High Noon Part 9

CHAPTER XIII

When Paul stepped down from a railway-carriage in the _Gare de l'Est_ in Paris two days later, his language had improved slightly. But he was still cursing himself for a consummate a.s.s.

Baxter, who had received instructions to meet him, relieved him of his travelling bag, and a taximeter cab, whisking him quickly to the _Place Vendome_, soon deposited him at the _Hotel du Rhin._

As for the Russian lady, Paul was a bit discouraged over the adventure. Langres and Paris were two entirely different places. What chance had he of finding her here?

He confessed to himself that it was not a promising undertaking, yet sooner or later everyone came to Paris. Here he was, and here would he stay, for a time at least. Perhaps,--who knew?--he might find her more easily than he dared hope. And from his apartments he looked out over the tree-tops.

The sight of miles and miles of chimney pots were not at all rea.s.suring.

"Well! I'll never find her, mooning away up here," he thought. "I'll go down to dinner--and then for a plan of action."

That night he went to the theatre, but his thoughts were not for the elegantly gowned daughters of respectable _bourgeoises_ who disported themselves for his amus.e.m.e.nt. What if they did play the parts of grand d.u.c.h.esses better than those great ladies themselves know how? Only one woman on earth interested Paul. And--confound his luck!--he did not know where in this great town he could find her.

Our Paul was not in a particularly pleasant frame of mind when he strolled out upon the pavement--not waiting even for the piece to end.

Another hour spent at a boulevard table impressed him as the height of stupidity. He chafed under the enforced inaction of the situation.

"How many more wasted hours must he endure?" he asked himself.

He saw them slowly stretching out before him--days into months--months into years--years into eternity. Ah! G.o.d! that must not be!

And while Paul was wondering, speculating over what seemed well-nigh impossible, the lights of the Dalmatian Emba.s.sy in the _Faubourg St.

Germain_ gleamed brightly out upon the asphalt pavement.

In a sitting room on one of the upper floors sat Natalie Vseslavitch and the wife of the Amba.s.sador. The guests of the evening had gone, and they were having one of those little, intimate ante-retiring chats so dear to the hearts of all women.

"Now, my dear," the elder lady was saying, "I insist that it is high time you were married. It is ridiculous for a charming girl like you to take the stand you have. Let me see--you're thirty now--and not a single man will you encourage--scarcely tolerate--except a few grey-beards like my own good husband."

Natalie feigned gay laughter, though a bitter pang shot through her heart at the unconscious stab of the good Countess.

"Just because you fell in love," she replied, "you expect me to do the same at will. I repeat to you, as to all the rest, I would not give a _kopeck_ for any man I have ever met. _Pouf_! they do not interest me.

Look! my adored one, I warn you that I shall prove a most intractable guest if you attempt to inveigle me into any alliance. Ah! you look guilty already! You see, I know you of old, you dear maker of marriages!"

The Countess reddened slightly at the charge, but laughed away her momentary embarra.s.sment. It was true her interest in her young companion had led her to manage _rencontres_ with various eligibles of the Countess's acquaintance, and she had already in mind two or three new possibilities--men prominent in the younger diplomatic set.

"Ah, well! you pretty little incorrigible!" the Countess sighed, "some day you will thank your dear old friend for sheltering you under the wings of her experience."

And thus they said good-night affectionately and parted--Madame to plan some new way of entrapping her charming friend into matrimony; Natalie to fall into a deep study as she prepared for the night.

The subject of her thoughts, she felt sure, could no longer be in Langres. Fortunately, one can s.h.i.+ft his thought-scenes around the world in a twinkling. Paul, on the other hand, had spent some seven dragging hours on his journey to Paris.

The next morning as she glanced over the columns of the _Matin_, the Countess exclaimed:

"_Voila_! Sir Paul Verdayne is at the _Hotel du Rhin._ You are too young to have known him, my dear. Those sad years you were fortunately away at the Convent." And the kind-hearted old lady's eyes filled at the remembrance of Paul's sad story. "A charming man, truly. I shall send him a note at once, asking him to dine with us to-night--we need one more, and he is the very person. It is some years since I have seen him, but in London he came often to the Emba.s.sy."

The elder lady did not perceive the somewhat startled look on the face of Mademoiselle Vseslavitch.

"I shall have him take you in to dinner, my dear," she continued. "He is most charming company when he wishes to be, I a.s.sure you."

"Oh, Countess, no!" the young woman cried. "Let some one else have your wonderful Englishman. Good old Baron Lancret will amuse me sufficiently, my dear."

"Ah, but no. The dear soul has grown quite deaf since you last saw him. I can not think of allowing it. Be a good child now. This is no plot. Sir Paul is an incurable misogynist--the only man I know who would not fall in love with you. See! your old friend is doing her best to provide you with an ideal dinner-partner. What more could you wish? It is settled."

And a servant was promptly dispatched to the _Hotel du Rhin_.

"Do the Count and myself the favor to dine with us this evening,"

Paul read when he opened the note. "You will not have forgotten your old friends of a half-dozen years ago? We shall be charmed to see you again--and I shall expect you without fail."

Well, he had no engagement for that night--and Paul sent back a polite note of acceptance. He remembered many pleasant functions that he had attended in years past at the Dalmatian Emba.s.sy in London. After all, he had to do something. He could not go about searching for the vanished lady every moment of the day and night. That much distraction, at least, he would allow himself.

It was now eleven o'clock. He would wait until _dejeuner_ was over, and then he would go out somewhere--anywhere--so long as there were moving crowds of people to furnish some chance of his meeting her again. Next time, without fail, he would manage a conversation.

That afternoon then he stepped out of the _hotel_ and engaged a _fiacre_--a taximeter would be of no use, Paul thought. Tearing through the streets at break-neck speed annihilated distance rather than time. He told the driver to take him anywhere he pleased, and leaned back listlessly as he was piloted slowly through the avenues.

Paris, beautiful Paris, always intoxicated Paul. He had not cared for it when he was younger. But in those days he was less cosmopolitan than now. Our insular John Bull sees nothing outside our own tight little island. But to Paul an awakening had come. Since those wonderful weeks he had known in Switzerland and Venice--now long years ago--he had looked out upon the world with different eyes. The pulsating life of the streets quickened his own blood.

"To the _Bois de Boulogne_!" he directed the _cocher_, finally, and soon they swung into the gay stream that flowed down the _Avenue du Bois de Boulogne_ toward the most wonderful pleasure ground in the world.

CHAPTER XIV

Paul found the _Bois_ as beautiful as ever, with its lakes and rippling streams hidden away in the forests. But he was conscious of a feeling of solitude as he rode along among the hundreds upon hundreds of jangling equipages.

All the world was there it seemed to Paul. _Grande dames_ there were, with gorgeous footmen on the box; and elegant little victorias containing wonderfully gowned _demoiselles_. Paul recognized one of the latter as a lady who had caused the disruption of a kingdom. There were less conspicuous carriages, too, whose occupants seemed to be having the best time of all--whole families, there, with father and mother and laughing children.

Suppose the lady were somewhere in that wonderful throng of pleasure-seekers? In what fas.h.i.+on would she drive abroad?

"G.o.d knows," he muttered hoa.r.s.ely to himself, "who or what she may be.

Princess or lady's maid, I must find her."

So he rode on through the limitless _Bois_, that wonderful wilderness of green trees and country pleasures, of _fetes_ and promenades.

At last they turned into the _Route de Suresnes_, which soon led them to the _Lac Superieur_. There Paul dismissed his _cocher_, for he had a fancy to stroll along the borders of the lake.

The banks were alive with boys and girls running about like young savages, to the distraction of their nurses. Paul threaded his way among them contentedly, for he loved children and had all too little opportunity to be with them. He stood for a time and watched with much amus.e.m.e.nt a game of blind-man's-buff--_colin-maillard_ the little beggars called it, but if the name was different, the play was the same that Paul had known in his own boyhood at Verdayne Place.

Many fine s.h.i.+ps were sailing along the lake's sh.o.r.e, navigated by brave mariners of eight and ten. Paul had just turned away from watching one spirited race when a scream arrested his attention. At first he saw only an excited group gathered at the lake's edge, and then his eye caught sight of a tell-tale hat, floating on the surface.

With a few bounds he was in the water, to emerge soon with a little limp body in his arms. He laid his burden down gently on the pebbly bank and then gave place to a man who pushed his way through the crowd with the brisk professional air a doctor is wont to a.s.sume. In a few moments the st.u.r.dy _enfant_ breathed again.

Paul felt anything but a hero. He had never been wetter--and moreover he had lost his hat. It would be a wonder, too, if any _cocher_ would let him get into his carriage with the water running off him in rivulets.