DONNA É MOBILE

On the Saturday following the Van Trossarts’ garden-party—two days, therefore, previously to the events just narrated—Gerard van Helmont called in the early morning at the house of his betrothed. He could hardly realize, as he impatiently awaited her, that not twenty-four hours had elapsed since this new brightness had come into his life. Already he felt accustomed to the new rÔle of a very wealthy man with a very charming wife. How happy his mother would be after the first shock of the unexpected! They must find another match for Otto. Sprightly, sportive Helena would never have married Otto, anyway. He glanced at the clock. Half-past ten. As long as clocks stood in front of mirrors Gerard never saw only the time.

The door opened; a servant entered slowly.

“The Freule was not ready, as yet, to receive him.” Had she sent him no message? “No.” The fiery lover went off to the barracks and worried everybody.

In the afternoon he called again. The sounds of a piano came pouring down upon him from up-stairs during his brief wait on the steps. How brilliantly she played! A little too wildly—like a musical tornado.

He was again shown into the front drawing-room. It was again empty. Again he paced restlessly to and fro, but this time he twisted his mustache.

He heard a footfall in the adjoining apartment; the music, however, had not yet stopped. He was longing for it, now, to do so.

The Baroness van Trossart came bustling in, hot and flurried. “My dear boy,” she began—“my dear boy, sit down.” She caught hold of his hand and drew him down on a low settee by her side. “My dear boy, you and Helena have had a quarrel. The worst quarrels always come first. Now tell me what it is all about.”

Gerard opened his light, innocent eyes. “There has been no quarrel that I know of, Mevrouw,” he answered. “What does Helena say?”

The Baroness’s substantial chaps fell. “Helena says nothing at all. That is the worst of it. She has locked herself in, and she won’t speak to any one. She has been playing the piano for hours—you hear her now—and her uncle trying all the time to learn his speech for next Monday! I’ve been screaming to make her stop, but I can’t, and I got some dust in my eye, as it is, through the key-hole.” She sighed. Gerard, with heightened color, looked down at his spurs.

“Then you don’t know what’s wrong?” the Baroness repeated, helplessly.

“No, indeed, I don’t.”

“The excitement must have got on her nerves; but I wish, at least, she would see Papotier.”

They went out slowly into the hall. “Never mind, Gerard,” said the Baroness, still in that ill-used tone, “it’ll be all right soon. Come back this evening and settle about going to the Horst to-morrow. Oh, will that music never stop!”

It followed him down the street in a reckless jingle and crash of feverish discord, as if all the notes of the instrument together were dancing a devil’s saraband.

He went to the club, and, from sheer nervous vexation, boisterously got together a game of vingt-et-un. He won nearly a thousand florins in a couple of hours. As a rule, however, gambling was not one of his weaknesses. He had plenty of others.

Then he treated the whole mess to champagne, declaring it was his birthday, and when somebody denied that, he turned almost fiercely on the caviller. “My death-day, then!” he said. “It don’t make any difference in the wine.”

They were all surprised at his irritability, and concluded that the extent of his winnings was vexing him. That would be quite like Van Helmont, who was free-handed and free-hearted to a fault. He was the most popular man in the regiment.

It was half-past eight when he again rang at the Van Trossarts’ door. He was flushed with excitement and champagne. The piano had ceased; the whole house lay steeped in silence. Almost immediately, as he hesitated under the hall-lamp, the Freule’s maid came forward with a note. He took it and glanced through it on the spot. It was very brief:

He went out again into the dusk immediately. Dutch shops are open late, especially on Saturdays. He walked quickly to the High Street, which was full of movement and yellow gas. At a well-known bookseller’s he stopped.

“Have you Maupassant’s Une Vie?” he asked the shopman. Oh yes! half a dozen copies lay on the counter. He carried off the blue paper volume, and locked himself up in his rooms.

Turning the pages hurriedly, he read the painful story. Even as he read, he revolted at the thought of his cousin’s having come into contact with such scenes as were there described. He flung the book on to the table. “Filth!” he said, angrily. He felt that a woman’s soul may pass pure, if such be her terrible fate, through fact, but not through fiction. And surely he was right. A man can judge of purity, in women.

The work he admiringly despised was like all those of its great author, though by no means equal, of course, in literary value, to his shorter masterpieces. It was a perfectly polished crystal goblet—a splendor of workmanship—full of asafoetida. Few men care for the taste, which might be healthful, but we all enjoy the useless smell.

Somebody whistled outside in the street. He went to the window. Two young officers, attracted by the light of his lamp, stood in the dark with upturned faces. His heart leaped with its impulse of relief.

“Is that you, Troy?” he called back. “Who’s with you? Never mind, I’ll come down. I say, there’s a night-train to Brussels! We’ve just time to catch it. The chief’ll never know, and we’ll have such a burst-up as never was before!”

On the Monday morning in the small hours Gerard returned from his escapade into Belgium. The others, who still valued their commissions, had refused to accompany him. He had left a telegram with Willie for the Horst, to the effect that Helena was unable to come. “The Colonel won’t be any wiser,” he said. And the Colonel never was.

Whether the excursion had been worth its cost—in every sense—was another matter. Such questions are useless, and Gerard preferred not to decide them. He lay down on his bed for a couple of hours, and then—before breakfast, somewhere near seven o’clock—he paid a visit to a lady of his acquaintance whom he had not seen for many months. He had a bad headache, and he felt deeply injured, but also distinctly inclined to indignation and virtue.

“Adeline,” he said, pathetically, “I thought you still loved me.”

“What a fool you must be then,” said Adeline. She lived in a little out-of-the-way house, with a garden and a back entrance. No one was more accurately acquainted than Gerard with her periods of business or leisure.

“Better fool than knave,” replied Gerard, bitterly. “But don’t let’s go on like this. What I wanted to tell you is that our secret’s out. There.”

“I know,” said Adeline, nodding. She sat in her neat little tight-fitting dress in her neat little (tight-fitting) room, with her breakfast in front of her. It was all dainty and attractive. He had seen her sit thus many a time, while he lounged on the little chintz sofa.

“I told,” added Adeline, proudly, biting a stiff crust with her pearly teeth.

“You!” He sprang upright. “You lie!”

“Oh, of course,” she answered, “I was to sit and see you enjoy yourself, while I went to my ruin. I was to let you write letters to my advertisements and then bring other men to laugh at me.” Her voice grew suddenly fierce. “I hate you for that,” she cried, “for that most of all. I could kill you for that.”

“Good heavens! was one of those unlucky advertisements yours? I had nothing to do with answering them, I swear to you. I was only umpire. Why, surely, you’d have recognized my hand!”

“Humph,” said Adeline. “Well, I told.”

“It was a woman’s trick,” retorted Gerard. “But how did you find out, you little devil, about the Freule van Trossart, or about my—my—”

“Your what?” she questioned, sharply. “What’s this about the Freule van Trossart? You’re going to make her miserable, are you, as you did me?” She started up, clapping her hands. “No, you won’t,” she cried. “No, you won’t. I see. He’s gone and told her all about it. Oh, I love him for that!”

“Who? He!” exclaimed Gerard. “Do you mean to say you’ve gone noising our shame about to strangers?”

The words stung her to sudden passion.

“Our shame?” she cried. “Our shame? My shame, you mean. My shame, as Christian laws go in Christian lands. And who are you, of all men, to taunt me with it? I told your brother, if you want to know. And he went and told the girl you were trying to catch, did he? Oh, I’m glad of that; I’m glad of that!”

Gerard sat for some moments with bent brows and clinched fists. His still stare frightened her. She sank into her seat cowed.

“How did you meet my brother?” he asked, at last. His voice was hoarse.

“You passed the shop with him one morning,” she answered, humbly. “I recognized him by your description. And when going to my dinner later on, I met him in the Park alone. I told him everything in half a dozen minutes. That day I was desperate. I asked him if he could do nothing to help me to make you marry me. I had some wild idea your family might. I had never come across any of them. I probably never should have such a chance again.”

“And what did my brother say?” asked Gerard.

“He said he would do what he could. He didn’t think he could do much. I don’t think he likes you, Gerard.” She spoke quite submissively, and, as she finished, her eyes stole across to the looking-glass to arrange a little bow at her neck.

“Oh no,” replied Gerard, furiously. “He’s too good to like me. His little peccadilloes are far away, and black.”

“I’m sure I’ve always liked you, Gerard,” she said, coquettishly. “You’ve treated me very badly. You know you have.”

“I have,” acquiesced Gerard, in a low voice. “Did you tell Otto, Adeline, of those three thousand florins I gave you?”

“No,” she cried, again reverting to her sudden passion. “Do you fling that fact in my face? Do you call that a compensation?”

“No, no. God knows I didn’t mean anything of the kind. I was only thinking—great heavens, I don’t know what to think!” He buried his face in his hands.

“Poor Gerard,” said the girl, softly, after an interval. “I didn’t think you’d take on so. But you’ve treated me very badly, Gerard; you know you have; yet, somehow, I can’t help liking you still. You were very good to me, too, once. And it was very sweet.” She bent forward and timidly touched his neck. “Gerard, I’m sorry,” she said.

But he only shook his head.

“Oh, Gerard, I was so wretched, so fearfully wretched. I couldn’t stand the thought of—of the disgrace. I wanted you to marry me. I would have given my life for you to marry me—only to make an honest woman of me first. Gerard, think of it, there was nothing left for me but marriage, exposure, or death. I tried death once—with my fingers—but—but the water was so very cold.” She began to cry softly, resting her hand on her quondam lover’s knee.

Then Gerard looked up quickly. His face was quite pale and drawn.

“Adeline,” he said, wearily, “it’s no use, you and I can’t be angry with each other. Not seriously, only in flimsy bursts. It’s like our love. We can’t hate each other, either. Great love turns to hate, they say. Ours is of the kind that one can always take up again as if one had never left off. You’ve ruined my life, and, somehow, I can’t even reproach you with doing so.”

“But you’ve ruined mine, too, or very nearly,” she sobbed.

“Yes, that’s true; I don’t want, though, to make you so wretched. You shock me with your horrible talk. Adeline, look here, I don’t care; if you feel as bad as that I’ll marry you. Yes, I will, so help me God. You’re the only woman that ever loved me, besides my mother, and I’ve treated you like a brute. We men don’t always quite understand, but, Adeline, I can’t bear to see you wretched, and to know it’s all my fault. It is all my fault; I’ve behaved like a cad. Adeline, I mean it; I’m awfully sorry and ashamed of myself. I’ll tell my father exactly how matters stand, and I’ll make him let me marry you. You poor little innocent, to think that they’d make me!”

Adeline, for only answer, laid her head upon his shoulder, softly crying on.

“Don’t cry like that, dear,” he continued, in the same dreary tone. “It’ll all come right soon. I dare say we shall be fairly happy. We’ve made such a mess of our separate lives that the best thing we can do is to try and combine them.”

“Oh, Gerard,” sobbed the girl, “if I’d only known a day or two sooner. It’s too late now.”

“No, no,” he said, dully, stroking her hair. “I forgive you the trick you played me. I drove you to it, I suppose. Men are brutes.”

“Oh, Gerard,” murmured Adeline again, with closed eyes, “it’s not that. I’m engaged.”

“What?” he cried, edging back, so that her head almost slipped.

She started up then, quite briskly. “Well, and what was I to do?” she said, “with every week bringing me nearer. Other people answered my advertisement besides you, Gerard. And he’s a very nice young man, a lawyer’s clerk. I was out in the country with him all yesterday, and we settled it coming home.”

“Indeed,” said Gerard, scornfully. “And he—he—”

She blushed crimson.

“Yes, he knows,” she murmured. “He thinks you treated me very badly, Gerard.”

“I know.”

And he consents, thought the young man, to accept the plaster I placed on the bruise. He got up from the little chintz sofa of many memories.

“I wish you had waited to give Otto the last chapter of the story,” he said, very wearily. “Poor little girl, I’m not angry with you. Don’t cry. We’ve had enough of that. Good-bye, Adeline. I suppose we need hardly meet again.”

And he held out his hand.

“Gerard,” she said, taking it, “I’m so glad you’re not angry. I like you very much, but, do you know, I fancy I should be happier with him. He isn’t as good-looking as you, Gerard—not anything like—but he looks very nice.” She raised the young officer’s hand to her lips. “Thank you,” she said, “for offering to marry me.”

“Oh, no thanks,” he replied, taking his hat.

“Gerard!” she called him back, her eyes reverted swiftly from the mirror to his face. “You never said anything about my new dress which I had to make. Don’t you think it suits me?”

“Oh, everything suits you,” he cried, making his escape. There were tears in his eyes as he turned into the street.