Clementina motored to Lyons by herself; dined in gaunt and lonely splendour at the Grand Hotel, and met Etta Concannon’s train very early the next morning. Etta, dewy fresh after her all night train journey, threw her arms round her neck and kissed her effusively. She was a heaven-born darling, a priceless angel, and various other hyperbolical things. Yes, she had had a comfortable journey; no trouble at all; all sorts of nice men had come to her aid at the various stages. She had been up since five standing in the corridor and looking at the country which was fascinating. She had no idea it was so full of interest. “And did one of the nice men get up at five too, and stand in the corridor?” asked Clementina.
The girl flushed and laughed. “How did you guess? I couldn’t help it. How could I? And it was quite safe. He was ever so old.”
“I’m glad I’ve got you in charge now,” said Clementina.
“I’ll be so good, dear,” said the girl.
The luggage secured, they drove off. Etta’s eyes sparkled, as they went through the ugly, monotonous, clattering streets of Lyons.
“What an adorable town!”
As it was not even lit by the cheap glamour of the sun, for the sky was overcast and threatening, it looked peculiarly depressing to normal vision. But youth found it adorable. O thrice blessed blindness of youth!
“What has happened to Mr. Burgrave?” she asked, after a while, “I suppose his time was up and he had to go back.”
“Oh, no,” said Clementina coolly. “He’s at Vienne.”
“Oh-h!” said Etta, with a little touch of reproach. “I thought it was just going to be you and I and us two.”
“We’ll put him in front next to Johnson and have the back of the car all to ourselves. But I thought you liked Tommy Burgrave.”
“He’s quite harmless,” said Etta carelessly.
“And he thinks of nothing in the world but his painting, so he won’t bother his head much about you,” said Clementina.
Etta fell at once into the trap. “I’m not going to let him treat me as if I didn’t exist,” she cried. “I’m afraid you’ve been spoiling him, darling. Men ought to be shown their place and taught how to behave.”
His behaviour, however, on their first meeting was remarkably correct. The car, entering Vienne, drew up by the side of the quay where he had pitched his easel. He rose and ran to greet its occupants with the most welcoming of smiles, which were not all directed at Clementina. Etta had her share. It is not in the nature of three-and-twenty to look morosely on so dainty a daughter of Eve—all the daintier by contrast with the dowdy elder woman by her side. Tommy had spoken truly when he had professed his downright honest affection for Clementina; truly also when he had deprecated the summoning of the interloping damsel. But he had not counted on the effect of contrast. He had seen Etta in his mind’s eye as just an ordinary young woman who would disturb that harmonious adjustment of artistic focus on whose discovery he had prided himself so greatly. Now he realised her freshness and dewiness and goodness to look upon. She adorned the car; made quite a different vehicle of it. Standing by the door he noticed how passers-by turned round and glanced at her with the frank admiration of their race. Tommy at once felt himself to be an enviable fellow; he was going to take a great pride in her; at the lowest, as a mere travelling adjunct, she did him credit. Clementina watched him shrewdly, and the corners of her mouth curled in an ironical twist.
“It isn’t my fault, Miss Concannon, that I didn’t come to Lyons to meet you. Clementina wouldn’t let me. You know what a martinet she is. So I was here all last evening simply languishing in loneliness.”
“Why wouldn’t you let poor Mr. Burgrave come to Lyons, Clementina?” laughed Etta.
“If you begin to pester me with questions,” replied Clementina, “I’ll pack you off to England again.”
“All inquiries to be addressed to the courier,” said Tommy.
“And you’ll answer them?”
“Every one,” said Tommy.
Thus the freemasonry of youth was at once established between them. Etta smiled sweetly on him as the car drove off to the hotel, and Tommy returned to his easel with the happy impression that everything, especially the intervention of interloping damsels, was for the best in this best of all possible worlds.
They met shortly afterwards at déjeuner, the brightest of meals, whereat Etta talked her girlish nonsense, which Tommy took for peculiarly sparkling discourse. Clementina, wearing the mask of the indulgent chaperon, let the babble flow unchecked.
“Do you think Etta will spoil everything?” she asked him, as soon as they were alone for a moment.
“Oh no,” cried the ingenuous Tommy. “She’s going to be great fun.”
“H’m!” said Clementina, feeling as though she might make the historic reply of the frog at whom the boys threw stones. But she had deliberately brought about the lapidation. She winced; but she could not complain.
It must not be imagined, however, that Tommy transferred his allegiance in youth’s debonair, thoughtless way to the newer and prettier princess. On the contrary, in all the little outward shows of devotion he demonstrated himself more zealously than ever to be Clementina’s vassal. In the excursions that they made during the next few days keeping Vienne as a base—to La Tour du Pin, Grenoble, Saint-Marcellin, Mont-Pilat—it was to Clementina that he turned and pointed out the beauties of the road, and her unsteady footsteps that he guided over rough and declivitous paths. To her he also turned for serious conversation. The flowers and the New York Herald came to her room as unfailingly as the morning coffee. He manifested the same tender solicitude as to her possible sufferings from hunger, drought, dust or fatigue. He paid her regal honour. In this he was aided and abetted by Etta Concannon, who had her own pretty ways of performing homage. In fact, the care of Clementina soon became at once a rivalry and a bond between them, and Clementina, so far from being neglected, found herself the victim of emulous and sometimes embarrassing ministrations. As she herself phrased it in a moment of bitter irony, they were making love over her live body.
They left Vienne, Tommy having made sufficient studies for immortal studio paintings, and took up their quarters at Valence. There is a spaciousness about Valence rare in provincial towns of France. You stand in the middle of wide boulevards, the long vista closed at one end by the far blue tops of the mountains of the Vivarais, and at the other by the distant Alps, and you think you are dwelling in some sweet city in the air. In the clear sunshine it is as bright and as crisp as a cameo.
“I love Vienne, but I adore Valence,” said Etta Concannon. “Here I can breathe.”
They were sitting on the terrace of a café in the Place de la République in front of the great monument to Emile Augier. It was the cool of the evening and a fresh breeze came from the mountains.
“I, too, am glad to get out of Vienne,” said Clementina.
Tommy protested. “That’s treason, Clementina. We had such ripping times there. Do you remember the evening I fetched you out to see the Temple of Augustus and Livia?”
Clementina gave one of her non-committal grunts. She did indeed remember it. But for that night the three of them would not have been sitting together over coffee at Valence.
“Tommy’s so sentimental,” Etta remarked.
“Since when have you been calling him ‘Tommy’?” asked Clementina.
“We fixed that up this afternoon,” he said, cheerfully. ‘Mr. Burgrave&............