arm, Gerald."
"No, no, you are mad, my dear,--I assure you I don't. I give you my word
of honour----"

She came to him, and taking his arm in her strong hands pushed up his
sleeves and studied his emaciated arm for a few seconds in silence.

"I thought as much," she commented, as he almost whimpered in his
helpless annoyance.

"You are so rough, Brigit. Tony always says you are so rough."

"Yes, I am. Well--I am sorry for you, Gerald. When did you begin?"

"Oh--long ago. But--I seem to need more of late."

"Took it at first to make you sleep, I suppose?"

"Yes. And then--well you see, I like it. And it's nobody's business," he
finished defiantly.

"That's true. Would you like some tea?"

"Oh, yes, Brigit. You _are_ kind. It is good of you to forgive me."

"I haven't forgiven you," she retorted, going to the tea table, "but I
am sorry for you. Where have you been of late?"

"Oh, all about, as usual. I came up from Morecambe yesterday. Rotten
party. Have you seen your mother?"

Brigit's lips tightened. "No."

"I saw her three weeks ago. She is very much hurt by your behaviour."

"Broken-hearted, I should think!"

"Well, she's queer enough, I grant you, and not over-motherly, but--she
_is_ your mother when all's said and done."

The girl watched the kettle boil and said nothing.

"Tommy is coming on wonderfully with his violin, isn't he?" pursued
Carron.

"Yes."

"Does he come here often?"

She looked up, frowning. "You know perfectly well that he has _never_
been here," she returned shortly. "Do you like your tea strong?"

"Yes, please, no milk. Well--you must miss him."

"And you know perfectly well that I see him twice a week at Joyselle's."

Carron took his cup with trembling hands and set it down carefully on
the table.

"You needn't snap my head off," he observed.

"No. But why play comedy? Mother has told you all about it, so I can't
see the use of this sort of humbug."

He was silent for a moment, and then began in a new voice. "Brigit,
I--I really have something to say to you."

"What is it?"

"It's this. That day--the last time I saw you, you know, your mother was
standing up for you when you came in. She--refused to believe me when I,
when I----"

"I know. But when I came in she was----"

"She was simply being good to me. Look here, Brigit, really and truly,
she was. She _went_ for me when I said--that. And your coming in in a
temper was what--upset the apple-cart."

Brigit raised her eyebrows.

"Right. Now let's talk about something else. When did you see Tommy?"

"A week ago. He is in town now."

"I know. I shall see him to-morrow."

"At Joyselle's?"

"Yes."

"Brigit--you can see what a wreck I am. Tell me. Are you going to marry
that boy?"

"I am."

"When?"

"In October."

"Then----"

She rose. "I am a model of patience, Gerald, but you have asked enough
questions."

"But--well, I am sorry I was such a beast. Can you endure seeing me once
in a long time--say once a month? It--it may make life possible to
me--don't say that you don't see the necessity for that! Brigit----"

"But it is so useless, Gerald, and so painful----"

"No. And I can tell you all kind of things about people--you must be
lonely! Tommy is only a kid after all, and doesn't hear--By the way, why
does he never come here?"

She hesitated. "Do you really not know?" Then, seeing sincerity in his
eyes, she went on. "Well--Joyselle made me promise mother that."

"_Made_ you!"

"Yes. He--you see he is old-fashioned. And--well, in two words he said
that unless I promised he--he--would not teach Tommy or even see him!"

Carron whistled. "Well, I'll be damned!"

"Yes. Absurd, wasn't it? But--Oh, well, there's no use in explaining."

As she spoke she heard the introductory scraping at the keyhole again,
and a moment later Tommy came in.




CHAPTER EIGHTEEN


A remarkably dandified Tommy; a solemn and significant Tommy, who shook
hands solemnly with his sister and Carron and then sat down and took off
his gloves.

"I have come on business, Brigit," he announced quietly.

Carron rose. "Then I will go. Thanks very much, Brigit, for your
hospitality--and I will look in again in three or four weeks, if you
don't mind."

Tommy's frame of mind was too dignified to permit of his staring, but he
was obviously surprised at Carron's presence, and when the man had gone
he said with considerable importance: "Since when has Carron been
calling on you?"

"This is the first time. Oh, Tommy--should you have come?"

"I have just left mother at Aunt Emily's," he answered, his voice
explaining plainly what his dignity forbade his putting into words.

So her mother knew!

"New clothes; also gloves; also something smelly and _very_ nice on your
hair!"

Brigit bent over and kissed him tenderly, her face very sweet with
affection. "Please elucidate, little brother. Has mother sent you?"

"No. She knows I have come, though."

"Some tea?"

"If you please."

So she lit the kettle and going to a cupboard produced two
enchanting-looking white jars. "Marmalade or cherry jam?"

"I think--neither, please," returned Kingsmead, with an effort. "I--am
not hungry."

It was all very mysterious, and Brigit, scanning the little boy's face,
saw that he was nervous as well as important; pale as well as elegant in
attire. So she made the tea and gave him a cup in silence.

After a long pause he cleared his throat and began. "Brigit, of course
I'm only a kid--and all that sort of thing."

"Yes, dear?"

"And you are grown up, and have a great deal more--well, experience than
I. And then you are very beautiful, and I am--not," he added with a
flicker of irrepressible mirth that was immediately quenched.

"Yes, Tommy?"

"Well--I just say all that, dear old thing, so you won't think me sidey,
you know."

"I don't, Tommy. In fact, I have sometimes observed in you symptoms of
almost radical----"

"Don't laugh, Brigit," he broke in with a quaint wave of his hand. "What
I mean to say is simply this. I am, although so young, and not very
big--the Head of the Family."

This magnificent declaration was so unlike his usual style of
conversation that his sister with difficulty refrained from laughing.

"Well, Tommy--yes, there would be no use in my denying that you, not I,
are the Earl of Kingsmead. But--your manner is somewhat solemn; surely
you are not thinking of marrying?"

The earl's mouth broadened spasmodically, and his eyes gleamed with
amusement.

"I say, Bick, if you laugh at me, how on earth am I ever to get it
said?"

"All right. Only take some jam and don't terrify me with magnificence.
This is the first time to my knowledge that an earl has ever shed the
effulgence of his presence in these humble walls----"

Tommy's grandeur gave up the ghost, and with a yell of delight he dived
deep into one of the jars and heaped his plate with suspiciously crimson
cherry jam.

"Good old Bick! I must have looked an awful little ass. But--well,
_will_ you chuck it all and come home?"

"Oho!"

"Yes, 'oho' as much as you like, but it is all rot your living here, and
_she_ hates it, and it's unpleasant all round. Besides the country is
really lovely now, and I miss you."

"Do you, Tommy dear?"

"I do."

"Did mother send you?"

"No. She said you wouldn't come if she did, but that you might if I--if
I----"

"If you exerted your authority as Head of the Family!"

"Well, yes." Tommy, now completely shamefaced, took more jam and handed
back his cup.

"She _is_ funny," mused Brigit. "To have so little sense of humour."

"That's what I told her. But Aunt Emily says people are talking about
your living alone, etc. And--besides, I think she is really rather fond
of you, Bick."

"Oh, no, she isn't. However, M. l'Ambassadeur, you have fulfilled your
mission, so be content."

Tommy paused in his task of biting into a piece of cake and looked up at
her. "Then--you will?"

"No, dear; I most certainly won't. But don't you bother about that. I
like this very well, and after all it isn't for long."

"Oh. You mean you are going to marry Theo. When?"

"In October, probably. Nothing is settled. More jam?"

"No, thanks. I say, Bicky, what are you going to do in September?"

"I don't know. Why?"

"Because they are all going to La-bas, to the Golden Wedding. They were
talking about it the other day. Are you going, too?"

She shook her head. "Oh, no. But I daresay I shall be with the Lenskys
then. I can't go now, because one of the children is ill."

Tommy rose and looked at his watch, a shadow of his former proud manner
settling on him as he put on his gloves. "She will be very much
disappointed," he remarked, "but I don't see how she can forbid my
coming here now, do you?"

"No, of course she can't. And oh, Tommy, I have missed you! Are you at
Golden Square to-night?"

"Yes. Coming to supper?"

"I think so. Good-bye, you darling little boy."

After he had closed the door, Tommy pounded on it until she opened it.

"I say, Bicky, what happens to ambassadors who fail in their missions?"
he asked, winking delightedly.




CHAPTER NINETEEN


Yellow Dog Papillon lay asleep on the Chesterfield in Joyselle's room.
He was dreaming an enchanting dream about a particularly aromatic bone
that he found in a dust-bin--a ham-bone slashed by a careless hand and
cast away before all meat had been removed from it--a bone for which any
dog would have risked much.

So it was tiresome to be awakened by a sound of low voices.

Opening one eye warily Yellow Dog Papillon looked up and saw something
he had of late seen several times, his beloved master standing by the
Girl Who Had Sometimes Just Come from a Cat.

The girl had water in her eyes, too.

"I am very sorry, Victor," she was saying, "but I cannot, and will not.
I can't see why you should care."

"But I do care. You know that I have always hated it. And Tommy told me
himself that she let him go with the express purpose of making up with
you. It is your duty to go back."

She drew away from him.

"I cannot."

"You mean you will not."

"Exactly; I will not."

Yellow Dog did not understand all of this dialogue, but he knew his
master's face as well as his voice, and because he liked the Girl Who
Had Sometimes Just Come from a Cat, he would have liked to advise her to
lay down her arms at once. "No good opposing him when his eyes are like
that," he said to himself; "if it was _me_, I'd just sit up and beg and
make him laugh."

But Brigit would not condescend to sit up and beg.

"There's no use in discussing it," she said very coldly, "for I will not
go back."

Joyselle watched her in silence for a long time. "Not even if I entreat
you?" he asked in a gentle voice.

Her lips tightened, for tenderness with coercion behind it had no
delusions for her.

"Not even if you entreat me. I have told you that I dislike my mother
and I do not wish to see her. I will not tell you why, and that, at
least, you ought to approve of."

"It is horrible for a daughter to say that she does not like her
mother----"

"It is horrible for me not to like her, but I can't help it. And it is
not horrible for me to tell--anything to you."

But his face did not soften. "I wish you to go to Kingsmead, Brigit."

"I will not go to Kingsmead, Victor."

"Then," his anger now finally blazed up, "I can say only--good-bye."

Her face was as white and as hard as his own, and being a woman she
could even laugh.

"_Adieu, donc--Beau-pere!_"

"What do you mean by that? You will not--surely you cannot mean that you
will----"

"But I do!" He himself had suggested a revenge to her. "If you and I
quarrel, I will most certainly not marry your son."

For a moment the father in him dominated the mere man, and his eloquence
was great as he reproached her.

"No--no, I am not cruel," she answered cruelly, her anger reinforced by
a wave of jealousy anent Theo, "but as I do not love him, why should I
marry him? And this kind of thing had far better cease. After all, you
care for him far more than you care for me."

"_Grand Dieu!_"

"Yes, of course you do," she went on in the tone of gentle,
unimpassioned reason that women sometimes use in violent anger, to the
utter amazement and undoing of their male opponents. "And moreover, I
daresay if I really loved you as much as I thought I did, I should be
unable to refuse to do what you wish about my mother."

Joyselle's face was very white.

"What do you mean? Do you mean that your love for me was a mere caprice,
and that--it has gone?"

His agony was unconcealed, and as she gazed she smiled, for her own
torture was nearly unbearable.

"I shouldn't like to say it was only a caprice----" She hesitated, and he
sank into a chair and buried his face in his hands.

Suddenly he rose and seizing her arm roughly, gave her another cue,
which she remorselessly and instantly took.

"There is someone else," he cried, utterly forgetting that the very day
before she had loved him madly, "you love some other man. Tell me who it
is!"

And with the extraordinary fortitude common to fanatics and furious
women, she smiled and answered:

"Perhaps! _Tout passe, mon cher._"

It was a cheap and melodramatic bit of acting, and any unprejudiced
onlooker must have seen the agony in her face, but Joyselle was blinded
by his own pain and fled from the room without another word.

She heard a door slam and knew that he had gone out. And the world came
to an end for her.

It was about six o'clock, and Tommy had gone out with Theo. They would
not be back until about eight.

Felicite, too, was out. She was alone. She saw Papillon, who was sitting
up, looking at her with a world of sympathy in the cock of his ear.

Suddenly Brigit burst into tears, nervous, hysterical, noisy sobbing, as
she had done that day in the olive grove at the Villa Arcadie. She had
been living under great nervous strain for months, and these breakdowns
were of appalling violence. She _could_ not stop crying, and she could
not reason and tell herself that he would come back and forgive her.

All she could realise was her hideous misery and sense of desolation.
She was utterly alone, she was hungry, she was cold, she was hopeless.

Presently someone touched her shoulder very gently. It was Felicite.

"What is it, my dear?" the elder woman asked. "What has happened?"

And Brigit, too unstrung to tell the usual conventional lies, simply
sobbed on, her whole body shaking with agony.

Madame Joyselle sat patiently by her, stroking her shoulders with a kind
hand, murmuring little broken phrases in French, patting her hair.

"_Oui, oui, ma mie--Pauvre petite, ca te soulagera--Pleures, ma cocotte,
pleures!_"

And at last the girl was quiet, and reached for her handkerchief.

"I--I am sorry to have been so idiotic, I don't know why I am such a
fool----"

Felicite smoothed back her wet hair and smiled at her.

"Poor child," she answered quietly. "I am so sorry. I have seen it for
some time----"

Brigit stared at her.

"Seen--?"

"That you have fallen in love with Victor. It is really too bad of him,
the old rascal."

Her gentle face was so undisturbed, so calmly acceptant of the heinous
fact that Brigit could do nothing but stare. "I am glad poor Theo does
not suspect," went on Felicite, untying the strings of her old-fashioned
bonnet, "we must not let him know, _n'est ce pas_?"

"I--I don't see----" stammered the girl, blankly.

"No, he must not know. Nor Victor either, if we can help it. Though he
is very vain, and vain men always see. On the whole," she added with a
kind of gentle amusement, "you have all been absurdly blind but me. And
I did not like to warn you."

"This is--very extraordinary," began Brigit, rising. "I don't quite
see----"

But Felicite drew her down to her chair again. "That is just it, _ma
pauvre petite_. I did see. I saw his little fancy for you, too. It began
the evening of the dragon-skin frock, and it lasted, oh--about a month.
And you never noticed it, poor child. And now you are miserable about
him. I am so sorry."

There was such convincing sincerity in her every tone that Brigit could
not even pretend to be angry.

"You must think me very silly," she murmured.

But the little woman shook her head, "_Non, non_, it is not silly to
love. It is unwise, or wrong, or heavenly, or mad, but silly, _non_. And
he is very attractive, _mon homme_." This tribute she added reluctantly,
as if from a sense of fairness. "And many have loved him."

Suddenly Brigit's anger flamed up.

"And--I am so insignificant that you are not afraid of me," she cried.
"What if he had _not_ got over it? What if he loved me as much--_more_
than I love him?"

Felicite smiled serenely and sweetly.

"No, I know him. I saw it come--and go. But do not be angry and proud,
my dear. I wish only to help you."

And Brigit, touched by her kindness as well as terrified by her own
indiscretion, sat down by her.




CHAPTER TWENTY


When Joyselle came in at eight o'clock he went straight to his room to
dress. He was still very angry, but his anger was less poignant than his
sense of helpless defeat. Brigit's attitude was absolutely
incomprehensible to him, and hurt him in an almost unbearable degree.
That she should defy him, grow as angry as he himself, he had already
learned was not impossible; but the cruel hardness of her face as she
had sent him away had shocked him more than anything in his whole
experience.

He was a shrewd man, and his love for her had never blinded him as to
her faults; often he had corrected her for unfilial behaviour, for a too
sharp word, for selfishness. But the one quality which to a strong and
tender man is unendurable in the woman he loves, cruelty, he had never
before realised in the girl, and his discovery that it lay in her to
hurt him as she had done, had nearly broken his heart.

For hours he had walked rapidly through the streets, seeing no one,
avoiding being knocked down by a kind of subconscious attention and
alertness of mind, his brain struggling desperately with its problem.

In a few words, all life seemed to him to have reduced itself to the
question, "How could she?" As yet he had not got further than this, and
it did not occur to him to wonder whether or no her mental attitude was
definite or only temporary. "How could she? How could she so rend him?
Of what was her heart made that it could allow her so to wound his?"

When he reached home the incomprehensibility of this problem was fast
outweighing his anger, and Felicite, who came in as he stood in the
middle of the room brushing his hair, smiled at the misery in his face.

"So she was cruel, the little one?" she asked gently, sitting down and
folding her hands in her characteristic way.

"She was--abominable. But how did you know?"

"I found her in tears. You must be gentle with her, my man."

He stared. "Gentle? But she is a demon when she is angry. Tell me to be
gentle with an enraged lioness."

Felicite's smile was good to see. "She is not an enraged lioness,
Victor. She is--very unhappy, and we must help her."

He went to the dressing-table and put down his brushes. "I am tired,
wife," he said quietly; "let us talk of something else. Besides, it is
nearly half-past eight."

She nodded.

"Yes. But--Victor, you remember the Polish girl?"

"Franska? Yes."

"Well? And the pantomimiste, and Miss Belton, and Lady Paula----"

Joyselle started in the act of shaking scent on his handkerchief. "Of
course I remember them. But what have they to do with Brigitte?"

"Only this, Victor. The poor child is in love with you, _vieux vaurien_!
And that is why she is so savage."

She sat quite still, looking up at him with an indulgent smile, into
which the maternal element largely entered. He was a fatal person, this
great fiddler of hers; but to her he was also a child to be cared for,
and a not quite normal being, to whose absent mind much must be
explained.

Her charming face, almost old in spite of its fresh colour, was touched,
as she watched his back, with a flicker of kindly mischief.

"And to think that you did not know, blind one," she teased.

"It--it is your imagination," he returned with a slight stammer, turning
and facing her.

"No, no. Also I did not imagine that at first you, too, were a little
_epris_. It was most natural, my dear. She is so very beautiful. I was