The Mountebank Part 15

It was in the middle of his week's engagement--once more in summer time. He lunched, saw to Prepimpin's meal, smoked the cheap cigar of content, and then, crossing the noisy little flagged square, went through the gates, Prepimpin at his heels, and made his way across the dusty road to the bridge. The work-a-day folk, on that week-day afternoon, had all returned to their hives in the town, and the pathways of the bridge contained but few pedestrians.

In the roadway, too, there was but lazy life, an occasional omnibus, the queer old diligence of Provence with its great covered hood in the midst of which sat the driver amid a cl.u.s.ter of peasants, hidden like the queen bee by the swarm, a bullock cart bringing hay into the city, a tradesman's cart, a lumbering wine waggon, with its three great white horses and great barrels. Nothing hurried in the hot sunshine. The Rhone, very low, flowed sluggishly. Only now and then did a screeching, dust-whirling projectile of a motor-car hurl itself across this bridge of drowsy leisure.

Andrew leaned over the parapet, finding rest in a mild melancholy, his thoughts chiefly occupied with the decay of Prepimpin who sat by his heels gazing at the roadway, occupied possibly by the same sere reflections.

Presently the flea-catching antics of a ragged mongrel in the middle of the roadway disturbed Prepimpin's sense of the afternoon's decorum. He rose and with stiff dignity stalked towards him. He stood nose to nose with the mongrel, his tufted tail in straight defiance up in the air.

Then suddenly there was a rush and a roar and a yell of voices--and the scrunch of swiftly applied brakes. Andrew turned round and saw a great touring car filled with men and women--and the men were jumping out. And he saw a mongrel dog racing away for dear life. And then at last he saw a black ma.s.s stretched upon the ground. With horror in his heart he rushed and threw himself down by the dog's body. He was dead. He had solved the problem--_solverat ambulando_. Andrew heard English voices around him; he raised a ghastly face.

"You brutes, you have killed my dog."

He scarcely heard the explanations, the apologies. The dog seeing the car far off, had cleared himself. Then without warning he had flung himself suicidally in the path of the car. What could they do now by way of amends?

The leader of the little company of tourists, a clean-shaven, florid man, obviously well bred and greatly distressed, drew a card from his pocket-book.

"I am staying a couple of days at the Hotel Luxembourg at Nimes--I know that nothing can pay for a dog one loves--but--"

"Oh, no, no, no," said Andrew waving aside the card.

"Can we take the dog anywhere for you?"

"You're very kind," said Andrew, "but the kindest thing is to leave me alone."

He bent down again and took Prepimpin in his arms and strode with him through the group of motorists and the little clamouring crowd that had gathered round. One of the former, a girl in a blue motor veil, ran after him and touched his arm. Her eyes were full of tears.

"It breaks my heart to see you like that. Oh can't I do anything for you?"

Andrew looked at her. Through all his stunning grief he had a dim vision of the Princesse Lointaine. He said in an uncertain voice:

"You have given me your very sweet sympathy. You can't do more."

She made a little helpless gesture and turned and joined her companions, who went on their way to Nimes. Andrew carried the bleeding body of Prepimpin, and there was that in his face which forbade the idle to trail indiscreetly about his path. He strode on, staring ahead, and did not notice a woman by the pylon of the bridge who, as he pa.s.sed, gave a bewildered gasp, and after a few undecided moments, followed him at a distance. He went, carrying the dog, up the dirty river bank outside the walls, where there was comparative solitude, and sat down on a stone seat, and laid Prepimpin on the ground. He broke down and cried. For seven years the dog's life and his had been inextricably interwoven. Not only had they shared bed and board as many a good man and dog have done, but they had shared the serious affairs of life, its triumphs, its disillusions. And Prepimpin was all that he had to love in the wide world.

"_Pardon, monsieur_," said a voice.

He looked up and saw the woman who had followed him. She was dark, of the loose build of the woman predisposed to stoutness who had grown thin, and she had kind eyes in which pain seemed to hold in check the promise of laughter and only an animal wistfulness lingered. Her lips were pinched and her face was thin and careworn. And yet she was young--obviously under thirty. Her movements retained all the lissomeness of youth. Although dressed more or less according to the fashion of the year, she looked poor.

Yet there was not so much of threadbare poverty in her attire, as lack of interest--or pathetic incongruity; the coat and skirt too heavy for the sultry day; the cheap straw hat trimmed with uncared for roses; the soiled white gloves with an unmended finger tip.

"Madame?" said he.

And as he saw it, the woman's face and form became vaguely familiar. He had seen her somewhere. But in the last few years he had seen thousands of women.

"You have had a great misfortune, monsieur?"

"That is true, madame."

She sat on the bench beside him.

"_Vous pleurez_. You must have loved him very much."

It was not a stranger speaking to him. Otherwise, he would have risen and, as politely as anguished nerves allowed, would have told her to go to the devil. She made no intrusion on his grief. Her voice fell with familiar comfort on his ear. He was vaguely conscious of her right to offer sympathy. He regarded her, grateful but perplexed.

"You don't recognize me? _Enfin_, why should you?" She shrugged her shoulders. "We only met for a few hours many years ago--here in Avignon--but we were good friends."

Then Andrew drew a deep breath and turned swiftly round on the bench and shot out both his hands.

"_Mon Dieu!_ Elodie!"

She smiled sadly.

"Ah," said she, "I'm glad you remember."

Chapter IX

They sat awhile and talked of the tragedy, the dead Prepimpin, at once a link and a barrier between them, lying at their feet. Her ready sympathy brought her near; but while the dog lay there, mangled and b.l.o.o.d.y, he could think of nothing else. It was Elodie who suggested immediate and decent burial. Why should he not go to the hotel for a workman and a spade?

He smiled. "You always seem to come to my help in time of trouble. But while I am absent, what will happen to him?"

"I will guard him, my friend," said Elodie.

He marched off. In a few minutes he came back accompanied by one of the hotel baggage porters. The grave, on the waste land by the Rhone, was quickly dug, and Prepimpin covered over for ever with the kindly earth. As soon as the body was hidden, Andrew turned away, the tears in his eyes.

"And now," said he, "let us sit somewhere else and you shall tell me about yourself. I have been selfish."

The tale she had to tell was very old and very sad. She did not begin it, however, until, drawing off her old gloves, for coolness' sake, she disclosed a wedding ring on her finger. His eye caught it at once.

"Why, you are married."

"Yes," she said, "I am married."

"You don't speak in the tone of a happy woman."

She shrugged hopeless shoulders. "A woman isn't happy with a _goujat_ for a husband."

Now a _goujat_ is a word for which scoundrel, and miscreant, are but weak translations. It denotes lowest depths of infamy.

Andrew frowned terribly. "He ill-treats you?"

"He did. But that is past. Fortunately I am alone. He has deserted me."

"Children?"

"Thank G.o.d, no," replied Elodie.

And then it all came out in the unrestrained torrent of the south. She had been an honest girl, in spite of a thousand temptations. When Andre met her, she was as pure as any young girl in a convent. It wasn't that she was ignorant. Oh no. The girl who had gone through the workrooms of Ma.r.s.eilles and the music-halls of France and could retain virginal innocence would be either a Blessed Saint or an idiot. It was knowledge that had kept her straight; knowledge and pride. She was not for sale. _Grand Dieu_, no!