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The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter XV

The two men separated at the Porte Maillot, Radwalader strolling away in the direction of the Métropolitain entrance with a readily fabricated excuse about a card engagement. He understood to perfection the action of moral leaven — that, once introduced as an ingredient, it must not be unduly stirred, but left, with the fair white cloth of unconcern drawn smoothly over it, to work its will at ease. To a greater extent even than Mrs. Carnby, he possessed the instinct for not saying too much. He left Andrew to reflect upon what had passed between them, confident of its effect.
 * Chapter XV. “As it was in the Beginnning, is now, and ever shall be”.

Andrew paused at the junction of the Avenues de Malakoff and de la Grande Armée, the confusion and glare of the great thoroughfares smiting fretfully upon his instant need of reflection, and then returned upon his tracks, seeking the cool quiet of the Bois. After a short walk past the brightly lighted Chalet du Touring Club, a by-path tempted him, and he turned aside. At once the forest closed in upon him, and the scene of a half-hour before became more than ever like a phase in some fantastic and uneasy dream. At Armenonville there had been a blaze of light and a ripple of laughter, which barred out the stars of heaven as if they had never been: here was a world of stillness and of shadow, broken only by the distant music of the tziganes, and, through the interstices of tree-trunks and foliage, the intermittent gleam of bicycle and automobile lanterns on the Route de la Porte des Sablons. The faintly pungent odour of moss rose to his nostrils, as in some deep, undiscovered retreat in a provincial preserve. The small, sweet twitter of a restless bird pricked the delicious silence like the sound of a rip in thin linen. The tziganes at Armenonville were playing the “Valse Bleue.” The air, pulsing softly through the gloom, seemed almost to speak the words:

“Pourquoi ne pas m’aimer, p’isqu’ tu sais que je t’ai — ai — me?”

“Margery!” said Andrew slowly, to himself. “Margery — Margery!”

In the three weeks just past, he had been building a new world, a world from which his former ideals had been deliberately banished, and wherein new standards of conduct had been set. Pride, recklessness, and resentment had been the triumvirate by which this moral state was governed, and he had obeyed their dictates blindly, without caring, as he had told Radwalader, to think. Left to itself, this might have endured indefinitely, even as the larger world, with all its codes and creeds, established by the limited experience of the men inhabiting it. But what would be effected by the abrupt entrance into society of a messenger from another planet, infinitely wiser, infinitely more advanced, was brought to pass by Radwalader’s words. The status quod reeled on its foundations. The alternative which Andrew had accepted, and which had dulled, if not actually done away with, the acuteness of his disappointment, now appeared in its true light as the veriest sham, a sedative worse than useless — enervating — stupefying — poisonous. The bare suggestion was enough. Not for a moment did he doubt the significance of this message which had never reached him. It could mean but one thing — forgiveness and recall. All there had been to say upon the other count, had been said in that half-hour in the arbour. Her hand had been stretched out to stay him from the precipice down which he had plunged — stretched out too late! The knowledge tore in an instant the mask from his vanity, and he stood confessed — a coward. What was it she had said? “A fancy so trivial and so idle that it could not even hold you back from transgression.” And he had resented that, resented it only to furnish proof, when the actual temptation came, that it was true!

He knew himself now for what he was. How scornful he had been of these accusations, how certain of himself, how small in that great loyalty of his which stood for nothing, how ready to believe himself infallible! The merest profligate of those whose follies he had despised in other days, was no weaker, in the end, than he. He looked up blindly to where the stars winked faintly through the lace-like foliage, and cursed the distant roar of Paris which came dully to his ears. Paris — Circe! and he no better than the transformed comrades of Ulysses! He was a coward — a fraud — a sham; he found himself, in this moment of bitter self-reproach, untrue even to the flimsy conception of duty which, when it put him to the test, he had debauched. He thought of Mirabelle, and in thinking hated her! With all her beauty, all her perfect mimicry of breeding, all the little significant hints of colour and perfume with which she so skilfully clothed with charm whatever pertained to her, she had never struck below his ready appreciation of whatever was suggestive of refinement and eloquent of femininity. It was her novelty which had principally charmed him, but novelty is the butterfly of the sensations — the most brilliant, the shortest-lived of these emotional ephemera. Mrs. Carnby had struck the key-note in her cool analysis of the demi-monde: “These women don’t wear. They seem to be only plated with fascination, and in time the plating wears off, and you come back to the kind with the hall-mark.”

Now the scales fell from Andrew’s eyes, and he knew that what she had said was true. Compared to Margery — the Margery he had loved and lost, what was this Mirabelle to whom he had yielded her place? Beautiful, yes! But the perception of beauty, like beauty’s self, lies only skin-deep. Now, with Radwalader’s suggestion that the way of retreat lay open, came the reaction, inevitable in such a nature as Andrew Vane’s, from an emotion purely extrinsic. He was tired of her. The plating had worn off.

Suddenly he remembered that he had promised to see her that night, and, with an abrupt perception of the opportunity thus offered, he pulled himself together, and swung off rapidly toward the Porte Dauphine. As he walked, inhaling the fragrance of the evening air, a new sanity seemed to descend on him. He promised himself that this should be the end. However the effect was to be accomplished, he was determined to break the relation, kindly but firmly, and at whatever risk to regain, if not his self-esteem, at least his freedom. As to what should follow, he did not care — or dare — to ask. The unknown significance of the lost message soothed him like an irrational caress. Was it too late? Is it ever “too late to mend”? He neither knew nor cared. Given his freedom, he would chance the rest. Fate was hard. A thought checked him. “Fate is hard — cash!”

“Whatever I believe,” he told himself, “I don’t believe that.” And then, in the illogical manner of man, added: “I don’t care what it costs me — this is the end!”

He found Mirabelle in a corner of her great divan, and the room softly illumined. She wore a bewitchingly dainty lounging-gown of iridescent silk, in the folds of which peacock-blues and greens played and rippled into each other in constant comminglings.

“Embrasse-moi,” she said, looking up at him.

She glanced at him curiously as he straightened himself again and dropped upon the cushions at her feet. In a woman, the manner of a kiss performs the midwife’s office to the beginnings of clairvoyance.

“I wonder,” said Andrew presently, “if you know that people are talking about us, ma chère?”

Mirabelle commented upon this intelligence with a tilt of her eyebrows.

“Yes,” continued Andrew, “it seems that our doings are become public property, and our reputations are in jeopardy.”

“Yours, perhaps,” remarked the girl. “As for mine, mon ami, ça n’existe pas.”

“Don’t!” said Andrew suddenly. “Please don’t!”

“After all,” said Mirabelle, “what difference? They talk, these good people, whether things are so or not. It’s the women, of course. If my clothes were not d’un chic, they would pass me over as unworthy of consideration.”

“This time,” said Andrew, “it seems the ground of complaint is not clothes alone. I’m told that I’m affiché.”

“So you are, I suppose. You were that from the moment I took your arm at Auteuil, that first afternoon. Do you object? There are many who would be glad to say as much.”

Andrew bit his lip. It was going to be harder than he had thought. He had come to say — he could not have told exactly what. His whole relation with Mirabelle had come so stealthily into being, and had been distinguished by a novelty, a goût piquant so subtle and alluring, that he had hardly been conscious of its development into something definite and established, until the thing was done. His thoughts went back to that afternoon, in his own apartment, three weeks before, when first he had kissed her. That had been the turning-point — the crisis when the whole wide world tipped upside down. His entire point of view had undergone an instantaneous readjustment as his lips met hers, and before him had opened the gate of a new world — a garden lavish of unfamiliar fruits and strange flowers, breathing a heavy, languid, deadening sweetness. He had entered, as one turns aside from the beaten road to explore some little vista of unprecedented beauty, with a vague convincement at the back of his brain, that the divergence was for a moment only, and that, so soon as his curiosity should be satisfied, he would turn back to the highway and go forward again, richer by an experience which it was not necessary to mention, and which would be as immaterial in its bearing upon the main issues of life, as a flower plucked and tossed aside in passing, or a tune whistled in a moment of light-heartededness.

Now — it was singularly hard to cut to the pith of the sensation — the gate which had opened so invitingly seemed to have closed behind him. What was still more curious, he found, of a sudden, that these fruits and flowers which had tempted him by reason of their novelty, were now as familiar, as seemingly essential, as if they had always been features of his environment. The garden itself was no longer a place wherein he walked as a transient visitor, idly inspecting, but one in which he stood as proprietor. The tendrils had climbed and clung about his feet. The moment for retreat had come, and lo! he could not move!

As they talked, he grew still more conscious of the fact that this task of disentanglement which he had planned, was one beset with unexpected difficulties. Mirabelle had practically disregarded the inclined plane of suggestion by which he had sought to lead up to the main issue, and, with a little air of proprietorship, had begun to map out her plans for the coming week — plans in which Andrew figured as naturally, as much as a matter of course, as did her carriage or her meals or her gowns. For the first time, he realized to what an extent she had a claim upon him. For the first time, the curb replaced the snaffle. For the first time, the bit made its presence fully felt. Andrew stirred uneasily.

“M’amie,” he said, “we’ve been much in each other’s company of late — more, perhaps, than is best for either of us.”

“How can that be?” asked Mirabelle, with a little laugh. “We love each other — ça suffit. It’s impossible to be too much together.”

Her voice was quite even, but that was not to say that she did not scent the approaching issue.

“But people say—” began Andrew.

“Oh, lalà! People say! What don’t they say, my poor friend? What won’t they continue to say, however you choose to live, and whatever you choose to do? That’s Paris, and that’s the smallest village in Brittany, and everything in between, into the bargain. Nowadays, one must do as one sees fit, and have the courage of one’s convictions. We’ve chosen our way. It’s too late to think of what people say. After all, it’s gossip, all this, and gossip is a snake. One kills it if one can; but, in the long run, it’s better to step over it and forget. What does gossip amount to? If you’re seen always with your wife, it’s because you can’t trust her alone; if you’re never seen with her, it’s because you’ve interests elsewhere. If you spend your nights in public, you’re a profligate; and if you spend them at home, you’re a secret drinker. ‘People say’! Let them say, Andrew. It can’t make any difference.”

“Our — our friendship is the talk of the American Colony,” said Andrew, almost savagely.

Mirabelle looked at him suddenly, with a curious crinkling of her forehead. The issue now lay clear before her.

“And you are ashamed of that?” she asked.

She leaned back wearily, closing her eyes.

“Yes, of course you are,” she added. “I wonder why it is that we — nous autres — never seem to realize what it means, all this. A little laughter, a kiss or two, and the rest, a ‘je t’aime’ which means something less than nothing, and then — They speak of the women whom men abuse! What is that to being used — and flung aside?”

“Mirabelle!”

“Ah, don’t speak to me! I know all that you’re going to say — I’ve heard it all before! I knew it, back there a minute, when you kissed me, thinking of another woman! It’s the old story — a little harder to bear this time, perhaps, because I’ve cared very much for you. Somehow, you seemed different from other men. You were young, you were gentle, you were respectful, mon Dieu! — respectful! I thought that it was for me you cared — me, as you saw me here, loving and needing to be loved — not the Mirabelle Tremonceau who is dressed like a doll by Paquin and Louise — the Mirabelle Tremonceau of the Acacias, and the Palais de Glace, and the Café de Paris. I said to myself that it had not all been in vain — the training, the care, the painstaking which have made me what I am. Long since, I’d come to loathe all these, my surroundings, but, for the first time, it seemed to me that perhaps they were not a sham and an imitation and a mockery. You were a gentleman — not a rasta, like the others. I thought your instincts couldn’t play you false, and that I saw that they prompted you to regard me, here in my own home, as a woman and a friend, not merely as a mistress and a toy. From the first, you never presumed, you never let the thought of what, at worst, I might have been to you, come forward to shame the thought of what I was, at best! I said to myself that you cared for me — for my mind — my heart — and that what was most to others was nothing to you. When you kissed me first — that afternoon — ah, mon Dieu! I thought it was not the kiss of passion, but the kiss of love! At that moment you knew fully what I was — if you’d not guessed it before, but you asked for — nothing! Instead you played, and your soul was in the music. I’ve never heard such playing. It was pure — pure — pure! Ah!—”

She opened her eyes slowly, without looking at him.

“And I was happy — happier than I’ve ever been: because, I said, there must still be a little something in me of all I thought I’d lost. I’d not loved you before that day. It was while we were there together that it came. I would to God you’d let me go then — let me go with the memory of a look which I’d never seen in a man’s eyes before — the look which said ‘Respect.’”

For a moment there was silence, and then Mirabelle laughed shortly.

“That was what I was fool enough to think — all that! ''Quelle idiote! Nous voilà, cher ami'', at the end of the chapter. Your glove is worn: you must replace it. Your flower is wilted: you must have another for your lapel!”

Now she looked full at him, her lip curling.

“It is like the Moulin,” she added. “Combien est-ce que tu me donnes, beau brun?”

Andrew swung himself to a kneeling posture.

“What are you saying?” he demanded hotly. “My God! Does what has been between us mean nothing to you? Have I ever suggested — have I ever said a word to justify such a monstrous thing? I—”

“Just now you kissed me, thinking of another woman!” exclaimed Mirabelle. “Did you suppose I didn’t know? Why, I’ve loved you — that’s how I knew! Do you realize what all this meant? You could have made me good again. I would have left all this — forgotten it — blotted it out! I could have gone away quietly into the country, and lived my life out, without a regret. I could almost have been content never to see you again — never to hear from you, if I could have remembered — what once was true — that you respected me! Forgive what I said just now. It was coarse — unworthy of all that has been. But you don’t understand. I wish I’d not said what I did; and yet, at times, I feel that way — I mean, as if it were all the same — at the Moulin Rouge or here — they for an hour, I for a month, but each flung away presently, like the dregs of wine. I’ve laughed at the knowledge that that is how it is; always laughed — until the shadow of the thought fell on you!”

She slid her cool fingers into the hand he started to raise in protest, and held it close against her cheek.

“Then it maddened me. You see, everything has been different with you from what it was with the others. I’d never have believed that I could care for any man as I have for you — and perhaps I shouldn’t have cared for you as I have, if you’d come into my life in any other way. But you asked to be presented to me, and waited for Radwalader to get my permission; you talked to me as to a young girl of your own monde; and if at first I didn’t understand what that meant, I soon saw that it was because you didn’t know! Is it any wonder that I came to love you? — you who alone of all men yielded me the exquisite homage of respect? I dreaded the moment when the change must come — when that deference which intoxicated me like a new wine should be touched with a growing spirit of license, which from you would have been intolerable! From day to day I watched you, but even when I knew that you suspected what I was, my eyes — mon Dieu, how keen they were! — could see no change in you — and that was the greatest surprise of all. And when, in that moment of madness, I as much as told you, and you were gentle with me, what had been love for your treatment of me became, all at once, love for just — you!”

With an almost imperceptible pressure she drew him closer to her. As she went on speaking, her fingers touched his temples and his hair in a succession of tiny, soft caresses which were like the embryos of spoken endearments.

“Mon bien aimé! Never will you be able to comprehend what you thus came to mean to me. I have always been vain, lazy, passionately desirous of all that is softest, sweetest, most palatable in life; and these things I have had — but at what a price! Then you came, and with you a flash of hope! I made myself believe, I don’t know what! Marriage? Yes, there was even that in my mind; and there was, as well, the idea of going away, as I’ve said, into the country, and letting the four winds and the sunlight of heaven wash and wash and wash me, through all the years of my life, until I should go out of this world as white as I came in! Ah! I don’t know what it was, that little flash of hope, except that it seemed to say that escape was possible, and it was to your hand I clung, seeking the outlet. But that was only for one night — for just that one night! With the next day, with all the sights and sounds to which I am accustomed — the Allée at noon, Armenonville at tea-time, Paillard’s at midnight — I saw what the end must be; and, since then, I’ve watched, as only a woman watches, for that first little hint of its coming which only a woman sees! Ah, mon cheri, it has come, it has come indeed! For a moment I cried out in my agony against the fate which is separating us. You must forgive me that. Six weeks — a little slice of spring — and already you are tired of me. Mon amour — mon amour!”

Andrew turned, and, with his forehead on her knees and his lips against her fingers, battled silently against the swelling in his throat and the hot moisture stinging his inner lids. In the warm, perfume-laden silence, both the man and the girl went back in thought to their individual as well as their associated past. For the end of each successive stage of life has this in common with the concluding moments of the whole: as with a drowning person, all preceding incidents and emotions start up in orderly array, intensified and in their proper light.

So Andrew, reviewing the past three weeks, was prey to a passionate regret. In this there was censure, not so much of his own weakness, as of the test which had laid it bare. In youth, reaction carries with a merciless arraignment of all which has made possible disloyalty to standard; with age, men learn to blame themselves, their own folly and frailty. In his heart of hearts, Andrew impugned the girl; and when, under the impetus of her resentment, she had voiced that scathing sneer, he had almost welcomed it, as an excuse for the course he was determined to pursue. For an instant, pity and regret were swallowed up in a profound sense of indignity. In its essentials, her speech seemed no better than a touch of the brutal vulgarity which, with deliberation, he had avoided all his life. It had that very element of the sordid which had held him aloof from the student excursions from Cambridge into Boston — excursions so apt to end in brawls, drunken clamour, tears, and maudlin reconciliations. It was of a piece with a dispute over the finish of a game of cards, with the recriminations of an aggrieved supper companion, with the abuse of an exasperated bartender. It cut him to the quick, and, for the moment, seemed to place Mirabelle on a level with the women with whom she desperately classed herself. “It is like the Moulin!” As she said the words, it was as if the wand of a harlequin had touched the scene. The faint perfume of the Gloire de Dijon roses which he himself had sent her turned suddenly to the stale smell of the tobacco-smoke which hung densely over the dancers in the Red Mill of Montmartre; and Mirabelle herself, with her angry eyes, was at one with the painted, powdered, and bedizened monstrosity whom Radwalader had snubbed one evening as she paused at the table where he and Andrew were sampling an atrocious liqueur and watching an unlovely quadrille. But the impression passed as it had come. She was herself again, supremely beautiful, and supremely appealing in her avowal of devotion; and the element of romance which, in his mind, had always characterized their relation was intensified rather than diminished by this touch of tragedy.

Mirabelle rose suddenly, looking down upon him.

“I understand,” she said; “but there is one thing I would like to ask you. This other woman — do you love her? Will all this procure you what you want?”

“I don’t know,” faltered Andrew. “Perhaps not.”

“Then why—”

“Oh, how can I explain to you?” he exclaimed, rising in his turn. “It’s just this — I must make another try, and to do that I must be free! You have the right to ask — what haven’t you the right to ask! I’ll tell you the truth — that’s all I can do now. The girl I asked to marry me flung me off because — because—”

“Because of me?”

She bent forward, staring at him, as if she would wring the truth from his hesitation.

“Yes — because of you.”

“And when was this? When was it, I ask you? Was it — before?”

“Yes.”

“Then she had no grounds for what she said? She was wrong — she misjudged you — and then you came back to me!”

“Yes.”

“Why — why?”

“I don’t know,” said Andrew miserably. “I owed you something. I couldn’t hear you accused like that when there was no reason. You were my friend.”

“And so — you gave up the woman you — loved? Ah, mon Dieu!”

She paused, and then her eyes blazed suddenly with such a light as he had never seen in them, and her hands went to her temples with a bewildered flutter.

“It was for me,” she said, “for me! And to-morrow it is to be adieu?”

“To-morrow?”

Briefly they searched each other’s eyes.

“I mean to-night, of course,” said Mirabelle evenly. “Andrew — there is one thing I would like to ask of you, before you go. Will you — will you kiss me once — not as you have ever kissed me?” Her fingers touched her forehead. “Will you kiss me — here?”

He advanced a step and did as she had asked, then fell back.

“Mirabelle — Mirabelle!”

“Ah, don’t think of me, my friend. I don’t mean to be cruel — but I have — other interests. Let us say good-by, and part — friends. I trust you may be happy.”

“Mirabelle!”

Andrew’s voice broke suddenly.

“Then it’s good-by?”

“Yes,” said Mirabelle; and, with a little sob, he bent and kissed her hand.

When he had gone, she stood irresolutely, her lips parted and her eyes very bright. Then she wheeled and walked slowly toward the mantel. A photograph of Thomas Radwalader leaned there against a slender vase. As it met her eyes, she snatched abruptly at it, tore it into twenty pieces, and scattered the fragments in the air.


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Author:Vasil Kanchov

Works

 * 1890, The region of Bitola, Prespa and Ohrid. Travel notes ("Битолско, Преспа и Охридско. Пътни бележки") (1890)
 * 1892, The present and the past of the town of Veles ("Сегашното и недавнашното минало на гр. Велес") (1892)
 * 1900, Macedonia — ethnography and statistics ("Македония. Етнография и статистика"').
 * 1911, Orohydrography of Macedonia (1911)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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 bore the name of William Tinsley only as publisher. Before long they removed to premises in Catherine-street, where the publishing business of the firm of Tinsley Brothers has since that time been carried on.

From a farmer's boy, with two shillings or half a crown a week for wages, to the position Mr. William Tinsley now holds as a publisher, is no ordinary leap in life, especially when it must be taken into consideration that he had only the advantage in early life of the most rudimentary education. Mr. Tinsley is now, we believe, sometimes a contributor upon dramatic and social subjects to the pages of his own magazine. The story of William Tinsley's life, if told at length, would no doubt add but one more to the thousands of proofs of what perseverance and pluck can accomplish when put to the test.

⁂The Editor of this volume, and indeed Mr. William Tinsley himself, are both aware that the short statement of the rise and progress of the firm of Tinsley Brothers, and the few particulars about Mr. Tinsley's own life, will be interesting to but a small portion, if any, of ths reading public; nor would the statement have been put forth but for very good reasons.


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 to furnish material for repairing the city walls; an imperfect inscription from it is preserved in the British Museum. The other arch, popularly called the arch of Constantine, but with greater probability assigned to the reign of Galerius ( 305–311), is built of brick and partly faced with sculptured marble. A third example of Roman architecture—the remains of a white marble portico supposed to have formed the entrance to the hippodrome—is known by the Judaeo-Spanish designation of Las Incantadas, from the eight Caryatides in the upper part of the structure. There are also numerous fragments of Roman inscriptions and statuary. The conspicuous mosques of Salonica are nearly all of an early Christian origin; the remarkable preservation of their mural decorations makes them very important for the history of Byzantine architecture. The principal are those dedicated to St Sophia, St George and St Demetrius.

History.—Thessalonica was built on the site of the older Greek city of Therma, so called in allusion to the hot-springs of the neighbourhood. It was founded in 315 by Cassander, who gave it the name of his wife, a sister of Alexander the Great. It was a military and commercial station on a main line of communication between Rome and the East, and had reached its zenith before the seat of empire was transferred to Constantinople. It became famous in connexion with the early history of Christianity through the two epistles addressed by St Paul to the community which he founded here; and in the later defence of the ancient civilization against the barbarian inroads it played a considerable part. In 390 7000 citizens who had been guilty of insurrection were massacred in the hippodrome by command of Theodosius. Constantine repaired the port, and probably enriched the town with some of its buildings. During the iconoclastic reigns of terror it stood on the defensive, and succeeded in saving the artistic treasures of its churches: in the 9th century Joseph, one of its bishops, died in chains for his defence of image-worship. In the 7th century the Macedonian Slavs strove to capture the city, but failed even when it was thrown into confusion by a terrible earthquake. It was the attempt made to transfer the whole Bulgarian trade to Thessalonica that in the close of the 9th century caused the invasion of the empire by Simeon of Bulgaria. In 904 the Saracens from the Cyrenaica took the place by storm; the public buildings were grievously injured, and the inhabitants to the number of 22,000 were carried off and sold as slaves throughout the countries of the Mediterranean. In 1185 the Normans of Sicily took Thessalonica after a ten days' siege, and perpetrated endless barbarities, of which Eustathius, then bishop of the see, has left an account. In 1204 Baldwin, conqueror of Constantinople, conferred the kingdom of Thessalonica on Boniface, marquis of Montferrat [sic]; but in 1222 Theodore, despot of Epirus, one of the natural enemies of the new kingdom, took the city and had himself there crowned by the patriarch of Macedonian Bulgaria. On the death of Demetrius, who had been supported in his endeavour to recover his father's throne by Pope Honorius III., the empty title of king of Salonica was adopted by several claimants. In 1266 the house of Burgundy received a grant of the titular kingdom from Baldwin II. when he was titular emperor, and it was sold by Eudes IV. to Philip of Tarentum, titular emperor of Romania, in 1320. The Venetians to whom the city was transferred by one of the Palaeologi, were in power when Murad II. appeared, and on the 1st of May 1430, in spite of the desperate resistance of the inhabitants, took the city, which had thrice previously been in the hands of the Turks. They cut to pieces the body of St Demetrius, the patron saint of Salonica, who had been the Roman proconsul of Greece, under Maximian, and was martyred in 306. In 1876 the French and German consuls at Salonica were murdered by the Turkish populace. On the 4th of September 1890 more than 2000 houses were destroyed by fire in the south-eastern quarters of the city. During the early years of the 20th century Salonica was the headquarters of the Committee of Union and Progress, the central organization of the Young Turkey Party, which carried out the constitutional revolution of 1908. Before this event the weakness of Turkey had encouraged the belief that Salonica would ultimately pass under the control of Austria-Hungary or one of the Balkan States, and this belief gave rise to many political intrigues which helped to delay the solution of the Macedonian Question.

Vilayet.—The vilayet of Salonica has an area of 13,510 sq. m. and an estimated population of 1,150,000. It is rich in minerals, including chrome, manganese, zinc, antimony, iron, argentiferous

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 MABEL.

WITH 24 PICTURE IN COLOURS

GEORGE LAMBERT

LONDON : FREDERICK WARNE & CO.

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The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter XVI

“He’s gone for a couple of days,” observed Vicot bluntly, as he opened the door of Andrew’s apartment to Radwalader, about noon of the following day. “He left a note for you. It’s on his desk.”
 * Chapter XVI. A Declaration of Independence.

“I’ll come in and read it,” answered Radwalader, with his customary lack of manifest surprise. “It may require an answer.”

He pulled off his gloves in a leisurely manner, as he entered the little salon, and stood looking down at the note addressed to him.

“Perhaps,” he added, “you’ll save me the trouble of opening this by giving me a brief epitome of its contents.”

“He didn’t honour me with his confidence,” said Vicot. “And he left the note sealed.”

Radwalader turned the envelope, flap up.

“I see you’ve been careful to restore it to its original condition,” he remarked. “You’re skilful at this kind of thing, my friend — uncommonly skilful. I fail to perceive the slightest evidence of your tampering.”

“Then why not give me the benefit of the doubt?” demanded the other sullenly.

“Because, with the best will in the world, it’s quite impossible to give you the benefit of something which doesn’t exist. A sealed letter and a corked bottle, you see, are two things which habit has long since made it impossible to resist.”

“Not a drop of liquor has touched my lips to-day!” exclaimed Vicot.

“And it’s past noon!” retorted Radwalader lightly. “Is this a miracle of which you are informing me, or have you been taking it through a tube?”

He took up the note, and seated himself deliberately in Andrew’s chair. Vicot watched him alertly, gnawing his lip.

“Am I to know what it’s about?” he demanded presently.

“There’s no conceivable reason why you should,” was the answer; “but, on the other hand, there seems to be no conceivable reason why you shouldn’t. Only pray don’t stand upon ceremony, my good Jules. If you know the contents, do be kind enough to say so, and spare me the effort of useless recapitulation.”

“I’ve practically told you already. I haven’t touched it.”

“Curiously enough,” said Radwalader, “I believe you.”

He threw the note upon the table, and Vicot, picking it up, scanned it eagerly.

‘“I’ve gone back’” he read slowly, “‘for another try.’”

“Well?” inquired Radwalader pleasantly. “Are you any the wiser?”

“What does it mean?” asked Vicot, looking down at him.

“It means,” said Radwalader, “that the game is up.”

“Damnation!”

“My good Jules!” protested Radwalader, “pardon the license of an old friend, who begs to suggest that your interruption is in most execrable taste!”

“What are you driving at?” exclaimed Vicot impatiently. “What does it mean, all this palaver? There’s something back of it. You can’t hoodwink me, Radwalader.”

“Far be it from me to attempt the impossible, my astute Jules. Quite justly, you demand what I’m driving at, and, quite frankly, I’ve told you. The game is up. Mr. Vane has outplayed us. He’s managed to get out of this pretty little tangle in a fashion at once ingenious and unexpected. I confess myself beaten. He’s gone back to the girl he intends to marry.”

Radwalader paused for an instant, as a thought struck him.

“And he would have gone back long ago,” he added, “if he had received a certain telegram which was sent to him three weeks ago. If that particular telegram was not intercepted en route, it should have reached him; if that particular telegram was intercepted en route, it should have reached me. Well?”

Vicot stared at him blankly, his hand groping in his pocket.

“A telegram?” he repeated, and then drew out the blue missive which had arrived, almost simultaneously with Mirabelle, three weeks before.

“I forgot,” he stammered.

“You ass!” exclaimed Radwalader. “It’s lucky enough for you that your carelessness didn’t interfere with my plans. As it is, I don’t see that it makes much difference. Vane has been too sharp for us, all around. For once in my life, I’ve made a miscalculation. He’s out of the net, right enough, and the best we can do is to abandon the chase and apply ourselves to something more profitable. I’m glad to think that, however unsatisfactory, from a financial point of view, the venture may have proved to me, at least you have not suffered—”

“Enough of that!” broke in Vicot. “Get to the point!”

“Why, the point is simply this. On the return of Mr. Vane, you will present, in due form, your resignation from his employ, and resume your careful surveillance of my window in the Rue de Villejust. When you shall observe it to be ornamented with a certain unpretentious blue jar, you will know that I am once more at home to you. I think I can promise you that the next case deserving of our joint attention will not be so barren of result as this one, which we are now with reluctance forced to relinquish. You might go back to driving a cab, meanwhile.”

“I’m to leave Mr. Vane’s employ,” said Vicot, less in the tone of inquiry than in that of reflection. “I’m to leave Mr. Vane’s employ.”

“Quite so, my perspicacious Jules.”

“Well, then — I won’t!” said Jules Vicot.

He seated himself upon the edge of Andrew’s desk and folded his arms.

“Radwalader,” he added, “many’s the time I’ve listened to you. Now it’s your turn to listen to me.”

Radwalader, following the impulse of a momentary whim, folded his arms in turn.

“Mon cher confrère,” he said amusedly, “I shall listen with reverent attention to whatever you may have to say.”

“I know too well,” continued the other, “that I can’t appeal with any hope of success to your sense of pity — because you haven’t any. Wilfully or otherwise, you have contrived to stifle the promptings of feeling which weaken — or is it strengthen? — other men. You’re trained to perfection. But there must be one thing which even you are unable to forget — I mean the time when we were young and clean, when we smiled by day as we dreamed of what lay before us, instead of shuddering by night, as now, as we dream of what lies behind.”

Radwalader nodded. “I’m not addicted, myself, to the unpleasant habit of shuddering,” he said, “but I think I know what you mean by the other part of your preamble. ‘When all the world was young, lad, and all the trees were green: and every goose a swan, lad, and every lass a queen!’ Isn’t that it? Yes, I seem to remember something of the sort, and with a not unpleasurable emotion. Continue, my good Jules.”

“Sometimes,” said Vicot, moistening his lips, “the thought of that time must come back even to you. Sometimes even you, with all your callousness, must contrast what you might have been with what you are. Sometimes a face, among all those we meet, must recall to you the days when better things were possible. But if you have never been thrust back thus upon your own youth, and grown sick at thought of it, I have! There’s nothing more awful.”

“We’ve been over all this before,” put in Radwalader, with a suggestion of weariness.

“You said you’d hear me out! I’m not talking religion, or even morality. I’m trying to spare you the cant to which you once objected. I don’t care about the future. I’m like you in having no more dread of hell than love of heaven. No, it’s not the future which hits me. But the past —! The world — the world which, long since, I ran to meet so eagerly — has made me rotten, rotten, rotten to the core!”

“Severe,” commented Radwalader, “but strictly accurate. Continue, my Jules.”

“You can’t make me angry, Radwalader. I’m changed a good bit in these past few weeks. I’ve been going easy on the drink for one thing, which may account for the fact that my head has cleared, and that I see a number of things in a very different light.”

For an instant his eyes gleamed with a kind of eagerness.

“I wish you were easier to talk to, Radwalader,” he added, his voice suddenly grown timorous with a hint of the old whimper. “With all your cold-bloodedness, you’re the only—”

“When you’ve anything worth saying, I’m as easy to talk to as the next man,” said Radwalader. “It’s only when you begin to lament through your nose about the past, and remorse; and ‘I remember, I remember the house where I was born,’ that I’m not the pink of polite attention. I confess I can’t stand that kind of thing; but, for this once, let it go. I’ll hear you out.”

“Well,” continued the other, “one thing I’ve found out is that there is less tragedy than comedy about an old man looking back shamefacedly upon the past.”

“That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said,” observed Radwalader.

“The tragic spectacle,” added Vicot, “is that of the young man looking forward hopefully upon the future. Now the old man and the young man I describe have been in close proximity for several weeks, and the old man has learned that his own security isn’t worth much, one way or another, when compared with the young man’s security.”

“The old man gets ten in modesty.” Radwalader carefully entered the mark in an imaginary report-book.

“The old man sees,” pursued Vicot, “that a certain person whom he has been fearing is really of infinitely minor importance, after all.”

“Grand merci!”

“This person has been jumping out of dark corners and shouting ‘Boo!’ — that’s all. Even if he should tell all he knows about the old man — but he won’t, no matter what happens: that’s another thing the old man has learned — it wouldn’t make any difference. Do you see? It wouldn’t make any difference at all!”

He peered at Radwalader triumphantly, but the latter noted that under his folded left arm Vicot’s right thumb twitched ceaselessly against his sleeve. He hugged himself upon perceiving this, and nodded.

“Shrewd old man!” he said. “Pity he didn’t find all this out sooner.”

“Well, soon or late,” went on Vicot, “the knowledge is his now, and it’s bound to be useful — not to himself, mind you, but to the young man! Do you begin to see? If this person is going to hound this young man, and ruin his life as he has ruined others, it will have to be by new tricks. The old man knows all the old ones — he would recognize them in their earliest stages — he would be able to checkmate this — this person, before he had fairly made the first move!”

“Is that all?” inquired Radwalader.

“All? Yes — it’s all until I hear what you have to say.”

“Oh, I’m expected to take part in the conversation, am I? I thought I was only to listen. Well, then, my good Jules, if you will allow me to dispense with the thin disguise of the old man and the young man and the certain person — as the phrases are becoming wearisome — suppose I were to say to you that all this is entirely without interest, so far as I’m concerned? We’ve fought over all this ground of my hold upon you; and you know as well as I that you’re at liberty to test its efficacy whenever your courage is equal to the ordeal. We’ve also wasted some time upon your maunderings over your past probity, youthful innocence, and present degeneration. I’m sorry, but I can’t get up the faintest gleam of enthusiasm on this subject. Indeed, it bores me intolerably, and I beg you’ll spare me from it in the future. As regards Mr. Andrew Vane, whom you see fit to think in danger of being ‘ruined,’ I’ve already stated that I’ve no further designs upon him. Altogether, my good Jules, I consider that I’ve done no more than shamefully waste my time by giving you my undivided attention for the past ten minutes.”

Vicot revolved these remarks in silence for a few moments, glancing up covertly once or twice from under his heavy lids, as if in hope of surprising the other in an expression indicative of some idea at variance with his words. But in each instance Radwalader met his eyes with his quiet, non-committal smile.

“It seems you were right,” continued the latter presently, “in saying you have changed. If it pleases you to imagine that the alteration is in the nature of a great moral awakening, by all means consider it so. To my way of thinking, it’s more like one of the transient panics of a Louis XI., praying to the little images in his cap, and ready, the next moment, to resume his misdoing at the point where he left off. Only one thing is made clear by what you’ve said, and that is that you’re no longer fit for the kind of work I’ve thus far found for you. From to-day we part company.”

He rose slowly to his feet, and was about to move towards the door, when he was checked by a movement on the other’s part. Following his old habit, Vicot had thrust his hands into his pockets.

“That suits me,” he answered. “But please to remember this. I’ve been cleaning and loading your weapons for you so long that I know their uses as well as yourself. I’m able to turn them effectively against you, and I’ll do it if need be. I would be resigning the little hold I have upon security, perhaps; but I’d not be doing it uselessly. Some men fling themselves into the sea, simply to be rid of life: others save the life of another by quietly slipping off a log that won’t keep two afloat. Both acts are suicide, but, somehow, there’s a difference.”

“Ah, I begin to see,” said Radwalader. “Sidney Carton all over again — eh? I, in the leading rôle of guillotine, come down upon you and chop off your head, while Mr. Vane goes free. ‘It is a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done,’ and all that. It’s a pity that Mr. Vane, by his own shrewdness, has already obviated the danger which threatened him, and that you no longer have the opportunity of exercising your lofty purpose.”

“If I could believe that!” observed Vicot.

“Believe what?”

“Why, believe that the smallest part of what you’ve told me is true — that the game’s up — that you’re beaten — that Mr. Vane is free. But I can’t. What have you often said to me? — that you never turn back, never give up. And yet, knowing you’re defeated, I find you smiling, careless, ready to chuck the game and begin on something else. Does that ring true? You know whether it does or not. You know whether I’ve any reason to trust you? No! And so I refuse to leave Mr. Vane’s employ.”

“Might one inquire,” asked Radwalader, “what you expect to gain?”

“Nothing,” replied Vicot, “which you would appreciate or even understand. I expect to gain self-respect.”

“Indeed! May I ask whose?”

“If I cannot be anything myself,” continued Vicot, disregarding the sneer, “I can at least be of use to this boy. I can show him my life, teach him how insignificant slips are the beginnings of moral avalanches, and how bitter are the dregs when one has had the wine.”

“You’re an authority on that point, at all events,” commented Radwalader dryly. “But what insensate delusion is this, my eloquent, disreputable Jules? What can you possibly be to him, or he to you? How can you even begin to speak to him upon this personal plane? At the first symptom of such insolent effrontery, he’d give you a week’s wages in lieu of notice, and show you the door. Faugh! Why, man, he’s your master, your employer, your—”

“He’s my son!” said Jules Vicot.


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The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter XVII

For a long moment after this announcement, Radwalader stared at the speaker curiously. Vicot had straightened himself, and met his eyes with a kind of boldness which he had never shown before.
 * Chapter XVII. A Dog and His Master.

“He is my son!” he repeated presently. “Sit down, Radwalader. You may as well hear the whole story. My name’s no more Vicot than yours is. It’s John Vane, and twenty-five years ago it was as respected as any in Boston. I’d everything to live for, as the saying is, and I might have realized it all; but, except for about a year, just after I left college, I never seemed to get a grip on things. I had money — perhaps that was the trouble. Everything came my way for a time, but I mixed myself up in speculation, and it wasn’t long before I found myself ruined. I — I was married. My wife stuck to me, even after I began to drink, but after the liquor’d had a chance to make me about what I’ve been ever since you’ve known me, and I saw that she was beginning to despise me, I grew — or thought I grew — to hate her. We were living in a wretched little house in Kingsbridge, the drink was gaining on me every day, and things got worse and worse. I expect I was brutal to her, though half the time I didn’t know what I was saying. Anyhow, she drew farther and farther away from me, till after a few months the fact that we were man and wife was nothing more than a hideous burlesque. She wouldn’t let me touch her, she’d hardly answer when I spoke to her, and that made me furious. The conditions were intolerable, maddening: and when another woman came into my life, who flattered me and seemed fond of me and had enough money for us both, I saw a way of escape. I deserted my wife, soothing what little conscience I had left, with the thought that she’d go back to her father, be cared for, and think herself well rid of me. I sailed for Liverpool with the other. That was twenty-one years ago — on Thanksgiving Day, 1879. For a little, I reformed, but the old habits came back, of course, and, the first I knew, I was done by as I’d done. My — my companion left me, with a small monthly allowance and the information that this would be continued so long as I made no attempt to see her. She knew me pretty well by then, you see! And she was right. I accepted, and for fifteen years I managed to live on this pittance, drifting all over Europe and turning my hand to whatever job came my way. Then she died, and the allowance came to an end. I was here in Paris, strapped; and it was then you caught me in what was, for me, too bold an attempt at swindling — the case of Mr. Rutherford, of course. You knew me for a thief and a forger, and I was fully prepared to have you turn me over to the police, when I discovered that you were no better than myself, and that your knowledge was to be used not to betray, but merely to intimidate me. You know the rest — up to the moment when you told me that I was to become the servant of Mr. Vane.

“All this time I had never so much as heard of his existence. Indirectly, I’d learned of my wife’s death, but that it was because of the birth of a child — that I never knew. Even when I heard the name I wasn’t more than momentarily startled. It’s not an uncommon one, and nothing was farther from my mind than the thought that I might have a son. But it was only a few days before I guessed. The name ‘Andrew’ gave me the first clue. It’s his grandfather’s. Then, when I began to probe into his letters, as you’d told me to, I soon learned the truth. And, from the moment I was sure, my mind was made up. I’d made a botch of my own life, and here I was engaged in an attempt to make a botch of his. Well, then, I wouldn’t. The time didn’t seem right for saying anything to you. I thought I could do more good by keeping mum, and watching. If you’ll look back—” and Vicot’s voice took on a new note of pride — “you’ll find that I haven’t given you a scrap of information which would tend to damage him in any way, or put him in your power.”

“That,” observed Radwalader, “appears, from my knowledge of the case, to have been simply because you didn’t know anything worth telling. I thought I was going to need your services, but, as it happened, I didn’t. Things went very well by themselves.”

“But it was only last night,” continued Vicot, after a moment, “that I realized what this boy meant to me. After you’d gone out to dinner, I picked up what was lying on that table. I’d never seen it before. Either it had just come, or else he’s kept it locked up. Do you remember what it was? It was that picture — there!”

He flung out one hand passionately, pointing at the miniature on the mantel behind Radwalader.

“Look! I found that — the picture of my wife and the mother of my son!”

Radwalader rose slowly, turned, walked across to the mantel, and bent forward to examine the picture. As Vicot continued, the vague expression of interest on the other’s face deepened to one of eager scrutiny. His eyebrows came together, as of one who strives to recollect, and then a small, sneering smile began to curl the corners of his lips.

“That settled the question. As I say, I’ve made a rotten failure of everything, but there’s one chance left! When I saw her picture, I saw my duty, and I was glad — my God! how glad I was! So now I’m resolved. You can do as you please. You can say what you will. You can flay me alive, if you like, or send me to the galleys, or ruin me in any fashion in your power. I’ve seen the picture of the woman I wronged, and I’ve seen my way to make good. From somewhere, perhaps, she’ll see and understand. He’s my son! Do as you think best — you’ll never harm him. He shall marry this girl he loves, and that without a word out of your mouth — curse you! I’m not afraid for myself. My life’s over. But the sins of the fathers shall not be visited upon the children! God Almighty Himself won’t deny me this chance. And there is my highest trump. Master Radwalader. Can you take the trick?”

“Yes, by God!” exclaimed Radwalader, wheeling full upon him, “and with the ace! I knew that face last night, though at the time I couldn’t place it. So that is the woman you deserted at Kingsbridge twenty-one years ago — your wife — the mother of Andrew Vane! Oh, don’t assure me! I know you’re telling the truth, right enough, but I know more than that. Shall I tell you? Well, then, what you rejected I picked up; what you were fool enough to desert I was wise enough to appreciate. Your wife — ho! You tell me that she wouldn’t answer you when you spoke to her, that for months she wouldn’t let you touch her, that your marriage was a farce. Here is what I tell you. I found no such difficulty. She answered me readily enough, she took my hand before I’d known her five minutes, and everything she denied you, she gave to me! Do you understand what that means? It means that if the father of Andrew Vane is alive to-day, he’s not alive in the person of Jules Vicot or of John Vane, but in that of Thomas Radwalader!”

He threw himself violently into the chair again, and his nervous tension snapped in a shrill laugh. As the last words left his lips, it was as if an unseen hand had snuffed out the light in the eyes of the man who had been John Vane. His exaltation left him, and he braced himself rigidly against the desk, leaning far back, and staring, staring through the singular, dull film which had come across his pupils. He gave no audible evidence, until Radwalader had spoken again, that he had understood or even heard.

“What a witch Fate is! What hands she deals! A moment since, you were nearer to having me in a tight place, Jules — er — Mr. Vane, than you ever have been, or than you’re ever likely to be again. There’s just one thing against which I’ve never been able to secure myself, and that is the possibility of some sudden, overmastering emotion in those whom I’m forced to trust. I’ve never been so unfortunate as to run foul of it before, but when you were trumpeting remorse, and self-sacrifice, and atonement, and so forth, a moment ago, I confess I thought you had the odd trick. With hysteria, all things are possible, and a majority probable. If Andrew Vane had been in reality your son, and you’d not chosen to believe that I’d no further plans in regard to him, you might have done me an infinite deal of harm. You disturbed me — you disturbed me considerably, Mr. Vane. But, lo and behold! a turn of the wheel, a throw of the dice, a deal of the cards, and I am able, with extreme relish, to snap my fingers in your face — because, since he is not your son, but mine, you’re going to keep your mouth shut even more tightly in the future than you have in the past! If you’d not been an idiot, as well as a coward, you’d have known long ago that my hold over you hasn’t been worth the paper on which it was written. My very silence about what I knew of the Rutherford swindle made me an accessory after the fact. Strange you didn’t think of that! But now — things are very different. You’ll keep your mouth shut, my dear Mr. Vane, because, while nothing but shame could have come to the boy by the revelation that he was your son, the shame would be multiplied a thousand-fold by the public admission that he is mine!”

As he paused, the other blinked, and strove in vain for an instant before he could find his voice.

“A lie!” he murmured hoarsely. “All a damned lie!”

“Let’s see if it is,” answered Radwalader. “I don’t deal in that dangerous commodity if I can avoid it. There never was a lie yet which it wasn’t possible, sooner or later, to nail: and that in itself is enough to make me fight shy. I never take unnecessary risks. Besides, in the present instance, the truth fits my needs to a nicety. So I think you’ll believe what I’m going to tell you.”

Vicot gave a short, bewildered nod, seeming to ask him to continue.

“The facts, then, are these: After having disgraced, and, presumably, maltreated, the woman who had the misfortune to be your wife, you deserted her, by your own confession, and thereby, as no doubt you will concede, relinquished whatever claim you had upon her, and all right of supervision or control over what she chose to do. You left her in poverty and wretchedness — and I found her. You sought escape and consolation: she did the same. You found them in the company of another woman: she found them in the company of another man. I was so happy as to be that man. Voilà! It’s quite simple.”

“Lies — all lies!” broke in Vicot passionately. “She was not that kind. She was a saint on earth!”

“Ah, you’ve learned to appreciate her!”

“Never in God’s world would she have stooped to you — unless you brought deceit to bear.”

Vicot was picking feverishly at the edge of the desk, his filmed eyes shifting and shifting in their sockets.

“Well, then— yes!” said Radwalader. “If I’m nothing else, at least I’m loyal to the women who — er — have, as you courteously put it, stooped to me. I did bring deceit to bear. I was interested in mesmerism in those days, and highly adept. When I came upon her, by merest chance, she was desperate, unstrung, and, I think, on the point of collapse. In a very natural attempt to calm her, I put forth an influence which had already been proved considerable. To my surprise she yielded completely to it, and passed, almost before I realized what I’d done, into a state of profound trance, in which I found her wholly subject to my will. Up to that moment — believe me or not, as you choose — I had no ulterior motive. But when I found her walking, talking as I desired, interest led me on. I directed her back to the town — we met on a hill-road back of it — willing her to lead me to her home. I’d some thought of explaining matters to her family, but when I found that she apparently had none, when I saw the squalor and dreariness in which she lived, curiosity impelled me to question her, and from her unconscious answers I gained enough to confirm my present knowledge of who she was. Then — I was but human — she was very beautiful — the circumstances—”

“Stop!” broke in Vicot. “I understand what you’re going to say.”

“So much the better: we’re saved the necessity of going into unpleasant details. Suffice it to say that what happened, happened. Already, as we walked together, I’d said enough to impress my mentality upon hers, to make her mind my property, and her will subject to mine. When I left her I meant to go back, to help and uplift her, to marry her, perhaps. Who knows? I was very young then and a good deal of a pedant.”

“So you never went back,” said Vicot. “You left her — like that!”

“Just as you’d left her, the same day,” retorted Radwalader, his complacency quite restored. “Don’t let’s get to recriminations. I fancy it’s a case of pot and kettle.”

“All this doesn’t prove that the boy’s not mine,” exclaimed the other, with sudden energy.

Radwalader rose, came quite close to him, and said with a little sneer:

“Do you think it’s likely? It’s a question of the simplest arithmetic. Vane’s not yet twenty-one — and what have you told me? Look back — calculate.”

Vicot made no reply. He was peering at Radwalader’s face, and presently he whispered:

“My God! He’s even got your eyes!”

“From the sublime to the ridiculous,” said Radwalader. “A moment since, you were spouting heroic sentiments, and had me so obviously at a disadvantage that I — yes, I was almost afraid of you. Now we’re parties to a dénouement which would seem to have come from the pen of Alfred Capus.”

“What do you mean to do?” asked Vicot lifelessly.

“Do? Why, nothing. What is there to do, except to be thankful that a discerning Providence has put it out of your power to injure me. The boy’s mine — there can’t be a doubt of it — and if you so much as open your lips on the subject, you not only disgrace yourself and me, but Andrew as well, and, most of all, the memory of your wife. That’s enough: I’m satisfied. Sheer common-sense will show you, as it shows me, that silence is the only course. Andrew believes, as does every one else, that his father is dead. We alone, of all men, know the truth — and we agree to hold our tongues.”

“If I could trust you!” exclaimed Vicot, “but I can’t — I can’t! You’ve laid a trap for him — you know you have! — just as you did for the others, because he’s young, and reckless, and rich! You called me in to help you, and probably the Tremonceau girl as well. Oh, I know how it’s worked! Well, that’s why I must stick by him, and guard him, and see to it that he can marry the girl he wants to—”

Suddenly Radwalader laughed.

“Why, what an ass it is!” he said. “Look here, you mountebank! The only person who has brought Andrew Vane into trouble, from the very beginning of all this, is you! I couldn’t make him compromise himself: I could only set the bait. He nibbled at it, to be sure, but he was never in my power or Mirabelle Tremonceau’s for a moment. He loved another girl. He went to her and asked her to marry him, and she refused him, but he’d no sooner left her than she thought better of it and sent for him. If that message had reached him, he would never have seen Mirabelle again; but it didn’t reach him, and, quite naturally, he took the next best thing. Now she’s his mistress, and he’s just where I’ve wanted to have him all along. For all this, Mr. Vane, I have only you to thank!”

“I?” repeated Vicot. “What have I to do with it?”

“This much: that, while you’ve been planning to keep him out of my power, the very thing that would have done so once and for all has been lying in your pocket. A moment ago you laid a telegram upon the table. It’s still there. Open it!”

Slowly, wonderingly, Vicot tore the blue paper open and read aloud the five words which it contained:

“Come back to me. .”

Radwalader slipped his hands into his pockets.

“Exactly,” he said. “Do you see?”

“But you said, only a little while ago,” stammered Vicot, “that the game was up — that you wouldn’t do anything more.”

“Only by way of shutting your mouth,” said Radwalader coolly. “Since then there’ve been developments. When I said that, I was, as I’ve already told you, anxious to get rid of you. Now — well, you won’t blab in any event, because the small sum of money which it will cost Vane to get rid of Mirabelle is nothing compared with what it would mean to him if you forced me into pitting my knowledge of his origin against your accusations of me.”

“And so,” cried Vicot furiously, “you’re determined to hold this over him. You’ll hound him and hound him — damn you! — till perhaps you’ll drive him desperate — till you drive him to kill himself — and end up in the Morgue, like young Baxter — and then you’ll go and look at him, staring out through the glass — and you’ll smile and light a cigarette and whistle ‘Au Clair de la Lune’! You hell-hound!”

He flung himself forward, as if he would have seized the other by the throat, halted suddenly as Radwalader’s right hand came from his pocket, and stooped, staring cross-eyed into the shining mouth of a revolver, held without a tremor six inches from his contorted face.

“Get back, you dog!” said Radwalader; and at the words, as if he had been a dog indeed, Vicot shuddered, went limp, and sank whimpering at his master’s feet.

“Now listen to me as well as you’re able,” continued Radwalader. “If you stir hand or foot in this matter, you’re a lost man. It’s no longer the old story: you know what’s at stake now! I don’t know what this madness of yours may lead you to, but I’ve myself to protect, and you may rest assured I’ll do that, no matter at what cost. If, through some distorted and drunken idea of protecting him, you betray me, I’ll hound you — since you talk of hounding — as never was a man hounded before. I’d sacrifice not only you, not only Vane, not only the memory of his mother, but myself into the bargain. If I pull down all Paris about my ears, I’ll beat you, do you hear? — I’ll beat you, my man — I’ll beat you!”

As he finished, Vicot dragged himself to his elbows and looked up. His face was ghastly, and wet with ridiculous insensate tears.

“All right, Radwalader,” he whined. “Do as you please, only for God’s sake don’t let this get out. If you must have the money, get it from him, but don’t ruin his life — don’t let him know. I won’t breathe a word — I swear I won’t — and I’ll do whatever else you ask of me — anything — God knows I will!”

He was on his knees now, clutching at Radwalader’s coat.

“Now it’s all right, isn’t it?” he asked. “It’s all right between us? You won’t tell, and I won’t tell. We understand each other, Radwalader, don’t we? — ha, yes, we understand each other, you and I!”

“God!” said Radwalader, flinging him off. “Is it a man or a worm?”

Briefly he stood, looking down at the thing which writhed and whimpered before him, and then touched it curiously with his foot. A moment later, the outer door closed behind him with a sullen slam.

For a long time — for five hours and more — Vicot lay where he had fallen. At first he choked and sobbed, repeating fragments of his miserable appeal, but gradually even this incoherent murmur died down to silence. The long summer afternoon stole by; and from the street outside came the commingled sounds of a busy thoroughfare — the rattle of wheels, the cries of venders, the clamour of children playing: and still he lay, as motionless as one dead. It was only when the sunlight swung in horizontally through the window on the Rue Boissière, and the bell of a neighbouring church was striking six, that he stirred, rose, and went slowly across to stare down into the street. A cab was standing at the corner — a cab of the Compagnie Urbaine. Suddenly Vicot smiled.


text:
The Transgression of Andrew Vane/Chapter XVIII

At eleven o’clock that night, the electric door-bell of Radwalader’s apartment gave two short staccato chirps and then a prolonged whir. At the sound he looked up sharply from his evening mail, and drew his eyebrows together in a puzzled frown.
 * Chapter XVIII. Fair Exchange is No Robbery.

‘“At this hour?” he said to himself, and then, closing the doors of La Boîte behind him, went out to answer the summons.

Mirabelle entered deliberately, passing before him into the salon, and shredding a little note in her slender fingers.

“There’s no need of this now,” she explained, scattering the pieces in the empty fireplace. “It was merely to ask you to call to-morrow. I’d have mailed it if I’d not found you at home.”

She flung back her light wrap as she spoke, disclosing a superb evening gown, and a profusion of diamonds slightly on the safe side of undue ostentation. Withal, she had a nice sense of fitness in the matter of dress. It was a safety-valve not possessed by many of her monde, and which, at all times, guaranteed her against exploding into vulgarity.

“I confess,” said Radwalader, “that I was surprised when I recognized your ring. Of late, your visits have been so infrequent that when I’m favoured with one at this — to say the least — unconventional hour, I’m sure that its object is of some importance.”

Mirabelle looked at him coolly, with a slightly contemptuous droop of her eyelids.

“I believe that it’s a characteristic of both the visits I make and those I receive,” she said lazily, “that they’re seldom without an object. As for the hour, I’m not to be judged by the conventionality for which you manifest so commendable — and so abrupt — a concern. We Parisians are like our allies, the Russians: we go by standards of time which differ from those of the rest of the world. May I sit down?”

“I beg your pardon!” said Radwalader. “Do — by all means.”

Mirabelle installed herself in an arm-chair, and her eyes were travelling to and fro about the room. Something in the curious confidence of her manner, a confidence that was almost insolence, turned Radwalader vaguely uneasy. He was standing with his back to her, lighting his inevitable cigarette. There was nothing in his expression to indicate enjoyment of that usually enjoyable operation.

“Any news?” he inquired, as the tobacco caught.

“Would you mind turning around?” asked Mirabelle sweetly. “I dislike talking to shoulders.”

Radwalader wheeled upon her with a bow.

“You are irresistible, ma chère,” said he. “After all, what use? I know you’re clever, and you know I am. It’s quite an imbecile proceeding for us to waste poses and by-plays upon each other. What is the news? Has the Great Inevitable happened?”

A tiny shadow crossed her eyes at the phrase, but she answered steadily.

“If by ‘the Great Inevitable’ you mean that the pleasure vehicle of Mr. Vane has no further accommodations for me as a passenger, then assuredly yes — the Great Inevitable has happened.”

“Ah!” said Radwalader reflectively.

“He came last night to bid me good-by. It’s the old story. There’s another girl — a girl he wants to marry — and one must clear the decks before going into action.”

Radwalader looked at her, in silence now, but with a question in his face.

“You want to hear about the financial side, I suppose,” she continued. “How pleasant they are, these little business conferences, how friendly, and yet — how dignified! It’s a pity that there must be losses as well as gains in such a business as yours, mon cher associè. It would be so much more agreeable if one could always declare a dividend, instead of making an occasional assignment. In the present instance, I’ve no further report to make. He’s tired of me, and he’s given me my congé, and that’s all there is to it.”

She looked down, fingering the lace on her gown, as if to dismiss the subject.

“You asked him?” began Radwalader.

“I asked him — nothing! And I shall ask him — nothing! That was what I came to tell you. I gather from your expression that it’s not pleasant news. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the truth is: I’m tired of this kind of thing. I’m going away for a little rest, and I don’t care to be troubled by money matters.”

Mirabelle was letting her contempt for the man before her grow dangerously apparent in her voice, and he winced under it, and then flushed darkly.

“What rubbish is this?” he demanded, almost roughly. “Is it a joke?”

“Oh, as far as possible from anything of the kind,” retorted Mirabelle. “I was never more in earnest. You wished me to engage with you in blackmailing Mr. Vane, and you’ll probably be kind enough to remind me that I’ve done this kind of thing before. I don’t deny it, but—”

For the first time her voice broke slightly.

“There are reasons,” she added, “why I cannot do it now.”

Radwalader bit his lip. For a moment his temper well-nigh claimed the upper hand, but he was shrewd enough to match this curious unconcern with something quite as non-committal.

“You mean that you love him, I suppose,” he observed.

“Love?” repeated Mirabelle. “Mon Dieu, monsieur! what right have I to love, or you to speak of it? Haven’t we grovelled enough in the mud outside of the cathedral? Must we further degrade it, as well as ourselves, by entering and laying hands upon the very shrine?”

“You love him,” said Radwalader, “and he’s tired of you. That’s regrettable. I can stand my share of the pecuniary loss, but I grieve to see you humiliated.”

He glanced at her, and was pleased to notice that her colour had deepened, and that her foot tapped the floor. He was at a disadvantage, he knew, until this curious, apathetic self-control should be broken down.

“I can spare your sympathy,” she answered. “No doubt I shall recover from my humiliation, all in good time. I’m going away, as I’ve said. There’s the little place my father left me, and that I’ve told you about, back of Boissy-St. Leger, at the edge of the forest, and it’s enough. I didn’t come here to reproach you, Radwalader, or to quarrel. I simply came to say what I’ve said, and go. I can’t pretend to be sorry that I’ve made it impossible for you to carry out your plans, but—”

“Oh, chère amie!” broke in Radwalader, with a little wave of his hand. “Give yourself no uneasiness on that head, I beg of you. I had a strong hand before you compelled me to discard, but who knows whether it won’t be improved by the draw? The game’s never lost till it’s played, you know.”

“Radwalader!”

Mirabelle leaned forward in her chair, knitting her fingers.

“Do you mean that you are — going on?”

“Why, assuredly, my friend! You can’t be so ingenuous as to suppose that my plans are necessarily changed by this change in yours. I’m sorry to lose your cooperation, of course. The thing had reached a point where it would have been easy to bring it to a prompt and successful conclusion; but, unfortunately, you’ve seen fit to back out at the critical moment. But, as you say, there can be no need of quarrels and reproaches on either side. You are perfectly free to do as seems best to you, but really you mustn’t expect that your action binds me. I’ve spent a deal of time and thought over this business, and now I shall have to spend more — but relinquish it? Why, never in the world, my friend! Beautiful, attractive, and accomplished as you are, you must realize that you are not the only woman in the world.”

“Do you mean,” demanded Mirabelle, “that you’re going on — with another woman — to play this whole miserable business over again, until you’ve had your will of him? Do you mean that what I’ve done doesn’t stand for anything?”

“I see no necessity for giving you an outline of my exact plans,” said Radwalader, “now that you’ve resigned from any share in them; but, if it will afford you any satisfaction, you have a tolerably accurate idea of my intentions.”

“Listen to me!” answered Mirabelle, with a last effort at calm. “I have done your bidding in the past, furthered your schemes, and taken my share of the gain. Bah! Why should I regret it? Regret mends no breakages. It’s to the future, not to the past, that I look. I’ve told you what I want. I want my freedom. I want to go away into the country, and to forget — everything! I don’t know how long it will last, and I don’t care. All I want now is peace of mind. I don’t say I’ll never come back to — to all this: for no doubt I shall; but for the moment, for a time, I want to be alone, and at ease. Will you make it possible, Radwalader?”

“I? But why is it necessary to ask me that? I’ve said I’m sorry to lose you. You’re the only woman I can absolutely trust, the only one who can hold her tongue and do as she’s told. I freely forgive you this single desertion. No doubt there are particular circumstances in the case which have forced you to the course you’ve taken. You don’t see fit to explain them, and I don’t care to ask. And then it’s not as if you were going away for ever. You’ll come back — and shortly. Paris, the Bois, your diamonds, your amusements, your little affaires — they’re as necessary to you as light or air. So, go by all means, and enjoy your vacation to your heart’s content. I’ll not disturb you. Au revoir, ma chère!”

“Ah!” said Mirabelle brokenly. “How little, with all your cleverness, you understand a woman! Where she can be happy in her lover’s happiness, no matter at what cost to her, she must be unhappy in his distress, no matter how free from personal suffering she herself may be! You asked me if I loved him. Well, then — yes! I don’t mind saying that, because you’ll never understand how or why. How should you? How should you know that, to a woman, a man is not so much a personality, as the author of all the new impulses and emotions which he brings into her life? You say he’s tired of me, and I answer you that I’m more than repaid by what he’s taught me of truth and manliness and gentleness and respect. That’s why I could give him up — because I knew that his best happiness lay apart from mine. That’s why I had to desert you — because I could not be party to any plot to shame or to degrade him. What I gave, I gave freely and fully. Ah, try — try to understand! I’ve been a faithful partner to you, haven’t I? You yourself say I’ve never broken my word or made a false move in the games we’ve played together. I’ve been loyal to you, no matter what degradation it cost me, because I knew you trusted me. At first, as you know, I didn’t see what I was helping you to do. I encouraged the boys you brought to me, and cast them off when you gave the word. And afterwards, when now and again you gave me something from Tiffany’s, did I think? — did I know? When I found out, it was too late. I was bound to you in a way, and — well, I’ll leave all that. My only point is this: I’ve served you faithfully, haven’t I — faithfully, unflinchingly, and loyally — from first to last?”

“From first to last,” echoed Radwalader, slowly nodding.

“Then,” said Mirabelle, with sudden passion, flinging back her head, “I ask for my reward — for my payment — for my wages. I ask of you the honour and integrity of Andrew Vane!”

“The—”

“Yes! — that — that — that! in payment for mine, which I’ve sold to you. Fair exchange is no robbery. I love him, do you hear? I’ve accepted my dismissal at his hands, but I do not choose that you should continue to plot against him, with another woman as bait, and with a spy in his rooms watching for every little slip and folly, and ready, when you say so, to post them all before the world — unless he ''pays! Dieu!'' I can imagine you, as you were with Chauvigny, with little De Vitzoff, with young Baxter, with Sir Henry Gore, and the rest of them! ‘Unfortunate, of course, but really, you see, you’ve been most imprudent, and every precaution must be taken to prevent the details of this affair leaking out.’ Et cetera! ‘The only safe way with these people is to buy them off.’ Et cetera! ‘If you will put yourself in my hands, I think I can manage it for ten — twenty — thirty thousand francs.’ ''Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera! Eh bien — non!'' I do not choose to have it so with the man I love. There are other fish for you to catch. Let me have this one’s life. That much you owe me. As you call yourself a man, pay me and let me go!”

She had risen with the intensity of her appeal, and now, white with passion, Radwalader flashed to his feet at her side.

“By Heaven, Mirabelle—!”

“And by Heaven, Monsieur Radwalader! What then? Are you going to threaten me? Do you take me for a Jules Vicot, at least? Do my hands tremble? Do I shrink before you? Ah, that might have been possible at first: for I don’t deny that I’ve feared you at times; but now — zut! It’s not the first time, my Radwalader, that the pupil has outstripped the master. You’ve taught me too much for your own good. Voyons! A secret is safe just so long as one person knows it, and only one. But no man is secure, from the moment when he confides to others that he’s not what he pretends to be. But you? — you are different. For two years past, to my knowledge, and probably for many more, you’ve been building up a house of cards. It’s growing very tall. Monsieur Radwalader, very dangerously tall. You think the foundations strong, but they weaken with every card you add. Allons! Enough of this brawling. You know what I demand.”

“And if I refuse?” suggested Radwalader.

“If you refuse? Ah, then your game is indeed ended and your house of cards blown down! For I’ll make your name notorious, not only in Paris, but in every capital of Europe. They shall have all the details — all that Vicot, as well as I, can give them. By the blood of Christ, monsieur, if you don’t promise what I ask, in three days the name of Thomas Radwalader, swindler, card-sharp, blackmailer, and blood-sucker, shall be the common property of the civilized world! What have I to lose, or fear, or even consider? Nothing! You know that, as well as I. And I’ll save the man I love from the trap you’re preparing for him, even if I send myself to St. Lazare!”

Radwalader sank back easily into his chair.

“My good Mirabelle,” he said, “all this is very admirable as sentiment and, I must say, extraordinarily well done. It’s a pity that it should be wasted upon an impossible situation. Be patient with me for a moment, and I’ll show you precisely why you’ll neither edify the capitals of Europe with an account of my private affairs nor compel me to do anything but what I choose to do in the case of Mr. Andrew Vane. We are three in number: I, a gentleman who chooses, for reasons of his own, to keep one side of his life from the view of the general public; you, a very charming girl, most cruelly, but nevertheless conspicuously, avoided by the members of your sex who pride themselves upon respectability; and Andrew Vane, a young person wounded perhaps, but as yet not mortally, by the shafts of scandal. Now, let us see. You desire to snatch him from the — what is it? — pit? — pitfall? — ah! trap — which I am preparing for him. How do you go about it? You first associate my name with several most unpleasant terms of reproach, and then proceed to drag the combination before the public, and say, ‘Here is the intimate companion of the man I love!’ What does that mean? The man you love — you! What a happy revelation for the friends and family of Andrew Vane, who has been dawdling in your arms, while another woman as much as held his plighted word! I won’t dwell on it. It’s a subject by reference to which I’ve never sought to humiliate you — but you’ve driven me to touch upon it. Believe me, my friend, if it’s indeed your wish to save Andrew Vane from disgrace, you should devise some project more promising than a public proclamation of the fact that you’ve been his mistress these few weeks past. You tell me you’ve nothing to fear and nothing to lose. You’ll add, perhaps, that the fact’s already public property, but it isn’t. It’s public gossip, which is a very different thing. The plain fact is this: from the instant when you associate your name with his, he’s ruined absolutely and irretrievably.”

Mirabelle bent forward to look at him, almost curiously.

“Are you a man or a devil?” she said.

“A man, ma chère, and, in my own way, not an unreasonable or ungrateful man. To prove that, you shall have what you ask. You can see what trumpery rant you’ve been talking, and you probably regret it already. Once for all — and as you should have known — if threats of exposure could have effected anything, I’d have been the talk of Europe long ago. Please don’t try it again. It’s a waste of time and a trial of temper, and, to me at least, such scenes are always disagreeable. Now to the main issue. I will do what you wish — on one condition.”

“I accept it,” said Mirabelle promptly.

“That’s rash, and I release you from the pledge. Wait till you know what the condition is. As you say, there are other fish to catch, and, quite frankly, I need your aid in catching them. So you will give up your dream of rustic retirement, and remain exactly as you are, and what you are, and where you are. Also, the business relations between us—”

“Ah, no— no!”

“The business relations between us are to continue in force, except that on the books of the firm we shall close the account with Mr. Andrew Vane.”

For an instant the little house back of Boissy-St. Leger hung on Mirabelle’s vision — the rose-garden, the wide outlook on the valley of the Marne, the poplars stirred by a west wind, sweet with the breath of Fontainebleau. Side by side with these rose the contrasted mirage of crowded cafés, race-courses, and theatres, the half-contemptuous court of women-weary men, the unspeakable slavery, heartache, and humiliation of the life she had lived and which she loathed. Then she looked straight into Radwalader’s eyes. She had no need to ask if this was final. They knew each other, these two.

“There shall be no other woman to come between him and the one he wants to marry?” she asked.

“No other woman.”

“Vicot shall have no share in his life at all?”

“No share.”

“And you will never mention what he has done — in Paris — with me?”

“Never.”

There was silence between them for a moment, a silence pricked only by the strokes of midnight.

“As you said, fair exchange is no robbery,” suggested Radwalader.

“If I agree?—”

“You have my word. Honour among thieves!”

“Soit!” said Mirabelle. “God help me— have your way!”

For an instant she stood motionless, and then, with an imperious gesture, commanded his service as if she had been the empress she appeared, and he the lackey.

“My cloak, monsieur!”


text: Gertie's sun flower

title: Gertie's sun flower


text:
Page:Cartoon portraits and biographical sketches of men of the day.djvu/104

is the youngest son of the late John Reade, Esquire, of Ipsden House, Oxfordshire. Mr. Reade is an Oxford man (he took his B.A. degree in 1835), and is a Doctor of Civil Law, and a fellow of Magdalen College in that university. He was called to the bar by the Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn in 1843.

Charles Reade' s earliest stories were followed in 1856 by that powerful work of his genius, 'It is Never too Late to Mend.' The book created a great sensation: was read by everybody: and effected its author's purpose—viz, compelled the public to insist that the Model Prisons' system should be looked searchingly into.

From the publication of 'Peg Woffington,' Charles Reade has continued to apply his great talents to the work of writing novels and dramas: with what success, every reader of fiction knows.

The annexed complete list of his writings will give a correct idea of the extent of his productions in the difficult field of the Literature of Imagination, in which he has chosen to exercise his genius.