Paul reached over and grasped Don's arm. "Stop there!" he cried, "and hear me. You are going to say that my enthusiasm has cooled----"

"I am going to say nothing of the kind."

"Ah, but you think it is so. Yet you know me so well, Don, that you should understand me better. I handed the whole affair over to Nevin, and to you that seems like ennui, I know. But it does not mean that; it simply means that as a hopeless man of business I appoint another to do what I know myself incapable of doing. Once I am committed to the production of a book, Don, I cease to exist outside its pages. I live and move and have my being in it. But please don't misunderstand.

Anything within my power to do for Flamby I will do gladly. I only learned to-day of her second bereavement. Don, we must protect her from the fate which so often befalls girls in such circ.u.mstances."

"My dear Paul, in accusing me of misjudging _you_, you are misjudging _me_. If I don't understand you n.o.body does. My offer to release you from the bargain is not to be understood as a reproach; it is a confession. I am a man utterly devoid of common sense, one to whom reason is a stranger and moderation an enemy. I am a funny joke. I should be obliged if you would sell me to _Punch_."

"You puzzle me."

"I puzzle myself. Don Courtier is a conundrum with which I struggle night and morning. In brief, Paul, I have been shopping with Flamby."

"With Flamby? Then she is in London?"

"She arrived yesterday morning, a most pathetic little picture in black.

I wish you could have seen her, Paul; then you might understand and condone."

The vertical wrinkle between Paul's brows grew darker. His mind was a playground of conflicting thoughts. When he spoke he did so almost automatically. "She has never had a chance, Don. G.o.d knows I am eager to help her."

"But I cannot permit it. To put the matter in a nutsh.e.l.l, I have already spent roughly a hundred and twenty pounds in this worthy cause!"

Paul laughed outright. "My dear fellow, what are a hundred and twenty pounds in the scale against your life? You are worth more to me than sixty pounds!"

"This is only the beginning. Having beguiled her into an extravagant mode of expenditure, from motives of self-protection I have been forced to plunge deeper into the mire of deception. I have informed her that she is to refer all tradespeople to Nevin. Quite innocently she may let us in for any amount of money!"

Paul put his hands upon Don's shoulders, laughing more loudly than ever.

"I don't know to what extent your service has depleted your exchequer, and how far you can afford to pursue the Quixotic, but for my own part all I have is at your disposal--and at Flamby's."

"I shall see that no such demand is made upon you. But you must come and visit her, Paul. She has few friends."

"Poor little girl. I will come when you like, Don. To-night I am going to Thessaly's, and I wish you could join the party. He would welcome you, I know."

"Impossible, unfortunately. I am dining with a man who was attached to us for a time."

"Don't fill up your entire programme, Don, and leave no room for me.

Give me at least one whole day."

"To-morrow, then."

"Splendid. Thessaly will be joining us in the evening, too, and I am anxious for you to renew your acquaintance. We had projected a ramble around London's Bohemian haunts. I must keep in touch with the ideas of contemporary writers, painters and composers, for these it is who make opinion. Then I propose to plumb the depths of our modern dissipations, Don. The physician's diagnosis is based upon symptoms of sickness."

"Certainly. A nation is known not by its virtues, but by its vices. In the haversack of the fallen Frenchman it is true that we may find a silk stocking, or a dainty high-heeled shoe, but in that of the German we find a liver sausage. Most illuminating, I think. To-morrow, then. Shall I call here for you? Yvonne might like to lunch with us. The wife of a genius must often be very lonely."

VIII

Before the bookstall in the entrance to the Cafe Royal, Paul stood on the following night, with Jules Thessaly and Don.

"I shall never cease to regret Kirchner," said Thessaly. "He popularised thin legs, and so many women have them. Ha, Mario! here you are again on the front page of a perfectly respectable weekly journal, just alighting from the train. You look like an intelligent baboon, and your wife will doubtless instruct Nevin directly her attention is drawn to this picture. It creates an impression that she was not sober at the time.

What a public benefactor was he who introduced popular ill.u.s.trated journalism. He brought all the physical deformities of the great within reach of the most modest purse."

"It is very curious," said Don, "but you do not appear in the photograph, Mr. Thessaly. You appear in none that I have seen."

"Modesty is a cloak, Captain Courtier, which can even defy the camera.

Let us inhale the gratifying odour, suggestive of truffles frying in oil, which is the hall-mark of your true cafe, and is as ambergris in the nostrils of the gourmand. Do you inhale it?"

"It is unavoidable," replied Paul. "The triumph of Continental cookery rests upon a basis of oil."

"We will bathe in the unctuous fumes. Enter, my friends."

Pa.s.sing the swing-door they entered the cafe, which was full as usual, so that at first it seemed as though they would find no accommodation.

"Twenty-five per cent of elbows are nudging fifty per cent of ribs,"

said Thessaly, "and ninety per cent of eyes are staring at Paul Mario.

Personally, my extreme modesty would revolt. I once endeavoured to visualise Fame and the resultant picture was that of a huge room filled with pretty women, all of whom watched me with the fixed gaze of nascent love. It was exquisite but embarra.s.sing. I think there is a table near the corner, on the right, a spot sanctified by the frequent presence of Jacob Epstein. Let us intrude."

They made their way to the table indicated by Thessaly, and the curious sudden silence which notability imposes upon the ordinary marked their progress. Paul's handsome olive face became the focus of a hundred glances. Several people who were seated with their backs toward the entrance, half rose to look covertly at him as he walked in. They seated themselves at the marble-topped table, Don and Paul upon the plush lounge and Thessaly upon a chair facing them. "I have a mirror before me," said Thessaly, "and can stare without fear of rebuke. Yonder is a group of Johnsons."

"To whom do you refer?" asked Don.

"To those young men wearing Soho whiskers and coloured collars. I call them Johnsons because they regard Augustus John as their spiritual father."

"And what is your opinion of his school?" inquired Don.

"He has no school. His work is aspirative, if you will grant me the word; the striving of a soul which knew the art of an earlier civilisation to seek expression in this. Such a man may have imitators, but he can never have disciples."

"He is a master of paint."

"Quite possibly. Henry James was a master of ink, but only by prayer and fasting can we hope to grasp his message. Both afford examples of very strange and experienced spirits trammelled by the limitations of imperfect humanity. Their dreams cannot be expressed in terms within the present human compa.s.s. Debussy's extraordinary music may be explained in the same way. Those who seek to follow such a lead follow a Jack-o'-lantern. The more I see of the work of the Johnsons the more fully I recognise it to embody all that we do not ask of art."

"Those views do not apply to the Johnsons' spiritual father?" suggested Paul, laughingly.

"Not in the least. If we confounded the errors of the follower with the message of the Master must not the Messianic tradition have died with Judas?"

Paul gave an order to the waiter and Don began to load his pipe.

Thessaly watched him, smiling whilst he packed the Latakia mixture into the bowl with meticulous care, rejecting fragments of stalk as Paphnutius rejected Thais; more in sorrow than in anger.

"Half the absinthe drinker's joy is derived from filtering the necessary drops of water through a lump of sugar," he said as Don reclosed his pouch; "and in the same way, to the lover of my lady Nicotine the filling of the pipe is a ritual, the lighting a burnt offering and the smoking a mere habit."

"Quite agree," replied Don, fumbling for matches in the pocket of his trench-coat, "as the Aunt would say. Our own pipe never tastes so sweet as the other fellow's smells. There is Chauvin over there and I want to speak to him. Perhaps he fails to recognise me in uniform. Ah! he has seen me." He waved his hand to a fresh-coloured, middle-aged man seated with a lady dressed in green, whose cerise hair lent her an interesting likeness to a human geranium. Chauvin rose, having obtained the lady's permission, bowed to her, and coming across to the table, shook Don warmly by the hand.

"Paul," said Don, "This is Claude Chauvin. You have one of his pictures in your dining-room. Paul Mario--Mr. Jules Thessaly. Chauvin, I know you require another a.s.sistant in your studio. You cannot possibly turn out so much black and white stuff for the sporting journals and all those etchings as well as your big pictures."

"It is hopeless to expect to find anyone to help me," replied Chauvin.

"n.o.body understands animals nowadays. I would pay a good a.s.sistant any amount as well as putting him in the way of doing well for himself later on."

"I am bringing a girl around to you in the morning who knows nearly as much about animals as you know yourself."