"They're engaged," Mrs. Falconer explained to her host. "Isn't it ridiculous? As you know, she hasn't a cent in the world, and his family are not in the secret, but Molly and De Presle-Vaulx _are_, and _I_ am, and I brought them off in pity for a spin to Paris."

The apparition of the lady, whose mocking beauty had a fresh charm every time he saw her--her worldly wisdom and her keen reasonableness--made, as he stood talking with her, his past debauch in philanthropies seem especially grotesque. With a long breath of joy at the sight of her Bulstrode also realized how wonderfully separated from her the introduction of another life into his environment would have made him.

"Your garden is a waste," the lady criticised, "dusty and dull. I don't wonder you're getting away. Fontainebleau, too, was only a _faute de mieux_, and I have left it. One should get really far away at this season. It's the time when only the persons who are actually bred in its stones can stay in Paris--certainly the birds of pa.s.sage may now, if ever, fly."

"We are going to Trouville," she said; "we are all going to motor through Normandy. Won't you come--won't you come?" He shook his head.

Mrs. Falconer looked across the terrace to where a little chair had been overturned, and on the floor by its side lay a broken doll.

"Jimmy!" she laughed in triumph at the sight. "You _have_ broken your doll!"

Bulstrode said: "Yes, beyond repair, and I don't want another." Then in a few words, briefly, a little impatient, and still smarting under the child's defection, he gave her the story.

Listening, absorbed, her charming eyes on him or at one moment turned suspiciously away, the lady heard him to the end, and at the end said softly:

"Jimmy, my poor Jimmy! What have you nearly done! What _would_ people have thought? Not that it matters in the least--it's what people _do_ that counts--but oh, I tremble for your next folly!"

"It might"--he spoke with something like bitterness--"be less harmless and leave me less alone."

She had finished a gla.s.s of iced tea, put her goblet down on the tray and rose, coming over to where Bulstrode stood; she lightly laid her hand on his arm.

"You are, then, so very lonely? So lonely that you would be capable of doing this foolish thing? Oh, you would have found, as I have found, that it is those things which come into our lives, not those which we by force _take_, which mean all we want them to mean! This wasn't _your child_!" Mrs. Falconer's face softened as he had never seen it.

"Nor yet is she the child of some woman you love. Believe me, it would have made you far lonelier if it so happened--if you should ever come to love--if you ever had loved----"

Bulstrode interrupted her abruptly:

"Yes, in that case I should no doubt be glad that Simone had gone back on me." He waited silent for a second, and then continued gently, "I _am_ glad, very glad indeed!"

THE FOURTH ADVENTURE

IV

IN WHICH HE MAKES THREE PEOPLE HAPPY

There were times when Bulstrode decided that he never could see the woman he loved any more: there were times when he felt he must follow her to the ends of the world, just in order to a.s.sure himself that she was alive and serene. Such is the gentleman's character and point of view, that she must always be serene, no matter what his own troubled emotions might be.

He had the extraordinary idea that he could not himself be happy or make a woman happy over the dishonor of another man. It was old-fashioned and unworldly of Bulstrode: still, that was the way he was const.i.tuted.

It was on one of the imperious occasions when he felt as if he must follow her to the ends of the earth, that he steered his craft toward a little town on the edge of the Norman coast, to a very fashionable bit of France--Trouville. As soon as he understood that Mrs. Falconer was to be in Normandy for the race week, he packed his things and ran down and put up at the Hotel de Paris. On this occasion the gentleman followed so fast that he overleaped his goal, and arrived at the watering-place before the others appeared. Bulstrode took his own rooms, and in response to a telegram, engaged the Falconers'

apartments. He liked the way the little salon gave on the heavenly blue sea, and with a nice fancy to make it something more home-like for his friend to begin with, he filled it with flowers ... ran what lengths he dared in putting a few rare vases and several pieces of old Italian damask here and there.

"Falconer," he consoled himself, "will be too taken up with his horses to notice the _inside_ of anything but a stable! And I shall tell the others that the hotel proprietor is a collector: most of these Norman innkeepers are collectors." And, as his idea grew, he went to greater lengths, with the curiosity shops on either side the Rue de Paris to tempt him. The result was that when Mrs. Falconer came, she found the hotel room wonderfully mellow and harmonious, and as a woman who revels in beauty she responded to its charm. She was delighted, her eyes sparkled, her cheeks glowed. And Jimmy Bulstrode had a moment of high happiness as she looked at him and touched with her pretty hands the flowers he had himself arranged. It was a delightful moment, a moment that was much to him.

The Falconers arrived with the usual lot of servants and motors and, moreover, with a racing outfit, for Falconer had decided to enter his English filly, Bonjour, for the events of August. There was also with them a Miss Molly Malines and a young sprig of n.o.bility, the Marquis de Presle-Vaulx, to whom Bulstrode was a trifle paternal.

"He can't, at least, be after Molly's _millions_," he reflected; "he can't, at any rate, be a _fortune_ hunter, for the girl's face is the only fortune she has!"

On a bright and beautiful morning, the first of all the days for many weeks--for Bulstrode reckoned his calendar in broken bits, beginning a New Year each time he saw his lady again--a bright and beautiful morning he walked out at the fashionable hour of noon and turned into the Rue de Paris.

The eyes of many women followed Bulstrode.

Being an early riser, he had already taken a brisk walk over the cliffs, had swum out beyond the buoys, and now in his flannels, his panama, a gay rose in the lapel of his coat, amongst the many debonnaire and pleasing people who filled the little fishing town, his was a distinguished figure. He trusted very much to instinct to discover his friend, and after a few moments found her at the extreme end of the street which the papers of Paris tell you is "the most worldly and fashionable in any part of the Continent, during race week at Trouville." Mary Falconer was of course dressed in the very height of the mode. She looked up and saw Bulstrode before he saw her, but she could wait until he made his leisurely way down to her side. She waited for him a great deal. He did not know how much, but then her point of view and her feelings have never come into the history. It amused her to make him her many clever little bits of speech, for he was so appreciative of everything she said, and looking up at him now as he approached she said: "These people never seem to have anything to do, do they? Leisure is like money: to enjoy thoroughly either money or leisure one should only have a little of each. Now for us good-for-nothings who have no occupation it doesn't make much difference what we do or where we do it!"

The lady's camp-stool had been set down at the end of the street.

Those who are not promenading opened little _chaises pliantes_ and watched from their little seats. Mrs. Falconer sat facing the ocean, or what was visible of it between the bathing tents. PaG.o.das gay with children's shovels and bright pails, striped bonbons and the sea of muslins, ribbons and feathers and sunshades of the midsummer crowd.

All the capitals of Europe had poured themselves into Trouville, and the resort overflowed with beauty and fashion.

'"It's perfectly bewitching," Bulstrode said to her, "perfectly bewitching, and it makes one feel as though there were nothing but pleasure in the world."

She wore a white dress and her hat was bright with flowers. She opened her rose-lined parasol over her head.

"Jimmy," she said abruptly, and brought his eyes to hers like a flash, for he had been looking over the scene, "do you know I begin to see where the innkeeper found his rare treasures; _there are a great many other things_ that suggest them in this little street!"

Bulstrode replied, "You don't want him to take them away, do you?"

She shook her head. "No," she said slowly, "they have been a great pleasure, but I don't want to _buy_ them from him, either."

"I don't _think_ he'd sell them," Bulstrode was certain of it, "they're extremely precious in his eyes."

"I'm a good judge of works of art, however," she said after a moment, "that is to say, I know a good thing when I see it. There was a little picture in one of the shops back of me that I would have given a lot to own."

Her friend exclaimed: "Are you going to buy it! That is to say, will Falconer buy it for you?"

"My dear soul--with his horse running to-morrow! At any rate, the bijou is already bought above my head. I went in yesterday to see what was the least they would take for it, and found the Prince Pollona, the Englishman who buys for the Wallace Collection, and somebody who, they tell me, was the Rockefeller of St. Petersburg. Well, my little picture was what they all wanted, and you can imagine that _I_ retired from the running...! But I tell you this," she said, "only to show you how very good my taste is, and so that you may rely on my selections."

Bulstrode smiled in a way that said he thought he might rely on her, but still he asked rather quizzically, "Well, what are you going to recommend to me _now_?"

The lady at the moment, not having anything in mind, looked suddenly up, gave him whimsically:

"Molly and her Marquis."

The two young people with Jack Falconer were coming slowly along the Rue de Paris toward them. The grace of the girl, her freshness under her wide hat where flowers and ribbons danced and blended; the radiant pleasure she exhaled, the swing of her dress, her youth, expressed so happily the joy of life, recommended themselves easily in a flash....

"Oh, _Molly_--she's perfect!"

"And the Marquis?"

"He is perfectly in _love_," ... Bulstrode allowed him so much.

"My dear friend, remember I know my _objets d'art_."

"Oh, as an _objet d'art_...!"