第38章

Now that gordon was gone, at any rate, gone for good, and not to return, he felt a sudden and singular sense of freedom.

It was a feeling of unbounded expansion, quite out of proportion, as he said to himself, to any assignable cause.

Everything suddenly appeared to have become very optional; but he was quite at a loss what to do with his liberty.

It seemed a harmless use to make of it, in the afternoon, to go and pay another visit to the ladies who lived at the confectioner's. Here, however, he met a reception which introduced a fresh element of perplexity into the situation that Gordon had left behind him. The door was opened to him by Mrs. Vivian's maid-servant, a sturdy daughter of the Schwartzwald, who informed him that the ladies--with much regret--were unable to receive any one.

"They are very busy--and they are ill," said the young woman, by way of explanation.

Bernard was disappointed, and he felt like arguing the case.

"Surely," he said, "they are not both ill and busy! When you make excuses, you should make them agree with each other."

The Teutonic soubrette fixed her round blue eyes a minute upon the patch of blue sky revealed to her by her open door.

"I say what I can, lieber Herr. It 's not my fault if I 'm not so clever as a French mamsell. One of the ladies is busy, the other is ill.

There you have it."

"Not quite," said Bernard. "You must remember that there are three of them."

"Oh, the little one--the little one weeps."

"Miss Evers weeps!" exclaimed Bernard, to whom the vision of this young lady in tears had never presented itself.

"That happens to young ladies when they are unhappy," said the girl; and with an artless yet significant smile she carried a big red hand to the left side of a broad bosom.

"I am sorry she is unhappy; but which of the other ladies is ill?"

"The mother is very busy."

"And the daughter is ill?"

The young woman looked at him an instant, smiling again, and the light in her little blue eyes indicated confusion, but not perversity.

"No, the mamma is ill," she exclaimed, "and the daughter is very busy.

They are preparing to leave Baden."

"To leave Baden? When do they go?"

"I don't quite know, lieber Herr; but very soon."

With this information Bernard turned away. He was rather surprised, but he reflected that Mrs. Vivian had not proposed to spend her life on the banks of the Oos, and that people were leaving Baden every day in the year. In the evening, at the Kursaal, he met Captain Lovelock, who was wandering about with an air of explosive sadness.

"Damn it, they 're going--yes, they 're going," said the Captain, after the two young men had exchanged a few allusions to current events.

"Fancy their leaving us in that heartless manner! It 's not the time to run away--it 's the time to keep your rooms, if you 're so lucky as to have any. The races begin next week and there 'll be a tremendous crowd.

All the grand-ducal people are coming. Miss Evers wanted awfully to see the Grand Duke, and I promised her an introduction. I can't make out what Mrs. Vivian is up to. I bet you a ten-pound note she 's giving chase.

Our friend Wright has come back and gone off again, and Mrs. Vivian means to strike camp and follow. She 'll pot him yet; you see if she does n't!"

"She is running away from you, dangerous man!" said Bernard.

"Do you mean on account of Miss Evers? Well, I admire Miss Evers--I don't mind admitting that; but I ain't dangerous," said Captain Lovelock, with a lustreless eye.

"How can a fellow be dangerous when he has n't ten shillings in his pocket? Desperation, do you call it? But Miss Evers has n't money, so far as I have heard. I don't ask you,"

Lovelock continued--"I don't care a damn whether she has or not.

She 's a devilish charming girl, and I don't mind telling you I 'm hit. I stand no chance--I know I stand no chance.

Mrs. Vivian 's down on me, and, by Jove, Mrs. Vivian 's right.

I 'm not the husband to pick out for a young woman of expensive habits and no expectations. Gordon Wright's the sort of young man that 's wanted, and, hang me, if Mrs. Vivian did n't want him so much for her own daughter, I believe she 'd try and bag him for the little one. Gad, I believe that to keep me off she would like to cut him in two and give half to each of them!

I 'm afraid of that little woman. She has got a little voice like a screw-driver. But for all that, if I could get away from this cursed place, I would keep the girl in sight--hang me if I would n't! I 'd cut the races--dash me if I would n't! But I 'm in pawn, if you know what that means.

I owe a beastly lot of money at the inn, and that impudent little beggar of a landlord won't let me out of his sight.

The luck 's dead against me at those filthy tables;

I have n't won a farthing in three weeks. I wrote to my brother the other day, and this morning I got an answer from him--a cursed, canting letter of good advice, remarking that he had already paid my debts seven times. It does n't happen to be seven; it 's only six, or six and a half! Does he expect me to spend the rest of my life at the Hotel de Hollande? Perhaps he would like me to engage as a waiter there and pay it off by serving at the table d'hote. It would be convenient for him the next time he comes abroad with his seven daughters and two governesses.

I hate the smell of their beastly table d'hote! You 're sorry I 'm hard up? I 'm sure I 'm much obliged to you.

Can you be of any service? My dear fellow, if you are bent on throwing your money about the place I 'm not the man to stop you."

Bernard's winnings of the previous night were burning a hole, as the phrase is, in his pocket. Ten thousand francs had never before seemed to him so heavy a load to carry, and to lighten the weight of his good luck by lending fifty pounds to a less fortunate fellow-player was an operation that not only gratified his good-nature but strongly commended itself to his conscience.

His conscience, however, made its conditions. "My dear Longueville,"