'All these things are the merest fancies,' he began.

'Oh yes,' she broke in. 'Delusions! That is step number one. We suffer from delusions.'

'If you believe in anything of the sort that you suggest, you are mistaken. If you wish to be happy, you must banish all that nonsense from your mind. It _is_ pure nonsense, dearest. Why should Laurent try to poison my mind? He likes you very well. He takes a warm interest in you, to the best of my belief. But you are really very fanciful and strange to-day, and you have been giving yourself up far too much to solitude for two months past. It is your duty to yourself and me to accept Laurent's advice. You must not be left here alone. You may choose your own companion. She shall be entirely at your orders. You shall engage her yourself; you shall pay her salary; she shall be at your own control.'

'I know,' she answered, tapping her foot upon the floor. 'I know. The truth is, you never really cared for me, and now you have grown tired.

You want to be rid of me.'

'Now, that,' said Paul, 'is not only nonsense, it is very wicked nonsense, and I will not permit it The whole matter lies with yourself.

If you continue to nurse those wrong and foolish thoughts, you will make it necessary for me to insist upon your obedience. If you will behave like a sensible creature, I may feel justified in yielding to your wish, and leaving you behind. But if I have any more of these absurd suspicions I shall not venture to leave you here.'

He spoke with a purposed sternness, but with something of a heartache, too. There was no escape in his own mind from the belief that the whole change which had of late revealed itself in Annette was due to the fact of approaching maternity, and he had a man's natural pity for her sufferings. He bore her fancies with patience, but he thought it best for her that he should feign some anger at them.

The plan seemed to act for the time being at least, for after a moment's incert.i.tude, in which she seemed to battle with herself, she turned her humid brown eyes upon him, and said softly:

'I am very foolishly suspicious sometimes, Paul. I know--oh, I know that I am not the girl I used to be. Bear with me, dear. I shall be different by-and-by.'

'I am sure of that,' he answered, and she approaching him with an appealing languor in her eyes, and in the carriage of her whole figure, he took her into his arms, and for a minute or two she cried quietly upon his shoulder. He patted and caressed her, and she looked up with a quivering face.

'I will never think or say those things again. I know how wrong they are, but, Paul, they come into my mind, and I cannot resist them sometimes. But I will--I will in future. You shall never hear them any more. But I want you to believe me, dearest, in just this one little thing. It will be the best and kindest thing that you can do for me to leave me here alone whilst you are away in London. I am not without friends here, when I can find the courage and the strength to see them.

M. Laurent will look after me. You will write to me every day, won't you? I shall not be lonely. But the idea of having a stranger about me, fussing and inquiring, is horrible. I can't bear it.'

'Very well, dear,'said Paul, greatly relieved at the turn things had taken, 'you shall have your way. But you must remember, dear '--he spoke as soothingly as he could--' it is my duty to see that you are cared for properly, and I must not leave you to yourself unless I am quite a.s.sured beforehand that you are certain to be bright and brave when I am gone.'He placed his hand beneath her chin, and coaxed her eyes to meet his own. 'You won't nourish these distressing fancies any more, will you?'

'No,' she answered, clinging to him; 'they are all gone. They are all done with. You will be kind and good to me, Paul--I know you will. It isn't a very great favour for a grown-up woman to ask to be allowed to take care of herself, is it, Paul, darling?'

'That must depend,' he answered gaily, 'whether the grown-up woman is well enough and strong enough for the task.'

'Ah, well,' said Annette with an equal brightness, 'you shall see.'

There were still two days' work to be done at the comedy, and Darco was resolute not to leave for London until all was finished. The first two acts were already in rehearsal at the Congreve, and Pauer, who was one of those old stagers of the profession who know their business upside down and inside out, was in superintendence until Darco should arrive to mould the whole production to his own exigent fancy.

The change in Annette was remarkable. She had evidently made up her mind for a struggle with herself, and she kept her inequalities of mood in astonishing control, all things considered. She became interested in the work in hand, and took some trifle of needlework to the study for the final reading of the piece between Darco and her husband Paul, with the ma.n.u.script before him, acted the whole comedy as brilliantly as an arm-chair rendering could go, and Darco with notebook and pencil listened in keenly attentive silence, note-taking here and there.

'Id is a gread vork,' he announced solemnly when it was all over. 'Id is peautifully written, and that is your affair, younk Armstronk. But the goncebtion is clorious, ant that is my affair. Vot? Not? I am Cheorge Dargo, and I know my trade.'

They were both up at four o'clock next morning to catch the mail to Calais, and Paul was able to leave Annette without severe misgiving.

Laurent had promised to look after her, and the improvement in her own hopes appeared so manifest that he felt safe about her, except for those slight inevitable uneasinesses which occur at such a time. But he was only to be away for a month at the outside, and he had Laurent's a.s.surance that he might make his mind easy. Annette herself rose to see Paul away, in spite of his remonstrances. She nestled by him whilst he stood to drink his coffee in the gray dawn of the morning, in the great, empty, echoing _salle a manger_, with Darco rolling about the house like an exaggerated football impelled by unseen influences, and roaring tempestuous orders like a ship's captain in a squall.

Never in his life had Paul felt so wholly tender as he did then towards Annette. He had begun to read so many new meanings into her of late. She seemed no longer the molluscous little creature he had once thought her, but a woman, capable of much suffering, of some determination, of real affection. He was leaving her at the very time at which she most needed his guardianship and care, and at the hour, too, when she seemed first really to confide in him and cling to him. His eyes were moist when he held her in a last embrace, and ran into the street in answer to Darco's final call. His collaborateur was already seated in the voiture, glossy silk hat, astrachan cuffs and collar, gold-rimmed eyegla.s.s, and all The _c.o.c.ker's_ whip cracked stormily, and the fat Flemish horse started off at a pace of four miles an hour.

'Mark my vorts,' said Darco, as they rolled along the country road towards the station at which they were to intercept the northward travelling Malle des Indes, 'you are dravelling to vame ant vorchune.'

'Well,'said Paul, 'that's pleasant to know, isn't it, old Darco?'

'It is very bleasant,' returned Darco. 'You ant I are an iteal gouple.

We fit each other like the two halves of a pear. I am a boet. Do you hear me, younk Armstronk? I am a boet I am a berson of imachination.

I can invent. I can gontrive. There is nopoty in the vorlt who can gonstruct a blot like me. But I gannot egspress myself. Now, you gan egspress me; that is your desdiny. You will egspress Cheorge Dargo. You will descend to future aitches as the dranslader of Cheorge Dargo.'

'It is a happy lot, old chap,' said Paul, 'and I am so proud of it that I am going to sleep.'

'Lacy tewle!' said Darco, 'give me the script. I haf been thinking of somethings.'

How Darco worked, stormed, domineered in the ensuing month, n.o.body outside the limits of the Congreve knew. He appalled the timid and maddened the courageous. He was up all night for half a week together, seeming to live with a teaspoon in one hand and a tin of some nutritive meat essence in the other, and always administering doses to himself as if he were a patient in danger of imminent exhaustion.

Mr. Warr was here, under solemn articles not once to varnish the work of art until the run of the piece was over.

'A dreadful circ.u.mstance, truly, Mr. Armstrong,' he complained. 'I am deprived of the consolation of one device which has. .h.i.therto upheld me at such times of trial. The piece might run, sir, for a year; it might even run for two. There is no looking forward to a definite date of relief, sir. It is like being imprisoned at Her Majesty's pleasure. A painful prospect, Mr. Armstrong---a period of una.s.suaged incert.i.tude, sir.' Daroo burst down upon him like a stormy wind.

'Don't stand jattering there. Co ant do somethings.'

'I have nothing at this moment which calls for my attention, I do a.s.sure you, Mr. Darco.'

'Then find somethings. There is always blenty for efery-boty to do about a theadre.'

Mr. Warr drifted before the storm, and found a harbour in the painting-room, whence he was blasted five minutes later half shipwrecked and wholly demoralized. But Darco was a general who could spare his forces, and three days before the play was announced for production he addressed his army:

'Laties and chentlemen, I nefer pelieve in worrying peoples. You haf all done noply. Tomorrow there will be no call. Next day at eleven sharp, eferything as at the broduction. Then it will debend upon yourselves whether you are galled upon to rehea.r.s.e again or no.'

With this all engaged dispersed well pleased, and Darco announced his intention of dining and going to bed. He ordered dinner for two, and ate his double portion through seven courses, after which he went tranquilly home to his hotel and slept the clock round.

The rehearsal next day was so completely satisfactory that he was content to leave it on its merits, and on the following evening the first production of the new management at the Congreve went with a roar of triumph. There was no mistaking the verdict of the house, and the Press was as emphatic as the first night's audience.

'Vod did I dell you?' Darco asked. 'Vame and vorchune are at your veed.

It vos a luggy day for us to meet. Vot? Not? I am Cheorge Darga!'

Paul was tired, excited, and elated all at once. He had promised to start for Belgium so soon as the verdict of the public was made clear, but he could afford to s.n.a.t.c.h the journey down to Castle Barfield, and to get a glimpse of the old father. He slept on the journey, and took the last five miles by cab. Armstrong was in his accustomed place amongst the dusty and neglected stock when Paul broke in upon him, somewhat grayer than ever, a little more bent, perhaps, but with just the old look of wise patience in his face, the s.h.a.ggy eyebrows fringing just the old quiet twinkle in his eyes. He declined to express the least atom of surprise.

'It's you, Paul, is it?' he asked tranquilly, rising to shake hands.

'You've had a grand success, I'm learning. I read the notice in the _Times_.'

'The play's all right,' said Paul. 'And how's all here?'

'Oh,' said his father, 'we have our dwallin' in the middle parts of fortune. We're neither uplifted nor cast down. Come in, lad. Well all be glad to see ye.'

The old place was exactly as it always had been in his memory, and yet it was all shrunken and narrowed, and had grown meaner and more poverty-stricken than it had used to seem.

He settled down in his old place by the fireside, lit his pipe, listened to the local annals, and prepared to be questioned with respect to his own prospects and affairs.

'You'll be growing pretty well to do, Paul?' said Armstrong.

'Well, yes,' said Paul, feeling at a pocket-book which lay at the right side of his tweed coat. 'I'm getting pretty well-to-do.'

'Yell be getting married one of these fine days?' his father asked, twinkling dryly at him.

'Well, the fact is, sir,' Paul answered in some embarra.s.sment, 'I am married.'

'Holy Paul!' said Armstrong, and dropped his pipe upon the patchwork rug. Paul stooped for it to cover his own confusion.