第83章

Some three evenings after he received this last report of the progress of affairs in Paris, Bernard, upon whom the burden of exile sat none the more lightly as the days went on, turned out of the Strand into one of the theatres. He had been gloomily pushing his way through the various London densities--the November fog, the nocturnal darkness, the jostling crowd.

He was too restless to do anything but walk, and he had been saying to himself, for the thousandth time, that if he had been guilty of a misdemeanor in succumbing to the attractions of the admirable girl who showed to such advantage in letters of twelve pages, his fault was richly expiated by these days of impatience and bereavement. He gave little heed to the play; his thoughts were elsewhere, and, while they rambled, his eyes wandered round the house. Suddenly, on the other side of it, he beheld Captain Lovelock, seated squarely in his orchestra-stall, but, if Bernard was not mistaken, paying as little attention to the stage as he himself had done.

The Captain's eyes, it is true, were fixed upon the scene; his head was bent a little, his magnificent beard rippled over the expanse of his shirt-front. But Bernard was not slow to see that his gaze was heavy and opaque, and that, though he was staring at the actresses, their charms were lost upon him.

He saw that, like himself, poor Lovelock had matter for reflection in his manly breast, and he concluded that Blanche's ponderous swain was also suffering from a sense of disjunction.

Lovelock sat in the same posture all the evening, and that his imagination had not projected itself into the play was proved by the fact that during the entractes he gazed with the same dull fixedness at the curtain. Bernard forebore to interrupt him; we know that he was not at this moment socially inclined, and he judged that the Captain was as little so, inasmuch as causes even more imperious than those which had operated in his own case must have been at the bottom of his sudden appearance in London.

On leaving the theatre, however, Bernard found himself detained with the crowd in the vestibule near the door, which, wide open to the street, was a scene of agitation and confusion.

It had come on to rain, and the raw dampness mingled itself with the dusky uproar of the Strand. At last, among the press of people, as he was passing out, our hero became aware that he had been brought into contact with Lovelock, who was walking just beside him. At the same moment Lovelock noticed him--looked at him for an instant, and then looked away.

But he looked back again the next instant, and the two men then uttered that inarticulate and inexpressive exclamation which passes for a sign of greeting among gentlemen of the Anglo-Saxon race, in their moments of more acute self-consciousness.

"Oh, are you here?" said Bernard. "I thought you were in Paris."

"No; I ain't in Paris," Lovelock answered with some dryness.

"Tired of the beastly hole!"

"Oh, I see," said Bernard. "Excuse me while I put up my umbrella."

He put up his umbrella, and from under it, the next moment, he saw the Captain waving two fingers at him out of the front of a hansom.

When he returned to his hotel he found on his table a letter superscribed in Gordon Wright's hand. This communication ran as follows:

"I believe you are making a fool of me. In Heaven's name, come back to Paris! G. W."

Bernard hardly knew whether to regard these few words as a further declaration of war, or as an overture to peace; but he lost no time in complying with the summons they conveyed.

He started for Paris the next morning, and in the evening, after he had removed the dust of his journey and swallowed a hasty dinner, he rang at Mrs. Vivian's door. This lady and her daughter gave him a welcome which--I will not say satisfied him, but which, at least, did something toward soothing the still unhealed wounds of separation.

"And what is the news of Gordon?" he presently asked.

"We have not seen him in three days," said Angela.

"He is cured, dear Bernard; he must be. Angela has been wonderful,"

Mrs. Vivian declared.

"You should have seen mamma with Blanche," her daughter said, smiling.

"It was most remarkable."

Mrs. Vivian smiled, too, very gently.

"Dear little Blanche! Captain Lovelock has gone to London."

"Yes, he thinks it a beastly hole. Ah, no," Bernard added, "I have got it wrong."

But it little mattered. Late that night, on his return to his own rooms, Bernard sat gazing at his fire. He had not begun to undress; he was thinking of a good many things.

He was in the midst of his reflections when there came a rap at his door, which the next moment was flung open.

Gordon Wright stood there, looking at him--with a gaze which Bernard returned for a moment before bidding him to come in.

Gordon came in and came up to him; then he held out his hand.

Bernard took it with great satisfaction; his last feeling had been that he was very weary of this ridiculous quarrel, and it was an extreme relief to find it was over.

"It was very good of you to go to London," said Gordon, looking at him with all the old serious honesty of his eyes.

"I have always tried to do what I could to oblige you,"

Bernard answered, smiling.

"You must have cursed me over there," Gordon went on.

"I did, a little. As you were cursing me here, it was permissible."

"That 's over now," said Gordon. "I came to welcome you back.

It seemed to me I could n't lay my head on my pillow without speaking to you."

"I am glad to get back," Bernard admitted, smiling still.

"I can't deny that. And I find you as I believed I should."

Then he added, seriously--"I knew Angela would keep us good friends."

For a moment Gordon said nothing. Then, at last--"Yes, for that purpose it did n't matter which of us should marry her.

If it had been I," he added, "she would have made you accept it."

"Ah, I don't know!" Bernard exclaimed.

"I am sure of it," said Gordon earnestly--almost argumentatively.

"She 's an extraordinary woman."