  DAMIER, for his own part, felt no need of peace. A passionate protestation, a passionate determination, filled him. At his hotel, as if in answer to vague plans and projects, the figure of Monsieur Daunay, rising from a chair, confronted him. From Monsieur Daunay’s relief and alacrity he guessed that he had been waiting there for some time—ever since, he further guessed, his conversation with Claire. “You have heard?” asked Monsieur Daunay, and a host of questions looked from his eyes. “That you have proposed to Mademoiselle Vicaud, yes; and that she has answered you, I fear, not favorably; yes, I have heard. “You have seen her?” “I was with her mother, speaking with her of it, when Claire came.” “I have intruded thus upon you,” said Monsieur Daunay, “in the faint hope that you might be able, after seeing her, to give me some encouragement, since from her I could elicit none. She was sullen, silent, reproached me for my haste. After all these years!” Monsieur Daunay groaned, and dropped again into his chair, folding his arms and bowing his head in a despairing acquiescence to fate’s cruelty. “After all these years!” he repeated. Damier saw down a long vista of them, sunny with the encouraging smiles of the charming Claire. “You have assured me,” Daunay presently said, “that you were not the cause of this change in Claire.” It was a rather perplexing question, but Damier was able truthfully to answer it with: “I can again assure you that it is only through her relation with her mother that Claire interests me. “And so she has assured me, again and again, and that all her affection was for me. And yet, now that I can claim her—now that I come, trusting and hoping, she turns from me; she mutters that I am too old; not rich enough. Ah, mon Dieu!” Claire, clearly, Damier also saw, had never endangered her certain hold upon Monsieur Daunay’s usefulness by confessing to him her expectation of larger achievements. She would evade him, and hold him, as long as she had need of him. Part of her anger to-day had, no doubt, been due to the fact that the sudden crisis had forced her into a decisive attitude toward him while yet uncertain that she could with safety give him up. Yet, indeed, she had been able to avoid absolute decisiveness—so Monsieur Daunay’s next words proved: “She told me that all her affection was still mine, but owned to higher ambitions; she had never, she said, hidden from me that she was ambitious, and life now was “She is utterly unworthy of you,” said Damier. At this a faint, ironic smile crossed the Frenchman’s face. “Ah, mon ami,” he said, “you need not tell me that. If I love Claire, do not imagine, as I told you last night, that I am blinded by my love. I love her d’un amour fou—and I recognize it. She possesses me; she can do what she will with me; I should forgive her anything. But I know that I am a captive—and to no noble captor.” “Just heavens!” Damier broke out, indifferent, in his indignant pity, to his own interests, “shake off this obsession—and her with it! Leave her; go away; do not see her again. What misery if you were to marry her!” “What will you? I adore her!” His helplessness seemed final. He presently “Any influence I have shall, I promise you, be devoted to that purpose. I can hardly hope that your hopes will be realized; their realization could not be for your happiness. Pardon me, but have you never suspected that Claire is like her father—that she, too, is a miserable creature?” For a long moment Daunay looked at him. “She is like her father,” he then said; “but have you never suspected, or, rather, do you not now see, that, because of that, my claim is all the stronger? What man not knowing it, marrying her in ignorance of it, would not repent? I should never repent. She is like him, if you will, but she is, irrevocably, the woman I love. More than that, she is the child I love; Monsieur Daunay spoke with a profound feeling, a profound sincerity that the emotional tremor of his voice, the emotional tears in his eyes, only made the more characteristic and touching to Damier. He got up and grasped the Frenchman’s hand in silence. A knock at the door broke upon this compact of sympathy; a garÇon brought a card to Damier and said that the lady waited for him in the salon below. The card was Lady Surfex’s, and on it was written: Must see you at once, on most important matter concerning Madame V. “Wait for me here,” Damier said to Monsieur Daunay. “This may concern you as well as me.” He found Lady Surfex in the drearily “My dear Eustace,” she said,—they were alone, yet her voice was discreetly low,—“a horrid thing has happened—or is going to. I thought it best to come to you at once. Claire Vicaud runs away to-night with Lord Epsil.” And, as he stared at her in stricken silence: “I found it out by chance. I was at Mrs. Wallingham’s. They were there—Mademoiselle Vicaud and Lord Epsil. I watched them, indeed, with some uneasiness, as they sat, with ostentatious retirement, in a dim corner. I saw them go out together. Do you know, Eustace, my distrust of that girl and of that man—in justice to her, I must say it—was so great that I really was on the point of following them—asking her to let me drive her home; but I hesitated, people I knew came in, I had to speak to them, and so some time went by. Then, about half an hour after they were gone, Mrs. Wallingham Damier was steadying his thoughts. “The night train.” He looked at his watch. “There is time,” he said. “For what, Eustace?” “There is only one chance. One can’t appeal to her heart, or conscience—or even, it seems, to her ambition; but one might to her greed—offer her some firmer, surer competence. I had thought of it dimly before. I could catch that Dinard train—go with them—find some opportunity for seeing her alone before they reach Dinard—or before they reach the yacht. “But, Eustace,” her helpless wonder reproached his baseless optimism, “what could you do? You can’t beard the man; she is of age—goes willingly. What a situation!” “I could offer her half of my income for life, if she would consent to return with me, and to marry a man who is devoted to her—who, I think, would forgive anything.” “Eustace, it would leave you almost poor!” “Not quite, since the half is large enough, I trust, to tempt her! The whole would not be too much to give to save her from this final blow.” “But can you—this man—will he?” “He is up-stairs. I will see him, and start at once.” “And, Eustace—wait; can’t we keep it from her—can’t we think of some good lie?” He had almost to smile at her intently thoughtful face. “What possible lie can we think of? Claire will not come back to-night—she must know, sooner or later. “But it is for to-night I want to spare her. Ah, I have it—no lie, either. I merely send a telegram, ‘Claire may not return to-night: will explain to-morrow,’ signed with my name; she will think Claire is passing the night with me; and then, you know, the girl may, at the last moment, decide not to go.” Damier had to yield to her eagerness. Up-stairs the words he had with Daunay were short, bitter, decisive. Averting his eyes from the unfortunate man’s face, he put the case before him. He turned his back on him when he had spoken, went to the window, left him to an unobserved quaffing of the poisonous cup. Monsieur Daunay’s first words showed that he had quaffed it bravely and that his reason still stood firm. “She must be mad,” he said; “it is not like her.” “No, it is not like her. And I may tell you that I suspect revenge to be in part her motive. She had a terrible quarrel with her mother this afternoon. Damier turned now and faced him. “And now, Monsieur Daunay, are you willing to save her?” “I am ready,” the Frenchman said quietly; “with your help, I am ready to save her.” “I go at once, and with that assurance, then?” “Yes; I am ready. Tell her that. Tell her, too, that if her mother will not receive her, she will find a home at my cousin’s until our marriage can take place.” “Her mother will receive her,” said Damier. “As you have forgiven, so she will forgive. |
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