yes, the end of all things--death, too! Tenez, it was permissible to forget our rendezvous under such circ.u.mstances, was it not? But--I did _not_ forget. I thought about it in a dumb, calm way all the while--even while _he_ stood there denouncing me, threatening me, noisy, furious--with the b.u.t.ton of the Legion in his lapel--and an ugly pistol which he waved in the air--" She laughed:

"Oh, it was not at all gay, I a.s.sure you.... And even when I took to my heels after he had gone--for it was a matter of life or death, and I hadn't a minute to lose--oh, very dramatic, of course, for I ran away in disguise and I had a frightful time of it leaving France!

Well, even then, at top speed and scared to death, I remembered the fountain of Marie de Medicis, and you. Don't be too deeply flattered.

I remembered these items princ.i.p.ally because they had caused my downfall."

"I? I caused----"

"No. _I_ caused it! It was I who went out on the lawn. It was I who came across to see who was painting by moonlight. That began it--seeing you there--in moonlight bright enough to read by--bright enough to paint by. Oh, Garry--and you were _so_ good-looking! It was the moon--and the way you smiled at me. And they all were dancing inside, and _he_ was so big and fat and complacent, dancing away in there!... And so I fell a prey to folly."

"Was it really our escapade that--that ruined you?"

"Well--it was partly that. Pouf! It is over. And I am here. So are you. It's been nice to see you.... Please call our waiter." She glanced at her cheap, leather wrist watch.

As they rose and left the dining-room, he asked her if they were not to see each other again. A one-eyed man, close behind them, listened for her reply.

She continued to walk on slowly beside him without answering, until they reached the rotunda.

"Do you wish to see me again?" she enquired abruptly.

"Don't you also wish it?"

"I don't know, Garry.... I've been annoyed in New York--bothered--seriously.... I can't explain, but somehow--I don't seem to wish to begin a friendship with anybody...."

"Ours began two years ago."

"Did it?"

"Did it not, Thessa?"

"Perhaps.... I don't know. After all--it doesn't matter. I think--I think we had better say good-bye--until some happy hazard--like to-day's encounter--" She hesitated, looked up at him, laughed:

"Where is your studio?" she asked mischievously.

The one-eyed man at their heels was listening.

V

IN DRAGON COURT

There was a young moon in the southwest--a slender tracery in the April twilight--curved high over his right shoulder as he walked northward and homeward through the flare of Broadway.

His thoughts were still occupied with the pleasant excitement of his encounter with Thessalie Dunois; his mind and heart still responded to the delightful stimulation. Out of an already half-forgotten realm of romance, where, often now, he found it increasingly difficult to realise that he had lived for five happy years, a young girl had suddenly emerged as bodily witness, to corroborate, revive, and refresh his fading faith in the reality of what once had been.

Five years in France!--France with its clear sun and lovely moon; its silver-grey cities, its lilac haze, its sweet, deep greenness, its atmosphere of living light!--France, the dwelling-place of G.o.d in all His myriad aspects--in all His protean forms! France, the sanctuary of Truth and all her ancient and her future liberties; France, blossoming domain of Love in Love's million exquisite transfigurations, wherein only the eye of faith can recognise the winged G.o.d amid his camouflage!

Wine-strong winds of the Western World, and a pitiless Western sun which etches every contour with terrible precision, leaving nothing to imagination--no delicate mystery to rest and shelter souls--had swept away and partly erased from his mind the actuality of those five past years.

Already that past, of which he had been a part, was becoming disturbingly unreal to him. Phantoms haunted its ever-paling sunlight; its scenes were fading; its voices grew vague and distant; its hushed laughter dwindled to a whisper, dying like a sigh.

Then, suddenly, against that misty tapestry of tinted spectres, appeared Thessalie Dunois in the flesh!--straight out of the phantom-haunted void had stepped this glowing thing of life! Into the raw reek and familiar dissonance of Broadway she had vanished. Small wonder that he had followed her to keep in touch with the vanishing past, as a sleeper, waking against his will, strives still to grasp the fragile fabric of a happy dream.

Yet, in spite of Thessalie, in spite of dreams, in spite of his own home-coming, and the touch of familiar pavements under his own feet, the past, to Barres, was utterly dead, the present strange and unreal, the future obscure and all aflame behind a world afire with war.