Part 25 (2/2)

I saw her go in at two o'clock in the morning--_and at daylight she had not come out again_.”

Jean shrugged his shoulders intolerantly. The man was quite out of his head from some cause or other, but that was no reason why he should be called upon to endure the other's irresponsible ranting.

”You poor fool!” he exclaimed irritably. ”So you know who it is, do you? And what then? If it brings you such poignant, personal grief, why did you let her go in? Why did you not tell her that--”

”It was too late”--white to the lips, Paul Valmain raised his clenched fists--”it was too late--after months of it! I could save her only one thing--the knowledge that I knew her shame. I was across the street--I saw her--G.o.d pity me--I loved her--the black cloak and hat she wore only a few days before when we were together! I have lived in h.e.l.l and torment and fear that it might be so since that afternoon--that afternoon--did you think I did not see the key in your hand, and--”

”What do you mean?”--there was a sudden blackness curiously streaked with red before Jean's eyes; the blood was sweeping in a mad tide upward in his face to pound like trip-hammers at his temples--the man's words could bear only one interpretation, a hideous one, that outraged his soul, and roused a seething fury within him. ”What do you mean?”

he said again between his teeth.

”I mean,” Paul Valmain answered, ”I mean--d.a.m.n you, you know what I mean! I mean that from two o'clock in the morning until daylight Myrna Bliss was in your rooms, and--”

”You devil from h.e.l.l!” Jean shouted--and leaped at the other's throat.

If the man struggled he did not realise it. The man was only an impotent, powerless thing in his grasp--and he flung him away, flung him cras.h.i.+ng to the floor. ”I will kill you for that!” he whispered.

”To-night--you can find a friend downstairs to act for you--I another.”

Paul Valmain staggered to his feet.

”I have waited all day for the same purpose!” The devil's laugh was on the grey lips again.

”It is _a l'outrance_, Monsieur Valmain--you understand!”--Jean choked in his fury. ”_A l'outrance_!”

”As you shall see!”

”And the studio--if it suits you! We shall not be disturbed. There is room there, and you will find it as pleasant a place as any in which to die!”

”Where you will!” retorted Paul Valmain. ”Where you will--so there is no delay!”

-- V --

THE SECRET MODEL

Marie-Louise glanced quickly up at the house. Yes; it was all dark!

There was no light in Hector's apartments below; nor in the salon; nor in Jean's rooms above. She had scarcely dared to look, for fear that she had come too soon, that Hector perhaps was still up, that Jean perhaps might be with some of his friends in the salon. But it was all dark. She was quite breathless, for she had run nearly all the way from Madame Garneau's in her eagerness; but that did not matter at all now, for she was not to be disappointed, since, after all, she had not come too soon. It was much earlier than it had been last night, when she had come for the first time to be all alone there in the studio in the moonlight, where the hours had pa.s.sed so swiftly and been all too short; but it had seemed that the day would never end, that night would never come again, and the evening had dragged so cruelly as she had sat by her window--and so when that church clock from somewhere in the distance had struck midnight she could wait no longer, for perhaps to-night Jean would have finished the face, and perhaps to-night it would not all be so vague and trouble her so because it seemed that in some strange way it was so familiar, though she could not tell why.

She took the key from the pocket of her dress, and stole softly up the steps. How glad she was now that she had not waited any longer! She would have so much more time there in the _atelier_ with the wonderful figures that Jean made, that were not clay at all, but that breathed and lived, and to whom she could talk about Jean, and about his great triumph, and tell them all that was in her heart, and they would listen to her and understand as no one else could, and never tell any one that she had been there. And she would not be afraid of them at all any more, not even at first, as she had been last night because they looked so ghostlike in the white cloths that were wrapped around them.

She looked hurriedly about her, then opened the door, stepped inside, and crossed noiselessly into the salon. She could not quite still the pounding of her heart, because it was night, and because it was dark, and because she was doing something that no one must know; but she was not at all afraid now. Since last night she had been so sure that there was nothing to fear. Hector and Madame Mi-mi had thought it the most natural thing to find her working there that morning when they had got up. Was it not for that she had been given the key? And to-morrow morning again when daylight came it would be the same; and now--she was hurrying through the salon to the _atelier_--and now she was to see that splendid, glorious figure, the ”_Fille du Regiment_,” again, and see the face that perhaps, oh, perhaps to-night, after Jean's work of the day upon it, would be finished, and that she would recognise.

She slipped between the portieres into the moonlit room, and--she could not wait even to take off her cloak and turban--tiptoed eagerly, excitedly across the _atelier_, mounted upon the modelling platform, and threw back the white damp cloth, revealing the figure's head. And then, for a moment, she could only gaze at it, puzzled and bewildered; and then, very slowly and regretfully, she sat down upon the platform.

The face had not been touched. It--it was exactly as it had been last night. Somehow, Jean had not done any work that day--or else, perhaps, he had worked on some of the other figures.

She sat staring at the face of the clay figure in a disappointment that was almost dismay--and then suddenly she smiled. After all, it was she herself who was the cause of her disappointment; she had wanted to see that face with its finished touch so much that, in her eagerness, she had quite made herself believe that she would find it so--whereas it might be days and days yet before Jean would have completed it. And instead of being disappointed, she should be very happy that the _bon Dieu_ had made it possible for her to come here at all, to be so close to Jean, and to be able to spend these hours here with his work--and even if it were days and days before it was finished, could she not still come here every night until it was done, and could she not still be able to see it then?

As she looked around her, the white-wrapt figures seemed to nod to her and promise her that it would be so. How quiet and still it was, and how peacefully the moonlight filled the _atelier_--Jean's _atelier_.

It was so different a scene from that magnificent reception where France in all its glory had honoured Jean; where the marble stairs, the lights, the throngs, the glittering uniforms, the marvellously dressed women with their furs and jewels had awed and frightened her, and yet had filled her, too, with ecstasy because it was Jean's triumph, and had brought thankfulness into her resignation because she had seen with her own eyes how great he had become and how little had been her own sacrifice to achieve so much. Yes, it was strange how different was that scene and this around her now--and yet they were both so intimate a part of Jean's life. And they were so very different to her in a personal way. She did not want to see that world of the rich and the great any more, because she could not understand it, and no one there could understand her; but here--she was so glad and happy to be here--here she could understand, and here these figures understood her when she spoke to them because they knew that she had given all she had to give, not out of her own strength but out of the strength that the _bon Dieu_ had given her, that they might be created by Jean's hands.

Here, Jean was so near to her; there, in that other world, he was so far away--so far away that she had gone utterly out of his life, even out of his thoughts.

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