Not long after this Quixtus announced to Huckaby his intention of going to Paris to attend a small Congress of the Anthropological Societies of the North-West of France, to which he, as president of the Anthropological Society of London, had been invited. He had gradually, in spite of his preoccupation, resumed his interest in his favourite pursuit, and, though he knew his learned friends to be villains at heart, he enjoyed their learned and even their lighter conversation. Human society had begun to attract him again. It afforded him saturnine amusement to speculate on the corruption that lay hidden beneath the fair exterior of men and women. He also had a half-crazy pleasure in wearing the mask himself. When he smiled in his grave and benevolent manner on the woman by his side at the dinner-table, how could she suspect the malignant ferocity of his nature? He was playing a part. He was fooling her to the top of her bent. She went away with the impression that she had been talking to a mild, scholarly gentleman of philanthropic tendencies. She possibly asked the monster to tea. He hugged himself with delight. When it was a question, however, of identifying remains of aurochs and mammoths and reindeer, or establishing the date of a flint hatchet, he took the matter seriously and gave it his profound attention. A pal?olithic carving of a cave lion on mammoth ivory recently discovered in the Seine-et-Oise was to be exhibited at the Congress and form the subject of a paper. As soon as he heard this he accepted the invitation with enthusiasm. The carving was supposed to be the most perfect of its kind yet discovered, and Quixtus burned to behold it. Huckaby, whose financial affairs were in the saddest condition and who had called with the vague hope of a trifle on account of services to be rendered, pricked up his ears at the announcement. Even though the main heart-breaking quest was deferred to August, why should they not seek a minor adventure during Quixtus’s visit to Paris? It would be a kind of trial trip. At the suggestion Quixtus shook his head. The Congress would occupy all his time and attention.
“Quite so,” said Huckaby. “While you’re busy with prehistoric man, I’ll be hunting down modern woman. By the time I’ve found her, you’ll have finished. Having done with the bones, you can devote a few extra days to the flesh.”
Quixtus winced. “That’s rather an unfortunate way of putting it.”
“To the spirit then—the Evil Spirit,” said Huckaby, unabashed. “That is, if we discover a subject. We’re bound to try various experiments before we finally succeed.”
“I’m afraid it will be more trouble than the thing is worth,” said Quixtus, musingly.
Here was something happening which Huckaby dreaded. Quixtus was beginning to lose interest in the adventure. In another month he might regard it with repugnance. He must start it now with Mrs. Fontaine in Paris, or the whole conspiracy must collapse. The thought urged Huckaby to fresh efforts of persuasion.
“Revenge is sweet and worth the trouble,” he said at last.
“Yes,” replied Quixtus, in a low voice. “Revenge would be sweet.”
Huckaby glanced at him swiftly. Beyond the iniquity of Marrable, he was ignorant of the precise nature of the injuries which Quixtus had sustained at the hands of fortune. Was it possible that a woman had played him false? But what had this fossil of a man to do with women?
“I, too,” said he, with malicious intent; “would like to pay off old scores against a faithless sex. You have found them faithless, haven’t you?”
Quixtus’s brow darkened. “As false as hell,” said he.
“I knew a woman had treated you shamefully,” said Huckaby, after a pause during which Quixtus had fallen into a dull reverie.
“Infamously,” replied Quixtus, below his breath. He looked away into the distance, madness gathering in his eyes. For the moment he seemed to forget the other’s presence. Huckaby took his opportunity. He said in a whisper:
“She betrayed you?”
Quixtus nodded. Huckaby watched him narrowly, an absurd suspicion beginning to form itself in his mind. By his chance phrase about revenge he had put his friend’s unsound mind on the track of a haunting tragedy. Who was the woman? His wife? But she had died beloved of him, and for years, until this madness overtook him, he had spoken of her with the reverence due to a departed saint. It was a puzzle; the solution peculiarly interesting. How should he obtain it? Quixtus was not the man to blab his intimate secrets into the ear of his hired bravo—for as such he knew that Quixtus regarded him. It behoved him not to change the minor key of this conversation.
“A man’s foes,” he quoted in a murmur, “are ever of his own household.”
Quixtus nodded again three or four times, with parted lips.
“His own household. Those dearest to him. The woman he loved and his best friend.”
In spite of his suspicion, Huckaby was astounded at the inadvertent confession. In his last days of grace he had known Mrs. Quixtus and the best friend. Swiftly his mind went back. He remembered vaguely their familiar intercourse. What was the man’s name? He groped and found it.
“Hammersley,” he said, aloud.
At the word, Quixtus started to his feet and swept his hand over his face.
“What are you talking about? What do you know against Hammersley?”
A lurid ray shot athwart his darkened mind. He realised the betrayal of his most jealously guarded secret to Huckaby. He shrank back, growing hot and cold through shame.
“Hammersley played me false over some money affairs,” he said, cunningly. “It’s a black business which I will tell you about one of these days.”
“And the woman?” asked Huckaby.
“The woman—she—she married. I am glad to say she’s giving her husband a devil of a time.”
He laughed nervously. Huckaby, with surprising tact, followed on the wrong scent like a puppy.
“You can avenge the poor fellow and yourself at the same time,” said he. “Women are all alike. It’s right that one of them should be made to suffer. You have it in your power to make one of them suffer the tortures of hell.”
“Yes, yes, I’ll do it,” cried Quixtus.
“No time like the present.”
“You’re right,” said Quixtus. “We’ll go to Paris together.”
For the first few days in Paris Quixtus had little time to devote to the secondary object of his visit. The meetings and excursions of the Congress absorbed his attention. His Parisian confrères took him to their homes and exhibited their collections of flint instruments, their wives and their daughters. He attended intimate dinners, the words sans cérémonie being underlined in the invitation, where all the men, who had worn evening dress in the morning at a formal function of the Congress, assembled in the salon gravely attired in tightly-buttoned frock-coats and wearing dogskin gloves which they only took off when they sat down to table. His good provincial colleagues, who thought they might just as well hear the chimes at midnight while they were in Paris as not, insisted on his accompanying them in their mild dissipation: This generally consisted in drinking beer at a brasserie filled with parti-coloured ladies and talking pal?olithic gossip amid the bewildering uproar of a Tzigane band. Now and again Huckaby, who assured him that he was prosecuting his researches in the fauna of the H?tel Continental, where, on Huckaby’s advice, they were staying, would accompany him on such adventures.
Curiously enough, Quixtus had begun to like the man again. Admitted on a social equality and dressed in reputable garments, Huckaby began to lose the assertiveness of manner mingled with furtive flattery which of late had characterised him. He began to assume an air of self-respect, even of good-breeding. Quixtus noticed with interest the change wrought in him by clothes and environment, and contrasted him favourably with Billiter, whom new and gorgeous raiment had rendered peculiarly offensive. There were times when he could forget the sorry mission which Huckaby had undertaken, and find pleasure in his conversation. Scrupulous sobriety aided the temporary metamorphosis. As he spoke French passably and had retained a considerable amount of scholarship, Quixtus (to his astonishment) found that he could introduce him with a certain pride to his brother anthropologists, as one who would cast no discredit on his country. Huckaby was quick to perceive his patron’s change of attitude, and took pains to maintain it. The novelty, too, of mingling again with clean-living, intellectual and kindly men afforded him a keen pleasure which was worth a week’s abstinence from whisky. Whether it was worth a whole life of respectability and endeavour was another matter. The present sufficed him.
He played the scholarly gentleman so well that Quixtus was not surprised, one afternoon, when passing through the great lounge of the Continental, to see a lady rise from a tea-table and greet his companion in the friendliest manner.
“Eustace Huckaby, can that possibly be you—or is it your ghost?”
Huckaby bowed over the proffered hand. “What an unexpected delight.”
“It’s years and years since we met. How many?”
“I daren’t count them, for both our sakes,” said Huckaby.
“Why have you dropped out of my horizon for all this time?” asked the lady.
“Mea maxima culpa.” He smiled, bowed in the best-bred way in the world, and half turned, so as to bring Quixtus into the group. “May I introduce my friend Dr. Quixtus? Mrs. Fontaine.”
The lady smiled sweetly. “You are Dr. Quixtus, the anthropologist?”
“I am interested in the subject,” said Quixtus.
“More than that. I have read your book; The Household Arts of the Neolithic Age.”
“An indiscretion of youth,” said Quixtus.
“Oh, please don’t tell me it’s all wrong,” cried Mrs. Fontaine, in alarm. “I’m always quoting it. It forms part of my little stock-in-trade of learning.”
“Oh, no. It’s not exactly incorrect,” said Quixtus, with a smile, pleased that so pretty a lady should count among his disciples, “but it’s superficial. So much has been discovered since I wrote it.”
“But it’s a standard work, all the same. I happened to see an account of the Anthropological Congress in the paper this morning, in which you are referred to as the éminent anthropologue anglais and the author of my book. I was so pleased. I should have been more so had I known I was to meet you this afternoon. Have you turned anthropologist too, Mr. Huckaby?”
Huckaby explained that he was taking advantage of the Congress to make holiday in the company of his distinguished friend. That was the first afternoon the Congress had allowed him leisure, and they had devoted it to contemplation of the acres of fresh paint in the Grand Palais. They had come home exhausted.
“Home? Then you’re staying in the hotel?”
“Yes,” said Huckaby. “And you?”
“I too. And in its vastness I feel the most lonesome widow woman that ever was. I’m waiting here for Lady Louisa Mailing, who promised to join me; but I think something must have happened, for there is no sign of her.”
A waiter brought the tray with tea which she had ordered before the men’s entrance, and set it on the basket table. Mrs. Fontaine motioned to it.
“Won’t you share my solitude and join me?”
“With pleasure,” said Huckaby.
Quixtus accepted the invitation, and with his grave courtesy withdrew a chair to make a passage for Mrs. Fontaine, who gave the additional order to the waiter. The lounge and the courtyard were thronged with a well-dressed cosmopolitan crowd, tea-drinking, smoking, and chattering. A band discoursed discreet music at a convenient distance. The scene was cool to eyes tired by the vivid colours of the salon and the hot streets. Quixtus sat down restfully by the side of his hostess and let her minister to his wants. He was surprised to find how pleasant a change was the company of a soft-voiced and attractive woman after that of his somewhat ponderous and none too picturesque confrères. She was good to look upon; an English blonde in a pale lilac dress and hat—the incarnation of early summer; not beautiful, but pleasing; at the same time simple and exquisite. The arrangement of her blonde hair, the fine oval contour of her face, the thin delicate lips, gave her an air of chastity which was curiously belied by dark grey eyes dreaming behind long lashes. All her movements, supple and natural, spoke of breeding; unmistakably a lady. Evidently a friend of Huckaby’s before his fall. Quixtus wondered cynically whether she would have greeted with such frank gladness the bloodshot-eyed scarecrow of a fortnight before. From their talk, he concluded that she had no idea of the man’s degradation.
“Mr. Huckaby and I knew each other when the world was young,” she said. “Centuries ago—in the pal?olithic age—before my marriage.”
“Alas!” said Huckaby, sipping the unaccustomed tea. “You threw aside the injunction: arma cedant tog?. In our case it was the gown that had to yield to the arms. You married a soldier.”
She sighed and looked down pensively at her wedding-ring. Then she glanced up with a laugh, and handed Quixtus the bread and butter.
“Believe me, Dr. Quixtus, this is the first time I ever heard of the rivalry. He only invented it for the sake of the epigram. Isn’t that true?”
“In one way,” replied Huckaby. “I was so insignificant that you never even noticed it.”
She laughed again and turned to Quixtus.
“How long are you going to stay in Paris?”
“Just a day or two longer—till the end of my Congress.”
“Oh! How can you leave Paris when she’s looking her best without devoting a few days to admiring her? It’s unkind.”
“I’m afraid Paris must get over the slight.”
“But don’t you love Paris? I do. It is so fascinating; dangerous, treacherous. Plunge into it for a moment or two and it is the Fountain of Youth. Remain in the water a little longer than is prudent, and you come out shrivelled and wrinkled, with all your youth and beauty gone from you.”
“Perhaps I have already had my prudent plunge,” said Quixtus; with a smile.
“I’m sure you haven’t. You’ve been on dry land all the time. Worse than that—in a quaternary formation. Have you dined at Armenonville?”
“In my time I have; but not this time.”
“Voilà,” said Mrs. Fontaine. “The warm June nights, the Bois in the moonlight with all its mysteries of shadow, the fairy palace in the midst of it where you eat fairy things surrounded by the gaiety and sparkle and laughter of the world—essential and symbolical Paris—you disregard it all. And that is only one little instance. There are a thousand others. You’ve not even wetted your feet.”
She embroidered her thesis very gracefully, clothing the woman of the world in a diaphanous robe of pretty fancy, revealing a mind ever so little baffling, here material, there imaginative—a mind as contradictory as her face, with its chaste contours and its alluring eyes. Quixtus listened to her with amused interest. She represented a type with which he, accustomed to the less vivid womenfolk of the learned, was unfamiliar. Without leaving Huckaby, her girlhood’s friend, out in the cold, she made it delicately evident that, of the two, Quixtus was the more worthy of attention on account of his attainments and the more attractive in his personality. Quixtus, flattered, thought her a woman of great discernment.
“But you,” said he, at last. “Have you made your plunge—not that you need it—into the Fountain of Youth? Have you fed on the honeydew of the Bois de Boulogne and drunk the milk of Armenonville?”
“I only arrived last night,” she explained. “And I must remain more or less in quarantine, being an unprotected woman, till my friend Lady Louisa Mailing comes, or till my friends in Paris get to know I am here. But I always like a day or two of freedom before announcing myself—so that I can do the foolish things that Parisians would jeer at. I always go to the Louvre and look at the little laughing Faun and the Giaconda; and I always go down the Seine in a steamboat, and from the Madeleine to the Bastille on the top of an omnibus. Then I’m ready for my plunge.”
“I should have thought that bath of innocence was in itself the Fountain of Youth,” said Huckaby.
The least suspicion of a frown passed over Mrs. Fontaine’s candid brow. But she replied with a smile:
“On the contrary, my friend. That is a penitential dipping in the waters of the past.”
“Why penitential?” asked Quixtus.
“Isn’t it wholesome discipline to give oneself pain sometimes?” Her face grew wistful. “To re-visit scenes where one has been happy—and sharpen the knife of memory?”
“It is the instinct of the ascetic,” smiled Quixtus.
“I suppose I have a bit of it,” she replied, demurely. Then her face brightened. “I don’t wear a hair shirt—I’ve got to appear in an evening gown sometimes—but I find an odd little satisfaction in doing penance. If I were a Roman Catholic I would embarrass my confessor.”
Huckaby’s lips twitched in a smile beneath his moustache. If all the tales that Billiter told of Lena Fontaine were true, a confessor would be exceedingly embarrassed. He regarded her with admiration. She............