Not until he found himself seated in the train, and on the point of starting for Cannes, did the full horror of his situation break on the Professor. Then, for an hour, he contemplated it in all its intricate enormity, saw himself as a man dishonoured, ruined (for he now remembered the full amount of the sum he had to account for), and, worse still, severed from his best-loved work for a period incalculably long. For after he had struggled through the preliminary difficulties he would have to settle down to the slow task of reimbursement, and he knew that, to earn enough money to repay what he had lost, he must abandon serious scientific work such as he was now engaged in, and probably stoop — abominable thought! — to writing popular “science” articles in one of the illustrated magazines. Such a job had once been offered him on very handsome terms, and contemptuously rejected; and the best he could now hope was that there was still an opening for him somewhere between the Etiquette Column and the notes on Rachel powder and bathing tights.
Arrived at Cannes, he found his way to what appeared to be the fashionable shopping-street, and exteriorising his attention by an extreme effort of the will he began to go the rounds of the dressmaking establishments.
At every one he was received with distinguished politeness, and every one, by some curious coincidence, had a Betsy to offer him. As the Betsies were all young, fluffy and rosy, considerable offence was caused by his rapid rejection of them, and it was in vain that he tried to close his ears to the crude and disobliging comments which on each occasion attended his retreat. But he had by this time regained a sufficiently clear vision of the Princess to be sure that she was not concealed behind any of the youthful substitutes proposed to him. In despair he issued from the last shop, and again sat himself down to consider.
As he did so, his mind gave a queer click, and the doors of his inner consciousness again swung open. But this time it was only to draw him back into the creative world from which he had been so violently ejected. He had suddenly seen a point to be made in the Einstein controversy, and he began to fumble for a paper on which to jot it down. He found only one, the closely-scribbled flap of a torn envelope on which, during the journey to Cannes, he had calculated and re-calculated the extent of the sum he would have to raise to reimburse the Princess; but possibly there might be a clear space on the other side. He turned it over, and there read, in a tall slanting hand:
Princesse Balalatinsky, Villa Mon Caprice, Route de Californie.
He started to his feet, and glanced about him frantically for a taxi. He had no idea where the Route de Californie was, but in his desperate circumstances, it seemed as easy to hire a taxi for a five minutes’ transit as for a long expedition. Besides, it was the only way he knew of being sure of reaching his destination; and to do so as soon as possible was now a fixed idea.
The taxi carried him a long way; back through the whole length of the town, out on a flat white dusty road, and then up and up between walls overhung with luxuriant verdure till, at a turn, it stood still with a violent jerk.
The Professor looked out, and saw himself confronted by the expressive countenance of Mr. Taber Tring.
“Oh, my God — you again!” shrieked the young man, turning suddenly white with fury — or was it rather with fear?
“Why do you say again?” questioned the Professor; but his interlocutor, taking to his heels with unaccountable velocity, had already disappeared down a verdant by-way.
The Professor leaned back in the taxi in speechless amazement. He was sure now that the “again” referred to their previous encounter that morning at Monte Carlo, and he could only conclude that it had become a fixed habit of Taber Tring’s to run away whenever they met, and that he ran a great deal too fast for the Professor ever to hope to overtake him.
“Well,” said the driver, “there’s a gentleman who isn’t pleased. He thought I had no fare, and expected to get a lift up to the top of this mountain.”
“I should have been happy to give him a lift,” said the Professor rather wistfully; to which the driver replied: “He must be a mile off by this time. He didn’t seem to fancy your looks.”
There was no controverting this statement, mortifying as it was, and they continued their ascent till a gateway impressively crowned by heraldic lions admitted them to terraced gardens above which a villa of ample proportions looked forth upon the landscape.
The Professor was by this time so steeled to the unexpected that he hardly paused to consider the strange incongruity between the Princess’s account of her fortunes and the setting in which she lived. He had read Mon Caprice on the gate, and that was the name on the envelope he had found in his pocket. With a resolute hand he rang the bell and asked a resplendent footman if the Princess Balalatinsky were at home.
He was shown through a long succession of drawing-rooms, in the last of which the Princess rose from the depths of a broad divan. She was dressed in black draperies, half-transparent — no, half-translucent; and she stood before the Professor in all the formidable completeness of her beauty.
Instantly his mind clicked again, and a voice shrilled up at him from the depths: “You always knew you could still recognize a beautiful woman when you saw one”; but he closed his ears to the suggestion and advanced toward the lady.
Before he could take more than three steps she was at his side, almost at his feet; her burning clasp was on his wrists, and her eyes were consuming him like coals of fire.
“Master! Maestro! Disguise is useless! You choose to come to me unannounced; but I was sure you would answer my appeal, and I should have recognized you anywhere, and among any number of people.” She lifted his astonished hand to her lips. “It is the penalty of genius,” she breathed.
“But — ” gasped the Professor.
A scented finger was laid across his lips. “Hush: not yet. Let me tell you first why I ventured to write to you.” She drew him gently down to an arm-chair beside the divan, and herself sank orientally into its pillows. “I thought I had exhausted all the emotions of life. At my age — is it not a tragedy? But I was mistaken. It is true that I had tried philosophy, marriage, mathematics, divorce, sculpture and love; but I had never attempted the stage. How long it sometimes takes to discover one’s real vocation! No doubt you may have gone through the same uncertainties yourself. At any rate, my gift for the drama did not reveal itself till three months ago, and I have only just completed my play, The Scarlet Cataract,’ a picture of my life, as the title suggests — and which, my friends tell me, is not without dramatic merit. In fact, if I were to listen to them . . . ”
The Professor struggled from his seat. His old fear of her madness had returned. He began very mildly: “It is quite natural that you should mistake me for some one else — ”
With an inimitable gesture she waved the interruption aside. “But what I want to explain is that, of course, the leading role can have but one interpreter — Myself. The things happened to Me: who else could possibly know how to act them? Therefore, if I appeal to you — on my knees, Illustrious Impresario! — it is in my double character as dramatist and tragédienne; for in spite of appearances my life has been a tragedy, as you will acknowledge if you will let me outline its principal events in a few words . . . ”
But here she had to pause a second for breath, and the Professor, on his feet, actually shouted his protest. “Madam, I cannot let you go on another moment, first because I’ve heard the story of your life already, and secondly because I’m not the man you suppose.”
The Princess turned deadly pale. “Impostor!” she hissed, and reached for an embroidered bell-rope.
Her agitation had the curious effect of calming the Professor. “You had better not send me away,” he said, “till you learn why I am here. I am the unhappy man to whom, the day before yesterday, you entrusted a hundred franc note which you asked him to stake for you at Monte Carlo. Unfortunately I could not recall your name or address, and I have been hunting for you through all the dressmakers’ establishments in Cannes.”
The instant lighting-up of her face was a sight so lovely that he almost forgot his apprehensions and his shame.
“The dressmakers’ shops? Ah — in search of ‘Betsy’! It is true, I was obliged to act as a mannequin for one day; but since then my fortunes have miraculously changed — changed thanks to you; for now,” the Princess continued with enthusiasm, “I do at last recognise my good angel, my benefactor of the other day, and ask myself how I could have failed to know you again, how I could have taken you for a vulgar theatrical manager, you, a man of genius and a Philosopher. Can you ever forgive me? For I owe you everything — everything — everything!” she sobbed out, again almost at his knees.
His self-possession continued to increase in proportion to her agitation. He actually risked laying a hand on her arm and pressing her mildly back among her cushions.
“Only a change of pronouns,” he said sighing, “is necessary to the complete accuracy of your last statement.”
But she was off again on a new tack. “That blessed hundred franc note! From the moment when you took it from me, as I got out of the train, my luck miraculously and completely changed. I knew you were going to win some money for me; but how could I have imagined the extent of the fortune you were to heap at my feet?”
A cold sweat broke out over the Professor. She knew, then — once again her infernal intuition had pierced his secret! In the train had she not discovered his name, identified him as the author of “The Elimination of Phenomena,” and guessed that he was actually engaged in the composition of another work? At the moment he had fancied that there was a plausible explanation for each of these discoveries; but he now felt that her powers of divination were in need of no outward aid. She had risen from her seat and was once more in possession of his hands.
“You have come to be thanked — and I do thank you!” Her heavy lashes glittered with tears which threatened to merge with the drops of moisture rolling down the Professor’s agonized brow.
“Don’t — don’t, I beg!” He freed himself and shrank back. “If you’ll only let me speak . . . let me explain . . . ”
She raised a reproachful finger. “Let you belittle yourself? Let you reject my gratitude? No — no! Nothing that you can say can make any difference. The gipsy in the Caucasus told me long ago what you were going to do for me. And now that you have done it you want to stifle the thanks on my lips!”
“But you have nothing to thank me for. I have made no money for you — on the contrary, I— ”
“Hush, hush! Such words are blasphemy. Look about you at all this luxury, this beauty. I expected to have to leave it tomorrow. And thanks to you, wealth has poured in on me at the moment when I thought I was face to face with ruin.”
“Madam, you must ............