CHAPTER XXV

Haidee, waiting for Darlington in Paris, spent the time in a state of perfect peace, amused herself easily and successfully, and at the same time kept clear of such of her acquaintance as she knew to be in the French capital at that moment. On the morrow Darlington would return, and after that everything would be simple. She had arranged it all in her own mind as she travelled from London, and she believed—having a confident and sanguine disposition—that the way in which the affair presented itself to her was the only way in which it could possibly present itself to any one. It had been a mistake to marry Lucian. Well, it wasn’t too late to rectify the mistake, and one was wise, of course, in rectifying it. If you find out that you are on the wrong road—why, what more politic and advisable than to take the shortest cut to the right one? She was sorry for Lucian, but the path which he was following just then was by no means to her own taste, and she must leave him to tread it alone. She was indeed sorry for him. He had been an ardent and a delightful lover—for a while—and it was a pity he was not a rich man. Perhaps they might be friends yet. She, at any rate, would bear no malice—why should she? She was fond enough of Lucian in one way, but she had no fondness for a quiet life in Florence or Pisa or anywhere else, and she had been brought up to believe that a woman must be good to the man who can best afford to be good to her, and she felt as near an approach to thankfulness as she had ever felt in her life when she remembered that Eustace Darlington still cherished a benevolent disposition towards her.

Darlington did not return to Paris until nearly noon of the following day. When he reached his hotel he was informed by his valet, whom he had left behind, that Mrs. Damerel had arrived, and had asked for him.{211} Darlington felt no surprise on hearing this news; nothing more serious than a shopping expedition occurred to him. He sent his man to Haidee’s rooms with a message, and after changing his clothes went to call upon her himself. His manner showed her that he neither suspected nor anticipated anything out of the common, but his first question paved the way for her explanation. It was a question that might have been put had they met in New York or Calcutta or anywhere, a question that needed no definite answer.

‘What brings you here? Frills, or frocks, or something equally feminine, I suppose?’ he said carelessly, as he shook hands with her. ‘Staying long?’

The indifference of his tone sounded somewhat harshly in Haidee’s hearing. It was evident that he suspected nothing and had no idea of the real reason of her presence. She suddenly became aware that there might be difficulties in the path that had seemed so easy.

‘Lucian here?’ asked Darlington, with equal carelessness.

‘No,’ she said. Then, in a lower tone, she added, ‘I have left Lucian.’

Darlington turned quickly from the window, whither he had strolled after their greeting. He uttered a sharp, half-suppressed exclamation.

‘Left him?’ he said. ‘You don’t mean——’

His interrogative glance completed the sentence. There was something in his eyes, something stern and businesslike, that made Haidee afraid. Her own eyes turned elsewhere.

‘Yes,’ she said.

Darlington put his hands in his pockets and came and stood in front of her. He looked down at her as if she had been a child out of whom he wished to extract some information.

‘Quarrelling, eh?’ he said.

‘No, not quarrelling at all,’ she answered.

‘Then—what?’

‘He has spent all the money,’ she said, ‘and lots{212} beside, and he is going to sell everything in the house in order to pay you, and then he wanted me to go and live cheaply—cheaply, you understand?—in Italy; and—and he said I must sell my diamonds.’

‘Did he?’ said Darlington. ‘And he is going to sell everything in order to pay me, is he? Well, that’s honest; I didn’t think he’d the pluck. He’s evidently not quite such an utter fool as I’ve always thought him. Well?’

‘And, of course, I left him.’

‘That “of course” is good. Of course, being you, you did, “of course.” Yes, I understand that part, Haidee. But’—he looked around him with an expressive glance at her surroundings, ‘why—here?’ he inquired sharply.

‘I came to you,’ she said in a low and not too confident voice.

Darlington laughed—a low, satirical, cynical laughter that frightened her. She glanced at him timidly; she had never known him like that before.

‘I see!’ he said. ‘You thought that I should prove a refuge for the fugitive wife? But I’m afraid that I am not disposed to welcome refugees of any description—it isn’t my métier, you know.’

Haidee looked at him in astonishment. Her eyes caught and held his: he saw the growing terror in her face.

‘But——’ she said, and came to a stop. Then she repeated the word, still staring at him with questioning eyes. Darlington tore himself away with a snarl.

‘Look here!’ he said, ‘I’m not a sentimental man. If I ever had a scrap of sentiment, you knocked it out of me four years ago. I was fond of you then. I’d have made you a kind husband, my girl, and you’d have got on, fool as you are by nature. But you threw me over for that half-mad boy, and it killed all the soft things I had inside me. I knew I should have my revenge on both of you, and I’ve had it. He’s ruined; he hasn’t a penny piece that isn’t due to me; and as for you—listen,{213} my girl, and I’ll tell you some plain truths. You’re a pretty animal, nice to play with for half an hour now and then, but you’re no man’s mate for life, unless the man’s morally blind. I once heard a scientific chap say that the soul’s got to grow in human beings. Well, yours hasn’t sprouted yet, Haidee. You’re a fool, though you are a very lovely woman. I suppose—’—he came closer to her, and looking down at her astonished face smiled more cynically than ever—‘I suppose you thought that I would run away with you and eventually marry you?’

‘I—yes—of course!’ she whispered.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘if I, too, had been a fool, I might have done that. But I am not a fool, my dear Haidee. Perhaps I’m hard, brutal, cynical—the world and its precious denizens have made me so. I’m not going to run away with the woman who ran away with another man on the very eve of her marriage to me; and as to marrying you, well—I’m plain spoken enough to tell you that I made up my mind years ago that whatever other silliness I might commit, I would never commit the crowning folly of marrying a woman who had been my mistress.’

Haidee caught her breath with a sharp exclamation. If she had possessed any spirit she would have risen to her feet, said things, done things: having none, like most of her sort, she suddenly buried her face in her hands and sobbed.

‘I dare say it doesn’t sound nice,’ said Darlington, ‘but Lord knows it’s best to be plain spoken. Now, my girl, listen to me. Go home and make the best of your bargain. I’ll let Lucian Damerel off easily, though to tell you the truth I’ve always had cheerful notions of ruining him hopelessly. If he wants to live cheaply in Italy, go with him—you married him. You have your maid here?—tell her to pack up and be ready to leave by the night train. I dare say Damerel thinks you have only run over here to buy a new gown; he never need know anything to the contrary.’{214}

‘B-b-b-but I have t-t-told him!’ she sobbed. ‘He knows!’

‘Damn you for a fool!’ said Darlington, between his teeth. He put his hands in his pockets again and began rattling the loose money there. For a moment he stood staring at Haidee, his face puckered into frowning lines. He came up to her. ‘How did you tell him?’ he said. ‘You didn’t—write it?’

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘I did—I wrote him a letter.’

Darlington sighed.

‘Oh, well!’ he said, ‘it doesn’t matter, only he’ll be able to get heavy damages, and I wanted to clear him out. It’s the fortune of war. Well, I’m going. Good-day.’

He had walked across to the door and laid his hand upon the latch ere Haidee comprehended the meaning of his words. Then she sprang up with a scream.

‘And what of me?’ she cried. ‘Am I to be left here?’

‘You brought yourself here,’ he retorted, eyeing her evilly. ‘I did not ask you to come.’

She stared at him open-mouthed as if he were some strange thing that had come into her line of vision for the first time. Her breath began to come and go in gasps. She was an elementary woman, but at this treatment from the man she had known as her lover a natural indignation sprang up in her and she began to find words.

‘But this!’ she said, with a nearer approach to honesty than she had ever known, ‘this is—desertion!’

‘I am under no vow to you,’ he said.

‘You have implied it. I trusted you.’

‘As Lucian trusted you,’ he sneered.

She became speechless again. Something in her looks brought Darlington back from the door to her side.

‘Look here, Haidee,’ he said, not unkindly, ‘don’t be a little fool. Go home quickly and settle things with your husband. Tell him you wrote that letter in a fit of temper; tell him—oh, tell him any of the lies that women{215} invent so easily on these occasions! It’s absolutely hopeless to look to me for protection, absolutely impossible for me to give it——’

He stopped. She was staring at him in a strange way—the way in which a dumb animal might stare if the butcher who was about to kill it condescended to try to explain to it why it was necessary that he should presently cut its throat. Darlington hummed and ha’d when he caught that look. He cast a furtive glance at the door and half turned away from Haidee.

‘Yes, quite impossible,’ he repeated. ‘The fact is—well, you may as well knew it now as hear it later on—I am going to be married.’

She nodded her head as if she quite understood his meaning, and he, looking full at her again, noticed that she was trying to moisten her lips with the tip of her tongue, and that her eyes were dilated to an unusual degree.

‘You can’t say that I’ve treated you badly,’ he said. ‘After all, you had the first chance, and it wasn’t my fault if you threw it away. There, now, be sensible and go back to London and make it up with Damerel. You can easily get round him—he’ll believe anything you tell him. Say you were upset at the thought of going to Italy with him, and lost your head. Things will come all right if you only manage your cards properly. Well, I’m going—good-day.’

He turned slowly from her as if he were somewhat ashamed of his desertion. They had been standing by the side of a table, littered about on which were several odds and ends picked up by Haidee on the previous day. Amongst them was an antique stiletto, sharp as a needle, which had taken her fancy at a shop in the Palais Royal. She had thought of using it as a hat-pin, and was charmed when the dealer suggested that it had probably tasted the heart’s-blood of more than one victim. Its glitter caught her eye now, and she picked it up and struck furiously at Darlington’s back.

At that moment Lucian was being conducted to his{216} wife’s room by a courteous manager. At the threshold they paused, brought to a simultaneous standstill by a wild scream. When they entered the room, Darlington lay crumpled up and dead in the centre of the floor, and Haidee, gazing spellbound at him from the furthest corner, was laughing—a long, low ripple of laughter that seemed as if it would never cease. The stiletto, thrown at her feet, flashed back a ray of sunlight from the window.