"It is out of the question to discuss such a thing," she said firmly, but her face was ashen.

Rupert examined her acutely. He did not know of course that he was speaking of Bran's father.

CHAPTER XXII

THE WAY OF LOVE

"The philosophy of six thousand years has not searched the chambers and magazines of the soul."--EMERSON.

The Lempriere hat Haidee had on, though it was only a travelling hat of soft silk, turned up in front with one orchid, must have cost at least six guineas, but Westenra had paid it without blenching. It seemed to him that Val had trained him to buying hats and choosing pretty gowns, though the strange thing, if he had a.n.a.lysed it, was that he had never bought Val a hat or gown in his life. Yet because of Val he knew that women needed these things, and because life had gone exceedingly well with him in the last few years, he bought for Haidee all she asked, and made no demur. In America he always travelled second, but now he and Haidee were in a first-cla.s.s carriage, en route for the South of France, and it seemed natural enough.

Haidee had certainly come into her own, and it was a goodly inheritance of beauty. With her hair _coiffe_ and the hat with the orchid (a wonderful imitation of a rare species found in the Congo forest), she was a lovely dryad come to town. The cut of her tan shantung suit betrayed a master hand, and from its open coat rippled little cascades of fine lace. Yet she looked discontented. Perhaps the bitter moodiness on the face opposite had infected her.

Westenra had not worn that look when they commenced the journey; it was within the last half-hour while they talked of Val that Haidee had watched it creeping like a shadow into his eyes, making harsh lines about his mouth.

"You should have gone to the Lamartine studios and made inquiries," she said suddenly. "Then you 'd have known all about it--far more than I wrote and told you!"

"I have no right to make inquiries about Val, Haidee. She is not my wife and I have no claim whatever over----"

"Not your wife?"

"No. Has she never told you? Her husband whom she thought dead came back. You must never speak of this to any one."

"Of course not. But how funny, Garry!"

"Very funny," he said grimly. "That is, of course, who was staying with her at the studios, with a perfect right to do so. Only"--his face took a harder expression--"she can't go on having Bran too."

"But why not, Garry? She hasn't got the man--her husband--staying at Cannes with her. She 's told me heaps of times she and Bran are there alone. Rupert wrote and told me too."

"That is understood," said Westenra coldly. "Or I should n't let you go to her, even for a few days."

"Where are _you_ going?"

"To a hotel, of course. I 've arranged for a room at the Metropole."

Haidee mused awhile, her brows knitted.

"And afterwards, Garry--when you have got Bran?"

"G.o.d knows, Haidee." He did not speak like a man who has won fame and renown and almost all he set out to get--except one small thing! But rather as one whose golden gifts have turned to ashes in the mouth, whose laurels have fallen to dust. Inspiration shot into Haidee's eyes.

"Then you haven't got a wife at all, Garry?"

"Devil a wife!"

"Then I don't see why I can't marry you at last. I 've always wanted to."

Westenra began to laugh.

"There's nothing to laugh at. Lots of girls marry their guardians. Oh, _do_ let me marry you, Garry. I do love you so."

"Dear Silly Billy, I couldn't possibly."

"Why not? Why _not_? How can I come back to America with you and Bran unless I _am_ married to you? It would not be at all correct." (Haidee had not been brought up in conventional France for nothing!) Westenra grinned sardonically.

"And if you get Bran away from Val, he will need a mother, and you surely would n't marry some old strange pig of a woman to mind him. He 's a gentle little kid and he _must_ be mothered. I believe he 'd just die if he did n't have love and kindness round him all the time."

Westenra left off laughing and for the first time considered her seriously.

"Do you think you 'd make him a good step-mother, Haidee?"

"I _love_ Bran, though I 've often been a pig to him--but _that's_ Val's fault," she ended vindictively. "Oh, do have me, Garry."

"Well, we 'll think about it," said he gravely, though the suspicion of a smile hovered in his eyes. Haidee pounced upon him with her fresh lips.

"Won't I just run your nursing home for you!"

"Oh, _that_!" said Westenra, startled. "It runs itself now.

Besides"--("No more experiments like that," he had been going to say, but did not)--"I have practically given it up. There'll be nothing for you to do in New York but mind Bran and amuse yourself."

Haidee looked glum for a moment. It was plain she was dying to run something.

"Anyway it's settled, is n't it, that I am to marry you and go back with you and Bran?" She flung her arms imploringly round his neck. Gently and a little wearily he unlaced them.

"All right, dearest, if you 're so keen on it, you shall go--but we won't get married just yet, I think--" He patted her hand affectionately.

"You 'll meet some one you like better than me on the voyage, perhaps."

"Never, never," she said almost viciously, and her eyes seemed to look down a long pa.s.sage which had some one at the end of it.

"At last I 've got some one away from her!" she murmured to herself.

Westenra, even though in the past few weeks he had grown used to her extraordinary childish innocence and ignorance of life, mixed with a leaning for outlawry, an amazing respect for _etiquette_, and an anxiety to keep up a conventional appearance, found this new phase incomprehensible. He could not understand the gloating triumph of her manner. She behaved as if he were a hunting trophy which she had long yearned to bag. A dozen times she would jump up from her seat, examine him proudly, hug him, and sit down again murmuring:

"I've got you--I've got you, haven't I, Garry? No one can get you away again, can they?"

"Of course not, Silly Billy," came to be his standard reply.

Times are when a traveller arriving at Cannes railway station needs the physique and temper of a thoroughly-aroused buffalo to make any impression on the crowd that surges and sways and laughs and greets and grumbles there. But on the early June morning when Westenra and Haidee Halston descended from the P.M.L. Express there was no one in sight expect a few somnolent porters and a tall woman holding a small arrow-straight boy by the hand. The woman was beautifully dressed in white linen and a hat smothered with red and yellow poppies. The arrowy boy had a waving topknot of shiny, ruddy-gold hair, with bare legs and sandalled feet to make a sculptor rave.

Haidee having seen them last recognised them first. But even she had to give a second glance to make sure that it really was Val and Bran. They both looked so well and charming and beautiful to behold. Bran had never had clothes so truly _magnifique_ before. And Val had roses in her cheeks and lips--a strange thing in so hot a climate! Somehow the triumph Haidee had been exulting over and vengefully trumpeting in her heart died down and faded away when she saw Val coming towards her, hands out in the usual eager fashion, a kiss forming on her lips. Both she and Bran at the back of their welcoming smiles seemed to be wearing their wistful lion-cub expression, and Haidee had to grip hard on to her vengeance not to lose it altogether and just fall upon them both and hug them. Westenra, too, was aware of a sensation that surprised him, at the sight of this woman who had once been so much to his life and now was nothing, standing there with frank outstretched hands smiling a welcome from under her cool flowery hat. The fact was that she did not sufficiently look the part of a shrine-smasher. If he had not happened to know her guilty it might have been quite difficult for him to believe that this was the woman who had destroyed his life-dreams--and ruined his home. As it was he could only marvel at the strangeness of women who could do such things and yet retain a look of honesty and inward peace. He marvelled, too, that as he took her hand and looked into the eyes he knew so well his heart stirred like a live thing. He was more amazed by that strange stirring in his breast than if a body he had certified dead and seen put away into the place of dead things suddenly quickened in its shroud and returned to life. For he had in the last few years deliberately fought down and crushed out his feeling for Val as a man might crush and kill a useless, hopeless thing. It _was_ useless that madness he had felt for her--as useless as she was and always would be to a sane, practical man. There was no use or sense in letting the pain of his longing for her get the upper hand of him and he had not let it, but wrestled with it until he got it under. Had she not shown him in Jersey that she did not care enough for him to change?