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CHAPTER VI
A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT BUTVOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE

When Ste. Marie had gone Miss Benham sat alone in the drawing-room for almost an hour. She had been stirred that afternoon more deeply than she thought she had ever been stirred before, and she needed time to regain that cool poise, that mental equilibrium which was normal to her and necessary for coherent thought.

She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment and exaltation, still all aglow with the man's own high fervour; but the second self, which so often sat apart from her and looked on with critical mocking eyes, whispered that to-morrow, the fervour past, the fever cooled, she must see the thing in its truer light – a glorious lunacy born of a moment of enthusiasm. It was finely romantic of him, this mocking second self whispered to her: picturesque beyond criticism; but, setting aside the practical folly of it, could even the mood last?

The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation. She found herself intolerable at such times as this.

"If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by chance I ever go there, I suppose I shall walk sneering through the streets, and saying to myself: 'Oh yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"

She passed before one of the small narrow mirrors which were let into the walls of the room in gilt Louis Seize frames with candles beside them, and she turned and stared at her very beautiful reflection with a resentful wonder.

"Shall I always drag along so far behind him?" she said. "Shall I never rise to him, save in the moods of an hour?"

She began suddenly to realise what the man's going away meant – that she might not see him again for weeks, months, even a year. For was it at all likely that he could succeed in what he had undertaken?

"Why did I let him go?" she cried. "Oh, fool, fool, to let him go!" But even as she said it she knew that she could not have held him back.

She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself. He had taught her what it might be to love. For the first time love's premonitory thrill – promise of unspeakable uncomprehended mysteries – had wrung her, and the echo of that thrill stirred in her yet; but what might not happen in his long absence? She was afraid of that critical and analysing power of mind which she had so long trained to attack all that came to her. What might it not work with the new thing that had come? To what pitiful shreds might it not be rent while he, who only could renew it, was away? She looked ahead at the weeks and months to come, and she was terribly afraid.

She went out of the room and up to her grandfather's chamber and knocked there. The admirable Peters who opened to her said that his master had not been very well and was just then asleep, but as they spoke together in low tones the old gentleman cried testily from within —

"Well? Well? Who's there? Who wants to see me? Who is it?"

Miss Benham went into the dim shaded room, and when old David saw who it was he sank back upon his pillows with a pacified growl. He certainly looked ill, and he had grown thinner and whiter within the past month, and the lines in his waxlike face seemed to be deeper scored.

The girl went up beside the bed and stood there a moment, after she had bent over and kissed her grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket – an imperial yellow one this time.

"Isn't this new?" she asked. "I seem never to have seen this one before. It's quite wonderful."

The old gentleman looked down at it with the pride of a little girl over her first party frock. He came as near simpering as a fierce person of eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come.

"Rather good, that! What?" said he. "Yes, it's new. De Vries sent it me. It is my best one. Imperial yellow. Did you notice the little Showmedallions with the swastika? Young Ste. Marie was here this afternoon." He introduced the name with no pause or change of expression, as if Ste. Marie were a part of the decoration of the mandarin's jacket.

"I told him he was a damned fool."

"Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know. He said you did."

"I suppose," she said, "that in a sort of very informal fashion I am engaged to him. Well no, perhaps not quite that, but he seems to consider himself engaged to me, and when he has finished something very important that he has undertaken to do he is coming to ask me definitely to marry him. No, I suppose we aren't engaged yet: at least I'm not. But it's almost the same, because I suppose I shall accept him whether he fails or succeeds in what he is doing."

"If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old David, "he won't give you a chance to accept him. He won't come back. I know him well enough for that. He's a romantic fool, but he's a thorough-going fool. He plays the game." The old man looked up to his granddaughter, scowling a little.

"You two are absurdly unsuited to each other," said he, "and I told Ste. Marie so. I suppose you think you're in love with him."

"Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do."

"Idleness and all? You were rather severe on idleness at one time."

"He isn't idle any more," said she. "He has undertaken – of his own accord – to find Arthur. He has some theory about it. And he is not going to see me again until he has succeeded – or until a year is past. If he fails, I fancy he won't come back."

Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation, and his withered hands shook and stirred before him. Afterwards he fell to half-inarticulate muttering.

"The young romantic fool! – Don Quixote – like all the rest of them – those Ste. Maries. The fool and the angels. The angels and the fool." The girl distinguished words from time to time. For the most part he mumbled under his breath. But when he had been silent a long time he said suddenly —

"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."

The girl gave a little sigh.

"I wish I dared hope for it," said she. "I wish I dared hope for it."

She had left a book that she wanted in the drawing-room, and when presently her grandfather fell asleep in his fitful manner, she went down after it. In crossing the hall she came upon Captain Stewart, who was dressed for the street and had his hat and stick in his hands. He did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, but he was in and out a good deal. He paused when he saw his niece and smiled upon her a benignant smile, which she rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two really saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for hours together with his sister up in a little boudoir which she had furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that timid and colourless lady embroidered strange tea-cloths with stranger flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had an academic interest.

He said —

"Ah, my dear! It's you?" Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it, so Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the man to go on if he had more to say.

"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was asleep and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your mother instead."

"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad to be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?"

"No," said Captain Stewart sadly, "no, nothing. I do not give up hope, but I am, I confess, a little discouraged."

"We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham briefly. She gave him a little nod, and turned away into the drawing-room. Her uncle's peculiar dry manner irritated her at times beyond bearing, and she felt that this was one of the times. She had never had any reason for doubting that he was a good and kindly soul, but she disliked him because he bored her. Her mother bored her too – the poor woman bored everybody – but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough in the girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In regard to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be as civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way.

She heard the heavy front door close and gave a little sigh of relief.

"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should have screamed."

Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted, cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long distance – that is, looking backward upon it later he thought he must have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a chaotic whirl of things and emotions.

In the little flat in the Rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who, having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had sat comfortably down with a pipe and a stack of Courriers Français to wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room where his friend sat at ease. Hat, gloves and stick fell away from him in a sort of shower. He extended his arms high in air. His face was, as it were, luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said —

"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil are you looking like that for?"

"Hè!" cried Ste. Marie in a great voice. "Hè, the world is mine! Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there? Embrace me!" He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks, but the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a grey bleak look came upon him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could; but though seven times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure joy of living, and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just seen two beautiful princesses of milliners in the street," an inner voice told him that this time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he realised that he had been waiting for this, bracing himself against its onslaught. He had not been altogether blind through the past month.

Ste. Marie seized him and dragged him from his chair.

"Dance, lump of flesh! dance, sacred English rosbif that you are! Sing, gros polisson! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him, but not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant.

"Ah, my old," said he, "I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the top rungs of the ladder. Tell me that you are glad!" The Englishman drew a long breath.

"I take it," said he, "that means that you're – that she has accepted you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said —

"I ought to want to murder you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but so were the rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite honestly. My best wishes!"

Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the glory went out of his face. He cried —

"Ah, mon cher ami! Pig that I am to forget. Pig! pig! animal!" The other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul.

"Yes! yes!" he said gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his pockets, and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It looked out over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens with their winding paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their flaming flower-beds, their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth in labourer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled along under the high palings, one arm was about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the youth's senior, but, as ever, love was blind. The youth carolled in a high, clear voice: "Vous êtes si jolie," a song of abundant sentiment, and the young woman put up one hand and patted his cheek. So they strolled on and turned up into the Rue Vavin.

Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain? He tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his; and he gave a little shiver. He knew that if that bouleversement were actually to take place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley was now for his; but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would be a grimace of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's black hour must be like.

"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten. I don't know why. Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose. One thinks of nothing but one's self – and one other. I – during this past month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."

The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his hands when he chose and lighted a cigarette were quite steady, and he marvelled. That would have been impossible for him under such circumstances.

"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again.

"Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So he told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do.

"Apart from wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy," he said, " – and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth about her brother – apart from that, I'm purely selfish in the thing. I've got to win her respect as well as – the rest. I want her to respect me, and she has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So are you, but you have a perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been an idler because it suited me, because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat without working for my living. I know how she has felt about all that. Well, she shall feel it no longer."

"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.

"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or never see her again. I've sworn that." The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the look of knightly fervour, came there again, and Hartley saw it and knew that the man was stirred by no transient whim. Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries who had taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange world, a place of unknown terrors, afire for the Great Adventure. And this was one of their blood.

"I'm afraid you don't realise," he went on, "the difficulties you've got to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know."

"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie, and the other said —

"Yes. Oh, yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course. You might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and lighted another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke. At last he said —

"I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to tell it comes a little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I asked Miss Benham to marry me."

Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy.

"Ah!" said he. "I have sometimes thought – wondered. I have wondered if it went as far as that. Of course I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go there nowadays."

"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther. She – well, she didn't care for me – not in that way. So I stiffened my back and shut my mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for was impossible.

"And now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I want you to let me help you in what you're going to do – if you think you can, that is. Remember, I – cared for her too. I'd like to do something for her. It would never have occurred to me to do this until you thought of it, but I should like very much to lend a hand, do some of the work. D'you think you could let me in?"

Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant, something like dismay.

"Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd hoped to do it all yourself. It's your game, I know. Well, it's your game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run errands, some one perhaps to take counsel with now and then. Look at it on the practical side! Two heads are certainly better than one. Certainly I could be of use to you. And besides – well, I want to do something for her. I – cared too, you see. D'you think you could take me in?"

It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had hoped to work alone, to win or lose alone, to stand, in this matter, quite on his own feet, but he could not deny the man who had loved her and lost her. Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.

"You love her too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."

But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.

CHAPTER VII
CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER

Ste. Marie scowled.

"A caller would come singularly malapropos, just now," said he. "I've half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with you."

"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that you're at home. It may not be a caller anyhow. It may be a parcel or something. You'd best go." So Ste. Marie went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently the while.

The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He heard him exclaim in great surprise —

"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure. Come in! Come in!" And he permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for the visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and besides he disliked Miss Benham's uncle.

He heard the American say —

"I have been hoping for some weeks to give myself the pleasure of calling here, and to-day such an excellent pretext presented itself that I came straight away."

Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say with the elephantine archness affected by certain dry and middle-aged gentlemen —

"I come with congratulations. My niece has told me all about it. Lucky young man! Ah! – " He reached the door of the inner room and saw Richard Hartley standing by the window, and he began to apologise profusely, saying that he had had no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone. But Ste. Marie said —

"It doesn't in the least matter. I have no secrets from Hartley. Indeed, I have just been talking with him about this very thing." But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as he knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must have gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old gentleman – a reasonable enough hypothesis – and that Captain Stewart must have come in during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no time in setting out upon his errand of congratulation.

"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it." He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste. Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude: it seemed to him such a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and drink, and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a rather stiff glass of absinthe – it was between five and six o'clock.

"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent liquor was properly curdled and set at hand, "now, having congratulated you and – ah, welcomed you, if I may put it so, as a probable future member of the family, I turn to the other feature of the affair." He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly ways. He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment, turned and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him without expression.

"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for poor Arthur. Good! Good I I welcome you there, also."

Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.

"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with me; but I think, if you don't mind – Of course, I know it's very presumptuous and doubtless idiotic of us – but, if you don't mind, I think we'll work independently. You see – well, I can't quite put it into words, but it's our idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I dare say we shall fail, but it won't be for lack of trying."

Captain Stewart looked disappointed.

"Oh, I think," said he. "Pardon me for saying it! but I think you're rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed quite on your own. But, look at the practical side! You'll have to go over all the weary weeks of useless labour we have gone over. We could save you that. We have examined and followed up and at last given over a hundred clues that on the surface looked quite possible of success. You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you will merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me a pity. I shan't like to see you wasting your time and efforts." He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and he took it in his hand and turned it slowly, and watched the light gleam in strange pearl colours upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile which the two younger men found oddly pathetic.

"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said —

"I am past the age of romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by, but – I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in other people – young people who are simple and earnest and who – and who are in love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hands.

"I am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly sentimentalist is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not, though, I have rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking. Who knows? you may succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a way of charging in and carrying all before it by assault: such a way of overleaping barriers that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth! Youth!

"Eh, my God!" said he, "to be young again just for a little while. To feel the blood beat strong and eager. Never to be tired. Eh, to be like one of you youngsters! You, Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley. There's so little left for people when youth is gone." He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before him, and for a while there was a silence which neither of the younger men cared to break.

"Don't refuse a helping hand!" said Captain Stewart, looking up once more. "Don't be overproud! I may be able to set you upon the right path. Not that I have anything definite to work upon. I haven't, alas! But each day new clues turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and that may be one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never knows."

Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was blowing smoke rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes regarded him smiling a little wistfully, he thought.

Ste. Marie scowled out of the window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.

"I hardly know," said he. "Of course I sound a braying ass in hesitating even a moment, but – in a way, you understand. I'm so anxious to do this or to fail in it quite on my own! You're – so tremendously kind about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very ungrateful, I know. But I'm not."

"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your feeling – but not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of failure."

For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.

"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail – and that might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you don't mind my saying so, sir – I don't want to seem rude – your trained detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months, do they?"

Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.

"No," he said at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have accomplished much – except to prove that there are a great many places poor Arthur has not been to, and a great many people who have not seen him. After all, that is something – the elimination of ground that need not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had been drinking.

"I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution. Accidents are too rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way as could be managed – by covering large areas of territory, by keeping the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends and searching his favourite haunts. Personally I am inclined to think that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of events – before we began to search for him. And of course, I am having a careful watch kept there as well as here. But no trace has appeared as yet – nothing at all trustworthy. Meanwhile I continue to hope and to work, but I grow a little discouraged. In any case, though, we shall hear of him in three months more if he is alive."

"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?"

"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn up for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding somewhere until this time should be past. He – you must know that he went away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather. My father is not a patient man. He may have been very harsh with the boy."

"Ah yes," said Hartley, "but no boy, however young or angry, would be foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to leave him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather would never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away of his own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of being cut off altogether."

"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father, sir, may die at any time – any hour. And he's very angry with his grandson. He may have cut him off already."

Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the glass in his hand.

"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.

"No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it. That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The possibility occurred to me suddenly, for the first time." But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.

"Pray don't apologise!" said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly together. And frankly I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No! I am sure he wouldn't cut him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond – as we all were."

Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh.

"I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must get home to change. There is a cab-stand near you?" He looked out of the window. "Ah yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens." He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He said —

"You refuse to join forces with us then? Well, I'm sorry. But for all that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an incompetent bungler." He gave a little kindly laugh and Ste. Marie tried to protest.

"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen upon what seems to be a promising clue, come and talk it over with me. Oh, don't be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I shan't spoil your game."

"Ah, now that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with my troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a little first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for information."

The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest.

"An idea!" he said quickly. "You have an idea? What – may I ask what sort of an idea?"

"Oh it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that I should learn something from him."

"Ah!" said Captain Stewart slowly. "Yes, the man O'Hara. There's nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about O'Hara. It seems he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for America. An old friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken when you thought you saw him in the Champs Elysées, and he couldn't very well have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is hardly worth following up."