The Judgment House Part 48

She rewarded him with a smile. "Thank you, James, I think I should like her after all. Ask her to come at once."

When he had gone she leaned back and shut her eyes. For a moment she was perfectly motionless, then she sat up again and looked at the card in her hand.

"M. Mennaval--M. Mennaval," she said, with a note so cynical that it betrayed more than her previous emotion, to such a point of despair her mind had come.

M. Mennaval had played his part, had done his service, had called out from her every resource of coquetry and lure; and with wonderful art she had cajoled him till he had yielded to influence, and Ian had turned the key in the international lock. M. Mennaval had been used with great skill to help the man who was now gone from her forever, whom perhaps she would never see again; and who wanted never to see her again, never in all time or s.p.a.ce. M. Mennaval had played his game for his own desire, and he had lost; but what had she gained where M.

Mennaval had lost? She had gained that which now Ian despised, which he would willingly, so far as she was concerned, reject with contempt....

And yet, and yet, while Ian lived he must still be grateful to her that, by whatever means, she had helped him to do what meant so much to England. Yes, he could not wholly dismiss her from his mind; he must still say, "This she did for me--this thing, in itself not commendable, she did for me; and I took it for my country."

Her eyes were open, and her garden had been invaded by those revolutionaries of life and time, Nemesis, Penalty, Remorse. They marauded every sacred and secret corner of her mind and soul. They came with whips to scourge her. Nothing was private to her inner self now.

Everything was arrayed against her. All life doubled backwards on her, blocking her path.

M. Mennaval--what did she care for him! Yet here he was at her door asking payment for the merchandise he had sold to her: his judgment, his reputation as a diplomatist, his freedom, the respect of the world--for how could the world respect a man at whom it laughed, a man who had hoped to be given the key to a secret door in a secret garden!

As Jasmine sat looking at the card, the footman entered again with a note.

"His Excellency's compliments," he said, and withdrew.

She opened the letter hesitatingly, held it in her hand for a moment without reading it, then, with an impulsive effort, did so. When she had finished, she gave a cry of anger and struck her tiny clinched hand upon her knee.

The note ran:

"Chere amie, you have so much indisposition in these days. It is all too vexing to your friends. The world will be surprised, if you allow a migraine to come between us. Indeed, it will be shocked. The world understands always so imperfectly, and I have no gift of explanation.

Of course, I know the war has upset many, but I thought you could not be upset so easily--no, it cannot be the war; so I must try and think what it is. If I cannot think by tomorrow at five o'clock, I will call again to ask you. Perhaps the migraine will be better. But, if you will that migraine to be far away, it will fly, and then I shall be near. Is it not so? You will tell me to-morrow at five, will you not, belle amie?

"A toi, M. M."

The words scorched her eyes. They angered her, scourged her. One of life's Revolutionaries was insolently ravaging the secret place where her pride dwelt. Pride--what pride had she now? Where was the room for pride or vanity? ... And all the time she saw the face of a dead man down by the river--a face now beneath the sod. It flashed before her eyes at moments when she least could bear it, to agitate her soul.

M. Mennaval--how dare he write to her so! "Chere amie" and "A toi"--how strange the words looked now, how repulsive and strange! It did not seem possible that once before he had written such words to her. But never before had these epithets or others been accompanied by such meaning as his other words conveyed.

"I will not see him to-morrow. I will not see him ever again, if I can help it," she said bitterly, and trembling with agitation. "I shall go where I shall not be found. I will go to-night."

The door opened. Her maid entered. "You wanted me, madame?" asked the girl, in some excitement and very pale.

"Yes, what is the matter? Why so agitated?" Jasmine asked.

The maid's eyes were on the sjambok. She pointed to it. "It was that, madame. We are all agitated. It was terrible. One had never seen anything like that before in one's life, madame--never. It was like the days--yes, of slavery. It was like the galleys of Toulon in the old days. It was--"

"There, don't be so eloquent, Lablanche. What do you know of the galleys of Toulon or the days of slavery?"

"Madame, I have heard, I have read, I--"

"Yes, but did you love Krool so?"

The girl straightened herself with dramatic indignation. "Madame, that man, that creature, that toad--!"

"Then why so exercised? Were you so pained at his punishment? Were all the household so pained?"

"Every one hated him, madame," said the girl, with energy.

"Then let me hear no more of this impudent nonsense," Jasmine said, with decision.

"Oh, madame, to speak to me like this!" Tears were ready to do needful service.

"Do you wish to remain with me, Lablanche?"

"Ah, madame, but yes--"

"Then my head aches, and I don't want you to make it worse.... And, see, Lablanche, there is that grey walking-suit; also the mauve dressing-gown, made by Loison; take them, if you can make them fit you; and be good."

"Madame, how kind--ah, no one is like you, madame--!"

"Well, we shall see about that quite soon. Put out at once every gown of mine for me to see, and have trunks ready to pack immediately; but only three trunks, not more."

"Madame is going away?"

"Do as I say, Lablanche. We go to-night. The grey gown and the mauve dressing-gown that Loison made, you will look well in them. Quick, now, please."

In a flutter Lablanche left the room, her eyes gleaming.

She had had her mind on the grey suit for some time, but the mauve dressing-gown as well--it was too good to be true.

She almost ran into Lady Tynemouth's arms as the door opened. With a swift apology she sped away, after closing the door upon the visitor.

Jasmine rose and embraced her friend, and Lady Tynemouth subsided into a chair with a sigh.

"My dear Jasmine, you look so frail," she said. "A short time ago I feared you were going to blossom into too ripe fruit, now you look almost a little pinched. But it quite becomes you, mignonne--quite. You have dark lines under your eyes, and that transparency of skin--it is quite too fetching. Are you glad to see me?"

"I would have seen no one to-day, no one, except you or Rudyard."

"Love and duty," said Lady Tynemouth, laughing, yet acutely alive to the something so terribly wrong, of which she had spoken to Ian Stafford.

"Why is it my duty to see you, Alice?" asked Jasmine, with the dry glint in her tone which had made her conversation so pleasing to men.

"You clever girl, how you turn the tables on me," her friend replied, and then, seeing the sjambok on the table, took it up. "What is this formidable instrument? Are you flagellating the saints?"

"Not the saints, Alice."

"You don't mean to say you are going to scourge yourself?"

Then they both smiled--and both immediately sighed. Lady Tynemouth's sympathy was deeply roused for Jasmine, and she meant to try and win her confidence and to help her in her trouble, if she could; but she was full of something else at this particular moment, and she was not completely conscious of the agony before her.

"Have you been using this sjambok on Mennaval?" she asked with an attempt at lightness. "I saw him leaving as I came in. He looked rather dejected--or stormy, I don't quite know which."

"Does it matter which? I didn't see Mennaval today."