Part 48 (1/2)

”The first thing I did,” he said, putting the letter back in his pocket, ”was to ring up Bakkus, to see whether he could throw any light on the matter.”

”Bakkus--why, he cut his engagement with us yesterday.”

”The d.a.m.ned scoundrel,” said Lackaday, ”was running away with Elodie.”

Chapter XXIII

He banged his hand on the little iron table in front of us and started to his feet, exploding at last with his suppressed fury.

”The infernal villain!”

I gasped for a few seconds. Then I accomplished my life's effort in self-control. My whole being clamoured for an explosion equally violent of compressed mirth. I ached to lie back in my chair and shriek with laughter.

The _denouement_ of the little drama was so amazingly unexpected, so unexpectedly ludicrous. A glimmer of responsive humour in his eyes would have sent me off. But there he stood, with his grimmest battle-field face, denouncing his betrayer. Even a smile on my part would have been insulting.

Worked up, he told me the whole of the astonis.h.i.+ng business, as far as he knew it. They had eloped at dawn, like any pair of young lovers. Of that there was no doubt. The car had picked up Bakkus at his hotel in Royat--Lackaday had the landlord's word for it--and had carried the pair away, Heaven knew whither. The proprietor of the Royat garage deposed that Mr. Bakkus had hired the car for the day, mentioning no objective. The runaways had the whole of France before them. Pursuit was hopeless. As Lackaday had planned to go to Vichy, he went to Vichy. There seemed nothing else to do.

”But why elope at dawn?” I cried. ”Why all the fellow's unnecessary duplicity? Why, in the name of Macchiavelli, did he seize upon my ten o'clock invitation with such enthusiasm? Why his private conversation with me? Why throw dust into my sleepy eyes? What did he gain by it?”

Lackaday shrugged his shoulders. That part of the matter scarcely interested him. He was concerned mainly with the sting of the viper Bakkus, whom he had nourished in his bosom.

”But, my dear fellow,” said I at last, after a tiring march up and down the hot terrace, ”you don't seem to realize that Bakkus has solved all your difficulties, _ambulando_, by walking off, or motoring off, with your great responsibility.”

”You mean,” said he, coming to a halt, ”that this has removed the reason for my remaining on the stage?”

”It seems so,” said I.

He frowned. ”I wish it could have happened differently. No man can bear to be tricked and fooled and made a mock of.”

”But it does give you your freedom,” said I.

He thrust his hands into his trousers pockets. ”I suppose it does,” he admitted savagely. ”But there's a price for everything. Even freedom can be purchased too highly.”

He strode on. I had to accompany him, perspiringly. It was a very hot day.

We talked and talked; came back to the startling event. We had to believe it, because it was incredible, as Tertullian cheerily remarked of ecclesiastical dogma. But short of the Archbishop of Canterbury eloping with the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbour nothing could seem less possible. If Bakkus had nurtured nefarious designs, Good Heavens! he could have executed them years before. Well, perhaps not. When one hasn't a penny in one's pocket even the most cynical pauses ere he proposes romantic flight with a lady equally penniless. But since April, Bakkus had been battening on the good Archdeacon, his brother's substantial allowance. Why had he tarried?

”His diabolical cunning lay in wait for a weak moment,” growled Lackaday.

All through this discussion, I came up against a paradox of human nature.

Although it was obvious that the unprincipled Bakkus had rendered my good friend the service of ridding him of the responsibility of a woman whom he had ceased to love, if ever he had loved her at all, a woman, who, for all her loyal devotion through loveless years, had stood implacably between him and the realization of his dreams, yet he rampaged against his benefactor, as though he had struck a fatal blow at the roots of his honour and his happiness.

”But after all, man, can't you see,” he cried in protest at my worldly and sophistical arguments, ”that I've lost one of the most precious things in the world? My implicit faith in a fellow-man. I gave Bakkus a brother's trust. He has betrayed it. Where am I? His thousand faults have been familiar to me for years. I discounted them for the good in him. I thought I had grasped it.” He clenched his delicate hand in a pa.s.sionate gesture.

”But now”--he opened it--”nothing. I'm at sea. How can I know that you, whom I have trusted more than any other man with my heart's secrets------?”

The _concierge_ with a dusty chauffeur in tow providentially cut short this embarra.s.sing apostrophe.

”Monsieur le Capitaine Hylton?” asked the chauffeur.