Part 7 (1/2)

He tore up at least three sheets to start with--no Greek lines of punishment in his boyhood had ever appeared such a task as this. He found himself scribbling profiles on the paper, chiselled profiles with inky hair--but no words would come.

”Dear Isabella,” he wrote at last. No--”My dear Isabella,” then he paused and bit the pen. ”I feel I ought to tell you something has happened to me. I see my parents were right when--” ”Oh! dash it all,”

he said to himself, ”it's a beastly sneaking thing to do to put it like that,” and he scratched the paragraph out and began again. ”I have made a mistake in my feelings for you; I know now that they were those of a brother--” ”O Lord, what am I to say next, it does sound bald, this!” The poor boy groaned and ran his hands through his curly hair, then seized the pen again, and continued--”as such I shall love you always, dear Isabella. Please forgive me if I have caused you any pain. It was all my fault, and I feel a beastly cad.--Your very unhappy PAUL.”

This was not a masterpiece! but it would have to do. So he copied it out on a fresh piece of paper. Then, when it was all finished and addressed he ran down and posted it himself in the hall, with some of the emotions Alexander may have experienced when he burnt his s.h.i.+ps.

The clock struck eleven. At what time would he see the lady--_his_ lady he called her now. Some instinct told him she did not wish the hotel people to be aware of their acquaintance. He felt it wiser not to send a note. He must wait and hope.

Rain or not, he was too English to stay indoors all day. So out he went and into the town. The quaint bridge pleased him; he tried to think how she would have told him to use his eyes. He must not be stupid, he said to himself, and already he began to perceive new meanings in things. Coming back, he chanced to stop and look in at the fur shop under the hotel. There were some nice skins there, and what caught his attention most was a really splendid tiger. A magnificent creature the beast must have been. The deepest, most perfectly marked, largest one he had ever seen. He stood for some time admiring it. An infinitely better specimen than his lady had over her couch. Should he buy it for her? Would she take it? Would it please her to think he had remembered it might be what she would like?

He went into the shop. It was not even dear as tigers go, and his parents had given him ample money for any follies.

”Confound it, Henrietta! The boy must have his head!” Sir Charles Verdayne had said. ”He's my son, you know, and you can't expect to cure him of one wench unless you provide him with shekels to buy another.” Which crudely expressed wisdom had been followed, and Paul had no worries where his banking account was concerned.

He bought the tiger, and ordered it to be sent to his rooms immediately.

Then there was lunch to be thought of. She would not be there probably, but still he had a faint hope.

She was not there, nor were any preparations made for her; but when one is twenty-three and hungry, even if deeply in love, one must eat. The English people had the next table beyond the sacred one of the lady. The girl was pretty and young, and laughing. But what a doll! thought Paul. What a meaningless wax doll! Not worth--not worth a moment's glancing at.

And the pink and white fluffy girl was saying to herself: ”There is Paul Verdayne again. I wish he remembered he had met me at the De Courcys', though we weren't introduced. I must get Percy to sc.r.a.pe up a conversation with him. I wish mamma had not made me wear this green alpaca to-day.” But Paul's blue eyes gazed through and beyond her, and saw her not. So all this prettiness was wasted.

And directly after lunch he returned to his sitting room. The tiger would probably have arrived, and he wanted to further examine it. Yes, it was there. He pulled it out and spread it over the floor. What a splendid creature--it reminded him in some way of her--his lady.

Then he went into his bedroom and fetched a pair of scissors, and proceeded to kneel on the floor and pare away the pinked-out black cloth which came beyond the skin. It looked ba.n.a.l, and he knew she would not like that.

Oh! he was awaking! this beautiful young Paul.

He had scarcely finished when there was a tap at the door, and Dmitry appeared with a note. The thin, remembered paper thrilled him, and he took it from the servant's hand.

”Paul--I am in the devil's mood to-day. About 5 o'clock come to me by the terrace steps.”

That was all--there was no date or signature. But Paul's heart beat in his throat with joy.

”I want the skin to go to Madame,” he said. ”Have you any means of conveying it to her without the whole world seeing it go?”

The stately servant bowed. ”If the Excellency would help him to fold it up,” he said, ”he would take it now to his own room, and from thence to the _appartement numero 3_.”

It is not a very easy thing to fold up a huge tiger-skin into a brown paper parcel tied with string. But it was accomplished somehow and Dmitry disappeared noiselessly with it and an answer to the note:

”I will be there, sweet lady.

”Your own PAUL.”

And he was.

A bright fire burnt in the grate, and some palest orchid-mauve silk curtains were drawn in the lady's room when Paul entered from the terrace. And loveliest sight of all, in front of the fire, stretched at full length, was his tiger--and on him--also at full length--reclined the lady, garbed in some strange clinging garment of heavy purple crepe, its hem embroidered with gold, one white arm resting on the beast's head, her back supported by a pile of the velvet cus.h.i.+ons, and a heap of rarely bound books at her side, while between her red lips was a rose not redder than they--an almost scarlet rose. Paul had never seen one as red before.

The whole picture was barbaric. It might have been some painter's dream of the Favourite in a harem. It was not what one would expect to find in a sedate Swiss hotel.