A Worthy Quittance

by E. Phillips Oppenheim

“'I am not inclined to trust you,' Madame rejoined coolly. 'Now, please listen, both of you. You once took an oath—private quarrels between members of our society were to be adjudicated by me. That oath you have probably both forgotten.”

 

A WORTHY QUITTANCE

That Solves the Problem of Two Men and a Beautiful Woman

By E. Phillips Oppenheim

Illustrated by Marshall Frantz

THERE was neither pomp nor circumstance connected with the coming of Andrew Sarle to the Villa Sabatin. He climbed the flower-bordered avenue which turned and twisted through a labyrinth of orange trees and sweet-smelling shrubs, with a knapsack on his back, dust-covered from head to foot. When he presented himself at the front door, William, the most discreet and understanding of butlers, was on the point of stretching out his arm to indicate the servants' and mendicants' approach to the house, when he paused. This shabby stranger had at least a manner.

“I desire to see Madame,” he announced. “Is she within?”

“Madame is within, but she receives very seldom,” William replied. “You have, perhaps, an appointment?”

“I have,” was the calm rejoinder. “Madame has sent for me. My name is Andrew Sarle.”

William compromised in the matter by showing the visitor into a small morning room, cut off from the more elaborate reception rooms. He disappeared to make his announcement and returned again within a few minutes. Providence and instinct had saved him from a distressing blunder.

“Madame trusts that you are not pressed for time, sir,” he confided, “as she finds your call early. She can see you in an hour's time. Meanwhile, she suggests, as you are doubtless on a walking tour, that you might care for a wash and some refreshment.”

The visitor unslung his knapsack.

“More than anything else in the world,” he confessed, “I should like a bath.”

“If you will follow me, sir,” William invited, “I will show you a bathroom on the first floor. One of my young men will be glad to look after you.”

“I require no valet,” was the curt reply. “My wardrobe, such as it is, is on my back. The bathroom and towels are all I desire.”

“And afterwards?”

“Some coffee that is fit to drink would be a change. My breakfast was, I admit, scanty....”

Andrew Sarle was still shabby when he descended half an hour later, but he was, at least, clean and, with the removal of the dust and without the indignity of the knapsack on his shoulders, had regained something of that distinction which had belonged to him in former days. He wandered round the cool and flower-perfumed apartments on the ground floor, until out on the piazza he found a small table set for one with an electric heater by the side. A footman served him silently with delicious coffee, rolls and butter, and an Unexpected omelet.

“'Pauline,' said Madame, 'you are concerned in this matter. Have you anything to say?'”

He ate with deliberate and self-respecting concealment of the fact that he was almost starving. When he had finished he lit a cigaret from the box which the man handed to him, and strolled to the farther end of the terrace. He leaned over among a climbing roses and looked out, seawards. The strained look had passed in some measure from his long, oval face. His mouth was at rest, his eyes taking their pleasure. It was apparent that in Andrew Sarle there was something of the soul of an artist. So he was when Claire came down and found him. He turned his head at the sound of her light footsteps. She smiled a welcome.

“Madame desired me to say that she would be down in a few minutes,” she explained. “She does not usually rise before eleven.”

“It is I who should apologize for the earliness of my visit,” Sarle replied. “I fear that I have lost count of the conventions. I have been walking day after day and when I arrived—well, I declared myself.”

She smiled.

“You have come a long distance?” she asked.

“A very long distance, indeed,” he answered gravely. “Sometimes it seems to me that I was born walking, always with a pack upon my shoulders. One gets to feel like that in time.”

She looked at him curiously, wondering how much he had spoken allegorically. His face, in its way, was very attractive, with its lines of suffering and its pallor only faintly obliterated by the marks of the sun.

“I must not be inquisitive, but are you an old friend of Madame's?” Claire inquired.

“I am an old friend and an unfortunate one,” he told her.

“I am sorry to hear that,” she said. “Perhaps the time has arrived for a change. They call all this country, you know, from here to Monte Carlo, 'the land of good fortune.'”

“I fear,” he remarked, with a little smile, “that it will not help me. I have been a gambler but not at the gambling tables.... I am not keeping you, I trust?”

He glanced at her questioningly. She was wearing a walking costume of dark green linen, with a small Napoleonic hat, thick shoes, and she carried a stick. Around her several dogs were waiting impatiently. She was, as a matter of fact, on her way across the road to Cardinge's château-farm. From her window she had seen him among the vines.

“I was just going across to a farm near here,” she explained. “At this time of the year, when we are interested, we go every day to see how the vines are looking. It is a great friend of Madame's who lives close here—Mr. Hugh Cardinge. You know him, perhaps?”

“Cardinge!” he repeated reminiscently. “Yes,” he admitted, “I knew Cardinge. He was like me in one respect. He was not altogether one of fortune's favorites.”

“You too, then,” she ventured, “were one of Madame's Virgins.”

His lips curled for a moment.

“I belonged to that astounding society,” he confessed. “We are being disbanded, I understand. I have come a great distance to keep my oath and receive my quittance.”

“A great many have already visited us,” she observed. “You must be almost the last.”

“Has Maurice Tringe been here?” he demanded.

THE question was an ordinary one enough, but the manner of his asking was amazing. The words had almost leapt from his mouth. It was like the flash of a rapier and there was something in his eyes from which she shrank.

“Not yet,” she answered, a little hesitatingly. “Madame has heard from him, though. He comes, I think, to-day or to-morrow.”

The man was suddenly transformed. In appearance he had become somehow less prepossessing but more vital. He was all nerves and intentness.

“Where does he come from?” he asked.

“From Italy,” the girl replied. “He spends the night at Monte Carlo.”

“And I am here,” Andrew Sarle muttered. “Then I still believe in a God!”

He turned away, almost as though he had forgotten her presence. It was her opportunity to depart but for some reason or other she lingered. She too leaned, a few feet away, upon the flower-smothered rail of the veranda and looked across the valley.

“You two,” she repeated presently, “will be almost the last.”

“It is fitting,” he pronounced shortly.

He had relapsed into moodiness. It was perfectly clear that he had no mind for conversation. Yet Claire was somehow indisposed to leave him. His suffering had at first enchained her pity. This new look in his face moved her almost to fear.

“I wonder if you are a painter?” she asked.

“Why?”

“So many artists come here, and you have the appearance.”

He shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I have no profession. At the time when Madame knew me I had but one thought. We were all the same. There was the common bond—adventure. It was the spirit of adventure which made us willing to take the great risks. The spirit of adventure, I suppose,” he went on, “which has brought me to what I am. I took a risk, et voilà!—this is the result!”

“A gambler can always recover,” Claire reminded him gently.

“Material things,' he assented. “Happiness is scarcely involved in the gain or loss of material things. In life those count so much less than the young believe.”

THERE was the sound behind of smooth footsteps—Madame's languid voice.

“The old Andrew,” she murmured. “Always moralizing! Claire, you had better set off on your walk. Let Hugh know who has arrived. See that he returns with you to luncheon.... So you, too, have found your way here, Andrew Sarle?”

“T, too, have obeyed, Madame,” he acquiesced. “For me it has been a weary journey.”

“You have come far?”

“From the Pyrenees, begging my way most of the time.”

Madame received the information equably. Sympathy seemed to be a gift entirely denied to her.

“You were a rich man in our days, Andrew,” she remarked.

“The war,” he announced, “and a long course of “dissolute living,' as the lawyers put it.”

“You have, I fear, neglected your gifts,” she continued. “That was a charming little play you wrote for Comier, produced at the 'Capucines.' Have you written anything else like that?”

“Nothing.”

“Those little articles of yours?”

“I have not touched a pen for ten years.”

She shrugged her shoulders.

“We each know our own lives! No one can help those without the will to help themselves.... So you have come for your quittance?”

“And to offer you, perhaps,” he said, “a last service.”

“You use our own formula,” she observed. “But for you—well, I have nothing planned. Perhaps I shall be very good natured and hand you your quittance without exacting service. Your confession was never a terrible affair.”

“As you like,” he answered indifferently. “As a matter of fact. I had imagined that I might be more useful to you than any of the others.”

“In what way?”

“Oh, I know them all,” he declare. “I've come across them or heard of their careers at different times. Most have been successful. Most have come to you shivering with fear lest they should be asked to flout the law at your bidding—to embroil themselves with the conventionalities in the carrying out of this last service. I come to you free from all that. That is why I thought I might be useful.”

“No fears, no conscience, eh?” Madame queried.

“I will not go so far as that,” he objected. “I have my own standard. The point is that, within a month or so, I shall be dead. What I do between now and then is of no account to any human being. Show me an action, in itself great, but which must be performed illegally—a batch of human vermin without whom the world were the better—even a single individual who stands in the light, and I have no scruples.”

“All for the sake of that insignificant quittance.”

“You can keep my quittance if you will,” he answered. “My request will sound more sordid. I require enough money to travel a little distance, to attire myself and to live like a gentleman until the end.”

“And why the end?”

“Because my search is nearly over. Within a few days I am going to kill a man—murder, people will call it, I suppose. Well, that doesn't matter. Afterwards you will understand that it will be necessary for me also to disappear.”

Madame sighed contentedly.

“I am so glad you came, Andrew,” she confided. “You bring with you a most inspiring breath of real vitality. Who is the man whom you are going to kill?”

“Maurice Tringe.”

Madame nodded thoughtfully.

“More and more interesting. There was a woman, wasn't there?”

“My wife.”

Madame nodded.

“But surely,” she said, “that was seven years ago.”

HE INDICATED himself and his condition by a gesture.

“Maurice was always a coward,” he declared passionately. “I have hunted him this seven years. Hence my idle pen, my empty banking account. He had wealth, and he used it to avoid me—a yacht in southern seas—I had to follow by steamer. He kept off the beaten routes, being able to go when and how he chose. I had to follow on scheduled lines. Steamers and sailings were well known to him. He took his ease until a day or two before my arrival and passed on.... Yet, I have given him no rest. There has never been a moment when he has not felt that I was coming—somewhere a long way away, but coming as surely as the thud of the engines which drove my steamer. For seven years he has found no home. He tried to communicate with me--suggested an interview—a compromise—he even asked for pity. I never answered letter or advertisement.”

“You have been extraordinarily persevering,” Madame remarked, fanning herself.

“It is your summons,” Andrew Sarle went on, “which will draw him to his death. I heard of him in Italy after I had sought for him in vain at Pau. Then I, too, had my call. From Pau here is, they tell me, a pleasant motor ride—a railway journey, perhaps, of two or three days, pleasantly broken. To walk it takes two months. My lungs are not what they were.”

“You have walked from Pau?” Madame asked.

“From Pau,” he answered. “And I was on my way to Italy. Perhaps Italy will not be necessary.”.

“How do you know that Maurice has not already been here?” Madame inquire¢.

He was silent. Madame understood.

“Claire, of course,” she murmured.

“I should have known in any case, assured her.

Madame fanned herself for several moments in silence. As the sun mounted, the humming of the bees grew more insistent, the perfume of the flowers a little more languid. The sunshine stole even into the shady corners, yet the breeze lingered.

“You are still,” Madame reminded him, “a Virgin.”

“Until I receive my quittance,” he agreed.

“You will remember, perhaps,” she continued, “one of the privileges I enforced. Your friendships and your enmities were nothing to me outside my circle. Your friendships and your enmities with one another were my concern.”

“Well?”

“Tn the case of any quarrel between two of you it was I who adjudicated.”

“Well?”

“You are still a Virgin. You will record to me your grievance against Maurice Tringe.”

THE man brooded over the matter for several minutes.

“You insist?” he asked at last.

“I insist.”

Sarle told his story in a perfectly level, mechanical tone. It was like a child repeating a piece of prose history.

“I will spare you evidence,” he said. “I will tell you only facts. You can accept my word that they are true. I have the proof. In nineteen-fourteen, at the time when you, Madame, and your Virgins, were the sensation of Paris, we were compelled to disband. Maurice Tringe and I were curiously brought together. We were never friends, yet the war, two years of fighting side by side, brought a certain comradeship. At Soissons I was Tringe's superior officer. It was my duty to order him into a place of danger. He fell there. I saved his life. I myself was wounded, more dangerously than he. He was sent to England. I was too ill to be moved. I gave him a letter to my wife. You will remember that I married Pauline de Neuilly.”

“I remember.”

“It was many months before I could travel to England. Something was wrong. That, my letters told me. When I arrived—they had gone. There was a letter from her—an illuminating letter! From him—nothing. I went into hospital. As soon as I was cured—as nearly cured as I shall ever be—I started on my quest.”

“And your poverty?” Madame inquired.

“When war broke out,” he explained, “I divided my fortune. I gave half to my wife. My half was shrunk, owing to the war conditions. I spent it traveling round the world on my quest.”

“An old and simple story,” Madame mused.

“As old as the hills,” he acknowledged, “but with a different meaning to every man. My wife was my life, and she was a good woman. He blasted my happiness—he must have blasted hers. She was a good woman. I grudge him these years I have lived before my fingers could reach his throat.”

Madame nodded.

“Really,” she decided, “the whole thing seems to me to be most regular. I scarcely see how I can interfere.”

“Your interference,” he replied with a touch of passion in his tone, “would never have been tolerated.”

Madame sighed.

“Most of my Virgins,” she remarked, “have been so prosperous. You are quite depressing, Andrew.”

“Then let me go,” he rejoined quickly. “You know all that I want from you.”

“Yes, I know,” she admitted. “You want to make me an accessory to the killing of Maurice Tringe. I provide the means. You do the deed.”

“You have entirely mistaken me,” he assured her. “I desire nothing from you, unless, by any chance, my services had been desirable. I can deal with Maurice Tringe in my own way.”

“Age has not corrected your impetuosity,” Madame yawned. 'Why make such a rush of life? Take a more comfortable chair and light a cigaret... You remember Cardinge? I think that he must have been reading Horace, for he has turned farmer and can think of nothing but his vintage. He will be here for luncheon.”

“I must move on,” Andrew Sarle declared. “My rags are not for your table.”

“Don't tell me that you have lost your good taste, too,” Madame begged. “Such a remark is inadmissible. Place yourself in my butler's hands. He has clothes here—relics of the old days... Between now and luncheon time I shall think over the situation. It is a very simple one. It has occurred before. The lover runs away with his friend's wife. The friend naturally desires to kill the lover. I see no objection provided the other considerations are normal.”

“Your friend Cardinge, from what I remember of him,” Andrew Sarle remarked, “would scarcely have been so long about it.”

“I don't know,” she answered soothingly. “You have done all that was possible... There is William inside the salon. Let him look after you for half-an-hour and when you come down there will be an apéritif ready. Afterwards luncheon—then talk.”

“Supposing Maurice Tringe should arrive while I am here?” he asked, lingering.

“You need not consider us,” Madame replied. “Anything that must happen, must happen naturally. As a matter of fact, I do not think that there is any chance of it. Maurice reaches Monte Carlo to-night and will probably stay there.”

“If I remain,” Andrew Sarle stipulated, “will you provide me with the means of reaching Monte Carlo to-night? I shall be too late to get there on foot.”

“A ridiculous question,” Madame murmured. “You certainly will not leave here as a pauper or in those clothes. Very likely I will take you in to Monto Carlo myself. Very likely I may think of a better scheme.”

“Then I accept with gratitude your invitation,” he announced.

ANDREW SARLE, shaved and attired in the garments of civilization, became at once a personable although a silent guest at the villa. He greeted Cardinge civilly but incuriously, sipped his apéritif with the air of one entirely unused to such things, and seldom spoke except when he was addressed. All the time he looked only in one direction—along the thread of empty and dusty road. Heat sparingly but with appreciation, took wine moderately, but smoked when invited to between the courses with obvious enjoyment, After coffee had been served on the piazza Madame waved the others away. Her guest rearranged his chair so that he commanded a view of the road.

“Andrew,” his hostess began, “I suppose if you were asked you would be able to say what you considered had been the ruling passion of my life.”

“Love of adventure,” he answered without removing his eyes from the road.

“Quite true,” she assented. “It was without doubt my love of adventure which induced me when I was only a child to marry the Duc de Soyau, although there was not a single one of my friends or relatives, or even, for that matter, his, who did not assure me that he was the greatest scoundrel in Europe.”

“It was a foolish business, that.”

“It brought me no satisfaction,” Madame confessed. “A few more years with my husband, and I should possibly have become a good woman from sheer inability to deal with his wickedness. However, he had the good taste to die. My second adventure was the gathering together of you, my Virgins.”

The glimmerings of a smile parted her guest's lips.

“You had all the adventure you wanted then.”

“Of a sort,” she acquiesced. “And yet, partly by chance, partly, I suppose, owing to the handicap of my sex, there are several things which I have missed. I have never seen a murder committed.”

He moved a little uneasily in his chair.

“You, of course,” she went on reminiscently, “have seen men die—men who deserved to die, I mean. That is where murder becomes justice.”

“I have seen men die like flies,” he acknowledged. “Whether they deserved to die, God only knows.”

“You speak of the war, I suppose,” she objected. “That does not interest me. It is too impersonal. In all our adventures I have never seen two men face to face—not in a polite duel, but one at least of them fired with the savage desire to kill.”

“What are you leading up to?” he asked bluntly.

“This,” she answered; “I have a proposition to make to you. You have decided to murder Maurice Tringe, and I find no moral reason why you should not. You desire your quittance from me and a certain amount of help. Both you shall have, on one condition. Wait here for Maurice Tringe. Let that murder take place under this roof and let it be stage-managed by me.

“I must kill him at sight,” Andrew Sarle pointed out. “If not he will escape.”

“He shall not escape,” Madame promised calmly. “He is coming for his quittance, and he will not leave without it. I have studied murder from the psychological point of view. I know the niceties and the ethics of it. Leave it all in my hands, Andrew. Let it be I who say the word and our bargain is struck. In this house and with my help, Maurice Tringe cannot possibly escape. If you wander into Monte Carlo a pauper the chances are a hundred to one that you will never come across him at all.

“On one condition, I agree,” he declared.

“Well?”

“You must assure me that this is not a trap. You will not ask me to show mercy?”

Madame laughed with a quiet sense of enjoyment.

Am I that sort of person?” she demanded. “I am a believer in justice. Mercy is the weakness of others. I promise that I will interfere in no way whatever except to choose the moment when you may strike.

“Then I accept your terms,” he acquiesced.

LATER in the afternoon Madame ordered her limousine.

“I am going to drive as far as the sea,” she told her guest. “Please accompany me.”

He shook his head. His eyes were seldom far away from that dusty strip of high road.

“I prefer to watch the road,” he said. “He may come at any minute.”

Madame passed him a telegraphic dispatch which had been brought to her some time before. He read it eagerly. It was dated from Monte Carlo early that morning:

Just arrived here. Shall be with you twelve midday to-morrow.

Maurice.

“To-morrow!” he muttered.

“At midday,” Madame echoed. “So you see you waste your time sitting there brooding. Come with me instead. It is an interesting neighborhood, this. I have something to show you.”

“It is a long time,'” Andrew Sarle reflected, as he rose to his feet, “since I have been interested in my whereabouts. I know where we are upon the map. That is all. However, as.you wish it, I am ready.”

Madame spent a few minutes preparing herself, and William, from an apparently inexhaustible wardrobe, produced a gray Homburg hat, gloves, and cane for the visitor. Then they started off, winding their way down the narrow lane, through the strip of wood and across the broad high road to the avenue which led to the sea. They drove always very slowly, and more than once Madame brought the car to a standstill by pressing a button. She showed her companion a beautiful view, a famous garden, and later on the golf links. In the distance they could see Cardinge and Claire playing.

“You played golf once, Andrew,” she reminded him. “I remember your bringing back a cup from La Boulie.”

For a moment he seemed puzzled. Then he remembered.

“That part of my life,” he confided, “' before the war, seems always to me as though it belonged to some other man. I played golf—I think I was quite good—and cricket before that. Those things belong to the lives of ordinary men. It is so long since my own life has been empty of all save one thing, that I have forgotten.”

They drove on as far as the road went, to the verge of the great shingly beach, lapped by the Mediterranean. Andrew Sarle looked in one direction only. He ignored the beautiful neck of Antibes. He took no notice of a large sailing yacht close to the land. He looked stedfastly past Cap Ferrat toward Monte Carlo.

“It seems like a waste of time,” he muttered. “He is so near.”

“At midday to-morrow,” Madame reminded him, “he comes to you. He will be under the same roof. You are free from all restraint. Surely that is better.”

“To-morrow is a long time,” he complained. “There is another night to pass.”

Madame gave an order and the car was turned round. They drove slowly past the club house. Madame Trombelle, the secretary, was seated at her desk, working. She raised her head for a moment as the car passed. Madame waved her hand.

“That is the secretary of the golf-club,” she told her companion. “She is a French woman who appealed to me for help. I found her the place. They tell me she is very efficient.”

“A war widow, perhaps?” Andrew Sarle inquired.

Madame shook her head.

“Her husband is alive,” she said. “There are others who are unhappy.”

THE car came to a standstill again a few hundred yards farther on. Madame gave some instructions through the speaking tube. At the entrance to the valley they drew up, close to where a footpath from the golf links disappeared into a wood. Madame passed cigarets to her companion.

“Here we rest for a time,” she announced. “This is a spot I always love. Let your window down, Andrew. Do you smell the orange-blossoms?”.

“They are very beautiful,” he answered.

“The perfume comes from that tiny villa,” she went on, “the villa from which the child has just come out. A pretty child, Andrew!”

He groaned.

“Children of that age,” he confessed, “always remind me of things I hate to be reminded about.”

He watched her stedfastly as she passed down the footpath, and for a moment the grim imperturbability of his features was disturbed. His hand, which rested upon the window, shook. He gazed after the child until she was out of sight. Then he leaned back in his place. He was muttering uneasily to himself. Madame looked at him curiously.

“That is the daughter of the golf secretary,” she told him. “She is going, I suppose to her mother.”

“Why do we stay here?” he asked abruptly. “Let us go back.”

“I always linger here for a little time,” Madame protested. “The air is beautiful. There is nothing to be done before to-morow.”

“True,” he assented. “It was the child. She was just about the same age as Pauline and her hair—Bah! I thought I had forgotten those things.”

“What became of your child?” Madame asked.

“She took it—robbed me of her as she had of everything else.”

Madame was silent. She was watching the approach of two figures along the winding footpath.

“You have had some very unhappy years, Andrew,” she admitted, “but for a man of your courage you are very morbid.”

“I find no rest because that man still lives,” he told her.

“Even then,” she protested, “you have let yourself slip into an impossible condition, To bear sorrow with dignity is the greatest discipline in life. Look at that woman who comes—our golf secretary. She has known a sorrow as great as yours. Still she has kept her self-respect. She has her child, her tiny villa, and she, who was born to every luxury, works for her living. What do you think of her, Andrew? She is still a beautiful woman.”

Andrew Sarle leaned forward and a little cry broke from his lips. He made a quick movement to rise and then collapsed in his seat. Madame pressed the button and the car started on. She unfastened the waistcoat of the man by her side and felt his heart. Andrew Sarle had fainted.

AN HOUR or so later she descended from her room and found Andrew lying in her own chaise longue on the piazza. He welcomed her eagerly.

“I wanted to talk to you,” he began; “to ask you something.”

“I should keep quiet, if I were you,” she advised. “I have been looking up the walk from Pau and I see that it must have been about six hundred miles. A long distance with scanty food, Andrew.”

“It was nothing,” he assured her. “I was a little tired last night and the thought of to-morrow beat all the time in my brain. I just lost control for a moment. But, Madame, tell me. I had the strangest vision just as my senses went. That child came back and a woman. Who was she?”

“Your wife,” Madame answered, “and the child is your daughter. Now you see why I insisted. I have an eye for detail. The scene is better set here than anywhere else in the world.”

“But—”

Madame handed across to him the sealed envelop which she was carrying.

“Your quittance,” she observed. “The price of it is your silence for twenty-four hours.”...

The scraps of torn paper fluttered down the breeze. The man buried his face in his hands.

AT a few minutes before midday on the following morning, Hugh Cardinge climbed the avenue of the villa and was welcomed upon the steps of the rose-wreathed piazza by Madame. He raised her fingers to his lips.

“You are just in time, my friend,” she said, “to help me receive very nearly the last of your fellow Virgins. I think that it is Maurice Tringe's car which climbs the hill there.”

Cardinge glanced around and into the villa.

“What about Sarle?” he asked.

Madame shrugged her shoulders.

“In the end,” she acknowledged quietly, “I imagine that Sarle may kill him. We shall see!”

A closed car, covered with dust, drew up at the front entrance. They both watched curiously the descent of its solitary occupant. Madame, the imperturbable, permitted herself a slight shiver. Cardinge gazed at this new arrival with wonder. Maurice Tringe was certainly no longer a pleasant person to look upon. He was coarse of flesh without being absolutely stout. His cheeks were puffy and sagged a little over his nerveless mouth. His eyes were weak and vapid. His complexion was bad, his carriage gone. He shambled rather than walked. His tone, as he spoke of the chauffeur, was nervous and irritable. He came toward them, hat in hand, but his eyes were wandering about restlessly.

“Dear Madame!” he exclaimed. “Unchanged! And Cardinge, isn't it? I thought I recognized you. Well, well, I am here, you see. I have obeyed.”

“I am very glad to see you, Maurice,” Madame said.

He stood close to her. He dropped his voice almost to a whisper. His head was never still. All the time his eyes were traveling around.

“Tell me,” he begged, “are any of the others here? That fellow Andrew Sarle, for instance?”

“Why should you ask for him especially?” Madame demanded, with well-simulated indifference.

“That fellow,” Maurice Tringe continued earnestly, “has ruined my life. I wonder, could I have a drink?”

A servant hurried forward.

“Order what you will,” Madame invited, leading the way to the further end of the piazza. “Cocktails will be served directly Perhaps you would like something stronger.”

“A little brandy,” Tringe begged, in a hoarse undertone. “Just a wineglassful—no more. I will have a cocktail afterwards.

“I drink too much brandy,” he confided. “Some day or other I am going to leave off altogether. These last few years have been such a strain. And everything against me, too.”

“What has been against you?” Madame asked.

“Ill health, for one thing,” he replied. “Sleeplessness—my nerve's gone. That fellow Sarle started it. You know, of course, that there was some trouble about his wife?”

“We know that you took her away,” Madame observed.

“Well, well, that's all over and done with—over and done with,” he repeated, holding out his hand eagerly for the wineglass which a servant was tendering. “We do these things We may say that we regret them. It makes no difference. But that fellow Sarle—he'll murder me some day. He's sworn to.”

“Really?” Madame murmured

“He followed me pretty well all round the world,” Tringe went on. “It got on her nerves, too, just as it did on mine. That's why she left me. She couldn't stand it any longer. She was afraid as I was afraid. It wasn't that she didn't care—I'm convinced of that—she cared all right, but she was afraid So she went—left me without a word. I've been alone for seven years and I've scarcely slept a night without waking up and thinking I heard footsteps around the bed, or the sound of his voice—God, the nightmares I have had!”

He finished the brandy and was the first to seize one of the wineglasses from the cocktail tray. He held it suspended in mid-air for a moment, on its way to his lips. Then the glass slipped from his nerveless fingers onto the tesselated floor and was smashed into atoms. Maurice Tringe's eyes were fixed upon a window only a few yards away—an open window, so covered with crimson ramblers that scarcely its outline was left. Something glittering had been thrust through the roses—something on which the sun was flashing—something held by invisible fingers, pointing straight to his heart. A hand brushed aside the screen of roses and a figure appeared.

“My God! He is here!” Tringe groaned. “He is here at last—here!”

HE SAT in his chair, powerless to move, fascinated, shrunken, and incoherent in the face of this horror. Andrew Sarle stepped out onto the piazza. He was pale, almost livid, and an expression of cruel joy flamed in his eyes. The pistol was still pointed at his enemy's heart. Madame looked at him coolly.

“That will do, Andrew,” she enjoined. “I am sure Maurice Tringe realizes that this is the end. Remember the truce is not up yet—not until after lunch. Put that thing away. Come and take your apéritif. I don't wish my servants to think that we are rehearsing a film for the cinema.”

Sarle obeyed reluctantly, but without protest. The pistol dropped into his jacket pocket. He nodded to Cardinge and drank his apéritif. His fingers were quite firm. The coming of his enemy seemed to have brought him a great composure.

“It is a trap, this,” Tringe mumbled.

Madame smiled.

“Do not be foolish, Remember. if you can,” she added, “that the one inevitable quality of a Virgin was always courage. If there is an account to be met, it must be met. So far as regards your personal safety you have, at the worst, a clear hour before you. I hold Andrew Sarle's word of honor that, for that time—until after the service of luncheon and we have had a brief conversation—your life shall be spared.”

“Spared!” Tringe repeated, with an uneasy laugh. “His finger was upon the trigger!”

“*A whim of mine,'” Andrew Sarle confided. “I just wanted to feel that my moment had come—to feel that his life hung upon my impulse. It was a great luxury—a wonderful moment!”

“Give me another cocktail,” Tringe ordered.

A LITTLE chime of bells announced the service of luncheon. Madame rose to her feet.

“I beg,” she said, “that you will all remember my request. We are in a civilized country. Whatever may come afterwards, luncheon at least remains. Come! Claire this is Major Tringe, another of the protégés of my early life. Show him the way to luncheon.”

The habits of the roué by instinct are ineradicable. Tringe straightened his tie as he bowed and permitted his eyes, weak vessels though they were, to express his admiration, Claire led him to his place, talking to him with unexpected kindness. She had the uneasy feeling that this was a doomed man.

“I had no idea that this pleasure was in store for me,” he declared, with an impressive lowering of the voice. “One heard nothing of Madame's having a niece in the old days.”

“Claire was at boarding-school in England,” Madame remarked. “As a matter of fact,” she went on coldly, “I was not then her guardian.”

“You are to be congratulated upon the position, Madame,” he pronounced with a little bow, raising his glass to his lips with fingers so unsteady that a few drips of its contents were spilt upon the tablecloth

“Well, I don't know,” Madame observed, with a glance toward Cardinge. “The charge of a young girl is not an unalloyed pleasure. I have also a nephew who gives me trouble. He gambles. He is extravagant. He declines to choose a profession. He is, however, obedient. He is willing to obey my wishes in most things”

Claire smiled at Madame across the table. For some reason or other she did not feel in the least afraid of her.

“I am sure I'm most tractable,” she protested. “I hope you're not believing my aunt's insinuations,” she added, turning to Tringe. “No ward could give her less trouble than I do.”

“No ward could give so much pleasure to any one lucky enough to be her guardian,” he replied with flamboyant gallantry.

Again Claire vouchsafed a tolerant smile, although the man's tone and looks were an incessant offense to her. Cardinge, with an abrupt remark, intruded into the conversation. He detested Claire's temporary association with Tringe and he hid his feelings with difficulty. Madame, who watched, smiled with amusement. The situation appealed to her

From beginning to end it was a strange meal, perfectly served as usual, with exquisite appointments of flowers, linen, and wine. Madame was an exceptionally silent hostess and Cardinge only spoke when it served his purpose. Andrew Sarle was an intelligent contributor of monosyllables. Tringe was garrulous and greedy in turn.

“I see, Madame,” he remarked, “that you have not forgotten the art of having the best cook in the world. I have seldom tasted such an omelet, and this sauce—wonderful!”

“I am glad that you approve,” she said.

“I approve of everything,” he assured her, with a glance at Claire. “It is a great occasion, this.”

“One is reminded,” Andrew Sarle observed, “of the famous dinners, Madame, which you used to give us in the Bois de Boulogne—generally on the eve of one of our enterprise. Everything then as now was faultless. One misses only that little inscription, painted by our friend Fardell, upon the wall, with its allegorical illustrations—'Let us eat drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die!'”

Tringe set down his glass. He was momentarily discomposed.

“An unpleasant recollection,” he declared. “Why should I or any of us die to-morrow? After all, life is too short and big a thing to trifle with. We ought to remember that. When it is gone, what is there?”

He watched the filling of his glass. Madame shrugged her shoulders.

“We discuss metaphysics or religion after midnight,” she protested. “At lunch we are scarcely prepared.”

“What I mean to say is,” Tringe continued quickly, “that life is too big a price to pay for any sin. I do not believe in capital Punishment. The war changed all my views about that sort of thing.”

“The subject just now is rather personal,” Madame interposed drily. “Tell us, did you play last night at Monte Carlo, Maurice?”.

“I played, yes,” he answered, “and with my usual accursed luck. For years everything that I have touched has gone to pot. I took two hundred pounds with me into the Rooms last night, and when I came out I couldn't tip the boy who gave me my hat. You all appear to have prospered by the look of you. I am pretty well broke. Ten years ago, I was so rich I thought myself a millionaire. To-day everything seems to have crumbled away. I have no luck—that's what it is,” he went on. “Everything I touch goes against me.”

HE talked on—disconnectedly—always egotistically—always with a tactless effort to enlist sympathy, and all the time becoming an object of greater contempt to the others. Even Claire moved her chair a little further apart. In the moments of lucidity inspired by the wine he drank, Tringe was perhaps conscious of their aversion, and in his clumsy way resented it.

“There is no room for an unlucky man in the world,” he grumbled. “Every one shuns him. Every one points to his faults and forgets what might have driven him to them.”

Madame glanced at the clock.

“Serve coffee here,” she directed the butler. “You will excuse some slight hurry,” she added, turning to Tringe. “I have given a promise to Andrew which expires in half an hour. The matter it refers to must be dealt with before then.”

Tringe shivered a little as he glanced around the table. He seemed conscious of the lack of sympathy everywhere, notwithstanding his garrulous outpourings and forced spirit of bonhomie. Opposite, only a few feet away, sat the man eg had hunted him over the world, and in his expression, at any rate, there was no softening, no sign of pity. Tringe, depressed and full of forebodings, helped himself liberally to brandy. For once it brought him no comfort. Chill fear sat in his heart. The service of the meal was concluded almost in silence. Madame rose to her feet.

“Will you all come with me, please,” she said, “except Claire. I shall want you, Hugh.”

She led the way to a seldom used room which opened out of her salon, an apartment less ornate than the others, but looking out upon the gardens, and pleasantly furnished. In the middle of the floor there was a table strewn with magazines. Madame took a seat at the end of it, and pointed to a chair on either side of her.

“Sit down, Andrew Sarle,” she invited, “and you, Maurice Tringe. First, have either of you any weapons?”

“I have a revolver,” the former admitted, “with which, I may add,” he went on, glancing at the clock, “I am not disposed to part.”

“If it comes to that,” Tringe said, scowling, “I have one, too. What about it?”

AT a gesture from Madame, Cardinge suddenly pinioned his arms and drew the revolver from his hip pocket. Tringe spluttered with rage.

“Look here,” he protested, “'am I to be butchered in cold blood without defending myself?”

“I am not inclined to trust you.'” Madame rejoined coolly. “I should be afraid of your trying to steal a march upon Andrew and, as you would have been a dead man before now but for his promise to me, I am not running the risk of having him suffer for it. Now please listen, both of you. You once took an oath—private quarrels between members of our society were to be adjudicated by me. That oath you have probably both forgotten. I found Andrew, for instance, crossing a continent because he hoped to find you here and kill you. I persuaded him to wait. It seemed to me that there was a better way.”

“There are many better ways than murder,” Tringe muttered.

“You have a complaint to make against Maurice Tringe,” Madame went on, turning to Andrew. “Can you put it into half-a-dozen sentences?”

“Less,” was the fierce reply. “We were brother officers. I saved his life. When he returned from the trenches to England, leaving me in hospital, I gave him a letter to my wife. I trusted him. I trusted her, for I know that at heart she was a good woman. He robbed me of my wife. He took her away and fled all over the world to escape my vengeance. I claim the man's right against the man who dishonors his wife—the right to kill.”

Madame turned toward Maurice Tringe.

“And you?” she asked. “What have you to say?”

“I had no idea what was likely to happen when I went to see her,” he explained. “From the moment I saw her I forgot everything. It isn't any use spouting morals. Men do forget when there's a woman they want. I wanted her and I took her.”

“Regardless of the fact that she was your friend's wife and that that friend had saved your life?” Madame murmured.

“Regardless of anything,” he retorted. “She was of the same mind. There was nothing else to be done.”

“Then you are now, I suppose, prepared to pay the price?” '

“This is all theatrical tommy-rot,” Tringe declared savagely. “Why doesn't he go to the law courts like any other reasonable person? Men don't kill one another nowadays for a thing like this. If they did there would be half-a-dozen murders in the paper every day.”

“And, on the other hand,” Madame pointed out icily, “if they did, men would probably leave their friends' wives alone. You see civilization does not always make for progress. I think the code of the Zulus, for instance who kill, is more moral than the code of the Englishman who goes to the law... But one moment! There is some one else to be heard.”

“Some one else!” Tringe muttered.

CARDINGE had rung the bell. No servant answered it, but in a moment the door was softly opened and closed. Madame Trombelle entered. As she walked into the light Sarle rose to his feet, still pale, shaking in every limb. Tringe was crouching against the table, his eyes fixed fearfully upon her, the veins in his temples standing out like ugly cords.

“Pauline!” he gasped. “My God! What brought you here?”

She made no answer. She looked steadily at Madame. She stood at the end of the table, silent and motionless—a wasted but still a beautiful woman.

“Pauline,” Madame said, “you are concerned in this matter. Have you anything to say?”

“Yes,” was the quiet reply. “I desire to tell the truth, even though it may seem that I am trying to excuse myself. I loved my husband, Andrew. I never had any real feeling—for that man.”

She indicated Tringe with a gesture of hate. The contempt in her soul broke through her effort at unemotionalism.

“He came as my husband's friend,” she went on. “I was twenty-two years old, bored, idiotically fond of pleasure. From the very first he had but one idea concerning me. I should say that he has but one idea concerning any woman. I sent him away twice. He came back repentant. The third time he brought a yacht. We were to go for a short cruise. I have little to say about that. We did not return.”

“And afterwards?” Madame asked.

“Very soon afterwards,” Pauline continued, “I discovered that he was a coward. He was terrified to death of Andrew. We lived as fugitives for over two years. There was no peace nor any happiness for me. After that I began to realize the ignominy of my position. The man to whom I had given my life was a coward. He was not even faithful. He was already on the highroad to becoming what you see him now. At San Fransisco he brought a friend, an actress, from one of the smaller theatres, on board. I left, traveling overland to New York. I have not seen him since until to-day. That was seven years ago. Since then I have supported my child somehow or other. Through the kindness of Madame I obtained the post of golf secretary here two years ago.”

Andrew raised his head. He looked at her for a moment, speechless. There was a little gulp in his throat.

“You had half my fortune,” he reminded her.

“So far as I know the money is still in the bank,” she answered. “TI have' never drawn a check since the day he came.”

Madame glanced at the clock.

“Andrew,” she said, “there are still seven minutes. I require to speak to Maurice Tringe alone. Please be so good as to escort your wife from the room.”

There was a moment's hesitation. Pauline was looking across at him with a wonderful appeal in her eyes. She held out her hands. Andrew moved toward her. They left the room together, her hand resting upon his shoulder, as though for support. Maurice Tringe watched them with the light of a new hope in his face. He laughed huskily as the door closed behind them—a smothered, unpleasant sound. Then he turned eagerly to Madame.

“Well, that's all right,” he exclaimed. “They're going to make it up.”

“They may,” Madame assented. “But what about you?”

“Well, I'll say I'm sorry. I can't do more. You see what the whole thing's done for me. I've suffered. It's broken me. I'm ill—miserably ill,” he went on. “My doctor tells me that my heart is diseased. I have only a few years to live anyhow. Let them go away and leave me in peace.”

“Andrew will not do that,” Madame assured him. “He claims the right to you, and he will kill you.”

“He sha'n't.” the man cried furiously. “Madame, intercede for me. It's all over now.”

“Try and forget yourself for a moment,” she enjoined. “Reflect. Think of others for once in your life. In four minutes Andrew will come in and will certainly exercise his right to kill you. If he does that, he will either have to kill himself, too, or give himself up to the law. Two lives will be wasted instead of one—not to speak of Pauline, who surely has suffered enough and who might yet have a few more years of happiness. Can't you see your duty?”

“No,” he answered sullenly.

Madame rose to her feet.

“I shall leave you to consider the matter,” she said. “Here is your revolver.”

She pushed it toward him.

“And here,” she added, taking a little gold box from her purse, and carefully selecting a white tabloid, “is something which you may prefer. In the old days when we skirted the thin edge of safety, I was never without one of these. There is no pain, they leave no possible trace behind, and they are speedy. Between the two try and find your courage. Ne one can alter what is past. No one can give you a certificate of good living. You can at least die like a man.”

“Die!” he muttered. “Why should I die?”

Madame glanced at the clock.

“Andrew Sarle is a man of his word,” she warned him. “If you cannot find your courage in two minutes you will die at his hand. If you have a spark of manhood left in you, you will die by your own. I am taking Andrew his revolver.”

She moved quietly toward the door, pausing on the way to set straight a vase of flowers. She passed out without a backward glance. Tringe was left alone. Outside, the deep midday stillness was broken only by the droning of the bees, the twittering of birds. Opposite to him was a tall clock ticking steadily. He sat with his eyes fixed upon the minute hand....

In the rose-screened corner of the balcony, the woman pleaded and Andrew listened.

“It is not for his life, I beg,” she declared. “It is that you may keep your own for me. You cannot kill him and escape, and it isn't worth it. Look what he has become.”

“There is a code which you do not understand,” he replied, kindly enough but still with that air of aloofness as though he belonged to some other world. “We cannot both live.”

“But does he live?” she persisted. “Remember, Andrew, it is seven years since ] left him and even then he was seldom sober Look at him now. He's on the threshold of the grave. He is dead morally; he is dead spiritually, Why should you risk your life or your liberty for an idea? I have been lonely for so long, and there is Pauline, She is quivering with joy at the thought that she may see her father again.”...

Madame came through the window and approached them. She handed Andrew his revolver. The clock was striking,

“The matter is one for your own will, Andrew,” she conceded. “Personally I think that you are wrong to waste a single further thought upon such a creature. Still, the clock strikes. The hour is yours,”

He took the revolver into his hand. Through many a night and many a day he had wasted hours dreaming of this moment.

“I shall go in to him,” he announced. “I shall shoot or leave him to the dregs of life according to what I see in his face when he looks up.”

“It is reasonable,” Madame declared.

He walked across the salon and threw open the door of the inner room. The women followed him at a little distance; Pauline trembling and pale with fear, Madame, unmoved. Tringe was seated in his old place, his arms stretched out upon the table, his head bent forward. Sarle walked to within a few paces of him and stopped.

“Maurice Tringe!” he called out.

There was no answer. He waited for a moment

“Maurice Tringe!” he repeated.

Still no movement. The man who had come to slay leaned over the crouching figure. A single glance was sufficient. He turned round and held out his hand to the women,

“Go back,” he begged

“Is he dead?” Pauline called out.

“He is dead,” was the solemn reply.

Madame crossed the room and stood by his side. The tabloid lay there untouched. She looked at the pistol. All six chambers were still loaded. She thrust the tabloid back into her case and sighed.

“A worthy quittance!” she murmured contemptuously. “He died of fear!”

(The ninth story in this series will appear in the March issue)