The Wheel of Love/Chapter 11

one side of the Lake Dora mid John walked together, on the other Mary and Charlie. Miss Bussey and Roger Deane sat in the garden of the café. The scene round them was gay. Carriages constantly drove up, discharging daintily attired ladies and their cavaliers. There was a constant stream of bicycles, some of them steered by fair riders in neat bloomer-suits; the road-waterers spread a grateful coolness in their ambit, for the afternoon was hot for the time of year, and the dust had an almost autumnal volume. Miss Bussey had been talking for nearly ten minutes on end, and now she stopped with an exhausted air, and sipped her coffee. Deane lit another cigar and sat silently looking on at the life that passed and repassed before him.

“It’s a curious story,” he observed at last.

“Very; but I suppose it’s all ended happily now. Look at them, Sir Roger.”

“Oh, I see them.”

“Their troubles are over at last, poor children; and really I think they’ve all behaved very well. And yet”

“Yes?”

“I should have thought Mary and Mr. Ashforth so suited to one another. Well, well, the heart’s an unaccountable thing—to an old spinster, anyhow.”

“You’re right, Miss Bussey. Take my wife and me. You wouldn’t have thought we should have hit it off, would you? First year I knew her I hardly dared to speak to her—used to mug up Browning and—(Sir Roger here referred to an eminent living writer) and chaps like that, before I went to see her, you know. No use! I bored her to death. At last I chucked it up.”

“Well?”

“And I went one day and talked about the Grand National for half an hour by the clock. Well, she asked me to come again next day, and I went, and told her all about the last burlesque and—and so on, you know. And then I asked her to marry me.”

“And she said ‘Yes’?”

“Not directly. She said there was an impassable gulf between us—an utter want of sympathy in our tastes and an irreconcilable difference of intellectual outlook.”

“Dear me! Didn’t that discourage you?”

“I said I didn’t care a dash; she was the only girl I ever cared for (all right, Miss Bussey, don’t laugh), and I’d have any outlook she liked. I said I knew I was an ass, but I thought I knew a pretty girl when I saw one, and I’d go away if she’d show me a prettier one.”

“Well?”

“Well, she didn’t.”

Miss Bussey laughed a little.

“Of course,” resumed Sir Roger, “I’ve got money, you know, and all that, and perhaps”

“Sir Roger! What a thing to say of your wife!”

“Well, with another girl—but hang it, I don’t believe Maud would. Still, you see, it’s so dashed queer that sometimes”

“I’m sure she’s very fond of you,” said Miss Bussey, rather surprised at the nature of the confidence which she was receiving.

“I expect it’s all right,” resumed Deane, more cheerfully, “and that brings us back to where we started, doesn’t it?”

“And we started in bewilderment.”

“You’re puzzled that Dora, Bellairs and Ashforth should pair off together, and?”

“Well, the other combination would seem more natural, wouldn’t it? Doesn’t it surprise you a little?”

“I’m never surprised at anything till I know it’s true,” said Sir Roger.

“What, you?”

They were interrupted by the return of their friends, and a move was made. Three vehicles were necessary to take them back, for the twos could, obviously, neither be separated from one another nor united with anybody else, and in procession, Miss Bussey and Deane leading, they filed along the avenues back to the Arc de Triomphe.

They had hardly passed the open Place when their progress was suddenly arrested. A crowd spread almost across the broad road, and sergents-de-ville imperiously commanded a halt. There was a babble of tongues, great excitement, and a thousand eager fingers pointing at a house. The doorway was in ruins, and workmen were busy shoring it up with beams. In the middle of the crowd there was an open circle, surrounded by gendarmes, and kept clear of people. In the middle of it lay a thing like a rather tall slim watering-pot, minus the handle. The crowd, standing on tiptoe and peeping over the shoulders of their guardians, shook their fists at this harmless-looking article and apostrophised it with a wonderful wealth of passionate invectives.

“What in the world’s the matter?” cried Miss Bussey, who was nervous in a crowd.

“Revolution, I suppose;” responded Deane calmly, and turning to his nearest neighbor, he continued in the first French that came to him, “Une autre révolution, n’est-ce-pas, Monsieur?”

The man stared, but a woman near him burst into a voluble explanation, from the folds of which unlearned English ears disentangled, at the third reiteration, the ominous word, “Dynamite;” and she pointed to the watering-pot.

“Oh, it’ll go off!” shrieked Miss Bussey.

“It’s gone off,” said Sir Roger. “We’re too late,” and there was a touch of disappointment in his voice, as he turned and shouted to the others, “Keep your seats! It’s all over. Only an explosion.”

“Only!” shuddered Miss Bussey. “It’s a mercy we weren’t killed.”

It appeared that this mercy had not stopped at Miss Bussey and her friends. Nobody had been killed—not even the magistrate on the third floor for whose discipline and reformation the occurrence had been arranged; and presently the carriages were allowed to proceed.

Lady Deane’s grief at having missed so interesting an occasion was very poignant.

“No, Roger,” said she, “it is not a mere craving for horrors, or a morbid love of excitement; I wish I had been there to observe the crowd, because it’s just at such moments that people reveal their true selves. The veil is lifted—the veil of hypocrisy and convention—and you see the naked soul.”

“You could hear it too, Maud,” observed Sir Roger. “Fine chance of improving your French vocabulary. Still, I daresay you’re right.”

“I’m sure I am.”

Deane looked at his wife meditatively.

“You think,” he asked, “that being in danger might make people”

“Reveal their inmost natures and feelings? I’m sure of it.”

“Gad! Then we might try.”

“What do you mean, Roger?”

“Nothing. You’re going out with the General to-night? Very well, I shall take a turn on my own hook.”

As he strolled toward the smoking-room, he met Charlie Ellerton.

“Well, old fellow, had a pleasant afternoon?”

“Glorious!” answered Charlie in a husky voice.

“Are we to congratulate you?”

“I—I—well, it’s not absolutely settled yet, Deane, but—soon, I hope.”

“That’s right. Miss Bussey told me the whole story, and I think you’re precious lucky to get such a girl.”

“Yes, aren’t I?”

“You don’t look over and above radiant.”

“Do you want me to go grinning about the hotel like an infernal hyena?”

“I think a chastened joy would be appropriate.”

“Don’t be an ass, Deane. I suppose you think you’re funny.”

Sir Roger passed on, with a smile on his lips. As he passed the reading-room Dora Bellairs came out.

“Well, Miss Dora, enjoyed your afternoon?”

“Oh, awfully—except that dreadful explosion.”

“You must excuse a friend, you know. I’m awfully glad it’s all come right in the end.”

“You—you’re very kind, Sir Roger. It’s—it’s—there’s nothing quite settled yet.”

“Oh, of course not, but still—! Well, I heard all about it and I think he’s worthy of you. I can’t say more. He seems a capital fellow.”

“Yes, isn’t he? I”

“Yes?”

“Oh, I’m very, very, very happy,” and, after making this declaration in a shaky voice, she fairly ran away down the passage. Deane watched her as she went.

“Maud’s right,” said he. “She always is. There’s nothing for it but dynamite. I wonder where it’s to be got?”

General Bellairs clapped him on the shoulders.

“Inclined for a turn, Deane? I’m going to see an old servant of mine—Painter’s his name. He married my poor wife’s French maid, and set up as a restaurant-keeper in the Palais-Royal. I always look him up when I come to Paris.”

“I’m your man,” answered Deane, and they set out for Mr. Painter’s establishment. It proved to be a neat little place, neither of the very cheap nor of the very sumptuous class, and the General was soon promising to bring the whole party to déjeuner there. Painter was profuse in thanks and called Madame to thank the General. The General at once entered into conversation with the trim little woman.

“Nice place yours, Painter,” observed Deane.

“Pleased to hear you say so, Sir Roger.”

“Very nice. Ah—er—heard of the explosion?”

“Yes, Sir Roger. Abominable thing, sir. These Socialists”

“Quite so. Never had one here, I suppose?”

“No, sir. We’re pretty well looked after in here.”

“Like one?” asked Deane.

“Beg pardon, sir. Ha-ha. No, sir.”

“Because I want one.”

“You—beg pardon, sir?”

“Look here, Painter. I’ll drop in here after dinner for some coffee. I want to talk to you. See? Not a word to the General.”

“Glad to see you, Sir Roger, but”

“All right. I’ll put you up to it. Here they come. Present me to Madame.”

They went away, having arranged with the Painters for luncheon and a private room on the next day but one.

“Lunch for eight,” said Deane. “At least, General, I thought we might ask our friends from the European.”

“Yes—and young Laing.”

“Oh, I forgot him. Yes, Laing, of course. For nine—neuf, you know, please, madame.”

“That’s all right,” said the General, “I’m glad to do him a turn.”

“Yes, that’s all right,” assented Sir Roger, with the slightest possible chuckle. “We shall have a jolly lunch, eh, General?”