The Essential Writings of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ this cruel uncertainty? Was it conceivable that the man lived who could behave to this Mrs. Dampier with the unkindness Gerald's father had suggested--and that as the outcome of a trifling quarrel? No! Gerald Burton's generous nature revolted from such a notion.

      And yet--and yet his father thought it quite possible! To Gerald his father's views and his father's attitude to life meant a great deal more than he was wont to allow, either to that same kind indulgent father or to himself; and now he had to admit that the Senator did believe that what seemed so revolting to him, Gerald, was the most probable explanation of the mystery.

      The young man had stayed quite a while at the studio, listening to Mère Bideau's garrulous confidences. Now and again he had asked her a question, forced thereto by some obscure but none the less intense desire to know what Nancy Dampier's husband was like. And the old woman had acknowledged, in answer to a word from him, that her master was not a good-tempered man.

      "Monsieur" could be very cross, very disagreeable sometimes. But bah! were not all gentlemen like that?--so Mère Bideau had added with an easy laugh.

      On the whole, however--so much must be admitted--she had given Dampier a very good character. If quick-tempered, he was generous, considerate, and, above all, hard-working. But--but Mère Bideau had been very much surprised to hear "Monsieur" was going to be married--and to an Englishwoman, too! She, Mère Bideau, had always supposed he preferred Frenchwomen; in fact, he had told her so time and again. But bah! again; what won't a pretty face do with a man? So Mère Bideau had exclaimed 'twixt smile and sigh.

      Gerald Burton began walking more quickly, this time towards the west, along the quay which leads to the Chamber of Deputies.

      The wide thoroughfare was deserted save for an occasional straggler making his weary way home after a day spent in ministering to the wants and the pleasures of the strangers who now crowded the city....

      How wise he, Gerald Burton, was now showing himself to be in thus spending the short summer night out-of-doors, à la belle étoile, as the French so charmingly put it, instead of in some stuffy, perhaps not overclean, little room!

      But soon his mind swung back to the strange events of the past day!

      Already Nancy Dampier's personality held a strange, beckoning fascination for the young American. He hadn't met many English girls, for his father far preferred France to England, and it was to France they sped whenever they had time to do so. And Gerald Burton hadn't cared very much for the few English girls he had met. But Nancy was very, very different from the only two kinds of her fellow countrywomen with whom he had ever been acquainted--the kind, that is, who is closely chaperoned by vigilant mother or friend, and the kind who spends her life wandering about the world by herself.

      How brave, how gentle, how--how self-controlled Mrs. Dampier had been! While it was clear that she was terribly distressed, and all the more distressed by the Poulains' monstrous assertion that she had come alone to the Hôtel Saint Ange, yet how well she had behaved all that long day of waiting and suspense! How anxious she had been to spare the Burtons trouble.

      Not for a single moment had he, Gerald Burton, felt with her as he so often felt with women--awkward and self-conscious. Deep in his inmost heart he was aware that there were women and girls who thought him very good-looking; and far from pleasing him, the knowledge made him feel sometimes shy, sometimes even angry. He already ardently wished to protect, to help, to shelter Mrs. Dampier.

      Daisy had been out of the room for a moment, probably packing his bag, when he had come back tired and weary from his fruitless quest, and Mrs. Dampier, if keenly disappointed that he had no news, had yet thanked him very touchingly for the trifling trouble, or so it now seemed, that he had taken for her.

      "I don't know what I should have done if it hadn't been for your kind father, for your sister, and--and for you, Mr. Burton."

      He walked across the bridge leading to the Champs Elysées, paced round the Arc de Triomphe, and then strolled back to the deserted quays. He had no wish to go on to the Boulevards. It was Paris asleep, not Paris awake, with which Gerald Burton felt in close communion during that short summer night.

      And how short is a Paris summer night! Soon after he had seen the sun rise over an eastern bend of the river, the long, low buildings which line the Seine below the quays stirred into life, and he was able to enjoy a delicious, a refreshing plunge in the great swimming-bath which is among the luxuries Paris provides for those of her sons who are early-morning toilers.

      Six o'clock found Gerald Burton at the café where he had left his bag, ready for a cup of good coffee.

      The woman who served him--the waiters were still asleep--told him of a room likely to be disengaged the next night.

      The next night? But if Dampier were to come back this morning--as, according to one theory, he was very likely to do--then he, Gerald, would have no need of a room.

      Somehow that possibility was not as agreeable to him as it ought to have been. In theory Gerald Burton longed for this unknown man's return--for a happy solution, that is, of the strange mystery which had been cast, in so dramatic a fashion, athwart the Burtons' placid, normal life; but, scarce consciously to himself, the young American felt that Dampier's reappearance would end, and that rather tamely, an exciting and in some ways a very fascinating adventure.

      As he came up the Rue Saint Ange, he saw their landlord, a blue apron tied about his portly waist, busily brushing the pavement in front of the hotel with a yellow broom.

      "Well?" he said eagerly, "well, Monsieur Poulain, any news?"

      Poulain looked up at him and shook his head. "No, Monsieur Gerald," he said sullenly, "no news at all."

      Chapter V

       Table of Contents

      Nancy Dampier sat up in bed.

      Long rays of bright sunlight filtering in between deep blue curtains showed her a large, lofty room, with panelled walls, and furniture covered with blue damask silk.

      It was more like an elegant boudoir in an old English country house than a bedroom, and for a moment she wondered, bewildered, where she could be.

      Then suddenly she remembered--remembered everything; and her heart filled, brimmed over, with seething pain and a sharp, overwhelming sensation of fear.

      Jack had gone: disappeared: vanished as if the earth had swallowed him up! And she, Nancy, was alone in a foreign city where she did not know a single soul, with the paramount exception of the American strangers who had come to her help in so kindly and so generous a fashion.

      She pushed her soft hair back from her forehead, and tried to recall, step by step, all that had happened yesterday.

      Two facts started out clearly--her almost painful gratitude to the Burtons and her shrinking terror of the Poulains, or rather of Madame Poulain, the woman who had looked fixedly into her face and lied.

      As to what had happened to Dampier, Nancy's imagination began to whisper things of unutterable dread. If her Jack had been possessed of a large sum of money she would have suspected the hotel people of having murdered him....

      But no, she and Jack had come to the end of the ample provision of gold and bank-notes with which they had started for Italy. As is the way with СКАЧАТЬ