Part 29 (1/2)

She stepped quickly to Marie-Louise's side. ”Look up at me!” she ordered curtly. ”This man says that hat and cloak are mine, and it is true--they were mine. Tell him where you got them!”

Marie-Louise did not move, except that she clasped her hands together a little more tightly in her lap. She could not tell; for suddenly she thought of Father Anton, and a sense of loyalty to Father Anton insisted that she should not tell. If mademoiselle knew, as mademoiselle said, that was another matter, and she could not change that now; but to tell it herself--no, she could not do that, for that was to admit that the good cure was in the secret of her presence in Paris, and after that it would be known almost surely that he had arranged with Hector and Madame Mi-mi for her to come there to the _atelier_.

”Well?” prompted Myrna Bliss, sharply.

Marie-Louise shook her head.

Myrna Bliss stamped her foot angrily.

”Are you stupid enough to imagine that you are protecting Father Anton?

I promise you I shall have a word with that gentleman in the morning!

And since you could have got that hat and cloak nowhere else, tell Monsieur Valmain that Father Anton gave them to you, and have done with it!”

Marie-Louise looked up. Mademoiselle had said it, and--and Father Anton certainly would not deny it.

”Yes,” she said under her breath. ”Father Anton gave them to me.”

”Well, why didn't you say so at first?” snapped Myrna. She turned again furiously on Paul Valmain. ”You hear, Monsieur Valmain! You are well acquainted with Father Anton. Go to him, if you have any doubts.

You have only to know now how Father Anton obtained them”--her words were curling, biting, stinging like a whiplash in their bitter scorn.

”Well, listen! I and a few of my friends have become _charitable_ since father established his fund. It is contagious, Monsieur Valmain!

We, too, give bounteously to Father Anton for distribution amongst the poor--we give our discarded garments! I sent him that hat and cloak in a bundle with some other things, a few days ago. Is it quite plain, Monsieur Valmain? Are you satisfied? Well, then”--she swung an outstretched arm toward the door--”go!”

”But, mademoiselle--_pour l'amour de Dieu_!” he protested brokenly.

”Do you not see that I am in agony, in torment for what I have done, that--”

”Go!” she raged--and stamped with her foot upon the floor again.

For a moment he stood lurching a little on his feet, as though he had been struck a blow; and then, white-faced, he drew himself up and bowed to her.

”As you will, mademoiselle!” he said in a low voice, and walked past her toward the door.

Myrna Bliss turned to watch him--and halfway across the room halted him.

”Wait!”--she pointed to the rapiers lying on the floor. ”Take those things with you! And one word more, Monsieur Valmain! I do not intend to pose in Paris in the abandoned role you were so quick to cast me for. You perhaps understand that! I do not propose that anything shall be known of what has happened here to-night. I shall see to it that nothing is said by the others, but a word of this from you, Monsieur Valmain, or from Monsieur LeFair, who Monsieur Vinailles tells me was acting as your second, and--”

”Mademoiselle might have spared me that!” he said monotonously--and, picking up the rapiers, walked on through the salon and out into the hall.

In a sort of miserably fascinated way Marie-Louise had followed him with her eyes. She heard the outer door close behind him--and then mechanically she rose to her feet, as Myrna Bliss came and stood before her.

”So”--Myrna's voice was quivering, tense with pa.s.sion--”so it remained for Monsieur Valmain to discover the secret of the wonderful, beautiful, entrancing model! Monsieur Valmain is right, of course. I knew it at once, the moment I heard him say so. I was not very clever, I suppose, or I should have seen it for myself long ago; only--you quite understand this of course--I had forgotten, utterly forgotten, that you even existed! But it seems that Jean could not live without his little peasant; nor the little peasant without Jean! It is perfectly comprehensible now why there should have been such secrecy about his model. And so you have been living with Jean, have you, ever since he came to Paris? The nave, innocent little _ingenue_ of Bernay-sur-Mer!”

And then Marie-Louise lifted her head high again, and, while the hot flushes came and swept her face, the great dark eyes held steadily on the grey ones that were hard and cold like steel. It was not mademoiselle of the _grand monde_ before her any more; it was a woman whose tongue was making a sacrilege of all that was holy and cherished in her life, making a hideous mockery of her love that was so sacred and pure to her, making it a foul thing, smirching it, defiling it--it was not Mademoiselle Bliss of another world than hers whom she approached with diffidence and awe; it was a woman taunting her with a shame from which her soul recoiled, and there came surging upon her, born of the primitive, elemental life that had been hers, the days upon the oars, the nights of rugged battling with the storms, a fury that was physical in its cry for expression.

”It is not true! It is not true!” she panted--and, her hands clenched tightly, raised as though to strike, she took a quick step forward.

Startled, Myrna Bliss involuntarily sprang back--but the next instant she was laughing threateningly.

”You little spitfire!” she exclaimed angrily. ”And so it is not true!

Look at that statue behind you, look at any in this room, at any Jean has ever done since he has been in Paris, and--oh, yes, I see it quite plainly myself, now that I have been shown--it is you, you everywhere!