Part 27 (1/2)
The nurse in her businesslike fas.h.i.+on drew the curtains and flung the French windows wide open.
”He has only fainted. He will soon come round.”
She returned to Paragot's side. Joanna and I remained staring at each other. She rose, took me by the sleeve and dragged me to the fireplace.
”The writing is my husband's,” she said in a whisper. ”The signature is his,” pointing to Paragot. ”He sold me to my husband for ten thousand pounds on the evening of our engagement party. What am I to do? I haven't a friend in this hateful country.”
I longed to tell her she had at least one friend, but as I could neither help nor advise her I said nothing.
”No wonder he has a banking account,” she said with a bitter laugh. I noticed then that a strained woman's humour is unpleasant. She sat down.
The corners of her kind lips quivered.
”The world is turned upside down,” she said piteously. ”There is no love, honour or loyalty in it. I felt this evening as if I could forgive him; but now--” She rose and wrung her hands and exclaimed sharply, ”Oh, it's hateful, it's hateful for men to be so base!”
That it was a base action to sell Joanna for any sum of money, however bewildering in largeness, I could not deny. But that Paragot should have been guilty of it I would not have believed had the accusation come from Joanna's own lips. The confounded sc.r.a.p of paper, however, was proof.
Therein he had pledged himself to give up Joanna for ten thousand pounds, and the scaly-headed vulture had paid the money. I turned away sadly and went to help the nurse minister to my master.
He opened his eyes and whispered that I must fetch a cab.
”Or a dung-cart,” he added, characteristically.
Glad of action I went out into the long quiet avenue and after five minutes' walk hailed a pa.s.sing fiacre. The nurse admitted me when I rang the bell. I found Paragot sitting on the sofa by the wall, and Joanna where I had left her, by the Della Robbia chimney-piece. Apparently they had not had a very companionable five minutes. He rose as I entered.
”I thought you were never coming,” said he. ”Let us go.”
”I must say good-bye to Madame.”
”Be quick about it,” he whispered.
I crossed the room to Joanna's chair and made a French bow according to my instruction in manners.
”Good night, Madame.”
She held out her hand to me--such a delicate soft little hand, but quite cold and nerveless.
”Good night, Mr. Asticot. I am sorry our friends.h.i.+p has been so short.”
I joined Paragot. He said from where he stood by the door:--
”Good night, Madame la Comtesse.”
She made no reply. Instinctively both of us lingered a second on the threshold, filling our eyes with the beauty and luxury that were all part and parcel of Joanna, and as the door closed behind us we felt like two bad angels turned out of Paradise.
CHAPTER XIV
I CAME across him the next afternoon sitting on a stone bench in the Luxembourg Gardens. His hat was slouched forward over his eyes. His hand supported his chin so that his long straggling beard protruded in a curious Egyptian horizontality. His ill-laced boots innocent as usual of blacking, for he would not allow Blanquette to touch them, were stuck out ostentatiously, and to the peril of the near pa.s.sers-by. He had never during our acquaintance manifested any sense of the dandified; on our travels he had worn the casual, unnoticeable dress of the peasant, save when he had masqueraded in the pearl-b.u.t.toned velveteens; in London a swaggering air of braggadocio had set off his Bohemian garb: but never had the demoralised disreputability of Paragot struck me until I saw him in the Luxembourg Gardens.