The Tiger Lily Part 37

"Precisely. Now, my dear ole friend, you put on your boot an' ze ozaire coat, and brush your hair--oh! horreur; why do you not get zem cut short like mine?"

"Because I don't want to look like a convict. Come in here."

Pacey seized his tobacco-jar and a box of matches.

"Got any cigarette papers?"

"But yes, and plenty of cigarettes."

"Come in here, then."

He opened the door leading into his little bedroom, and Leronde followed him.

Pacey banged down the tobacco-jar upon the dressing-table, and then threw open the window.

"Come and look out here," he cried.

"But we have no time to spare, my friend."

"Come and look out here," roared Pacey.

As Leronde approached him wonderingly, Pacey seized him by the collar, and half dragged his head out.

"Look down there," he said, pointing into the square pit-like place formed by the backs of the neighbouring houses, from the second floor, where they stood, to the bas.e.m.e.nt; "you can't jump down there?"

"My faith, no. It would be death."

"And there is no way of climbing on to the roof."

Leronde shook his head, and looked to see if his friend was mad.

"And you cannot fly?"

"No; I leave zat to your c.o.c.ksparrow de Londres," said Leronde, trying to conceal his wonder and dread by a show of hilarity.

"That's right, then. You sit down there and smoke cigarettes till I come back."

"But, my friend, ze engagement, ze meeting viz ze amis of ze Conte.

What go you to do?"

"See Armstrong Dale, and bring him to his senses. If I can't--go and break the Count's neck."

"But, mon cher Pacey!" cried Leronde, "l'honneur?"

"Hang honour!" roared his friend. "I'm going in for common-sense;" and before the Frenchman could arrest him, the door was banged to, locked, the key removed, and steps were heard on the landing; then the sitting-room door was locked, and, with his face full of perplexity, Leronde lit a fresh cigarette.

"Faith of a man, these English," he said, "zey are mad, as Shakespeare did say about Hamlet, and I am sure, if zey do shave Shoe Pacey head, zey will find ze big crack right across him."

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE NEWS SPREADS.

"If I have sinned," muttered Armstrong, as he leaned back in his chair, for when from time to time he tried to walk about, a painful sensation of giddiness seized upon him, "I am having a foretaste of my punishment.

How long he is--how long he is!"

But still Leronde did not come, and to occupy his mind, the sufferer sat and thought out a plan for their journey, which he concluded would mean a cab to Liverpool Street, then the express to Harwich, the boat to Ostend; next, where the seconds willed: and afterwards--

"What?" said the wretched man, with a strange smile. "Ah, who knows!

If it could only be oblivion--rest from all this misery and despair!"

He rose to try and write a letter or two, notably one to Cornel, but the effort was painful, and he crept back to his chair.

"She will know--she will divine--that I preferred to die," he muttered, "Ah, at last! Why, he has been hours."

For there was a step outside, and then the door was thrown open, as he lay back, with his aching eyes shaded by his hand.

"Come at last, then!" he sighed; and the next moment he started, for the studio door was banged to, and locked. "You, Joe?"

"Yes, I've come at last," cried Pacey, thrusting his hands into his pockets, and striding up, to stand before him with his legs far apart.

"Well, then, shake hands and go," said Armstrong quietly. "I'm not well. I've had an accident."

"Accident?" roared Pacey. "Yes, you have had an accident, the same as a man has who goes and knocks his head against a wall."

"What do you mean?" cried Armstrong, starting.

"Mean? I mean that you're the biggest fool that fortune ever pampered and spoiled."

"Joe Pacey!"

"Hold your tongue, idiot, and listen to me. Here you are, gifted by nature with ten times the brains of an ordinary man; you can paint like Raphael or Murillo; fame and fortune are at your feet; and you have the love waiting for you of one of the sweetest, most angelic women who ever stepped this earth."

"Pacey!"

"Hold your tongue, boy! Haven't I been like a father to you ever since you came into this cursed village? Haven't I devoted myself to you as soon as I saw you were a good fellow, full of genius? I'm a fool to say so, but in my wretched, wrecked life, I felt that I'd found something to live for at last, and that I could be proud and happy in seeing you, who are as much an Englishman as I am in blood, rise to the highest pitch of triumph; while, if you grew proud then and forgot me, it wouldn't matter; I could afford it, for you had achieved success."

"You've been a good true adviser to me, Joe, ever since I have known you."

"And you have turned out the most ungrateful dog that ever breathed.

Morals? You've no more morals than a mahlstick. You had everything man could wish for, and then you must kick it all over, and break the heart of an angel."

"Let her rest. Say what you like to bully me, Joe. It's all true. I don't fight against it. But you can't understand it all. Say what you like, only go and leave me. I want to be alone."

"Do you?" cried Pacey excitedly. "Then I don't want you to be. So the Conte gave you that crack on the head, did he?"

"What!" cried Armstrong, springing up. "How came you to think that?"

"How came I to think that? Why, I was told by a chattering French ape."