CHAPTER XXVI.—THE PUPIL OF THE IMPECCABLE.

Within the charmed circle to which he was introduced by Ponto, Gavrolles was popular in the extreme. He possessed all the enthusiasm of the aesthetics, combined with an impudence and a knowledge of the world—especially of the gay world of Paris—which were exquisitely charming. He knew all the wits and poets of the Empire, and his acquaintance with scabreux literature was profound; yet he had sat at the feet of Victor Hugo, and was a Republican by profession. His own verses had been praised by the impeccable Gautier. He could talk glibly of Art for Art’s sake, of the heresy of instruction, of Villon and Bohemia, and of the Renaissance. He wore his hair long, had a willowy droop of the shoulders, and adored the culte of the lily. He had a shrill style, a shrill voice, a shrill disposition. Inspired young ladies found him charming, feeble young gentlemen paid him the homage of imitation.

On his return to London, Gavrolles took rooms in one of the bye-streets near Portland Place. They were rather high up, but he had them furnished in the best ?sthetic style, with a few risky pictures and a small collection of books. ‘Come and see me,’ he would say; ‘I am only a poor artiste, but I have my books, and in these I live.’ On the whole they were not nice books—a Philistine might have even called them nasty; but many of them bore the autographs of the writers, and were priceless accordingly.

About this time the name of Gavrolles began to be a good deal talked about, as that of a young Frenchman with Communist views who had written some delightfully wicked volumes of verse. The ‘Megatherium,’ inspired by Ponto, had a good deal to say about him, classing him in the great bagnio of Art somewhere by the side of Gautier and Baudelaire; and taking occasion at the same time to express its horror of realists like Zola, who called a spade a spade, and reduced the fair features of vice to a caput mortuum.

One night, Crieff, who knew everybody, took Sutherland to the lodgings of Gavrolles, and introduced him. Quite a little symposium was there, including Ponto the fatuous; Cassius Gass, a lean and limp critic from Cambridge; Blanco Serena, and several other painters; young Botticelli Jones, and one or two more callow poets, not to speak of Wallace MacNeill, the editor of the ‘Megatherium.’

Sutherland sat very silent. After the first, quick look at Gavrolles, and a second shock of recognition, he remained quiescent, but quietly observant.

The talk was of ‘Lily and Rue,’ an anonymous poem which had just appeared, and which Ponto had just criticised with admiration.

‘I wonder who is the writer?’ said Botticelli Jones. ‘There are passages in it which are worthy of Byron.’

‘Byron was a Philistine,’ cried Ponto; ‘he could never have written a piece of this kind. Look at the technique of his verse! It would disgrace a schoolboy! No, this is a cameo cut by an artist.’

‘Shall I confess it!’ observed Gavrolles, smiling languidly. ‘I am of Henri Taine’s opinion, and prefer to your Byron our Alfred de Musset.’

Here Crieff, who was puffing carelessly at a briar-root pipe, threw himself back in his chair and laughed loudly.

‘I say! Is it possible you don’t know?’

‘What?’ cried several voices.

‘That MacAlpine——’

A shudder ran through the assemblage at the mention of the hated name.

‘That MacAlpine has acknowledged the authorship of this poem.’

‘What poem?’ demanded Ponto, trembling and turning pale.

‘Why, of “Lily and Eue.” Go and buy the third edition—you’ll find his name on the title-page.’

A terrible silence followed. The men looked in horror at one another. One man rose, livid and ghastly, put his hand to his head and left without a word. It was the editor of the ‘Megatherium.’

‘Poor MacNeill,’ cried Crieff, with another laugh. ‘This is the second trick of the kind that MacAlpine has played him; this is the second time that he has devoted columns of praise to an author whom he would gladly see handed over, like the old heretics, to the secular arm. It only shows what humbug criticism is!’

‘Excuse me,’ said Gass the critic, hysterically, ‘criticism is not humbug. It would be easy to show, on a profounder examination of this disagreeable work, that it is the work of a Philistine. The over-accentuation of the sensuous passages (which, by the way, are not sensuous, but prurient and ponderous), the want of finish in the trochaic couplets, the crudeness of the poetic terminology—’

‘Would all have been evident enough,’ interrupted Crieff, dryly, ‘if MacAlpine’s name had been on the title-page. Without that, even superhuman insight, like yours, could not detect them.’

And he laughed again; but no one joined in the laugh except Blanco Serena, who was not a little amused. There was a general feeling of discomfort, to relieve which Gavrolles went to his bookcase, and took down several new importations from France. Passed from hand to hand, these works were freely and generally discussed; but when they reached Crieff, that rude person again shocked the sensibilities of his companions.

‘The literature of the Lollipop,’ he said with a grin. ‘Somehow I never touch any of it without feeling nasty; “sticky” all over, as it were.’

‘To the mind of a Philistine,’ observed the critic Gass, severely, ‘such things do not appeal. I regret to see that a certain person, who shall be nameless, is drifting more and more into moral Philistinism. Well, he will at least be able to say, “Et ego in Arcadia fui,” when it is too late to return.’

Crieff laughed good-humouredly.

‘I dare say it is my early training,’ he said, ‘and the fact that I was taught to respect all women in the person of my mother. But here is my friend Sutherland, who is a Philistine of Philistines, for he actually believes, with St. Benedict, that the law of purity is binding upon both sexes alike, and in his benighted eyes your Gautier, your Baudelaire, and “hoc genus omne” are simply dirty descendants of Sir Pandarus of Troy.’

‘I sincerely hope you are libelling your friend,’ observed the critic, glancing at Sutherland. ‘Personal purity, as you call it, is simply a reminiscence of asceticism, and one of the many fallacies we owe to the mediaeval perversions of Christianity.’

‘Bosh,’ returned Crieff, bluntly.

Sutherland, who throughout the conversation had scarcely taken his eyes off Gavrolles, now spoke.

‘I am neither an ascetic nor a Puritan, but I must frankly confess that the literature you are discussing excites my strongest abhorrence. Whatever is unfit for a pure woman to read is unfit to be read by a pure man. Would you give these books to your wives and sisters—that is the question?’

‘Certainly,’ cried Ponto from the other side of the room. ‘Provided their aesthetic education had been complete, they would find nothing but pleasure from the perusal. Why in Heaven’s name should Woman remain for ever the slave of Virtue? I would make her the archpriestess of the Beautiful, ministering to mortals in all the passionate nudity of Art.’

‘And you, monsieur?’ said Sutherland, turning suddenly to Gavrolles. ‘What is your opinion?’

‘Oh, I am an artiste,’ answered the Frenchman, with a shrug of the shoulders and an unpleasant smile. ‘I, too, would make woman the priestess of Beauty. Ah, yes, with the greatest of possible pleasure!’

The words were of little meaning, but the tone was significant, and a titter went round the room. Sutherland’s face darkened.

‘I presume that your experience of the sex is large?’ he asked in a low voice. ‘Gentlemen of your nation are generally fortunate——-’

‘I am no exception to the rule,’ answered Gavrolles. ‘My whole life has been une bonne fortune! But look you, as I say, I am an artiste—in affairs of gallantry as in all others. I do not suffer these things to cloud the equanimity of my artiste’s soul. When I have plucked a rose—observe! I smell it; I wear it a little while; then I take it from my button-hole and throw it away. You understand?’

‘I think so,’ said Sutherland, rising to his feet. ‘Pray does it ever occur to you what becomes of the rose afterwards! If it is trampled underfoot, who is responsible?’

‘Pardon me, that is the rose’s affair, not mine. Au reste, roses must bloom and fade; Art, Art—for which I live—is imperishable and divine.’

It was hard to say whether he was jesting or in earnest, for his manner was peculiar, a combination of mock-enthusiasm and flippant audacity. But despite his appearance of sang-froid, something in the face and manner of Sutherland thrilled him, and reminded him of an unpleasant meeting many years before.

He bowed profoundly as Sutherland prepared to go, and held out his hand—which the other did not seem to notice.

‘Au revoir!’he said gaily; ‘and au revoir, Monsieur Crieff. My friend Ponto will convert you presently; ah, yes!’

In another minute Crieff and Sutherland were in the street. The latter was very pale, and trembled violently.

‘My dear Sutherland, what is the matter?’

‘Nothing; only that man’s face and his talk have upset me. I could have strangled him.’

‘What an excitable fellow you are!’ said Crieff, taking his arm. ‘Upon my life, you take these things far too seriously. The other day you were seriously angry with Lagardère, and here you are actually distressing yourself over the prattle of a child like Gavrolles.’

‘You do not understand. I know the man, and have reason to remember him.’

‘That alters the case. Where did you meet?’

‘In France—some years ago.’

Crieff listened for further explanations, but none came. Pressed to say more, Sutherland shook his head, and relapsed into silence; so the little journalist proceeded to give his muscular friend a lesson in social philosophy.

‘You are too thoroughly in earnest, and in company your earnestness makes other people uncomfortable. Life would be impossible if every bit of idle chit-chat or ad captandum argument were taken au sérieux. Looked at in the proper light, Gavrolles is charming—a droll creature with a touch of genius. To you he is merely a dissolute young man, who reads improper books.’

‘To me,’ returned Sutherland, fiercely, ‘he is a thorough scoundrel, whom I should like to choke.’

Crieff soon perceived that remonstrance was useless, and, mentally determining not to introduce his companion to any more choice spirits, he changed the subject. The pair soon parted, Crieff to stroll down to the gallery of the House of Commons, Sutherland to pace the solitary streets, full of the troubled recollections awakened by that chance encounter.





Later on that evening Gavrolles sat alone in his lodgings. He now recollected Sutherland perfectly, and roundly cursed the unlucky chance which had occasioned a second meeting. On reflection, however, he felt confident that the Englishman could do him no serious damage in the eyes of his new acquaintances, even if he attempted to do so, which was doubtful.

When the clock struck eight he lit a cigar and strolled out into the streets. As he walked along, his attention was attracted by a theatre bill in one of the shop windows. One of the names struck him immediately as that of the young actress whose portrait he had seen in the studio of Blanco Serena. He looked at the name of the theatre; it was the Theatre Royal Parthenon. He strolled away in the direction of that building.

On arriving at the theatre, however, he found the doors closed, and discovered that the theatrical season had ended on the previous Saturday.

Strolling carelessly along, he entered one of the smaller theatres in the Strand, a house devoted to opera bouffe. He paid his money and got a seat in the back row of the pit. There, perspiring and half-suffocated, he was listening to the hideous din and watching the insane performance upon the stage, when his attention was attracted by a movement in a box above him, and glancing up he beheld a face he knew.

The face of a woman, young and very beautiful, though trifle pale and sad. She was plainly clad in black satin, with an opera cloak of snowy white, with fringe of down encircling her white neck. No ornaments in her hair, no jewels on her person, and surely she needed neither, for her simple pathetic beauty was better unadorned.

With her was a gentleman, not young, but with the fresh face and manners of a boy. He looked very happy and proud, and gazed less at the stage than at his companion, as, indeed, was natural.

These two were our heroine and her husband, James Forster.

A child might have gathered, from the man’s looks of pleasure and admiration, that Forster loved the beautiful creature by his side. His eyes scarcely left her, he was eager to respond to her slightest look or word. When she talked, he hung upon her speech; and when she was silent he waited for her to speak again.

Gavrolles comprehended the situation directly—almost as rapidly as he recognised Madeline. For the rest of the evening he occupied himself in looking up, with a keen and cat-like gaze. How beautiful she seemed! How much fairer and riper than when he had seen her last, in her wild girlish gaucherie! Pardieu, she was a child then; but now!

As he gazed his thoughts went back to the days when he had seen her first, a giddy schoolgirl, a very will-o’-the-wisp among the decorous young French damsels of the ladies’ seminary. He remembered her wild ways, her odd sayings in schoolgirl’s French, her pretty fits of petulance, her innocent entanglement with him, the ever-seductive Gavrolles—or Belleisle, as he then called himself. He thought of the mad elopement, and the strange days that followed, when the fluttering bird was in his power.

‘After all,’ he reflected, ‘I was a fool to let her go.’

And the man with her, who seemed so greatly to adore her, who was he? Surely her lover; perhaps her husband—but no, that was scarcely possible. A rich man, certainly; yes, with all the style and manner of a rich man. She, too, with her popular fame, her great artistic position, was no longer poor. Perhaps, after all, it was for the best that he had let her go, since fortune had been kind to her, and what was lost could be easily regained.

Gavrolles smiled. Once, when the audience was busy applauding the actors, his exhilaration was so great that he impulsively kissed his hand in the direction of the box. The action was unnoticed, of course, but it seemed to place him en rapport with his old love.

‘Courage, Gavrolles!’ he said to himself. ‘You are Fortune’s favourite, after all. Just when you were in despair, just when your purse was empty and your great soul in despair, the cards befriend you, and a good angel appears in the distance. Madeline, mon ange, I greet you. You will be my guardian spirit after all.’

When the opera was over, Gavrolles stood in the corner of the box lobby, and watched Madeline go past on Forster’s arm. He kept his face well averted, for he did not wish to be recognised, just yet. Then, following the pair to the theatre door, he saw a brougham draw up, smiled upon the pair as they entered and gaily lit a cigar as they drove away.