[NOTE] (continued 2)

Freeing himself from his reverie, he crossed the reception room to his father’s office. He wanted to inform his parent of his meeting with the late Harry Bender’s cousin, a fact he had not previously mentioned because the elder Macadam had been dining out last night. Secretly he suspected himself of a fatuous need to speak to someone about the subject of his thoughts.

Blair Macadam was leaning back in his swivelled chair dictating to his secretary, an attractive-looking English girl with well-waved hair and a smart blue serge frock. He glanced at his son from beneath heavy grizzled brows, but went dryly on, now and then running his fingers through the coarse grey hair which stood up stiffly above his furrowed forehead. He was a big, powerfully built Scot, who in his forty years’ exile from his native Edinburgh had never lost his accent, noticeable even in his careful French.

Geoffrey walked to the window and looked down upon the busy traffic of the rue Auber. Across the way loomed the square, dingy bulk of the Opera, round whose island circled a ceaseless stream of hooting taxis and motor-busses, constant menace to the harassed pedestrian. The sun streamed down, spring was in the air.

“Croyez-vous, cher monsieur, l’expression de mes sentiments—and so forth. Get those typed as soon as you can. That will be all now, Miss Curwen.”

The secretary gathered up her pads and departed, not without an unobtrusive flicker of the eye towards the junior partner’s unconscious back. It was characteristic of the old man that he took note of the glance, but paid absolutely no attention to it.

“Well, Geoffrey?” he said, turning over the letters on his desk.

“It’s nothing much,” replied his son. “Only coming up from Havre on the boat-train I met an American—West her name is—who it seems is some relation of Harry Bender’s. I thought you might be interested.”

“Going to stay with the widow, is she?” remarked the old lawyer with no evidence of special concern. “What age is she? Responsible woman?”

“No—quite young. Twenty-three, perhaps.”

Suddenly self-conscious Geoffrey lit a cigarette, offering his case to his father.

“Thanks, not till after lunch. Well, I daresay it will be dull enough for her.” He continued to sort papers. “Odd your mentioning the Benders, though. While you were away that woman came in again to me. Second or third time in six months.”

“What woman?”

“Mme. Bender’s maid. Seems to have a good deal of authority.”

The younger man made a movement of interest.

“Oh! What did she come about?”

“A message from her mistress, who apparently sees to nothing for herself these days. Lost the key of her safety-deposit box at the bank, and wanted to get a duplicate.”

“What did you do about it?”

“Oh, communicated with the bank. Told her, of course, that it would be necessary to have a written order, signed by Mme. Bender. However she knew all about that, and produced the paper properly signed. Thoroughly business-like.”

Geoffrey frowned suddenly. Had not Miss Cushing, at his one memorable interview with her, made some obscure reference to the contents of the safety-deposit? He was sure, he recalled something of the sort.

“What do you suppose Mme. Bender keeps at the bank?” he inquired.

“Jewels, I should say. You know she seldom wore any, though Bender must have given her some valuable ones.”

“Did this maid happen to speak of her mistress’s health? Her mental condition, I mean. You know I mentioned it to you some time ago.”

“Did you? I forget. In any case nothing was said about it the other day. I gather that she’s merely confined to the apartment. She can sign her name, at all events. Why do you ask? Nothing wrong, is there?”—and he glanced up keenly.

His son paused on the threshold.

“I don’t know that there is. I happened to hear that she is regarded as rather—well, erratic.”

“Always was,” murmured his father. “Nothing new about that.”

“By the way,” remarked the young man, pausing in his exit, “you might tell Elspeth I’m dining out.”

Elspeth was his married sister, who lived at Fontainebleau, but who at the moment was staying with his father and himself at their flat in the rue d’Assas. Father and son maintained a bachelor existence they liked to feel was all sufficient, yet both were quick to fall into consulting and relying upon Elspeth during her brief visits to their ménage.

At a little before eight that evening Geoffrey drove his Citroën over the Pont de la Concorde, along the Cour la Reine and so past the Place d’Iéna and the Place du Trocadéro to the Avenue Henri Martin. He was conscious of a vivid elation, yet in proportion as this sensation soared within him he felt himself growing each moment stiffer and more awkward. Why, he asked angrily, should anticipation exert so petrifying an effect upon his powers of speech and movement? With his whole soul he envied the easy, expansive youths of his generation, their readiness to pay compliments and to take small liberties without giving offense. Never could he hope to be one of these lucky beings. He was far removed from a prig, nor did he cherish any footling illusions about womenfolk. Except for his school and university days he had spent his life in Paris, a city which does not foster illusions of any kind. No, it was not from ignorance nor prudery if he froze at a glance the exceedingly desirable girl he was hastening to meet. It was some despised quality handed down to him through a long line of Scottish forebears, as inseparable from their fibre as the heather from their hills. He could as easily cut off his right arm as to rid himself of its restraint.

It might have soothed his ire to know that this adamantine exterior carried its own compensations, that a fair number of women, French as well as English, regarded him with covetous interest, feeling as women do that a nut hard to crack must contain a rewarding kernel; but little suspicion of this penetrated his mind, even though for the past year he had been dodging the advances of at least two damsels, well-bred and amply dowered. What vanity was his left him uninformed as to his powers of personal seduction.

He crossed the well of the court and entered the ascenseur. Alighting at the entresol he became at once aware of angry voices, a man’s and a woman’s, engaged in turbulent altercation. The sounds came from the direction of the Bender apartment, and as he turned the corner he saw the maid, Jeanne, making vigorous efforts to shut the door upon an intruder, a man in chauffeur’s uniform, who, having wedged his foot within the entrance, stubbornly refused to budge.

“I tell you, I am not going to take my dismissal from such as you!” shouted the aggressor furiously. “After five years, to be sent about my business, and by another domestic! No, a thousand times no! It is not done—a serious man, with a family, too, chucked for no reason! I won’t have it! I insist on seeing madame, devil take you and yours!”

The woman’s features glowered with black rage.

“Must I repeat, dirty pig, that madame is ill, can see no one, by the doctor’s orders? I have given you her message. Let that be enough for you. Now take yourself off!”

“Not till I’ve been told why I’m given the sack. Do you imagine I am going to say to my next patron that Mme. Bender, of the Avenue Henri Martin, has sent me packing after five years, without a character? Name of a pipe, no, you infernal schemer! I intend to see madame in person and get to the bottom of this!”

Here the brawlers caught sight of Geoffrey and lapsed into sullen silence. With slow reluctance the chauffeur withdrew his foot and turned away, breathing hard. Geoffrey had a glimpse of a white, enraged face, chin mutinous, eyes blazing. He was a youngish man of decent appearance, and, contrary to Geoffrey’s first impression, seemed to be perfectly sober. He shot a glance at the new-comer as though of half a mind to appeal to him for support, thought better of it, and made off towards the stairs. The woman gave a snort of triumph.

“Another time,” she muttered in vitriolic accents, “he will not get past the concierge. I’ll see to that! Making a scene like this in a respectable house!”

Then pulling herself together she addressed Geoffrey with courteous composure.

“Monsieur——?”

“Good evening. Will you kindly tell Mademoiselle West that Monsieur Macadam is here?”

On hearing the name a subtle alteration came over the pronounced features. The lips drew back in a mechanical smile, the brown eyes scrutinized the visitor with searching keenness.

“Ah-h-h!” breathed the maid with a prolonged inflection. “It is for mademoiselle! Come in, monsieur. I will inform mademoiselle.”

It was needless to do so, however, for at that moment Catherine, ready in her coat and hat, issued from the salon. At once the expression of her face arrested Geoffrey’s attention to such an extent of self-consciousness and deserted him and he forgot everything except curiosity and concern. He could not say that she looked frightened; that was too strong a word; but her shining eyes were wide with bewilderment, and in each cheek burned a spot of crimson evidently not rouge. She approached him eagerly, hand outstretched with the informality of an old friend.

“Oh!” she cried, with what he fancied was relief in her tone, “how nice to see you! I’ve got such a lot to talk to you about!”

She faltered in the midst of the last sentence, as though disconcerted by the fixed gaze of the maid’s eyes, somehow at variance with her smiling mouth. Neither she nor Geoffrey had any idea as to how much English the woman understood, but both detected a quick narrowing of the lids not altogether friendly.

“Mademoiselle has the key I gave her?” inquired the woman with smooth solicitude.

“Certainly, Jeanne, it is in my bag.”

“And if you should come in late, mademoiselle, you will be careful not to make a noise?” pursued the other with perfect suavity. “It is so easy for madame to be disturbed.”

“I’ll be very quiet,” returned the girl. “And I shan’t be at all late.”

Rather quickly she preceded Geoffrey through the door, and as he reached her side he thought that the colour staining her cheeks burned a still brighter hue, but she said nothing till the cage of the lift was sinking to the ground floor. Then suddenly she let herself go with a burst of confidence, though her voice remained lowered.

“Oh! how thankful I am to get away!” she cried, with a half-ashamed laugh. “That flat is getting horribly on my nerves. Silly, isn’t it?” she added, with an appeal for tolerance.

“What’s the matter?” he demanded anxiously. “Anything gone wrong?”

She hesitated, biting her lip.

“Yes and no. I don’t know what to say. Mostly it’s just a—a feeling.… What happened a few minutes ago, for instance. Did you see a man talking to Jeanne as you came up?”

“Yes, Mme. Bender’s chauffeur, I fancy. They were having some sort of shindy.”

“So that’s who it was! I wondered. You see, I heard nearly the whole of the dispute, I couldn’t help it. It was quite right, of course, for Jeanne to refuse to let him see Mme. Bender, but—well, she was abusively rude to him from the beginning, and I somehow felt he had a real grievance. Odd for him to be dismissed without any reason, don’t you think? Not a bit like my cousin to do that. I can’t understand it.”

It flashed into Geoffrey’s mind that in all probability the dismissal had come from the maid herself, in which case Mme. Bender knew nothing about it, but he shook his head in silence. After all, it was only supposition, founded on a knowledge of the autocratic ways of old and trusted servants.

“Oh, well”—and Catherine sighed as though trying to throw off an irksome load. “Why bother? I came out to enjoy myself.”

“Right! Then first of all, where shall we go? A lively restaurant with music, or a quiet one?”

“Oh, a quiet one! You see I want to tell you about something rather dreadful which happened just before I arrived. That and other things. The fact is, it’s all decidedly worse here than I thought.”

“In what way?” he demanded quickly.

While they were abreast of the concierge’s domain she made no reply, but as soon as she was seated in the car she described the incident which two nights ago had thrown the household into confusion.

“Good God!” he cried, seriously shocked. “So it’s as bad as that! I’d no idea.”

“I’m afraid it is. But let’s talk of cheerful topics for a bit. Later on I’ll tell you everything.”

They whirled along by the way of the Champs Élysée to a typically French restaurant in one of the Grand Boulevards, where the food was noted for its excellence. Here, against the wall in an alcove with shaded lights, they pored together over a menu-sheet, while an elderly functionary with a bottle nose bent an attentive ear to catch their gastronomic wishes.

Catherine was to find that her new friend knew how to order a meal. The first sip of the amber, icy cocktail set the stamp of success upon the evening and by the time the œufs Bourgognaises arrived, embedded in their incomparable sauce, she was prepared to pay him the tribute of a willing admiration. With the first real hunger she had felt since she reached Paris, she fell to in appreciative silence.

Meanwhile Geoffrey studied her as closely as he dared, almost chagrined to find her much lovelier than the picture he had carried about with him. American women were as smart as the French, he decided, with better figures, too, and a look of finer breeding. Also they knew not only what to put on but what to leave off, scorning to distract the eye with irrelevant detail.

How effective her plain parchment-coloured velvet was against the red plush of the seat! It defined her slender body delicately, while her tiny, black hat was so close-fitting as to appear almost indistinguishable from her hair. Round her throat lay a necklace of flat, plaited gold, toning subtly with her warm pallor, and she wore but one other ornament, a ruby ring with a big decorative setting, its single stone repeating the crimson which formed her present background.

For the moment the luminous eyes were veiled by the pensive sweep of her lashes. He longed, man-like, to rekindle the dancing flames in them, but found himself tongue-tied. Poor girl, he was afraid she had been going through a nasty time. Better leave her in peace till she was ready to speak.

At last she looked up, absently twisting her wine-glass between nervous fingers.

“Do you know why I wasn’t met at the gare last night?” she asked.

“No. Wasn’t the telegram delivered?”

“It wasn’t that. There was another reason.”

She glanced for a moment at the adjacent tables. The sole diners within earshot were a pair of pompous, middle-aged Frenchmen greedily intent on their meal.

“The truth is, those servants don’t want me there, and thought they’d begin by making things uncomfortable for me. They’re rude, they’re overbearing, they act as if they hated me. In fact,” she finished with a rueful laugh, “both Jeanne and Eduardo are doing their utmost to drive me away!”

CHAPTER EIGHT

So that was the situation!

“You’re sure about this?” Geoffrey inquired seriously.

“Oh, quite! At first I made excuses for them. They must, of course, have been fearfully upset over what had just occurred, and in no frame of mind for looking after a guest. But—well, I’m giving them almost no trouble, and yet it is perfectly plain they are determined to get rid of me.”

“Why?” he asked, though fairly sure of the answer.

“Oh, you know what servants can be like when they’ve had the uninterrupted run of a place. They don’t want anyone there who might possibly criticize their arrangements or pull them up.”

She went on to relate the incident of the Empire bedroom, laughing when she came to the offensive comb and soap. Her companion, however, exclaimed in sharp annoyance:

“By Jove, what impertinence! They are behaving as though they owned the flat!”

“They really are. You can’t think what liberties they are taking. Everything is neglected and dirty, curtains unwashed, silver not polished. Eduardo looks like a desperado; the cook, who’s not at all a bad sort, is so impossibly slack she scarcely bothers to cook me enough to eat. I suppose that’s why I’m so ravenous to-night,” she added, laughing. “This cook,” she went on, “is a priceless person. This afternoon I glanced into the kitchen—filthy, of course, the sink piled up with dishes. What do you think she was doing? Sitting on the table, smoking a cigarette, and lacing a pair of pale blue satin stays!”

He joined her in mirth over the picture she drew, but sobered directly and frowned with noticeable displeasure.

“Jeanne,” she continued thoughtfully, “is, au fond, a really splendid character. I don’t want to minimize her devotion to my cousin, whatever faults she may possess. She is without any doubt deeply attached to her, giving her every possible attention, so that is really all that matters.”

“You’re satisfied about that, are you?”

She glanced at him, surprised.

“Oh, absolutely! And Mme. Bender is fond of her—quite dependent, in fact. I don’t know what she would do without her.”

He was silent at this, but after a moment turned the conversation to the invalid herself.

“How did Mme. Bender strike you when you saw her to-day? What exactly do you feel about her condition?”

She drew a long breath.

“I don’t quite know. After what I was told I was astonished to find her so little changed. She talked for the most part reasonably and seemed much as she was after the accident last year. I almost think that’s the worst part,” she added, “to sit and chat with her quietly all the time knowing what she has tried to do, what she may want to do again. I shiver when I think of it!”

He nodded understandingly.

“Yet you tell me she describes the thing as an accident.”

She assented.

“I would have believed her story, only how can one? You see Jeanne is probably right about it’s being the cunning of the madwoman trying to put us off the scent. Besides, it was the second attempt. There are bars up now, to prevent her throwing herself from the window. One can’t explain those away, can one? Oh, I’m afraid it’s really serious.”

He dug his cigarette into his coffee-cup, listening attentively while she went on to relate various small incidents to illustrate her meaning. One thing was clear—she ought to remove herself from so gloomy an atmosphere as soon as possible. He wondered if he dared tell her so.

“You believe, then, that your cousin may be likely to repeat the attempt on her life?” he asked when she had finished her recital.

“I’m afraid she may. I can’t help being apprehensive about it. But it isn’t only that that’s bothering me. I’ve got a horrid feeling about it all, something I can’t put into words.” Here she paused, striving to express an almost intangible idea that had come to birth during the past twelve hours. “I keep thinking there’s something I don’t quite grasp in all this, that things are going on beneath the surface, if you understand me… ?”

“What do you mean?” he demanded.

She extended her hands with a helpless gesture.

“Exactly. What do I mean? You see I don’t know. It was Jeanne who put it into my head. She is so certain about the unfortunate influence of this friend of Mme. Bender’s, the one I spoke to you about.”

He looked up suddenly.

“You don’t mean——?”

“Yes, Hermione Cushing.”

“Miss Cushing!”

She watched his face, but could tell nothing from it.

“It seems that she was with Mme. Bender on both occasions, immediately before those suicidal attacks. There may be nothing in it, but I shan’t feel easy till I’ve seen what she’s like. In fact, I mean to call on her to-morrow.” She stopt, then went on again: “That’s another thing—to-day when I rang her up, Jeanne overheard me making the appointment, and was quite rude to me afterwards. It was exactly as though she suspected me of conniving with Miss Cushing to make trouble for her mistress. Funny, isn’t it? She’s rather like a fierce watch-dog where Germaine is concerned.”

On his side Geoffrey was indulging in a brief battle with his usual scruples. When he spoke it was with a conscious effort at naturalness.

“By the way,” he said, “I don’t want to prejudice you, and I am pretty sure it’s hardly worth mentioning—but a few weeks ago Miss Cushing came to see me about Mme. Bender.”

“She came to see you?” echoed the girl in amazed eagerness.

So that was it! At last he was going to tell her what he had so studiously kept back.

“She complained bitterly about being prevented from seeing her friend. She said she could scarcely ever get a word alone with her, and sometimes was denied admittance altogether.”

“Ah!” cried Catherine, “that bears out Jeanne’s story!”

“There was something else, too, though I’m not sure I ought to speak of it. I must rely on you not to give me away. She displayed an extraordinary concern in the disposition of Mme. Bender’s property, inquired if a will had been made, and seemed very worried as to whether or not she was in danger of losing a legacy she had reason to hope would come to her when Mme. Bender died. Don’t for Heaven’s sake,” he hurriedly supplemented, seeing the girl’s gesture of startled interest, “run away with any wrong ideas on the subject. I don’t attach any importance to this myself, I assure you.”

“But I’m not sure that I don’t,” murmured his companion, her eyes dark with excitement. “I can’t help thinking——”

“Don’t think,” he cautioned lightly. “Not at least till you’ve seen Hermione. I gathered,” he went on, “that a more or less open warfare was going on between the lady in question and this Jeanne. Each no doubt thinks the worst of the other. I daresay there’s a considerable amount of jealousy mixed up in it, for which reason I decline to take it seriously.”

She considered this doubtfully, and he could see that her brain was busy with speculation.

“Shall you stay on there?” he ventured after a pause. “Or is it going to be rather too disagreeable?”

“I shall stay for the present, anyhow,” she replied slowly. “You see, whatever her mental state is, Mme. Bender seems so really happy to have me there. I couldn’t hurt her by going away, not at once, that is. Later in the spring I am leaving for Italy, so it couldn’t be for long in any case.”

His face fell.

“Oh! So you don’t mean to stay long in Paris?”

“Not this time. I’m thinking of joining some people who are in England now, but my plans will depend somewhat on their movements.”

She was powdering her nose, so did not see the blank disappointment in his face, rather like the expression of a thirsty dog from whom a basin of water has been callously snatched away.

“But meantime,” she remarked with determination, “I am going to do my best to find out what, if anything, is causing these fits of depression with my cousin. I can’t help thinking there may be some definite, outside reason.”

He shook his head disparagingly. The vagaries of a hopeless neurotic were pretty difficult to fathom. If the case proved to be actually mental there was little chance of improvement, but he said nothing and gave his attention to the bill just presented to him.

The evening being still young, Catherine gladly agreed to his suggestion of a cinema, in her heart unwilling to return at once to the solitude of the gloomy apartment. Accordingly they presently found themselves seated in the warm darkness of a palatial building where shifting streamers of light played like the Aurora Borealis and an orchestra en masse rose as from the sea, shining pure gold against a violet curtain. In an instant they had entered a realm of fantasy.

“How extraordinarily good the music is!” whispered the girl in amazed delight.

He told her that each member of the orchestra was a premier prix de Conservatoire, the conductor a well-known figure in Paris.

As he spoke there was a hush, and the first violin, an elegant youth with sleek hair swept off his forehead, stepped forward with an air and raised his bow. Simultaneously the curtain parted, and a pair of Spanish dancers moved on to the stage. The man, bullet-headed and lithe, wore trousers of white cloth ornamented in silver, while his narrow body was tightly encased in a silver-braided jacket. His partner, sumptuous in snowy lace, stiffened at the hips Goya fashion, was draped in a magnificent mantilla, pendant above her glossy black coiffure from a towering comb of red coral. Against the black velvet back-drop the two figures poised, sheer, flashing white, and there were only four accents of carmine—the woman’s comb, her immense earrings, her lips, and the heels of her shoes.

Then the music began, slow, deliriously exquisite, with a heavy sweetness, like the perfume of honeysuckle under a midnight sky. Catherine drew in her breath ecstatically.

“That heavenly tune! I’ve heard it before.… Oh, of course, it’s the Albeniz Tango that Kriesler plays! It is too, too lovely!”

In a spell of enchantment she watched the swaying pair, while the violin with steady rhythm dripped notes that were like globules of clear amber. Never, afterwards, was she to forget the sensuous rapture of those moments. Always whenever she heard the Albeniz Tango, no matter in what surroundings, she had but to shut her eyes to feel about her the enveloping darkness, see the opening heart of brilliant light in which moved the dancers. There was something else she was to recall, though at the time she was only dimly aware of it. That was the right hand of Geoffrey Macadam as it rested on the arm of the seat dividing her from him, brown, muscular, a little over-large for his slight, wiry build.…

It was nearing half-past twelve when they reached the shadowy chestnuts of the Avenue Henri Martin. The neighbourhood was deserted, the buildings had a blind look with all the massive doors closed for the night.

“Cordon, s’il vous plait!” shouted Geoffrey, his voice ringing hollow against the black expanse of wood.

After a short delay a ghostly click sounded and one of the doors swung heavily ajar. Catherine stepped within the entrance and held out her hand, but her companion after a slight hesitation followed her in.

“I think I’d like to see you actually into the apartment, if you don’t mind,” he said. “You may have trouble with the key.”

Their steps echoed across the paved way to the foyer, where a dim light shone in a suspended glass cage. Silently the ascenseur crept up to the entresol.

“I say, there’s something odd about this lock. It’s a good thing I didn’t leave you to wrestle with it alone,” remarked Geoffrey a moment later, after several fruitless attempts to open the door.

He struck a match and examined the key, an ordinary Yale one. There seemed nothing wrong with it.

“Let me have a go,” suggested Catherine, taking it from him.

It appeared to fit, even to turn, but nothing happened.

“Curious, that. Here, give it to me again.”

However, though he pushed and tugged and manipulated, the door refused to budge. Minutes went by with no result. At length, red in the face with effort and chagrin, he straightened up and shrugged his shoulders.

“No doubt about it,” he declared shortly. “Someone has drawn the bolt. Damned careless—if you’ll forgive the language. I suppose we’ll have to ring.”

“Oh, don’t! I’m so afraid of waking Mme. Bender.”

“There’s nothing else to do! She won’t hear, though, as it probably sounds in the kitchen.”

He pressed his finger to the button and they waited expectantly. Within was unbroken silence.

“They must be sleeping very soundly. Try again.”

There was a second interval of prolonged waiting. Far away, at the back of the apartment, sounded a faint, persistent ringing.

“Who sleeps on this floor?” Geoffrey inquired, frowning.

“Only Eduardo and Jeanne. The cook moved to-day up to the sixième.”

“Well, either those two can’t hear or they won’t. Anyhow, you can’t spend the night out here. I’m going to let go with the knocker;” and before she could protest he had laid hold of the wrought-iron handle and hammered resoundingly.

Somewhere in the interior a door opened and a padded footfall approached, barely audible. Someone was at last astir. Yet even now there was a long delay. The steps paused, retreated, and then, exchanging questioning glances, Catherine and Geoffrey fancied they caught the murmur of whispering voices, sibilant and cautious. Finally, after protracted silence, there fell on their ears the stealthy grate of a bolt withdrawn.

The next instant the door cracked open, and silhouetted against a rectangle of light the stocky figure of the Portuguese appeared, clad in an overcoat buttoned to the chin. From beneath bristling hair his small, animal-like eyes glowered at them suspiciously.

“Oh—it’s you, miss,” he mumbled with a touch of insolent surprise. “I took it you were in hours ago.”

It was a flimsy pretext to cover his own thoughtlessness, or so it seemed to Catherine. Her eyes flashed at his rude tone, but she made no reply. Her escort, on the contrary, accosted the butler in a peremptory manner.

“Another time, please be sure before you put the bolt on. It’s only by chance that mademoiselle hasn’t had to wait out here a quarter of an hour by herself.”

The man said nothing, but as he stared impudently first at the speaker, then at Catherine, his lips curled in an unmistakable sneer. Geoffrey’s blood boiled at the unuttered insinuation, and even the girl, without understanding its import, felt indignation rise within her.

“You needn’t wait, Eduardo,” she coldly informed him. “I’ll put out the lights.”

Without replying he shuffled off, hitching his coat collar higher around his thick bull neck.

“See here, I don’t care for that fellow’s manner,” whispered Geoffrey as he took her hand. “Are you sure you don’t mind——”

“Oh, I’m not a bit upset over him,” she returned scornfully. “You see, though, that I didn’t exaggerate about the deterioration in him. It’s as if the veneer had come off. Never mind—good night, and thank you for a marvellous evening.”

For a second he retained her slender hand, reluctant to let it go. However, his expression remained studiously matter of fact, betraying no hint of his inward feelings.

“Let me know if that brute gives you any trouble,” he said at parting. “I shall hope to see you again soon, at all events.”

Glancing at his watch on the way down, he found it was just after one o’clock. That meant they had spent half an hour outside that infernal door. His wrath rose anew as he recalled the insolence of the butler, whom he would have liked to throttle.

“Cordon!”

The concierge had gone to sleep in the interval, and no wonder.

“Cordon!” he called more loudly.

An irate voice, heavy with sleep, issued from within the loge.

“Who are you, going out at this hour? What are you up to, diable! coming in with a woman and remaining with her all this time? I’ll have you to know this is not the way to conduct yourself in a respectable house. Do you take this for a maison de rendez-vous?”

Geoffrey’s anger shot up like a flame.

“Hold your foul tongue, you filthy camel, and open that door before I lay hands on you!” he shouted, furious with rage.

More abusive wrangling followed, epithets in choice argot hurled on both sides. Not for the first time did Geoffrey rejoice in his command of Gallic profanity. Finally, with a last imprecation, the unseen porter pulled the cord and the door swung open.

Stupid to lose one’s temper with a concierge. It was like beating one’s head against a wall. Still it was impossible not to be infuriated by the man’s insinuations. Rain was falling, but he did not feel the drops as with rapid strides he crossed to the car and started the engine.

“The swine!” he muttered as the Citroën purred along wet streets towards the Seine. “So he, too, had that idea in his putrid mind! I shouldn’t have got so wild if it had been another sort of girl. But Catherine!”

Already in his thoughts he was calling her by her first name.

Alone in the hall, Catherine stood for a moment, her palm still tingling with the recent hard pressure. Circumstances had combined to rouse in her a fluttering emotion—uncertainty as to why she had been shut out, the interval on the dim landing with its faint suggestion of intimate rapproachement, and last, the butler’s peculiarly offensive manner. Her heart beat with strong strokes.

Why, indeed, had Eduardo stared at them like that? There had been something insulting about it. If only Germaine could realize what his behaviour was like now, how quickly she would dismiss him! Not that she was likely to find out.

She tiptoed towards her distant room. Then as she switched on the light in the passage, she spied, at the top of the staircase before mentioned, a limp, dark object. Picking it up, she discovered it to be a man’s glove.

A glove—but of an unfamiliar sort, made of black, stuffy fabric. Who on earth wore things like that? She stared at it curiously. Somewhere, not long ago, she had seen a man with gloves resembling this, but for the moment she could not say who it was. Certainly no one she knew. There was something rather horrid about it. With slight distaste she replaced it where it had lain before.

As she did this she noticed, a little lower down the stairs, a small heap of acrid cigar ashes, and nearby the muddy imprint of a square-toed boot, plainly marked on the pale grey carpet.

Her eyes narrowed in thought. Eduardo, she had remarked only to-day, wore pointed, rather foppish shoes, ill-according his thick, prize-fighter frame. Who, then, had been here this evening? The person, whoever it was, had been to the apartment in her absence, most likely using the private door.

With a shake of the head she gave it up. And then, all at once, she remembered the vulgar-genteel lounger who last evening had stared at her so curiously in the street below, and later had gone away with Jeanne. Yes, he had certainly worn gloves like the specimen lying there on the floor. She recalled in a flash the prim nastily-decent look of them, as she had passed him on the pavement.

“So Jeanne has a lover,” she concluded with a touch of amused wonder. “But what a lover!”

Somehow the creature had suggested an undertaker.

CHAPTER NINE

Hermione Cushing inhabited a small apartment high up in the rue de la Bienfaisance, on the edge of the quarter known as that of Europe. It is for the most part a typically French neighbourhood, which explains why long ago Miss Cushing chose it, experience having taught her that in the sections of Paris given over to Americans one pays through the nose for everything, from rents to cabbages. In short, Miss Cushing was canny, knowing how to make ten centimes do the work of fifty.

She had lived here for twenty years, and everyone knew her. Moreover, in spite of petty bickerings, she was in excellent repute with the concierge and tradespeople, and for practical purposes one need say no more. She possessed, indeed, certain attributes revered by the French. She was une dame sérieuse, spent not a sou on display, and was well connected into the bargain. Did one not frequently see the imposing motors of la Baronne de Grèves and the Princess Guiccioli ranged in front of the entrance, positive proof that the Faubourg St. Germain had toiled up four flights of stairs to pay its respect to the singer? The fact spoke for itself.

None of this was known to Catherine, but her eye noted the respect in the concierge’s mien when she spoke the name of Cushing.

“Au cinquième, à gauche mademoiselle,” instructed the woman promptly, and came forth like a mole out of a burrow to point the way, adding the further direction, “C’est le deuxième escalier, en face.”

There were two staircases, it seemed, one wide and grand, the other narrow and dingy. It was the latter, at the back of the small court, which led to the singer’s abode.

The upward journey was steep, the day unexpectedly mild. Catherine took the first three flights in a rush, so that at the turn of the fourth she was obliged to pause before a window and take breath before finishing the climb. Gazing out on the mansard roofs and blackened chimney-pots, she took stock of her recent impressions and prepared herself for the coming interview, which for some reason made her slightly nervous.

The morning’s experiences had been disturbing. The hour she had spent with Mme. Bender had failed to clear up the uncertainty in her mind, and she had gained nothing except a strengthened conviction that her cousin was frightened about something. How or why, she could not say. Again and again she had sought to probe the mystery of that quick, recurring gleam of positive terror in the grey eyes, but she had come away without reaching any satisfactory conclusion. Was the poor creature’s fear merely a symptom of disordered intelligence, or had it some positive, external cause? That, as she had said to Geoffrey Macadam last night, was what she was anxious to ascertain.

Following her visit to the ill woman had come a disagreeable shock. Jeanne, not without a trace of malice, had informed her that the concierge’s wife had sent a message to say she wished to hold converse with the young American lady staying with Mme. Bender. Catherine could not guess what she wanted, but on descending for a walk her ignorance was brusquely removed. The feminine half of the ménage which held sway over the tenants’ lives accosted her with sour disapproval, and chid her severely for the fault she had committed in allowing her escort to accompany her upstairs after the house was shut for the night. Apparently it was a heinous offence against propriety. No jeune fille bien élevée would dream of doing une chose pareille, and while mademoiselle’s youth and professed ignorance of national customs might excuse her this once, no similar escapade could possibly be tolerated. She would give the house a bad name.

Catherine had stared in stupefaction. At first the veiled implications had escaped her, for though she was no fool she had always regarded her motives as above reproach. However, the pinched face with its evil leer forced her to see that in this quarter at least she was an object of suspicion.

The revelation infuriated her. It seemed to her that not only her own decency was attacked, but that of all her countrywomen as well, and in the heat of the moment it was difficult to hold her tongue and refrain from telling the old harpy what she thought of her. She could still picture the woman’s twisted smile as she withdrew into her lair, still feel the blood tingling in her own cheeks as bit by bit the full infamy of the suggestion sank into her mind. At last out of the flames of her wrath had risen the determination never again, if she could avoid it, to encounter the guardians of the loge. There was a way out which she meant to take.

Accordingly, at lunch-time, she had asked Jeanne for a latch-key to the private door, only to be met with a chill refusal. There was but one key, it seemed, which the maid and butler were in the habit of using. However, Catherine was undaunted. Her antagonism was roused by this and similar rebuffs, and she knew by now that Jeanne’s autocratic ways must be met with equal firmness.

“Never mind,” she had returned intrepidly; “if you won’t give me the key, I shall have a spare one made.”

She had won her point, though against a grudging displeasure only too apparent. The key now lay in her bag, giving her a sense of independence and triumph. Let the concierge do her damnedest, her gun was spiked.

How little could she guess the rôle this same key was to play in future events, or to what extent it was to shape her entire destiny! Thus lightly do we forge the links in the chain which will bind us prisoners, arrange the noose to encircle our unconscious necks. But for that insignificant shape of metal reposing beneath her powder-puff, handkerchief and lipstick—but the matter can wait. In peaceful ignorance she ascended to the top floor, and thinking only of the person she was about to meet, rang a jangling bell at the left-hand door.

The summons was answered by a gaunt grenadier of a servant in a starched apron and brown knitted jersey, too short in the sleeves. Behind steel-rimmed spectacles a pair of searching eyes regarded her with mingled goodness and severity, while a deep voice bade her enter. Simultaneously she was aware of a piano, close at hand, played in a florid and sketchy manner.

“Mademoiselle,” announced the stalwart domestic, throwing open the door of the small salon, “here is the young lady you are expecting.” Whereupon, without ceremony she pushed Catherine forward with a brawny hand. “Entrez, mademoiselle,” she commanded, and stalked away.

The music ceased. Miss Cushing rose from the tiny stool which she had completely obliterated with her bulk and billowed forward with a swishing of skirts. Catherine perceived that she was blonde, middle-aged, and of a shape and movement which made her think forcibly of a whale plunging in mid-seas.

“Ma chère Mademoiselle West,” cried a voice, tempestuous with welcome. “Come in, come in! You find me busy arranging a programme with the help of some dear friends, but you won’t mind, I’m sure, if I go on and finish. Let me present you to the Baronne de Grèves and Madame Strakosch.”

Two plain-featured, elderly ladies in sombre black nodded ceremoniously from a sofa at the end of the room. Both wore old fashioned head-gear and soft, high, buttoned boots such as old women affect. One held an ear-trumpet glued to her ear; the other, wizened and with quick, hawk-like gestures, darted little sharp but not unkindly glances at the new-comer.

“This dear child,” explained the singer, detaining Catherine’s hand in her cushioned palm, “is a young cousin of poor dear Harry Bender’s. She is staying now with my darling Germaine—dont je vous ai parlé cet instant.”

This clause she shouted down the ear-trumpet, and as a sign that it had registered the two ladies turned and gazed at Catherine with various nods of understanding.

“Et comment va madame votre cousine?” inquired the deaf lady in a sepulchral baritone, shifting the instrument to receive the girl’s reply.

Catherine telephoned the opinion that her relative was far from well and extremely nervous, whereupon both listeners murmured, “Neurasthènique. Ah-h-h!” and exchanged glances of solemn meaning.

“Vous voyez?” demanded Miss Cushing with a dramatic sweep of her arm. “C’est comme je vous ai dit,”—and forthwith she returned to her seat at the piano.

Catherine thought she had never seen anyone who so completely filled the room as did Miss Cushing. She trembled for the insecure easel in her path, and eyed nervously a tottering vase of furry palm which stood precariously upon a fragile stand. Yet the singer was not shapeless. On the contrary, her vast bulk curved in at the waist and out again at the hips after the fashion of an enormous hour-glass, a resemblance heightened by her costume. She was dressed in black taffeta with tiny ruffles, a wide skirt and a bolero jacket, from the arm holes of which bulged white muslin sleeves covering arms as large in girth as Catherine’s body. Her feet, in shabby bronze pumps, were by contrast quite ridiculously small, and her face, unlined and pink like a baby’s, rested upon a series of chins undulating into well-cushioned shoulders. Her eyes were the faint blue of a winter sky, and her scanty, neutral hair was arranged anyhow in a twist, from which vagrant wisps strayed and clung to the creases of her neck.

“And now, chères amies, I shall give you the Sibelius. No one in France understands Sibelius as I do. I am without doubt his chief interpreter here.”

Herewith she began a slap-dash prelude and proceeded to vocalize, in a voice piercingly thin, uncertain as to registers and now and then grazing from the key. Catherine set her teeth. The other listeners preserved expressionless faces, and it seemed to her she alone was marvelling at the temerity and verdant hope which could prompt an artist to appear in public with so vanished an equipment. She had yet to learn what Paris can stand in the way of music.

To distract her thoughts from the embarrassing performance, she let her eyes stray round the little drab salon, taking account of its fussy detail. Everything which could be draped was draped, from the upright piano to the shelves in the corners, and all the drapes had bobbles on them, while in some cases they were rucked into puffs between anchoring ornaments of silver and Dresden china. The chairs in particular arrested her attention, since she had never seen any like them before. Endowed with gilt cabriole legs, they were like little squat sofas, too wide for one, yet not wide enough for two. They were in fact precisely right for their owner, for whose use they might have been specially designed.

Everywhere were mementoes, signed photographs and faded knots of flowers under glass, while the room abounded in likenesses of the singer, of every possible description. Over the mantel hung a full-length portrait of Miss Cushing as Marguerite, with pendant braids and a daisy between her fingers; on the easel was a chalk drawing of the lady in the dress of the nineties; from the walnut commode beamed a marble bust, the head thrown back with artless coquetry, butterflies poised on the plump shoulders. Never, reflected Catherine, had the original not been endowed with a generous amplitude of form. Had she at any remote period possessed the semblance of a voice?

“And now, what about a little du Parc? One must give them something French.”

Wheeling on the stool, the performer began thumbing over a pile of tattered sheet-music.

“Hah!” she exclaimed distractedly, “ou se trouve ce chanson là?”—then impatiently elevating her voice, she shouted towards the kitchen, “Yvonne! Yvonne! Venez m’aider!”

The servant appeared, a woollen stocking on one hand, a coarse darning-needle in the other.

“Mademoiselle?”

“Find me that du Parc song—you know the one I mean,” and she thrust the jumble of music into the unwilling arms.

Yvonne shook her head with wooden disapproval.

“Mademoiselle should not attempt the du Parc to-day,” she advised severely. “Mademoiselle must not forget she had moules marinières for déjeuner. Better try something lower.”

“Oh, well, then, find me another,” returned her mistress petulantly. “Reynaldo Hahn, or Debussy. It doesn’t much matter.”

Muttering darkly, Yvonne departed, and through the open door Catherine, inwardly convulsed, could see her seated in the kitchen, going solemnly through the pile with grunts and sniffs of disparagement. Meanwhile Miss Cushing, unruffled, launched full steam upon the elaborate “Les Filles de Cadiz,” swooping and curveting like a spirited Percheron.

The audition was over. The elderly couple, after discussing practical matters of affiches and subscription tickets, rose and made a ceremonious departure. Catherine was alone with her hostess.

“Enfin!” cried Miss Cushing with a gusty sigh. “Now, my child, we can talk. Only we must have tea. Yvonne! Du thé, tout de suite! Je suis epuisée, moi—complètement finie!”—and throwing her weight upon the creaking sofa she pressed her hand to the region of her heart.

For a second she remained thus, eyes closed, with an air of exhaustion. Then she roused herself and fixed upon her guest a gaze of intensity.

“Tell me at once, dear Miss West, just what your impression is of that unfortunate household. Don’t leave anything out. It may be important.”

Was this melodrama or farce? Catherine could not decide. However, sure that Hermione Cushing was ignorant of the recent crisis, she set out to enlighten her, watching closely to observe the effect of her news. She saw the pink face turn pale, the blue eyes start with unmistakable horror, while one hand trembled forward as though to ward off a blow.

“La pauvre petite! Elle a fait ça?” whispered the singer in an awed tone. “But no—it is not true! It can’t be true!” she protested vehemently.

“I assure you it is,” Catherine declared.

“Mon Dieu! mon Dieu! Then if it is so—if she did try to take her life”—she paused impressively, then bent forward to hiss in Catherine’s ear—“then you may take my word for it, it was that demon who drove her to it! I have said that she would. That fiend of a Jeanne!”

“Jeanne?” repeated the girl, hardly able to believe her ears.

For a moment she was speechless over the arrant absurdity. Was Miss Cushing serious?

“I knew it, I knew it,” her hostess murmured, half to herself. “It is what I have been expecting. Oh! that such a tyranny can continue, unchecked, in an age like this! It is infamous, it is——”

“Tyranny?” echoed Catherine again, then thinking it time to play her trump card, made an earnest bid for attention. “Forgive me, Miss Cushing,” she began seriously. “But there is something I feel you ought to know. You see, Jeanne declares that after you left the other afternoon Mme. Bender was terribly depressed. She thinks it was something you said to her which threw her into that morbid state and made her—made her——” It was difficult to complete the sentence.

She was unprepared for the phenomenon which greeted her statement. The huge body swelled, appeared on the point of bursting. The round face turned a turkey-red hue.

“That creature said such a thing?” she gasped in a stifled voice. “Impossible! Menteuse! Menteuse!”

For half a minute she trembled on the verge of apoplexy, while the girl looked on in positive alarm.

Yvonne strode into the room, bearing on a tray the tiniest glass Catherine had ever seen filled with cognac.

“Drink this, mademoiselle, and calm yourself!” she commanded brusquely, and thrust the glass to her mistress’s lips.

The artist swallowed, coughed and recovered her balance.

“Yvonne!”—and she stretched forth a detaining hand. “Did you hear that infamy? That devil, Jeanne, is saying that I—I—am responsible for Mme. Bender’s trying to take her life!”

“Ah! Incroyable!”

The staid Yvonne scowled from one face to the other, muttering such expressions as “folle!,” “C’est un peu trop, ça!” and “C’est le comble!” Finally, casting her arms with an irate gesture, she withdrew with a last, “Elle est méchante, cette femme là,” hurled into space.

“Listen,” cried Miss Cushing, “now you shall hear the truth! On Tuesday afternoon my poor Germaine was almost happy. She was rejoiced over the thought of your coming. I said to myself that there was really going to be an improvement, now she would not be left alone to mope and brood. She kissed me and said, ‘My darling Lili’—that is her name for me—‘promise you will come again, very soon. You put new life into me.’—So! You see?”

“And you saw no sign of any delusions?”

“Delusions, indeed! I may say I have never seen anything of the sort. With me she has always been—well, not normal; that is a strong word; but absolutely sane. Why, the other day she was so much her usual self that I actually ventured to advise her upon a matter I had felt I ought to mention for some time past. I mean, of course,”—here she paused and moistened her lips—“the question of drawing up her will.”

Catherine experienced a slight shock.

“Oh!” she exclaimed a little blankly. “So you spoke of that?”

“I thought it my duty,” replied her hostess firmly. “You see, Catherine—I may call you that, n’est-ce pas?—Germaine has never made her will. It is a business she is unwilling to face. In consequence, if the poor darling were to pass away suddenly all Harry’s entire fortune would go—who knows where? To the State, perhaps. It is appalling to think of such waste!”

Catherine sat quite still, struggling with the confusion of her thoughts.

“But surely Mme. Bender has heirs?” she suggested at last.

“Not one. Amazing, isn’t it? But surely you must have been told that?”

Catherine shook her head.

“I know almost nothing about her before she married Cousin Harry.”

“You didn’t know, then, that it was I who introduced Harry to Germaine Dieulefit when she and I were studying together for the Opera?”

“Dieulefit? What an odd name!”

“Yes, most unusual. There are no others, the family is extinct. Her mother was a singer, coloratura, and illegitimate—probably the child of some minor royalty and an Italian peasant. No one knew. Old Jérome Dieulefit was a wine-grower from the south, the last of a bourgeois line. So you see there is no one to whom this money can go, by law, unless Germaine leaves a will. In her present state of health it is madness not to think of such things.”

Catherine fingered her gloves.

“Have you any idea who would benefit if she did make a will?” she asked presently.

Miss Cushing grew suddenly warm. She seized a worn copy of Ouvre tes Yeux Bleus and fanned herself vigorously.

“Not the slightest,” she declared a little consciously. “All I can say is that there is a certain string of pearls, quite valuable, which she has promised to leave to me. I helped her choose them. ‘Lili,’ she said at the time, ‘one day these will be yours, so be sure you approve of them!’ Always she referred to them as Lili’s pearls. She seldom wore then, only sometimes the copy she had made. The pearls themselves are insured for three million francs.”

Three million francs! Catherine glanced about her. All the small evidences of gentility struggling against poverty which had been apparent to her since she entered the tiny flat took on a new meaning. Three million francs would represent security and dignity in old age to this woman who was striving against difficult odds to gain a decent livelihood. No wonder Hermione was worried lest her friend should die without putting her bequest into legal form.

Suddenly she thought of the Bender apartment, given over to servants. One of the latter was a stranger of whose morals she knew nothing. Eduardo himself was behaving so abominably he all but invited suspicion, and last night there had been some outside person, possibly the little man she had seen with Jeanne, prowling about the place.

“By the way, where does Mme. Bender keep her pearls?” she inquired casually. “I hope they’re well locked up.”

“Ah, yes, they, at least, are perfectly safe. She keeps them with all her most valuable jewels, at the bank in the Place Vendôme.”

An indefinable qualm shot through the listener. What precisely did Miss Cushing mean by saying that the pearls at least were safe?

CHAPTER TEN

A moment later Catherine was listening to a jumbled discourse, as full of irrelevant detail as the room about her. She could not take her eyes from the overblown spinster, who, having contrived in some astonishing manner to tuck one foot beneath her, was imbibing countless cups of tea as though to provide her system with the moisture which constantly suffused her pale eyes and occasionally spilled over the edge of her scanty lashes.

Unless she had remarkable histrionic powers, which Catherine was inclined to doubt, she was certainly much moved; yet, watching her, the girl was not convinced that all this easy emotion did not cover a grasping nature and a singular lack of tact. In short, she was not at all sure that Jeanne was entirely wrong in assuming that Miss Cushing had somehow or other precipitated those violent fits of depression which had so nearly ended in their victim’s death. Yet she was even more sure that Miss Cushing had meant no harm, and was quite unaware that any blame could attach itself to her actions. Her own account of things, told with a ring of sincerity, bore this out.

Apparently Hermione had been in Germany at the time that Mme. Bender returned from America. It was only last October that she first called to see her old friend, on which occasion she was refused admittance on the plea that the poor lady was too ill to receive visitors. The same thing happened several times, not only to herself, but to other callers as well.

“Although there is no one here but me who was ever at all intimate with Germaine. She had so few close friends, you know: only myself and the Comtesse de Bréart, and the comtesse is in Afrique, shooting lions.”

At last she felt there was something wrong about these refusals. Afraid lest the invalid might not be receiving proper care and suspecting that her messages were not delivered, she resolved to be put off no longer.

“What did you do?” asked Catherine curiously.

“I informed Jeanne that I intended to see madame, whether she liked it or not, and when she tried to keep me out I simply put my full weight against hers and forced my way into the room!”

Catherine could not repress a gasp of admiration. The picture of the redoubtable maid overborne on the threshold of her fortress by sheer avoirdupois was almost too much for her gravity.

“Figurez-vous,” continued the singer, her eyes widening to circles of swimming earnestness. “Figurez-vous the shock I received when at last I beheld my pauvre amie, so terribly shattered, only a ghost of the woman I had known! Never shall I forget the look in her eyes. It was like some frightened bird caught in a snare.”

So she had noticed that, too! Catherine felt more and more mystified. She watched her hostess dab at her tears with a sodden handkerchief and pause long enough to swallow another cup of tea.

“Forgive me, my dear, for being so stupid. You see, I am very fond of Germaine. Elle a toujours été si gentille pour moi!” The tears dripped down.

“Was she glad to see you?” inquired Catherine, mainly to stem the tide of emotion.

“Glad! Her joy was pathetic. Why had I not come before? Why, at least, had I not written? She had been so alone, was beginning to think that no one cared whether she lived or died. You see how it was? That woman Jeanne had never told her of my visits, never delivered a message or a flower!”

“But are you sure of this?” demanded the girl incredulously.

A scornful shrug answered her question.

“She swore, naturally, that she always informed her mistress, but that Mme. Bender’s mind was so affected that she promptly forgot what was told her.”

“And you think that may not be true?”

Miss Cushing made an indignant gesture which nearly capsized the teapot.

“Lies—lies, every word of it! Nothing will make me alter my opinion. She simply wants to keep me and everyone else away from that poor ill creature.”

This on the face of it struck Catherine as manifestly absurd.

“But why? What possible reason could she have?” she objected argumentatively.

“There you have me. What reason can there be?” Miss Cushing stared helplessly in front of her. “She is, of course, frightfully jealous; one has always known that; she resents anyone having the least claim on her mistress’s affections. Still, I can’t help thinking there is more in it than jealousy. Sometimes I believe”—and she brought her face close to Catherine’s before whispering mysteriously—“that she is afraid for strangers to see what is going on in that apartment!”

“Going on?” repeated the girl rather startled. “What do you mean?”

“Why, my dear, isn’t it pretty evident that those servants are fleecing poor Germaine at every turn? Cutting down expenses and putting the difference in their pockets?”

Catherine was silent, recalling her own reception and the efforts, still continuing, to dislodge her. There might be something in it, though to suspect the hitherto upright Jeanne of such conduct was against all her previous conceptions of the latter’s character.

“It’s true,” she admitted, “they are not the least anxious to have me there.”

“Naturally not!” cried her hostess in triumph. “That clever Jeanne doesn’t want you looking on while she is busy feathering her nest!”

The identical phrase Jeanne herself had employed in regard to Miss Cushing! The listener bit her lip.

“But how can she do this? I don’t quite see——”

“Where are your eyes? Think for a moment. Until recently there were six servants kept. What has become of them? What has become of the chauffeur?”

“Oh, he has been dismissed. I happen to know about that,” put in Catherine.

“Then you may take it from me it was Jeanne who dismissed him, for Germaine knows no more of it than the babe unborn. It was Jeanne who got rid of the housekeeper and maids and replaced the cook with that slattern of a Berthe, who is asleep or gallivanting two-thirds of the time. Oh, it’s quite clear what she’s up to! She is taking the usual weekly cheque for the housekeeping, and keeping most of it for herself.”

Disagreeable though it was, the theory was certainly plausible.

“And Mme. Bender doesn’t suspect?”

“Ah, she is too trusting and too utterly absorbed in herself to give the matter a thought. Besides, she never was good at money matters. But Jeanne is afraid that you or I might open her eyes to the truth. Tell me—has she left you alone, really alone, with her mistress for a single moment?”

Catherine was forced to admit she had not.

“Eh bien—vous voyez? She doesn’t trust you. She is afraid also that you will discover what I have discovered—that all this talk about madame’s insanity is untrue. That will give you something to think about,” she added, nodding vigorously.

However, on this point Catherine was unconvinced. It was unfortunately so easy to see why Miss Cushing wanted to believe her friend sane, since evidently she was hoping to obtain a will in her own favour.

“Don’t you think,” she contented herself with saying, “it would be much better for Mme. Bender if she could be persuaded to go out?”

Her hostess raised a plump hand excitedly.

“Ah, now you shall hear something!” she cried. “I, too, knew that it was bad for her to remain always a prisoner, in that tiny room with scarcely any air——”

“Why does she use that room?” interrupted the girl curiously. “I’ve been wondering.”

“It is simply one of the poor dear’s peculiar notions. She grew up in a convent, and all her girlhood was accustomed to a little bedroom like a cell. Since Harry’s death she has gone back to the time before she met him. Voilà tout! She told me so herself.… But to continue.…”

It seemed she had been cooped up there for months, dreading the daylight, shrinking from the idea of strange faces. No wonder she was as white as a sheet of paper and trembling from weakness. At last, in January, by dint of great diplomacy and opposed every step of the way, Hermione had persuaded her to go for a drive. The car was brought round from the garage where presumably it was standing idle, the invalid was assisted downstairs.

“I went with her, my dear, so I can describe what happened. When we were out in the avenue she was astonished to find the chestnuts bare. You see, she had lost all count of time. Everything went well until she caught sight of the car, then suddenly I saw her tremble and turn the colour of chalk. Can you guess why?”

Catherine could not.

“Nor could I, at first. Then I saw that it was newly done up. It had been pale beige before, but now it was black outside and in—paint, upholstery, all. Chic, mais un peu funeste. Jeanne’s idea, for it had been left to her. Now I want to tell you something strange. I had already noticed, on several occasions, that Germaine, since Harry’s death, has had a horror of black. I dare not even wear a black dress when I go there. Not that she admits it—she is far too sensitive about showing her peculiarities—but I know what I am saying is true. Well, to return. All during that drive the poor thing sat huddled in her sable coat, shaking like a leaf, her eyes staring ahead of her. When we got her home again, she tottered to her room and fell across the bed in a dead faint! That was three months ago. Since then the very mention of going out throws her into a panic. Nothing will induce her to stir foot outside the apartment.”

Catherine listened in distress. She had often heard how almost impossible it is to uproot the fixed ideas of a neurasthenic.

“You can see,” went on Miss Cushing shrewdly, “how that incident played into Jeanne’s hand. She blamed me for what had happened, and has redoubled her efforts to prevent my visits. Oh, she’s a deep one! Believe me or not, she is wholly determined to keep Germaine under her thumb.”

“You don’t mean to suggest,” ventured the girl in helpless amazement, “that she had the car painted black on purpose to keep Mme. Bender from using it?”

“That, my dear, is exactly what I do believe. Everything points to it.”

The idea seemed ludicrously improbable. Catherine concluded that her companion was a woman of incurably romantic mind. Moreover, she remembered what Geoffrey Macadam had said last night about the warfare between Miss Cushing and Jeanne, and the likelihood of there being a good deal of reciprocal jealousy mixed up in it. Perhaps, indeed, the pot was taking a venomous delight in denouncing the kettle’s complexion.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of Yvonne at the door.

“You will not forget, mademoiselle, that you have an appointment with the modiste,” she announced in her deep voice. “It is almost six o’clock.”

“Mon Dieu! Is it so late?” cried the singer, starting up. “I must go at once. Catherine, my dear, perhaps you would care to come along with me? My milliner lives only a step from here, and you may be glad to know of someone who will do up things cheaply. Oddly enough,” she added confidentially, “it was this same Jeanne who first told me about her, almost ten years ago!”

Although Catherine had little faith that her own ideas of hats would coincide with Miss Cushing’s, she agreed, since there was no reason why she should go home just yet. Accordingly, a few minutes later she followed her hostess down the narrow stairs, it being manifestly impossible to walk abreast of her. The spinster had arrayed her vast form in a coat composed of two quite different kinds of fur, suggesting that it had been fashioned from separate garments donated by wealthy friends—as was indeed the case. This she wore with an indescribable air of elegance, while her step was light, even jaunty. She might have been a débutante, sallying forth, sure of conquests.

Skirting the rear of the Gare St. Lazare, they arrived at the rue d’Amsterdam, then half-way between the rue de Londres and the Place de Clichy they turned into a sombre court and ascended a staircase at the back. At the first floor, before a door bearing the single name “Honorine,” blazoned in faded gilt, they paused and rang.

A little apprentice in a black apron admitted them to a square room, whose windows overlooked the court. In the centre was a table heaped with felt hoods of various colours, straw shapes, bits of velvet and ribbon. At a smaller table between the windows two young girls sat, making hats. They glanced at the new-comers without interest, going on with their work.

“If the ladies wouldn’t mind waiting a moment,” the apprentice said, “madame is busy with a client.”

“Client!” murmured the younger of the two assistants with malicious drollery, “that is a new name for monsieur!”

Her companion caught up a huge pair of shears and snipped off the brim she was shaping.

“Such ardour, coming in the afternoon,” she returned, giggling with secret enjoyment. “She’s a lucky woman, if you want my opinion!”

“You’ve said it, at her time of life! It’s a mystery to me how she’s caught an admirer, a serious one, too. All these years living across the way, and all of a sudden he makes up his mind to marry her. I believe she must have put something in his coffee.”

“Beer, you mean!”

They giggled again, secretly savouring their morsel of gossip.

While Miss Cushing rustled the pages of a fashion magazine, Catherine found herself idly listening to the two chatterers, who continued in undertones, probably ignorant that their audience understood French.

“Of course, you forget he’s handled her affairs. That makes me wonder if she’s saved up more than one thinks she has. Anyhow she doesn’t throw it about.”

“Well, all I say is, there’s hope for all.”

The inner door opened and the milliner appeared, following a small man in black, wearing, with disregard of manners, his wide-brimmed felt hat. Catherine saw a drab and tired-looking woman in the forties, who at another time would have appeared worn and spiritless with hard work. Now, however, in spite of her parchment skin and untidy hair, there was a twist to her mouth denoting gratified vanity, a general look of conscious pride. Catherine had seen that expression before and knew what it meant.

The man’s face was hidden, but something oddly familiar in his stiff back caused her to gaze after him with sudden interest. Impossible that she could know by sight this insignificant Frenchman, and yet——

In the doorway he stopped, speaking in a low voice and with a hard, guttural accent—Belgian or Alsatian, she could not tell which. At the same time he flicked across his palm a pair of ugly, black fabric gloves.

Pair? No, strangely enough there was but a single glove. Catherine eyed it, fascinated. How odd to carry one glove! Odder still that it should so closely resemble the one she had picked up the evening before in Mme. Bender’s apartment. However, it could be no more than coincidence.

“Alors, demain soir,” said the owner of the glove impassively.

“Entendu,” murmured the modiste, closing the door upon him.

Miss Cushing billowed into the other room, where Catherine could hear her haggling over the price of an ancient hat which the milliner gently declared was not worth the trouble of re-making.

Instead of accompanying her, Catherine moved to the window and stood looking down into the court. Almost at once she saw Honorine’s visitor emerge, cross the flags to a door opposite, and fumble in his pocket for a key. Then, just before entering, he turned and looked up in her direction, the fading daylight revealing his features.

She saw an unwholesomely pallid skin, a small, bristling moustache, and eyes pale reddish in hue, staring upward with cold, unwinking fixity.

A queer sensation shot through her. She had seen him again—the pavement lounger, Jeanne’s friend, the midnight caller who had dropped his glove on the stairs!

Who on earth was the man?

CHAPTER ELEVEN

She did not know why she should attach so much importance to the incident just related, nor why, during the next few days, she should keep seeing in her mind’s eye the white, dull skin and pale, staring eyes of the little man in the rue d’Amsterdam. Again and again the vision recurred to her, always with a sense of distrust and vague repulsion, akin to the antipathy with which one regards certain specimens of the saurian kingdom.

As a matter of fact she was now acquainted with his name and occupation, for on the way out from the milliner’s she had read upon his door the words, “A. Blom, Notaire.” A notaire was probably a humble sort of lawyer, which offered a reasonable explanation for the man’s connection with Jeanne. In France upper-class servants invariably have their legal advisers who help them with the investment of their savings. Jeanne, the soul of thrift, was undoubtedly putting aside every available sou against her old age, so that it was quite natural for her to consult an expert on the subject of stocks and bonds.

As Catherine turned this over in her mind a sudden thought struck her. Very likely Eduardo put the bolt on the door the other night to prevent her walking in and finding the notaire there. Then as the visitor had gone out by the private entrance the precaution was forgotten till the knocker woke the sleeping occupants.

Her position in the household was now less positively unpleasant, and while she felt that she was still regarded as a thorn in the flesh, she fancied the servants had accepted her presence as inevitable and were making the best of things. She even noticed an improvement in their attitude towards her. Eduardo was not actually insolent, and Jeanne, though distant, was for the most part as suave as in former days. Occasionally she betrayed a slight gleam of resentment, but for this the girl was ready to make allowances.

“Poor, warped creature!” she mused, full of compassion. “It’s not that she dislikes me personally. It’s only that she doesn’t want to share her mistress’s affection with anyone. What a starved life she must have lived, to be so completely centred on one object!”

It did, indeed, seem that the woman had but a single passion, her devoted attachment to Mme. Bender. Impossible not to admire the indefatigable care with which she surrounded her charge, her quickness to forestall the invalid’s slightest wish. Steadfastly she refused Catherine’s offers of assistance, and remained hour after hour on duty, scarcely ever quitting the apartment. If in the evening she slipped out for an hour, Eduardo took up his post in the converted dressing-room adjoining Mme. Bender’s bed-chamber, and remained there until she returned.

Daily Catherine spent an hour or two with her cousin, trying to cheer her and at the same time to study her condition, but after a week she was as far as ever from coming to any definite conclusion. She was chiefly struck by the invalid’s total lack of confidence in herself, her unwillingness to affirm anything positively, cunningly waiting to take her cue from the opinions of those about her. It suggested that she was distressingly aware of blank patches in her memory, which she was anxious to conceal.

Mme. Bender’s spirits varied startlingly, passing from a childish, hectic gaiety to periods of moodiness impossible to lighten. At times she chattered volubly, jumping from topic to topic with utter inconsequence; then again she would sit for hours without opening her lips. It was on the latter occasions that Catherine noticed the look of terror before mentioned, but every effort to fathom the cause of it met with failure. All she succeeded in rousing was a hint of something very like suspicion towards herself.

Another thing puzzled the girl. This was neither more nor less the extreme readiness of Mme. Bender to agree with her maid on every subject, complaisance carried to the point where it seemed as though she were actually trying to curry favour in Jeanne’s eyes. Absurd, of course! Yet so it appeared when again and again the weak personality bolstered itself up by leaning upon the strong one. Sometimes Catherine told herself that if Jeanne had declared black to be white her mistress would have hastened to say that it was so. Reluctantly she began to see that there were some grounds for Miss Cushing’s view of affairs, and that for good or for bad her cousin was, to an alarming extent, under the maid’s influence.

“I suppose it’s only to be expected in the circumstances,” she reflected. “So long as there’s no harm in it, one oughtn’t to care.”

On the latter point she could not quite make up her mind. She continued to hold a high opinion of Jeanne, but as the days went by little doubts crept across her mental sky like clouds, each leaving its shadow beneath. Perfect as the woman showed herself in her devotion to the invalid, in other respects she was not so flawless. It became more and more evident that the establishment was badly run, that the maid did not trouble in the least what happened outside the patient’s own room. The second week passed, and the sheets on Catherine’s bed had not been changed. The windows wanted cleaning, not only in her bedroom but all over the apartment. The food served to her was carelessly cooked and all but insufficient. This neglect in a rich woman’s dwelling was inexcusable. In spite of herself, Catherine could not help thinking of the singer’s declaration that Jeanne was pinching and saving in order to put money into her own pocket. It must be so, for what other reason could there be for so niggardly an economy? Petty pilfering, for which one must not use too harsh a term, yet for all that it was distasteful to find the quality prompting it linked in the same character with motives of sterling excellence.

Meanwhile she was enjoying Paris. She presented introductions, made many acquaintances, and went about shopping and visiting picture-galleries to her heart’s content. Each day brought a fresh invitation, so that soon she was caught up in a gay and active life. More and more often she saw Geoffrey Macadam, and it was somehow gratifying to note the frequence with which he sought her society, yet, although she was getting to know him extremely well, he continued to preserve towards her an unbroken attitude of matter-of-factness, as impersonal as that of a brother. Sometimes the feminine part of her was piqued by this unexciting behaviour, but presently she came to regard him as one of those beings preordained for bachelordom, and having settled this to her satisfaction felt even more than before that she could confide in him with freedom. Undoubtedly there was something solid and worth while about him which counted higher than the facile attractions of the other men she had met, and though he seldom paid her a compliment and had never once tried to hold her hand, she began to look forward eagerly to her meetings with him, sure of mental stimulation and sympathetic accord.

Existence flowed on, outwardly serene, yet there was a sub-current to affairs which rendered Catherine ill at ease. Was she imagining things, or was it perhaps true that Jeanne, under cover of her unremitting labours, was conducting some secret game for her own advancement? She could not be sure.

Take the single instance of Mme. Bender’s car. Not once had she set eyes upon it, although her cousin appeared to assume that it was always at her disposal. What had become of it? No effort, she was sure, was being made to engage another chauffeur. Naturally she did not broach the subject to Jeanne, for at all cost she was anxious to avoid friction. At best her presence here was merely tolerated, and to stir up latent antagonism against herself would make life unbearable.

For the same reason she kept silent when, with a shock of surprise, she found that several of the best rooms in the apartment were under lock and key. Why was this so? Lying in bed at night she puzzled over the circumstance, unable to come to any conclusion. With one exception she had no desire beyond that of curiosity to penetrate the closed portions of the flat. Their contents did not concern her, but it was true she would have liked to go into the picture-gallery on the ground floor. Here were hung all the best of Harry Bender’s collection, which included many interesting examples of the modern French school—a number of the Barbizon group, a couple of Claude Monets, a fine Cézanne, and three or four Renoirs. In particular she recalled with a thrill of pleasure a small still-life of apples and pears, executed by Manet during his sojourn at Boulogne—a gem of a painting, highly treasured by her dead cousin.

Several times she was on the point of asking Jeanne for the key, but always something—instinct or premonition—held her back. In the end an incident occurred to render the request unnecessary.

Returning home one afternoon, she saw in the street outside the private entrance a luxurious Rolls-Royce standing by the kerb. For a moment she wondered if someone were calling upon Mme. Bender, but that could hardly be, for there was no sign of a chauffeur. Then she noticed that the car was black, inside as well as out, and the knowledge flashed on her that it was her hostess’ own. What was it doing here, and who was going to drive it?

As she fumbled for her key the question was answered. Eduardo came hurriedly out carrying a long cylindrical parcel wrapped in brown paper, took one startled look at her, and headed straight for the driver’s seat.

So the car was being used, but only for the servants’ convenience! The knowledge angered her, but hardly had she taken it in when she saw in front of her the door of the gallery standing wide open.

What luck! At once she stepped inside, then stood looking round her with blank disappointment.

Every painting was shrouded in ghostly muslin, not an inch of frame visible. Chairs and canapes, too, wore covers of linen, while even the carpet—a valuable Aubusson, if she remembered rightly—was hidden by an enormous dust-sheet.

“What a shame!” she murmured aloud.

She would have liked to remove the wrappers, but most of the pictures hung too high for her reach. The little Manet, though—that she might manage, for she remembered its position, lower down, at the end of the room.

“That’s it, I’m sure,” she thought, identifying a small rectangular shape. “No harm in having a peep at it—” and she loosened the muslin bag.

A cry of dismay escaped her. The gold frame, robbed of its precious canvas, stared her in the face.

What an odd thing—to part with the picture and leave the frame behind! She had never heard of such a thing. She stared at the open space, while in her brain a disagreeable suspicion began to take form.

Quickly she made the round of the other paintings, feeling the canvases through the material. There were several missing, she could not say which. Very strange, this.…

Next, her heart beating fast, she tugged at the enveloping linen upon the furniture, only to meet with a fresh shock. Every scrap of the eighteenth-century tapestry, fit for a museum, had been removed, leaving the coarse lining. Last she turned over a corner of the dust-sheet underfoot. As she expected, there was nothing between it and the perfectly laid parquet.

She remained rooted to the spot, while the blood sang in her ears. Who, she asked herself grimly, was responsible for these depredations? For that they were depredations she could not doubt. The artful concealment told its own story. Carpet and tapestries alone represented many thousands of francs, while the missing pictures might run into millions. Had they been secretly abstracted and sold?

A step ran lightly down the stairs outside. A pause, then in the doorway Jeanne appeared, a bunch of keys in her hand. Her brown eyes shot a rapid glance from Catherine to the muslin bag upon the floor and back again. In their hard gaze the girl caught the same expression she had seen in the mirror nearly three weeks ago—something alien, hostile. Now she fancied there was another emotion in them. Was it fear?

“Mademoiselle is searching for something?” inquired the crisp voice, edged with irony.

Catherine braced herself.

“Yes, Jeanne, I was looking for the little Manet. What has become of it?”

The maid raised her brows regretfully.

“Ah, the little Manet! It is sad, is it not? Monsieur parted with it, only a few weeks before his death. No wonder you are astonished to find it gone.”

Incredulity swept over the girl. Cousin Harry part with the pearl of his collection? She could not possibly believe it. She still recalled the pride with which he had shown it to her four years ago. She kept her gaze rivetted to the composed face opposite.

“Why did monsieur let the painting go without the frame? It is most extraordinary.”

A shrug answered her, indifferent, chill.

“Who knows? A whim, perhaps. I believe I heard them say that the picture was bought by some gentleman from South America. No doubt he paid a large price; but why he did not take away the frame I have no idea.”

“There are other pictures gone, also the carpet and the tapestry from the furniture. Were those sold as well?”

“At the same time, I imagine, but as I was away on my holiday I know nothing about them. We sailed immediately afterwards for America, and when we returned, madame and I, the room was as you see it now.”

“But madame? Has she never mentioned them to you?”

“Ah, poor madame? She does not occupy herself with these affairs. I doubt if she even remembers they were sold. I never dare speak of things which make her think of monsieur, as you well know!” She bestowed a cursory glance round the walls, then turned to Catherine with an air of polite dismissal. “And now, mademoiselle, if you have quite finished, I will lock up the room. It is safer, is it not?”

A plausible answer, which it was impossible to refute; yet as Catherine heard the key turn in the door instinct warned her that every glibly-uttered word was a lie. The servants themselves had disposed of those paintings, were probably planning the sale of others. She had wondered just now what the butler was carrying in that oddly-shaped parcel. Of course, it was a rolled-up canvas!

Her knees trembled as she walked up the stairs.

CHAPTER TWELVE

For the next few days Catherine was tormented by her suspicion. In justice she could not give it a stronger name, though from the first she was instinctively certain of the servants’ guilt. Certain—but cold reason told her the thing would be difficult to prove. To breathe a word to the invalid might shatter the very foundations of her being, and, except for Mme. Bender, there was no one at all likely to be acquainted with the facts. Hermione could not help, since at the time Jeanne declared the pictures to have been sold she had been absent from Paris. Indeed, it was probable that for the past year no outside person had entered the gallery.

After the upsetting discovery she shut herself in the salon and painstakingly examined its contents. For some time she could find nothing missing, though she fancied the vitrines contained rather less than their former store of bibelots; but at last she gave a gasp of triumph. A blue enamelled patch-box and a miniature set with pearls, both of which she had admired the day after her arrival, had disappeared. The final shred of doubt was brushed away.

She burned now to explore the locked bedrooms, but that meant demanding the keys.

What ought she to do? The question haunted her. Useless to assure herself that dishonesty was one thing, unkindness to an ill woman another, that she could put her finger on no instance of neglect or lack of consideration towards Germaine. The ugly fact stared her in the face that her cousin, helpless and ignorant of harm, was being hourly ministered to by an unscrupulous thief. Nor was this all. Over and above the tangle of moral values one idea stood out clear. If Jeanne could lie about one thing, she could lie about another. The thought was alarming, though she did not draw any direct conclusion from it.

She resolved to consult Geoffrey. After all, he was not only a real friend, but he and his father were Mme. Bender’s solicitors, so that no one could be better able to advise her. She was going to see him on Sunday, having been invited to his flat to meet his sister, up from Fontainebleau for the day. If she could get a moment alone with him, she would tell him the whole affair.

Till then she was forced to go on as though nothing had happened, though to do so was increasingly difficult. Her sensitive eye detected a hard defiance in the servant’s manner towards her, saw in their grudging politeness the mark of an armed neutrality. They distrusted her now, regarded her presence as a menace to their safety. Well, let them—they would not dare to go ahead with their systematic thieving. That, at least, was a consoling thought.…

All this time she was assuming that not only was Jeanne almost indispensable to Mme. Bender, but that her firm, managing hand exerted an influence for the invalid’s good. Now, however, she was to receive a second shock which ship-wrecked all her previous beliefs.

About the middle of the week, after lunching at the Ritz with some American friends, she came back to find her cousin, in one of her moods of apathetic depression. Usually at this hour she was sitting up in the bergère, a rug about her knees, but to-day she was in bed, her face pinched and wan, with purple patches beneath her eyes, an ivory rosary held loosely between her emaciated fingers. In the grey dusk of the room she looked like some poor, fear-haunted ghost.

“Is it you, Catherine? Come in—I have been waiting for you.”

The girl bent to kiss her, holding out the bowl of violets she had brought.

“Look, aren’t they lovely and fresh? All along the Madeleine the flower-sellers’ stalls are so marvellous, a blaze of colour. I do so wish you could see them.”

“And you brought me these? My dear, I am touched!”

Her eyes filled with tears.

“I’ll put them here on the little table where you can smell them. It is warm to-day, such gorgeous sunshine, and the chestnuts are actually budding. Oh, Germaine dear, if only you could bring yourself to go outdoors, I can’t help thinking it would do you good!”

She spoke impulsively, then was distressed to see the result of her words. The ill woman shut her eyes shudderingly, her features contracted with a spasm of pain.

“Ah, no! Not that!” she murmured in positive alarm. “It is impossible! You do not know what you are saying.”

Hermione’s story about the ill-fated motor drive flashed into Catherine’s mind. Yet almost against her will she found herself saying persuasively:

“But, darling, it must be bad for you to stay shut up in this little room. It’s unnatural to want to, you know!”

The shrinking gaze turned suspiciously on her, eyeing her with a sort of pained distrust.

“You too!” muttered the invalid. “First Lili, and now you… Jeanne was right. She is always right,” and she shook her head with a hint of fatalism.

Catherine was mystified, both by the words themselves and by the air of hurt reproach which accompanied them; but before she could muster a reply the maid entered with a tray bearing tea and a little pot of chocolate for her mistress.

“I will pour out, Jeanne,” cried the young girl, welcoming a diversion. “Put it here on the table.”

The woman complied, removing the violets, upon which she cast a brief, contemptuous glance, then hung about, needlessly officious, settling Mme. Bender’s pillows and arranging the cups and saucers. It seemed to Catherine that she was unwilling to leave her alone with the patient, but presently she straightened up and stood as though waiting for orders.

“You may leave us, Jeanne,” suggested the invalid timidly. “Perhaps as it is a fine day you might care to go out for a little.”

Somewhat to Catherine’s surprise the woman assented.

“As madame wishes. Since mademoiselle is going to remain, I will take this opportunity to get a breath of air.”

For a second her eyes rested full on Catherine’s face, with a look which the recipient read as a mixture of speculation and defiance. Then she withdrew, and presently a brisk step along the passage outside told the two listeners she had departed.

Catherine felt more comfortable, and fancied her companion shared her feeling, but after a little while she was distressed to see that the cup of chocolate remained untasted, her cousin’s eyes fixed blankly on the window, through whose white drawn curtains showed faintly the two iron bars Jeanne had spoken about. She asked herself what the poor woman thought about those brutal reminders of her past folly, and if the sight of them preyed upon her mind. She had never mentioned them, but there they were, staring her in the face, proof, even if she had forgotten the episode, that she was not to be trusted.

“You are very quiet to-day, Germaine,” remarked Catherine lightly. “Is anything troubling you?”

A tremulous sigh answered her. The white hand pressed itself against the tormented eyes as though to shut out disturbing fancies.

“I don’t know… I don’t know,” murmured the sad voice with a touch of irritability. “Everything is so confused. My memory, you know. Things go from me, and I never can tell what has happened and what I—I have imagined. It frightens me. I don’t know what to believe.…”

Catherine felt a wave of intense pity sweep over her. She would have given much to be able to help the poor, brooding creature, but what could one do or say to reassure her?

“Your chocolate is getting cold. Let me give you some more,” she gently urged. “As for forgetting things, if I were you I shouldn’t give it a thought! Memory is so very much a matter of health.”

“Ah, you only say that to comfort me. I know—I know it is far more serious than you think. There are things I could tell you of, dreadful things, ghastly things, things like nightmares! Ah! If you knew only half that goes on here——” and she touched her forehead with a distraught gesture. “Sometimes I—but no,” checking herself quickly, “I do wrong to speak of them. I am forgetting again. Jeanne says I am not to mention them to anyone, or else…” She stopped once more, setting her lips together with a look of frightened secrecy.