Complete Works of F Marion Crawford

by F. Marion Crawford

  More than once he met the motor, bringing Margaret to town or taking her back, and though he did not again chance upon it when Logotheti was without his glasses and shield, he felt tolerably sure that he was the chauffeur, and Margaret was always alone in the body of the car. Twice he was quite certain that the two were talking when he saw them in the distance coming towards him, but when they passed him Margaret was leaning back quietly in her place, and the chauffeur merely glanced at him and then kept his eyes on the road. Margaret looked at him and smiled faintly, as if in spite of herself, most probably at his appearance.

  He ascertained also that after one more rehearsal at the Opéra, Margaret did not go there again. The newspapers informed him very soon that Schreiermeyer had got his own company together and had borrowed the stage of an obscure theatre in the outskirts of Paris for the purpose of rehearsing. It had been an advantage for the young prima donna to sing two or three times with the great orchestra of the Opéra, but the arrangement could of course not continue. Margaret’s début was to take place in July in a Belgian town.

  Lushington was certain that Margaret had been at least once again to Logotheti’s house with Madame De Rosa, but he did not believe that she had stayed to luncheon, for she had not remained in the house much over half-an-hour.

  During all this time he made no attempt to communicate with her, and was uncomfortably aware that Logotheti was having it all his own way. He yielded to a morbid impulse in watching the two, since no good could come of it for himself or Margaret. Almost every time he went out on the Versailles road he knew that he should see them together before he came back, and he knew equally well that he could do nothing to separate them. He wondered what it was that attracted such a woman as Margaret Donne to such a man, and with a humility which his friends and enemies would have been far from suspecting in him he honestly tried to compare himself with Logotheti, and to define the points in which the latter had the advantage of him.

  Very naturally, he failed to discover them. In spite of what philosophers tell us, most of us know ourselves pretty well. The conclusive and irrefutable proof of this is that we always know when we are not telling, or showing, the truth about ourselves, as, for instance, when we are boasting or attributing to ourselves some gift, some knowledge, or some power which we really do not possess. We also know perfectly well when our impulses are good and when they are bad, and can guess approximately how much courage we have in reserve for doing the one, and how far our natural cowardice will incline us to do the other. But we know very little indeed about other people, and almost always judge them by ourselves, because we have no other convenient standard. A great many men are influenced in the same general way by the big things in life, but one scarcely ever finds two men who are similarly affected by the little things from which all great results proceed. Mark Antony lost the world for a woman, but it was for a woman that Tallien overthrew Robespierre and saved France.

  So Lushington’s comparison came to nothing at all, and he was no nearer to a solution of his problem than before.

  Then came the unexpected, and it furnished him with a surprisingly simple means of comparing himself with his rival in the eyes of Margaret herself.

  There are several roads from Paris to Versailles, as every one knows, leaving the city on opposite sides of the Seine. Hitherto Logotheti had always taken the one that leads to the right bank, along the Avenue de Versailles to the Porte St. Cloud. Another follows the left bank by Bas Meudon, but the most pleasant road goes through the woods Fausses Reposes.

  One morning, when he knew that there was to be a rehearsal, Lushington bicycled out by the usual way without meeting the motor car. It naturally occurred to him that Logotheti must have returned by another road. Whether he would bring Margaret out again by the same way or not, was of course uncertain, but Lushington resolved to try the Fausses Reposes on the chance of meeting the car, after waiting in Versailles as long as he thought the rehearsal might last.

  He set out again about half-past one. The road is in parts much more lonely than the others, especially in the woods, and is much less straight; there are sharp turns to the right and left in several places. Lushington did not know the road very well and hesitated more than once, going slowly and fast by turns, and at the end of half-an-hour he felt almost sure that he had either lost his way or that Logotheti was coming back by another route.

  CHAPTER XV

  MARGARET KNEW BY this time that Logotheti was really very much in love; she was equally sure that she was not, and that when she encouraged him she was yielding to a rather complicated temptation that presented elements of amusement and of mild danger. In plain English, she was playing with the man, though she guessed that he was not the kind of man who would allow himself to be played with very long.

  There are not many young women who could resist such a temptation under the circumstances, and small blame to them. Margaret had done nothing to attract the Greek and was too unsophisticated to understand the nature of her involuntary influence over him. He was still young, he was unlike other men and he was enormously rich; a little familiarity with him had taught her that there was nothing vulgar about him below the surface, and he treated her with all the respect she could exact when she chose to put herself in his power. The consequence was that as she felt nothing herself she sometimes could not resist making little experiments, just to see how far he would run on the chain by which she held him. Besides, she was flattered by his devotion.

  It was not a noble game that she was playing with him, but in real life very few young men and women of two-and-twenty are ‘noble’ all the time. A good many never are at all; and Margaret had at least the excuse that the victim of her charms was no simple sensitive soul with morbid instincts of suicide, like the poor youth who cut his throat for Lady Clara Vere de Vere, but a healthy millionaire of five-and-thirty who enjoyed the reputation of having seen everything and done most things in a not particularly well-spent life.

  Besides, she ran a risk, and knew it. The victim might turn at any moment, and perhaps rend her. Sometimes there was a quick glance in the almond-shaped eyes which sent a little thrill of not altogether unpleasant fear through her. She had seen a woman put her head into a wild beast’s mouth, and she knew that the woman was never quite sure of getting it out again. That was part of the game, and the woman probably enjoyed the sensation and the doubt, since playing for one’s life is much more exciting than playing for one’s money. Margaret began to understand the lion-tamer’s sensations, and not being timid she almost wished that her lion would show his teeth. She gave herself the luxury of wondering what form his wrath would take when he was tired of being played with.

  He was already approaching that point, on the day when Lushington was looking out for him on the road through the Fausses Reposes woods. When they were well away from the city, he slackened his speed as usual and began to talk.

  ‘I wish,’ he said, ‘that you would sometimes be in earnest. Won’t you try?’

  ‘You might not like it,’ Margaret answered, carelessly. ‘For my part, I sometimes wish that you were not quite so much in earnest yourself!’

  ‘Do I bore you?’

  ‘No. You never bore me, but you make me feel wicked, and that is very disagreeable. It is inconsiderate of you to give me the impression that I am a sort of Lorelei, coolly luring you to your destruction! Besides, you would not be so easily destroyed, after all. You are able to take care of yourself, I fancy.’

  ‘Yes. I think my heart will be the last of me to break.’ He laughed and looked at her. ‘But that is no reason why you should try to twist my arms and legs off, as boys do to beetles.’

  ‘I wish I could catch a boy doing it!’

  ‘You may catch a woman at it any day. They do to men what boys do to insects. Cruelty to insects or animals? Abominable! Shocking! There is the society, there are fines, there is prison, to punish it! Cruelty to human beings? Bah! They have souls! What does it matter, if they suffer? Suffe
ring purifies the spirit for a better life!’

  ‘Nonsense!’

  ‘That is easily said. But it was on that principle that Philip burned the Jews, and they did not think it was nonsense. The beetles don’t think it funny to be pulled to pieces, either. I don’t. A large class of us don’t, and yet you women have been doing it ever since Eve made a fool and a sinner of the only man who happened to be in the world just then. He was her husband, which was an excuse, but that’s of no consequence to the argument.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but the argument, as you call it, doesn’t prove anything in particular, except that you are calling me names!’ Margaret laughed again. ‘After all,’ she went on, ‘I do the best I can to be — what shall I say? — the contrary of disagreeable! You ask me to let you take me to my rehearsals, and I come day after day, risking something, because you are disguised. I don’t risk much, perhaps — Mrs. Rushmore’s disapproval. But that is something, for she has been very, very good to me and I wouldn’t lose her good opinion for a great deal. And you ask me to lunch with you, and I come — at least, I’ve been twice to your house, and I’ve lunched once. Really, if you are not satisfied, you’re hard to please! We’ve hardly known each other a month.’

  ‘During which time I’ve never had but one idea. Don’t raise your beautiful eyebrows as if you didn’t understand!’ He spoke very gently and smiled, though she could not see that.

  ‘You’ve no idea how funny that is!’ laughed Margaret.

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you could see yourself, and hear yourself at the same time! With those goggles, and your leather cap and all the rest, you look like the Frog Footman in Little Alice — or the dragon in Siegfried! It does very well as long as you are disagreeable, but when you speak softly and throw intense expression into your voice’ — she mimicked his tone— ‘it’s really too funny, you know! It’s just as if Fafnir were to begin singing “Una furtiva lacrima” in a voice like Caruso’s! Siegfried would go into convulsions of laughter, instead of slitting the dragon’s throat.’

  ‘I wasn’t trying to be picturesque just then,’ answered Logotheti, quite unmoved by the chaff. ‘I was only expressing my idea. I’ve known you about a month. The second time we met, I asked you to marry me, and I’ve asked you several times since. As you can’t attribute any interested motive to my determination — —’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘I said, to my determination — —’

  ‘Determination? How that sounds!’

  ‘It sounds very like what I mean,’ answered Logotheti, in an indifferent tone.

  ‘But really, how can you “determine” to marry me, if I won’t agree?’

  ‘I’ll make you,’ he replied with perfect calm.

  ‘That sounds like a threat,’ said Margaret, her voice hardening a little, though she tried to speak lightly.

  ‘A threat implies that the thing to be done to the person threatened is painful or at least disagreeable. Doesn’t it? I’m only a Greek, of course, and I don’t pretend to know English well! I wish you would sometimes correct my mistakes. It would be so kind of you!’

  ‘You know English quite as well as I do,’ Margaret answered. ‘Your definition is perfect.’

  ‘Oh! Then would it be painful, or disagreeable to you, to marry me?’

  Margaret laughed, but hesitated a moment.

  ‘It’s always disagreeable to be made to do anything against one’s will,’ she answered.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Logotheti coolly, ‘but it can’t be helped.’

  She was not quite sure how it would be best to meet this uncompromising statement, and she thought it wiser to laugh again, though she felt quite sure that at the moment there was that quick gleam in his eyes, behind the goggles, which had more than once frightened her a little. But he was looking at the road again, and a moment later he had put the car at full speed along a level stretch. That meant that the conversation was at an end for a little while. Then an accident happened.

  A straight rush up an easy incline towards a turning ahead, and the deep note of the horn; round the corner to the right, close in; the flash of a bicycle coming down on the wrong side, and swerving desperately; a little brittle smashing of steel; then a man sprawling on his face in the road as the motor car flew on.

  Logotheti kept his eyes on the road, one hand went down to the levers and the machine sprang forward at forty miles an hour.

  ‘Stop!’ cried Margaret. ‘Stop! you’ve killed him!’

  Full speed. Fifty miles an hour now, on another level stretch beyond the turn. No sign of intelligence from Logotheti. Both hands on the wheel.

  ‘Stop, I say!’ Margaret’s voice rang out clear and furious.

  Logotheti’s hands did not move. Margaret knew what to do. She had often been in motor cars and had driven a little herself. She was strong and perfectly fearless. Before Logotheti saw what she was going to do, she was beside him, she had thrown herself across him and had got at the brake and levers. He was too much surprised to make any resistance; he probably would not have tried to hinder her in any case, as he could not have done so without using his strength. The car was stopped in a few seconds; he had intuitively steered it until it stood still.

  ‘How ridiculous!’ he exclaimed. ‘As if one ever stopped for such a thing!’

  Margaret’s eyes flashed angrily and her answer came short and sharp.

  ‘Turn back at once,’ she said, and she sat down beside him on the front seat.

  He obeyed, for he could do nothing else. In running away from the accident, he had simply done what most chauffeurs do under the circumstances. His experience told him that the man was not killed, though he had lain motionless in the road for a few moments. Logotheti had seen perfectly well that the car had struck the hind wheel of the bicycle without touching the man’s body. Moreover, the man had been on the wrong side of the road, and it was his fault that he had been run into. Logotheti had not meant to give him a chance to make out a case.

  But now he turned back, obedient to Margaret’s command. Before she had stopped the car it had run nearly a mile from the scene of the accident. When it reached the spot again, coming back at a more moderate pace, nearly five minutes had elapsed. She found the man leaning against the rail fence that followed the outer curve of the turning. It was the man they had so often met on the other road, in his square-toed kid boots and ill-fitting clothes; it was Edmund Lushington, with his soft student’s hat off, and his face a good deal scratched by the smashing of his tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles. They had been tied behind with a black string, and the rims of them, broken in two, hung from his ears. His nose was bleeding profusely, as he leaned against the fence, holding his head down. He was covered with mud, his clothes were torn, and he was as miserable, damaged and undignified a piece of man as ever dreaded being taken at disadvantage by the idol of his affections. He would have made a pact with the powers of evil for a friendly wall or a clump of trees when he saw the car coming back. There was nothing but the fence.

  The car stopped close beside him. He held his handkerchief to his nose, covering half his face as he looked up.

  ‘Are you hurt, Monsieur?’ Margaret asked anxiously in French.

  ‘On the contrary, Mademoiselle,’ Lushington answered through the handkerchief, and it sounded as if he had a bad cold in the head.

  ‘I am afraid — —’ Margaret began, and then stopped suddenly, staring at him.

  ‘You were on the wrong side of the road, Monsieur,’ said Logotheti in an assertive tone.

  ‘Perfectly,’ assented Lushington, holding his nose and turning half away.

  ‘Then it was your fault,’ observed Logotheti.

  ‘Precisely,’ admitted the other. ‘Pray don’t stop. It’s of no consequence!’

  But he had betrayed himself unconsciously, in the most natural way. His spectacles were gone, and by covering the lower part of his face with his handkerchief he had entirely concealed the very great change made by shaving his
beard and moustache. While he and Logotheti had been speaking, Margaret had scrutinised his features and had made sure of the truth. Then she believed that she would have recognised him by his voice alone. Between the emotion that followed the accident and the extreme anxiety his position caused him, the perspiration stood in beads on his forehead. Margaret smiled maliciously, for she remembered how often they had passed him on the road, and realised in an instant that he had disguised himself to watch her doings. He should pay for that.

  ‘You look hot,’ she observed in English, fixing her eyes on him severely.

  He blushed to the roots of his hair, though he had been rather pale. Logotheti, whose only preoccupation hitherto had been to get away as soon as possible, now stared at him, too. Margaret’s tone and her sudden change to the use of English did the rest. He recognised Lushington, but remembered that he himself was completely disguised in his chauffeur’s dress and mask; so he said nothing.

  Lushington writhed under Margaret’s eyes for a moment; but then his English courage and coolness suddenly returned, the colour subsided from his face and his expression hardened, as far as the necessary handkerchief permitted her to see it.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’m Lushington. I can only repeat that the accident happened by my fault. I’m used to taking the left side in England and I lost my head. Monsieur Logotheti need not have run away, for it would never have occurred to me to make a complaint.’

  He looked straight at Logotheti’s goggles as he spoke, and Margaret began to feel uncomfortable.

  ‘I supposed that you had recognised me,’ observed the Greek coldly. ‘That is, no doubt, why you have taken the trouble to disguise yourself and watch me of late.’