it was a fine night, and the lounge was almost deserted. thesiger, searching it for some one he could speak to, counted four old ladies and their middle-aged companions, three young governesses and their charges only less young, and one old gentleman, fixed by an extreme corpulence in his armchair, asleep over le figaro, while one ponderous hand retained upon his knee le petit journal. nowhere any sign of the transatlantic mystery and her companions. it occurred to thesiger that it might interest him to know her name (he hadn't heard it), and even the number of her room.
he strolled to the racks on each side of the great staircase where the visitors' names were posted, and after a prolonged investigation he came upon the three: miss roma lennox, mr. frank bingham-booker, and mr. theobald g. tarbuck, of new york city, u. s. a. their respective numbers were 74, 75, and 80. what was odd, the opulent tarbuck (number 80) occupied a small room looking over the garage at the back, [pg 163] while 74, mr. frank bingham-booker, who was visibly impecunious, and 75, miss roma lennox, luxuriated.—thesiger shook his head over the social complication and gave it up.
the lounge was no place for him. he went out, down the californie hill and along the avenue des palmiers, with some idea of turning eventually into the casino. he was extraordinarily uplifted. he thought that he was feeling the enchantment of the lucid night above the sea, the magic of the white city of the hills, feeling the very madness of the tropics in the illusion that she made with her palm trees and their velvet shadows on the white pavement.
he had come to the little place before the casino, set with plane trees. under the electric globes the naked stems, the branches, naked to the tip, showed white with a livid, supernatural, a devilish and iniquitous whiteness. the scene was further illuminated, devilishly, iniquitously, as it were, through the doors and windows of the casino, of the restaurants, of the brasseries, of the omnipresent and omnipotent american bar. if there were really any magic there, any devilry, any iniquity, it joined hands with the iniquity and devilry in oscar thesiger's soul, and led them forth desirous of adventure. and walking slowly and superbly, under the white plane trees, the adventure came.
as the light fell on her superb and slow approach, he saw that it was roma lennox; roma lennox walking, oh lord! by herself, like that, after ten at night, in cannes, on the pavement of the place. she was coming toward him, making straight for him, setting herself unavoidably in his path. he had been prepared for many things, but he had not been prepared for that, for the publicity, the flagrance of it. and [pg 164] yet he was not conscious of any wonder; rather he had a sense of the expectedness, the foregoneness of the event, and a savage joy in the certainty she gave him, in his sudden absolution from the ultimate scruple, the release from that irritating, inhibiting doubt of his doubt.
he raised his hat and inquired urbanely whether he might be permitted to walk with her a little way.
she had stopped and was regarding him with singular directness.
"why, certainly," she said.
they walked the little way permitted, and then, at her suggestion, they sat together under the plane trees on one of the chairs in a fairly solitary corner of the place.
he saw now that she had changed her gown and that, over some obscurer thing, she wore a long, dull purple coat with wide hanging sleeves; her head was bound and wound, half-eastern fashion, in a purple veil, hiding her hair. in her dark garb, with all her colors hidden, her brilliance extinguished, she was more wonderful than ever, more than ever in keeping with the illusion of the tropics.
his hands trembled and his pulses beat as he found himself thus plunged into the heart of the adventure. he might have been put off by the sheer rapidity and facility of the thing, but for her serious and somber air that seemed to open up depths, obscurities.
she sat very still, her profile slightly averted, and with one raised hand she held her drifting veil close about her chin. they sat thus in silence a moment, for her mystery embarrassed him. then (slowly and superbly) over her still averted shoulder she half turned her head toward him. [pg 165]
"well," she said, "haven't you anything to say for yourself? it's up to you."
then, nervously, he began to say things, to pay her the barefaced, far from subtle, compliments that had served him once or twice before on similar occasions (if any occasion could be called similar). addressed to her, they seemed somehow inadequate. he said that, of course, inadequate he knew they were.
"i'm glad you think so," said miss lennox.
"i—i said i knew it."
"oh—the things you know!"
"and the things you know." he grew fervid. "don't pretend you don't know them. don't pretend you don't know how a man feels when he looks at you."
"and why should i pretend?"
she had turned round now with her whole body and faced him squarely.
"why should you? why should you?"
lashed, driven as he judged she meant him to be by her composure, his passion shook him and ran over, from the tips of his fingers stroking the flung sleeve of her coat, from the tip of his tongue uttering the provoked, inevitable things—things that came from him hushed for the crowd, but, for her, hurried, vehement, unveiled.
she listened without saying one word; she listened without looking at him, looking, rather, straight in front of her, and tilting her head a little backward before the approach of his inflamed, impetuous face.
he stopped, and she bent forward slightly and held him with the full gaze of her serious eyes.
"what—do you think—you're doing?" she asked slowly.
he said he supposed that she could see. [pg 166]
"i can see a good deal. i see you think you're saying these things to me because you've found me here at this peculiar time, in this peculiar place, and because i haven't any man around."
"no, no. that wasn't it, i—i assure you."
a terrible misgiving seized him.
"why did you do it?" she asked sweetly.
"i—upon my word, i don't know why."
for it seemed to him now that he really hadn't known.
"i'll tell you why," said roma lennox. "you did it because you were just crazy with caring for another woman—a nice, sweet girl who won't have anything to say to you. and you've been saying to yourself you're durned if she cares, and you're durned if you care. and all the time you feel so bad about it that you must go and do something wicked right away. and taking off your hat to me was your idea of just about the razzlingest, dazzlingest, plumb wickedest thing you could figure out to do."
he rose, and took off his hat to her again.
"if i did," he said, "i beg your pardon. fact is, i—i—i thought you were somebody else."
"i know it," said she, and paused. "was it a very strong likeness that misled you?"
"no. no likeness at all. it's all right," he added hurriedly. "i'm going—i—i can't think how i made the mistake."
he looked at the scene, at the nocturnal prowlers and promenaders, at the solitary veiled and seated figure, and he smiled. in all his agony he smiled.
"and yet," he said, "somebody else will be making it if i leave you here. somebody who won't go. i'll go if you like, but——"
"sit down," she said; "sit down right here. you're [pg 167] not going till you and i have had a straight talk. don't you worry about your mistake. i meant you to come up and speak to me."
that staggered him.
"good lord! what on earth for?"
"because i knew that if i didn't you'd go up and speak to somebody else. somebody who wouldn't let you go."
she was more staggering than he could have thought her.
"but, dear lady, why——?"
"why? it's quite simple. you see, i saw you and her together, and i took an interest—i always do take an interest. so i watched you; and then—well—i saw what you thought of me for watching. at first i was just wild. and then, afterward, i said to myself i didn't know but what i'd just as soon you did think it, and then we'd have it out, and we'd see what we could make of it between us."
"make of it?" he breathed.
"well—i suppose you'll have to make something of it, won't you?"
"between us?" he smiled faintly.
"between us. i suppose if i've made you feel like that i've got to help you."
"to help me?"
"to help anyone who wants it.—you don't mind if i keep on looking at the casino instead of looking at you? i can talk just the same.—and then, you see, it was because of me she left you—by the one-forty-four train."
"because of you?"
"because of the way you looked at me last night. she saw you."
he remembered. [pg 168]
"she saw that you thought i wasn't straight; and she saw that that was what interested you."
"ah," he cried. "i was a cad. why don't you tell me so? why don't you pitch into me?"
"because i fancy you've got about enough to bear. you see, i saw it all, and i was so sorry—so sorry."
she left it there a moment for him to take it in, her beautiful, astounding sorrow.
"and i just wanted to start right in and help you."
he murmured something incoherent, something that made her smile.
"oh, it wasn't for the sake of your fine eyes, mr. i-don't-know-your-name. it was because of her. i could see her saying to her dear little self, 'that woman isn't straight. he isn't straight, either. he won't do.' that's the sort of man she thought you were."
"but it wasn't as if she didn't know me, as if she didn't care. she did care."
"she did, indeed."
"then why," he persisted, "why did she leave me?"
"don't you understand?" (her voice went all thick and tender in her throat.) "she was thinking of the children. you couldn't see her with those teeny, teeny things, and not know that's what she would think of."
"but," he wailed, "it wasn't as if they were her own children."
"oh, how stupid you are! it was her own children she was thinking of."
