"The first thing I did," he said, putting the letter back in his pocket, "was to ring up Bakkus, to see whether he could throw any light on the matter."

"Bakkus--why, he cut his engagement with us yesterday."

"The d.a.m.ned scoundrel," said Lackaday, "was running away with Elodie."

Chapter XXIII

He banged his hand on the little iron table in front of us and started to his feet, exploding at last with his suppressed fury.

"The infernal villain!"

I gasped for a few seconds. Then I accomplished my life's effort in self-control. My whole being clamoured for an explosion equally violent of compressed mirth. I ached to lie back in my chair and shriek with laughter.

The _denouement_ of the little drama was so amazingly unexpected, so unexpectedly ludicrous. A glimmer of responsive humour in his eyes would have sent me off. But there he stood, with his grimmest battle-field face, denouncing his betrayer. Even a smile on my part would have been insulting.

Worked up, he told me the whole of the astonishing business, as far as he knew it. They had eloped at dawn, like any pair of young lovers. Of that there was no doubt. The car had picked up Bakkus at his hotel in Royat--Lackaday had the landlord's word for it--and had carried the pair away, Heaven knew whither. The proprietor of the Royat garage deposed that Mr. Bakkus had hired the car for the day, mentioning no objective. The runaways had the whole of France before them. Pursuit was hopeless. As Lackaday had planned to go to Vichy, he went to Vichy. There seemed nothing else to do.

"But why elope at dawn?" I cried. "Why all the fellow's unnecessary duplicity? Why, in the name of Macchiavelli, did he seize upon my ten o'clock invitation with such enthusiasm? Why his private conversation with me? Why throw dust into my sleepy eyes? What did he gain by it?"

Lackaday shrugged his shoulders. That part of the matter scarcely interested him. He was concerned mainly with the sting of the viper Bakkus, whom he had nourished in his bosom.

"But, my dear fellow," said I at last, after a tiring march up and down the hot terrace, "you don't seem to realize that Bakkus has solved all your difficulties, _ambulando_, by walking off, or motoring off, with your great responsibility."

"You mean," said he, coming to a halt, "that this has removed the reason for my remaining on the stage?"

"It seems so," said I.

He frowned. "I wish it could have happened differently. No man can bear to be tricked and fooled and made a mock of."

"But it does give you your freedom," said I.

He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. "I suppose it does," he admitted savagely. "But there's a price for everything. Even freedom can be purchased too highly."

He strode on. I had to accompany him, perspiringly. It was a very hot day.

We talked and talked; came back to the startling event. We had to believe it, because it was incredible, as Tertullian cheerily remarked of ecclesiastical dogma. But short of the Archbishop of Canterbury eloping with the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour nothing could seem less possible. If Bakkus had nurtured nefarious designs, Good Heavens! he could have executed them years before. Well, perhaps not. When one hasn't a penny in one's pocket even the most cynical pauses ere he proposes romantic flight with a lady equally penniless. But since April, Bakkus had been battening on the good Archdeacon, his brother's substantial allowance. Why had he tarried?

"His diabolical cunning lay in wait for a weak moment," growled Lackaday.

All through this discussion, I came up against a paradox of human nature.

Although it was obvious that the unprincipled Bakkus had rendered my good friend the service of ridding him of the responsibility of a woman whom he had ceased to love, if ever he had loved her at all, a woman, who, for all her loyal devotion through loveless years, had stood implacably between him and the realization of his dreams, yet he rampaged against his benefactor, as though he had struck a fatal blow at the roots of his honour and his happiness.

"But after all, man, can't you see," he cried in protest at my worldly and sophistical arguments, "that I've lost one of the most precious things in the world? My implicit faith in a fellow-man. I gave Bakkus a brother's trust. He has betrayed it. Where am I? His thousand faults have been familiar to me for years. I discounted them for the good in him. I thought I had grasped it." He clenched his delicate hand in a pa.s.sionate gesture.

"But now"--he opened it--"nothing. I'm at sea. How can I know that you, whom I have trusted more than any other man with my heart's secrets------?"

The _concierge_ with a dusty chauffeur in tow providentially cut short this embarra.s.sing apostrophe.

"Monsieur le Capitaine Hylton?" asked the chauffeur.

"_C'est moi_."

He handed me a letter. I glanced at the writing on the envelope.

"From Bakkus!" I said. "Tell me"--to the chauffeur--"how did you come by it?"

"Monsieur charged me to deliver it into the hands of Monsieur le Capitaine.

I have this moment returned to Royat."

"Ah," said I. "You drove the automobile? Where is Monsieur Bakkus?"

"That," said he, "I have pledged my honour not to divulge."

I fished in my pocket for some greasy rags of paper money which I pressed into his honourable hand. He bowed and departed. I tore open the envelope.

"You will excuse me?"

"Oh, of course," said Lackaday curtly. He lit a cigarette and stalked to the end of the terrace.

The letter bore neither date nor address. I read:

MY DEAR HYLTON,

You have heard of Touchstone. You have heard of Audrey. Shakespeare has doubtless convinced you of the inevitability of their mating. I have always prided myself of a certain Touchstone element in my nature. There is much that is Audrey-esque in the lady whose disappearance from Clermont-Ferrand may be causing perturbation. As my Shakespearian preincarnation scorned dishonourable designs, so do even I. The marriage of Veuve Elodie Marescaux and Horatio Bakkus will take place at the earliest opportunity allowed by French law. If that delays too long, we shall fly to England where an Archbishop's special licence will induce a family Archdeacon to marry us straight away.

My flippancy, my dear Hylton, is but a motley coat.

If there is one being in this world whom I love and honour, it is Andrew Lackaday. From the first day I met him, I, a cynical disillusioned wastrel, he a raw yet uncompromising lad, I felt that here, somehow, was a sheet anchor in my life. He has fed me when I have been hungry, he has lashed me when I have been craven-hearted, he has raised me when I have fallen. There can be only three beings in the Cosmos who know how I have been saved times out of number from the nethermost abyss--I and Andrew Lackaday and G.o.d.

I pa.s.sed my hand over my eyes when I read this remarkable outburst of devoted affection on the part of the seducer and betrayer for the man he had wronged. I thought of the old couplet about the dissembling of love and the kicking downstairs. I read on, however, and found the mystery explained.

The time has come for me to pay him, in part, my infinite debt of grat.i.tude.

You may have been surprised when I wrung your hand warmly before parting. Your words removed every hesitating scruple. Had you said, "there is nothing between a certain lady and Andrew Lackaday," I should have been to some extent nonplussed. I should have doubted my judgment.

I should have pressed you further. If you had convinced me that the whole basis of my projected action was illusory, I should have found means to cancel the arrangements. But remember what you said. "There can't by any possibility be anything between Lady Auriol Dayne and Pet.i.t Patou."

"d.a.m.n the fellow," I muttered. "Now he's calmly shifting the responsibility on to me."

And I swore a deep oath that nevermore would I interfere in anybody else's affairs, not even if Bolshevist butchers were playing with him before my very eyes.

There, my dear Hylton (the letter went on), you gave away the key of the situation. My judgment had been unerring. As Pet.i.t Patou, our friend stood beyond the pale. As General Lackaday, he stepped into all the privileges of the Enclosure. Bound by such ties to Madame Patou as an honourable and upright gentleman like our friend could not d of severing, he was likewise bound to his vain and heart-breaking existence as Pet.i.t Patou. A free man, he could cast off his mountebank trappings and go forth into the world, once more as General Lackaday, the social equal of the gracious lady whom he loved and whose feelings towards him, as eyes far less careless than ours could see at a glance, were not those of placid indifference.

The solution of the problem dawned on me like an inspiration. Why not sacrifice my not over-valued celibacy on the altar of friendship? For years Elodie and I have been, _en lout bien et tout honneur_, the most intimate of comrades. I don't say that, for all the gold in the Indies, I would not marry a woman out of my brother's Archdeaco If she asked me, I probably should. But I should most certainly, such being my unregenerate nature, run away with the gold and leave the lady. For respectability to have attraction you must be bred in You must regard the dog collar and chain as the great and G.o.d-given blessing of your life. The old fable of the dog and the wolf. But I've lived my life, till past fifty, as the disreputable wolf--and so, please G.o.d, will I remain till I die. But, after all, being human, I'm quite a kind sort of wolf. Thanks to my brother--no longer will hunger drive the wolf abroad. You remember Villon's lines:

"Necessite fait gens mesprendre Et faim sortir le loup des boys."