Elizabeth's Pretenders/Part 2/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV.
Is it happiness for a man to be constantly under the delusion that a woman—or, rather, a succession of women—are in love with him? Perhaps it tends to reconcile him to neglect, to want of appreciation from his own sex, from the world at large—which neglect is largely due, no doubt, to jealousy. Were it a single case of delusion, the rude awaking from that dream would bring with it much mortification; but when they follow as quickly as did Monsieur Anatole Doucet's, relieved by some facile successes, it is possible that vanity derives more gratification from such delusions than irritation when their unsubstantiality is proved.
Elizabeth, to whom the French "decadent" poet was a new experience—she had never met a poet of any description till now—"drew him out" during those first weeks of her stay at the pension, whenever she had an opportunity. He did not in the least attract, but he amused her. She talked more to him than to any other man, and, being what he was, it is not surprising that he mistook the nature of the attention she vouchsafed him. They only met in public; but at table, where he sat opposite, he stabbed her with those big blunt eyes of his, and became persuaded that her bosom bled: slowly, perhaps, but the wound was mortal none the less. Sometimes, after dinner in the salon, he held forth to her on a variety of subjects, running his fingers through his tangled locks, and confident that he had found a fresh victim to his genius and personal allurements. The opportunities of a tête-à-tête were few, however, as Elizabeth sat so little in the public salon, and was busy nearly all day painting. But one evening his chance came, and he was not slow to seize it.
Madame Martineau announced at luncheon that a baignoire at the Théâtre Français had been sent her for that evening, and as the piece was "très convenable pour une jeune personne," she proposed to take Elizabeth with her. She invited Narishkine and Anatole Doucet to escort them, in return for some tickets which each of these gentlemen had lately given her. Elizabeth regretted that the Barings were not of the party, but she accepted the invitation. Fond as she was of a good play, however, it is probable that she would have declined the invitation, had she known that Madame de Belcour would, at the last moment, be substituted for Madame Martineau as a chaperon. The girl's dislike of the younger French woman had never diminished; but when Madame Martineau was taken ill during dinner, and begged Madame de Belcour to fill her place at the theatre, Elizabeth felt that it would be impossible to refuse to accompany her.
"I see there is some use in being married," she said, a little scornfully, to Hatty. "If 'Mrs.' were prefixed to your name, and you were thought to be deploring a departed husband, you might be going with me instead of that woman."
"The prefix is dearly bought sometimes," replied Hatty, with a smile. "Husbands don't always depart readily when they don't suit."
Elizabeth said nothing. How dearly had she been very near paying for that prefix! It was doubly provoking, now that Madame Martineau had not invited the Barings instead of the two foreign men. How it would have simplified matters! for Hatty and she could have gone together with the brother's escort, which they could not with Narishkine and Doucet. The evening—still early in the autumn—was warm, so they walked to the theatre; Madame de Belcour and the Russian in front, Elizabeth and the poet behind. Doucet was a perpetual diversion to her; she could not take him seriously. His affectations seemed to the healthy-minded girl peculiarities to be treated indulgently, and swept away with not too heavy a hand. One could not break this butterfly on the wheel of grave reprehension. His crude theories, his denunciations of all law, his revolt against every received canon, whether of morals, or literature, or art, his enigmatical ravings, thinly bespattered with cleverness, made Elizabeth smile. It was to his credit, however, that he had never indulged at table in the sort of jokes which the elder men had vied with each other at first in making. But for this she would not have been so lenient to his absurdities. He was young, and he was French, and he had worshipped strange gods; not the fine old classic gods whom she had been taught to revere—Corneille and Racine, Montaigne and the rest—but men whose very names had been unknown to her till now, and of whom their disciple spoke as though the language of true passion had never been heard till their voices rang through the world. They had not reached the sheltered places where Elizabeth had hitherto dwelt. She did not understand more than half of his wild jargon, and while he believed he was engraving an indelible impression on the English girl, she regarded him with amused toleration, and that pity which is far from being "akin to love."
The walk to the theatre, upon the whole, entertained her. She had never had so much consecutive conversation with the fin-de-siècle poet before. At table his talk was commonly a wild protest against all things as they are. He now began by vaunting the superiority of the Théâtre Libre over the obsolete, conventional Français—so fettered by scruples of propriety; so incapable of looking Nature straight in the face!
"This 'Mademoiselle de la Seiglière,'" he said, when they were ensconced in their box, "is, after all, very poor stuff. It is all connu."
"Have you ever written a play yourself—a play that can be acted?" asked Elizabeth, as she leant back, to avoid the chance of recognition.
"Yes; on the subject of Aholibah—a play that would just suit Sarah Bernhardt. How she would understand it! How she would feel the part! I can see her now, with her eyes fixed hungrily upon the wall."
"I am afraid I do not remember much about her. What is the story?"
"She falls in love with the pictures on the wall."
"That does not sound very dramatic. Do the pictures speak?"
"No—no!" he returned, impatiently. "The passion eats into her being. She becomes possessed by her love for those men whose pictures only she has seen. A splendid idea—so original!"
"More suited for a tableau, I should say. I thought a drama wanted action?"
"Oh! there will be action afterwards; but the subtlety of that situation in the first act will strike the keynote;" and he fixed his large onyx eyes upon her.
"I prefer modern subjects," observed Elizabeth. "I hate togas, and helmets, and Turkish trousers, and flowing robes on the stage. They alienate my sympathy."
"Passion," said the poet, "is of no age, no costume, no conntry. Bewigged men, like Corneille and Racine, make classic subjects dry, bloodless. It is given to us poets of the dying century to take those beautiful dead myths from their grave and clothe them with flesh, and give them passionate human voices. Moi qui vous parle shall do so!"
He ran his fingers through his dishevelled locks, and sought to bum her up with the ardour of his gaze. Elizabeth turned sharply round; the curtain was rising on the second act, and she fixed her eager eyes upon the stage. She was soon absorbed in the play; as little heedful of the intermittent conversation between Madame Belcour and Narishkine, as she was of the fact that a head far back in the orchestra stalls was watching her attentively.
Alaric Baring had left the pension soon after the others. He had said nothing to his sister abont going to the theatre; but he had followed them there, and had entered daring the first act. He never left his seat; his eyes, indeed, remained resolutely fixed upon that box when they were not upon the stage. Between the second and third acts Madame Belcour took Narishkine's arm, and wandered out, whispering to Doucet as she left the box—
"She means you to remain. Make the most of your time, mon cher; and when we leave the theatre we will go on in front. You need not follow us too closely."
It facilitated his designs that the lady showed so little jealousy at the transference of his attentions, but possibly his vanity was slightly wounded thereby.
The play was over, and they all drifted out. There was a crowd at the door, and when they reached the open "Place," Madame de Belcour and Narishkine, who were in front, were not to be seen.
"They have walked on; we have but to follow them," said Doucet, as they crossed the Rue de Rivoli, and entered the court of the Louvre.
Still, looking across the wide expanse of asphalte and gravel, Elizabeth saw nothing of her companions. It did not trouble her much. It was a beautiful night, and the road home, she knew, was tolerably direct. She was brimming with enthusiasm aboat the play and the players, and wanted to pour it over some one. The poet was conveniently to hand. He offered her his arm, but that she declined. His brain—his perverted brain—was what she desired to reach. How could he pretend to think that "Thérèse Raquin" and the like were superior to this pure, healthy story?
But heated argument was not what Monsieur Anatole Doucet sought at this moment. Sentiment, the fortuitous contact of congenial spirits, who soared far above the vulgar prejudices of the world,—these and cognate subjects were the fields over which he wished his eloquence to play. In the fervid exposition of his views on the whole duty of man and woman his pace waxed slow, and when, at the end of nearly half an hour, Elizabeth found herself in a dark and narrow street which was unknown to her, she stopped dead short, exclaiming—
"Where are we? Surely we should have reached the pension before this? We must have taken a wrong turning."
"I do not think so," he murmured—"if we continue straight on." Then, looking back, he saw a man's figure approaching—indeed, almost close upon them.
Elizabeth recognized him at the same moment.
"Why, Mr. Baring! How curious our meeting! Monsieur Doucet has literally lost his way!"
"So I see," observed the American, quietly.
"Of course!" the poet hurriedly cut in. "We have borne off too much to the left. I see now."
"Yes. It would have been better to keep to the right."
"We must be near the Rue Cherche-Midi."
"Perhaps." Then turning to Elizabeth, "I do not lose my way about Paris, so you had better accept my guidance back to the pension."
The three walked side by side. Elizabeth talked most. Between the two men few words passed. Baring had no desire to modify the scare whicb his sudden appearance had made upon the Frenchman. He had been suspected, he had been tracked, and his schemes, whatever they were, had been frustrated. He was horribly mortified, and swore vengeance at his heart against this blundering, meddlesome American. But he also swore that though the difficulties in his path might hereby be doubled, he would not be balked in his pursuit of the girl, who had dropped a spark on that inflammable bonfire he called his heart.