"I'll tell you when I see you," said he. "I don't know the trains, but I'll come by the first. Your _concierge_ will look it up for you. Thanks very much. Good-bye."'

"But, my dear fellow----" I began.

But I spoke into nothingness. He had rung off.

Auriol and I spent a comfortable evening together. There was no question of Lackaday. For her part, she raised none. For mine--why should I disturb her superbly regained balance with idle chatter about our morrow's meeting?

We talked of the past glories of the day; of an almost forgotten day of disastrous picnic in the mountains of North Wales, when her twelve-year-old sense of humour detected the artificial politeness with which I sought to cloak my sodden misery; of all sorts of pleasant far-off things; of the war; of what may be called the war-continuation-work in the devastated districts in which she was at present engaged. I reminded her of our fortuitous meetings, when she trudged by my side through the welter of rain and liquid mud, smoking the f.a.g-end of my last pipe of tobacco.

"One lived in those days," she said with a full-bosomed sigh.

"By the dispensation of a merciful Providence," I said, "one hung on to a strand of existence."

"It was fine!" she declared.

"It was--for the appropriate adjective," said I, "consult any humble member of the British Army."

We had a whole, long evening's talk, which did not end until I left her in the train at Clermont-Ferrand.

On our midnight way thither, she said:

"Now I know you love me, Tony."

"Why now?" I asked.

"How many people are there in the world whom you would see off by a midnight train, three or four miles from your comfortable bed?"

"Not many," I admitted.

"That's why I want you to feel I'm grateful." She sought my hand and patted it. "I've been a dreadful worry to you. I've been through a hard time."

This was her first and only reference during the day to the romance. "I had to cut something out of my living self, and I couldn't help groaning a bit.

But the operation's over--and I'll never worry you again."

At the station I packed her into the dark and already suffocating compartment. She announced her intention to sleep all night like a dog. She went off, in the best of spirits, to the work in front of her, which after all was a more reasonable cure than tossing about the Outer Hebrides in a five-ton yacht.

I drove home to bed and slept the sleep of the perfect altruist.

I was reading the _Moniteur du Puy de Dome_ on the hotel terrace next morning, when Lackaday was announced. He looked grimmer and more careworn than ever, and did not even smile as he greeted me. He only said gravely that it was good of me to let him come over. I offered him refreshment, which he declined.

"You may be wondering," said he, "why I have asked for this interview. But after all I have told you about myself, it did not seem right to leave you in ignorance of certain things. Besides, you've so often given me your kind sympathy, that, as a lonely man, I've ventured to trespa.s.s on it once more."

"My dear Lackaday, you know that I value your friendship," said I, not wishing to be outdone in courteous phrase, "and that my services are entirely at your disposal."

"I had better tell you in a few words what has happened," said he.

He told me.

Elodie had gone, disappeared, vanished into s.p.a.ce, like the pearl necklaces which Pet.i.t Patou used to throw at her across the stage.

"But how? When?" I asked, in bewilderment; for Lackaday and Elodie, as Les Pet.i.t Patou, seemed as indissoluble as William and Mary or Pommery and Greno.

He had gone to her room at ten o'clock the previous morning, her breakfast hour, and found it wide open and empty save for the _femme de chambre_ making great clatter of sweeping. He stood open-mouthed on the threshold.

To be abroad at such an hour was not in Elodie's habits. Their train did not start till the afternoon. His eye quickly caught the uninhabited bareness of the apartment. Not a garment straggled about the room. The toilet table, usually strewn with a myriad promiscuously ill-a.s.sorted articles, stared nakedly. There were no boxes. The cage of love-birds, Elodie's inseparable companions, had gone.

"Madame----?"

He questioned the _femme de chambre_.

"But Madame has departed. Did not Monsieur know?"

Monsieur obviously did not know. The girl gave him the information of which she was possessed. Madame had gone in an automobile at six o'clock. She had rung the bell. The _femme de chambre_ had answered it. The staff were up early on account of the seven o'clock train for Paris.

"Then Madame has gone to Paris," cried Lackaday.

But the girl demurred at the proposition. One does not hire an automobile from a garage, _a voiture de luxe, quoi?_ to go to the railway station, when the hotel omnibus would take one there for a franc or two. As she was saying, Madame rang her bell and gave orders for her luggage to be taken down. It was not much, said Lackaday; they travelled light, their professional paraphernalia having to be considered. Well, the luggage was taken down to the automobile that was waiting at the door, and Madame had driven off. That is all she knew.

Lackaday strode over to the bureau and a.s.sailed the manager. Why had he not been informed of the departure of Madame? It apparently never entered the manager's polite head that Monsieur Patou was ignorant of Madame Patou's movements. Monsieur had given notice that they were leaving. Artists like Monsieur and Madame Patou were bound to make special arrangements for their tours, particularly nowadays when railway travelling was difficult. So Madame's departure had occasioned no surprise.

"Who took her luggage down?" he demanded.

The dingy waistcoated, alpaca-sleeved porter, wearing the ribbon of the Medaille Militaire on his breast, came forward. At six o'clock, while he was sweeping the hall, an automobile drew up outside. He said: "Whom are you come to fetch? The Queen of Spain?" And the chauffeur told him to mind his own business. At that moment the bell rang. He went up to the _etage_ indicated. The _femme de chambre_ beckoned him to the room and he took the luggage and Madame took the bird-cage, and he put Madame and the luggage and the birdcage into the auto, and Madame gave him two francs, and the car drove off, whither the porter knew not.

Although he put it to me very delicately, as he had always conveyed his criticism of Elodie, the fact that struck a clear and astounding note through his general bewilderment, was the unprecedented reckless extravagance of the economical Elodie. There was the omnibus. There was the train. Why the car at the fantastic rate of one franc fifty per kilometre, to say nothing of the one franc fifty per kilometre for the empty car's return journey?

"And Madame was all alone in the automobile," said the porter, by way of rea.s.surance. "Pardon, Monsieur," he added, fading away under Lackaday's glare.

"I cut the indignity of it all as short as I could," said Lackaday, "and went up to my room to size things up. It was a knock-down blow to me in many ways, as you no doubt can understand. And then came the _femme de chambre_ with a letter addressed to me. It had fallen between the looking-gla.s.s and the wall."

He drew a letter from his pocket and handed it to me.

"You had better read it."

I fitted my gla.s.ses on my nose and read. In the sprawling, strong, illiterate hand I saw and felt Elodie.

_Mon pet.i.t Andre_----

But I must translate inadequately, for the grammar and phrasing were Elodesque.

As you no longer love me, if ever you have loved me, which I doubt, for we have made _un drole de menage_ ever since we joined ourselves together, and as our life in common is giving you unhappiness, which it does me also, for since you have returned from England as a General you have not been the same, and indeed I have never understood how a General [and then followed a couple of lines vehemently erased]. And as I do not wish to be a burden to you, but desire that you should feel yourself free to lead whatever life you like, I have taken the decision to leave you for ever--_pour tout jamais_. It is the best means to regain happiness.

For the things that are still at the Cirque Vendramin, do with them what you will. I shall write to Ernestine to send me my clothes and all the little birds I love so much. Your n.o.ble heart will not grudge them to me, _mon pet.i.t Andre_.

Praying G.o.d for your happiness, I am always

Your devoted

ELODIE

I handed him back the letter without a word. What could one say?