5^>g^ 
 
SUCCESSION 
 
SUCCESSION 
 
 A COMEDY OF THE GENERATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 ETHEL SIDGWICK 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 «' LE GENTLEMAN," " PROMISE," " HERSELF," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON 
 SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 
 
 PUBLISHERS 
 
96r 
 
 Copyright, 1913 
 
 By SMALL, MAYNARD AND COMPANY 
 
 (incorporated) 
 
TO 
 
 M. S. 
 
 THIS BIOGRAPHICAL FRAGMENT 
 IS CONFIDENTLY DEDICATED 
 
 421747 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PART I— THE FIRST CAMPAIGN 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I A Question of Age i 
 
 II The First Test 36 
 
 III The Rats — and Duchatel ... 60 
 
 IV The Tyrant 94 
 
 V Moricz 137 
 
 VI Holidays 168 
 
 VII The Penalty 194 
 
 VIII Lemouski 228 
 
 PART II— THE SECOND CAMPAIGN 
 
 IX The Bad Subject 257 
 
 X Victor is Difficult 279 
 
 XI Jacques in Difficulties .... 299 
 
 XII Tragedy Begins 315 
 
 XIII The Critic 343 
 
 XIV Letters 371 
 
 XV Tragedy Proceeds 406 
 
 XVI And Finishes ...... 440 
 
 vii 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 PART III~THE COST 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVII The Family 467 
 
 XVIII Weber 497 
 
 XIX The Fete 524 
 
 XX Savigny's Task ...... 562 
 
 XXI The Last Assault . . « . . 589 
 
 Finale * i s . 620 
 
PART I 
 THE FIRST CAMPAIGN 
 
SUCCESSION 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A QUESTION OF AGE 
 
 M. LuciEN Lemaure and his younger nephew, having 
 quarrelled nearly up to the last moment before leaving Lon- 
 don, made a truce upon the sea. 
 
 It was a lovely night of April when the pair, accompanied 
 by a bag of unassuming dimensions and a violin, arrived at 
 Southampton Harbour. The crowd was not excessive, and 
 the sea was calm. These circumstances, and especially the 
 last, were pacifical to the temper of M. Lucien, and the 
 peace was augmented by self-approval. He considered his 
 charge in these days always, though he might disapprove 
 him. Thus he had chosen the long route, with really re- 
 markable self-denial, because Antoine had an odd habit of 
 sleeping better on the water than in any house or hotel on 
 shore; and now he had reason to be gratified by his own 
 foresight and generosity, the more so that the expected 
 penalty was plainly not to be required of him. 
 
 " There is the last of England," he observed, as the screw 
 began to churn in the dim-lit water of the river mouth, and 
 the lights of the town swung sidelong and retreated. " Tant 
 mieux." 
 
 " Why ' tant mieux ' ? " snapped Antoine at his side. " I 
 like England — a good deal — now and then." 
 
 " Lately ? " queried his uncle, a satirical eye upon him. 
 " See, you are tired, my friend. Suppose you stop contra- 
 dicting me and go to bed." 
 
 I 
 
2 * '••: ^'J • . • ': i .. iS^^'C'C E S S I O N 
 
 Later, under the influence of a cigarette on the moonlit 
 deck, his mood grew milder still. " Sleep well, mon petit," 
 he said, in the tiny cabin. " We are going home." 
 
 Antoine, who had no immediate intention of sleeping, was 
 staring out of the dim porthole of a fascinating space of the 
 unknown. " That is home to you ? " he asked vaguely. 
 
 " To be sure. My first youth was passed there, like 
 thine." 
 
 After an interval spent in a vain effort to imagine his 
 uncle with no hair on his face, Antoine gave it up and re- 
 curred to the window. " I wish I lived on the sea," he 
 murmured. 
 
 " There," said his uncle, " you must not expect my sym- 
 pathy. For me, the Channel is merely the only way to 
 France." 
 
 " The only way, yes," said the boy ; and being bidden to 
 rest and not talk, he dropped with docility beside the muffled 
 violin. 
 
 He emerged on the world, at the approach to his native 
 shores, silent and thoughtful. As the train flew towards 
 Paris, Lucien's observations as to the probability of seeing 
 his own father at the terminus were received soberly, almost 
 with shyness. The boy volunteered nothing himself that 
 suggested pleasure in anticipation. Whether this lifeless- 
 ness were indifference or fatigue his uncle could not say. 
 As a fact, M. Lemaure was not ill pleased to have him quiet, 
 for his tongue had been used, during the last fortnight, 
 with unnecessary facility and eft'ect. M. Lucien was still, 
 almost unknown to himself, suffering from some of its 
 excursions in the late campaign. 
 
 The few remarks the boy did make, as he leant to watch 
 the early sunlight on the Norman fields, were in pure pleas- 
 ure at seeing France again. They were so childish in phras- 
 ing and manner, that Lucien, who was nothing if not con- 
 scientious, was stirred to review some of these recent im- 
 pressions with misgiving. 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 3 
 
 " I wonder," he thought, " if, after all, I have attached 
 too much importance to a schoolboy fit of conceit. After 
 all, he has been flattered quite enough to account for it. 
 It might have been mischief rather than insolence: I 
 mean, rather to annoy me than to insult his grandfather. 
 I cannot believe he intended that." 
 
 He ran again through all the circumstances of their last 
 and most serious difference. The boy had, in Lucicn's view, 
 gone suddenly mad before the last performance of his 
 London season. He had agreed, after some skirmishing, to 
 the substitution of his grandfather's newest work for a 
 favourite item on his programme ; and had proceeded to 
 show himself so capricious and indifferent over its per- 
 formance as to make both his uncle's and his conductor's 
 lives a burden to them during the early rehearsals. After 
 the last Lucien had charged him sharply to his face with 
 inconsistency ; whereupon Antoine's temper had flared out, 
 in a fashion almost unknown in him, though exactly as 
 his mother's had been wont to do ; and he had allowed him- 
 self the expressions which had electrified his uncle, to whom 
 faith in his father's character and genius had, all his life, 
 amounted to a religion. 
 
 " He was tired that night," thought Lucien now. " He 
 lost his head simply, and has regretted it since. He is still 
 nervous too — no doubt I thundered rather, but the whole 
 thing took me unawares." 
 
 " See, Antoine," he said, leaning forward as they drew 
 nearer to the capital. " In case your grandfather should 
 be at the station, we had better have things clear. I have 
 told and shall tell him nothing of your folly that night. Not 
 that he would take it seriously, in any case ; but there is no 
 reason to distress him with such nonsense. You, I think, 
 are sorry for the words, and for me, it is forgotten. C'est 
 entendu, hein?" He held out a hand with dignity, feeling, 
 since he had been really hurt, very generous, 
 
 " What will you tell him then ? " said Antoine, turning 
 his dark eyes without deranging his languid attitude along 
 
4 * SUCCESSION 
 
 the seat. " Just that I said some ' sottises,' the same as 
 always ? " 
 
 " He is not a child," thought Lucien instantly. " He is 
 clever, maddening. Of course my action will have to be 
 explained. I shall say," he said aloud, with deliberation, 
 " that we differed about the concerto. That you were diffi- 
 cult and headstrong over that, which is certainly true. 
 You have admitted since that it was too much for you, 
 eh?" 
 
 " Yes," said the boy. " It is an awful thing, but I 
 played it. I had to have something real that night." 
 
 " You imply my father's composition is not real ? " 
 
 " Oh, do not," said the boy, under his breath. " I have 
 remembered he is your father now." 
 
 " To be sure," said M. Lucien, with stateliness. " And 
 have you no duty to him as well ? " 
 
 " I shall see him soon. I shall remember then." Antoine 
 diverted his eyes, to his uncle's private relief. " Do you 
 think I do not want to remember, after that ? " he said. 
 
 " I should think you would be ashamed," said Lucien, 
 by way of the last word in argument, and retired to his 
 paper. 
 
 " You like me to be ashamed," said Antoine, snatching 
 the last word from him, though still with a manner of 
 extreme languor. " Good, then, I have been. It is not " 
 — he watched the trees of Normandy sleepily — "a very 
 nice feeling." 
 
 " I am glad you know what it is like, at least," growled 
 his uncle into the paper. 
 
 " Don't you ? " said his nephew. " What it is like, is to 
 make you feel rather sick — all the time — especially while 
 you are playing it." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " The thing you are ashamed of." 
 
 " Antoine," said Lucien, rising and discarding the paper, 
 " do not be absurd. Here, look at me. You suffered that 
 
A QUESTION OF AGE 5 
 
 night at the concert, eh ? You excited yourself so much, 
 httle imbecile. Are you tired now ? " 
 
 " No, thank you — this is l*" ranee," replied Antoine. " That 
 is a French cow," he murmured, *' not so fat. That is a 
 French tree, not so thick. The sky is different, and the 
 sun. The concerts will be easier, I expect. Did — did you 
 say he would be at the station ? " 
 
 M. Lucien gave him up and, since he seemed merely 
 sleepy, let him be. He wished he had not disturbed the 
 subject, and decided, having warned him once, to let it 
 sink to oblivion. There was no fear, fortunately, of the 
 boy's repeating his graceless impertinence to the composer's 
 face ; even at ten years old, his wildest period, Antoine 
 would never have gone so far as that. Nor had Lucien 
 any wish to punish him further, since he admitted to be- 
 ing ashamed. While he smoked, he took to wishing in- 
 stead that the boy looked better, for that was a thing his 
 father would be bound to notice, and which his present 
 quiet behaviour would rather exhibit than disguise. 
 
 M. Lemaure was not at the station : he had a visitor. 
 The arrival, to Antoine, resembled a dream — one of those 
 uneasy dreams of familiar things in which no person quite 
 realises expectation, no sight or sound rings genuine. 
 
 As they entered the well-known flat his grandfather 
 opened the study door, but he gazed on them with an eye 
 which, though benign, showed the abstraction of society. 
 His voice had the same quality of remoteness, so that the 
 boy, for a moment, asked himself if he could have heard, 
 and be vexed with him behind the veil. 
 
 " It is well, Lucien," said M. Lemaure. " Come, my 
 son. Son Altesse — expressed the wish to wait for you. 
 He desires " 
 
 What he desired was lost to Antoine. The name in- 
 dicated to his ears one of his grandfather's patron friends : 
 a very great person indeed outside the world he now hap- 
 pened to stand in; but within it a benevolent but rather 
 second-rate amateur. Both Lucien and his father had 
 
6 SUCCESSION 
 
 taught the young man, or endeavoured to do so: he ex- 
 pressed himself profoundly indebted to each, but did not 
 fail to make use of them whenever it suited his convenience. 
 
 The talk was conducted half in French, half in German, 
 which M. Lemaure spoke well, and his son badly. The 
 great man would not stay to lunch, though courteously 
 pressed to do so ; and M. Lemaure was kept on his feet, 
 while his son stood itching to push him into his chair, and 
 banish this intruder on their homecoming. 
 
 M. Lemaure, who had hardly noticed Antoine in his dis- 
 traction, presently caught sight of him and, with a barely 
 visible sign, brought him to his side. Having him there, 
 he used him to rest a hand upon, and the boy knew, by 
 the hand's weight, he was tired. Once, when Antoine 
 glanced up at something in the dialogue, he caught his eye. 
 The look was one of understanding, though he did not 
 smile. Thereupon, the first ray of reality pierced Antoine's 
 nightmare. He had been longing for weeks for this one 
 person; now he felt that, somewhere in the distance, a 
 grandfather might exist. 
 
 At last the noble youth was content, and decided to 
 make his adieux. In doing so, he noticed Antoine, and 
 asked bluntly who he was. 
 
 " My daughter's son, Antoine Edgell," said M. Lemaure, 
 in his equable, tired tone. 
 
 " And a musician, I doubt not." 
 
 " In his degree," the old man assented. " He is just 
 through his first English season." 
 
 " With success, I hope." The Frenchman answered by 
 a little gesture, as his eyes passed across his son's. " Aha," 
 said the personage. " You will send him to teach me also, 
 monsieur, one of these days." 
 
 This was a royal joke, and M. Lemaure smiled. " Qu'en 
 dis-tu?" he said to the boy. "Thou mightst be more 
 successful." 
 
 " I should not want to be," said Antoine, out of the 
 dream in which he was engaged. It was probable that his 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 7 
 
 German was wrong, for he heard them laugh in the dis- 
 tance ; and he expected a reproof from his teacher when 
 the visitor had gone. 
 
 However, M. Lemaure, having seen his guest to the outer 
 door, returned and sank thankfully into his chair. 
 
 " Now," he said, " one might have lunch, and embrace 
 one's family. Come to me, my child." He held and ex- 
 amined him. " A bad night ? " he asked at once — " or 
 merely the remains of five concerts ? " 
 
 " I have slept," said Antoine rather guiltily. 
 
 " Tell me of the last one," said M. Lemaure. " Set 
 my mind at rest." 
 
 " The ' Foret ' was all right," said Antoine, looking 
 round him in panic. " He has got a paper — may I go to 
 my room ? " 
 
 " It is lunch-time. But go," he added, " if you will." 
 
 " The sea was perfect," contended Lucien, as soon as 
 he had departed. " Even I escaped." 
 
 " Yet that is not his natural colour, I hope." 
 
 " No. He is certainly very easily affected by fatigue 
 lately. It is only a passing qualm," said Lucien. 
 
 " Savigny is in the country," said M. Lemaure. "I will 
 ask young Bronne^ to look at him." He said no more, but 
 Lucien saw by his brow that he was vexed. The bonne, 
 when they went to lunch, said that M. Antoine would 
 take nothing and sent his excuses. 
 
 " Is he sick ? " said M. Lemaure. 
 
 Margot the privileged shrugged, and slightly shook her 
 head. " He is better there, I imagine," she said. " He 
 prays Monsieur to leave him alone." 
 
 Monsieur acquiesced, still with that shadow of a regal 
 frown, leaving examination of the delinquent till later. He 
 turned to his preoccupations of carving, and the entertain- 
 ment of his son. 
 
 "Am I to have no history?" he asked, after a time. 
 " My English correspondents have both abandoned me 
 lately." 
 
8 SUCCESSION 
 
 "The younger also?" said Lucien. " I am rather re- 
 lieved to hear it. I thought he would surely have teased 
 you with complaints." 
 
 " Complaints, eh ? Is the public life not what he thought 
 it — or are you, Lucien, disappointing in your new ca- 
 pacity ? " 
 
 " I should be much surprised," said Lucien, " if he even 
 recognised I had a new capacity. He still thinks of me as 
 teacher simply — when I am not just a detestable impedi- 
 ment." 
 
 In spite of his sharp tone, his father laughed easily. 
 " Which he has now at last evaded by escaping to Paris," 
 he suggested. " Poor child, he little thinks I shall prove 
 a more serious impediment still. We are to have you with 
 us for a time, Lucien ? " 
 
 " I shall remain till he is safely started," said his son — 
 ■' if there is room for me," he added. 
 
 " There is your old room, as long as you will." 
 
 " And Philip ? " 
 
 " Phil is contented sleeping out," said M. Lemaure. " He 
 is nearer his work and his friends. I am flattered in these 
 days if he visits me." 
 
 " Humph," said Lucien. " You probably encourage him 
 in negligence, if all were known. Well, I shall see that 
 Antoine attends to you, at least." His tone took on more 
 menace than he was aware. 
 
 " Do not," counselled his father, an eyebrow lifted 
 slightly. " I have no anxiety. It has never struck me, I 
 assure you, to fear being trampled by my children. You," 
 he added, " are by far the most severe." 
 
 "I ? " His father laughed at the change in his face. 
 " You are jesting," said Lucien, with dignity. 
 
 " I feel able to jest," said M. Lemaure in apology. 
 " Might I ask which of the journalists has been abusing 
 me ? " 
 
 " None," said Lucien hastily. " An contraire." He 
 felt he was not acting well, and his father, though aged, 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 9 
 
 was clearly as quick as ever. He made an effort. "They 
 can hardly find flattery enough for the boy. As for criti- 
 cism, one does not ask for it, there. There is no getting 
 at the truth." He bit his lip. 
 
 " Do you need the truth ? " said his father. 
 
 " As a fact," said Lucien, after a pause, " I do in this 
 instance. I was not at the last orchestral. I left him in 
 Wurst's charge, and went to the country." 
 
 " How ? " The old man showed surprise. ** I should 
 have asked," he said, as though recollecting. " How is 
 your wife ? " 
 
 " Not well," said Lucien, gathering force; " but her indis- 
 position was not my reason for retreating. I should not 
 easily desert my post, as you know ; but the boy made it 
 clear enough he had no use for me. He clung to that sacrc 
 concerto of Tschedin, which he knows you detest, and which 
 I never thought in a condition to perform. He mocked 
 himself of my objections, contradicted me, eluded me, and 
 twisted Wurst round his finger at rehearsals." 
 
 "And Wurst?" 
 
 " Wurst found him charming. He has Russian blood 
 himself, and had known the composer. He has encouraged 
 all Antoine's revolutionary tendencies from the first. The 
 pair of them took the last concert so completely out of 
 my hands that it seemed fruitless to remain." 
 
 " Bebe forgot himself," pronounced M. Lemaure, still 
 quite at ease. Indeed the situation so reminded him of 
 Antoine's childhood that he longed to laugh. " What did 
 he say, and when ? " 
 
 " We will not revive it," said Lucien. " When he came 
 to his senses, he apologised sufficiently. Perhaps he was 
 not well." 
 
 " Yet you left him," the father reflected. It was so un- 
 like Lucien that he stored the question for investigation 
 later. " Friedrich has written," he observed, after a silence. 
 
 His son started visibly. " Friedrich Reuss ? He was 
 not in London." 
 
lo SUCCESSION 
 
 , "No; but I have ofteo noticed, wherever he may be in 
 Europe, he is admirably au courant with our proceedings, 
 particularly those of the youngest of us. Besides, Wurst 
 is in correspondence with him, and Wurst seems a trifle — 
 debordant, as you say. A dream of beauty is his expression 
 for the * Foret d'Automne.' " 
 
 Lucien sat silent, genuinely taken aback. The common 
 critic, of course, he never regarded, but this was a case of 
 direct communication between two musicians of note. His 
 little intrigue to quash the subject was out-manceuvred 
 by fate. 
 
 " The * Foret ' was doubtless good," he said coldly. 
 " The first performance in public, Antoine would be care- 
 ful." 
 
 " Careful — ^that is his word." The old man smiled. " You 
 quote him, eh? We often had to complain of his care- 
 lessness in old days — but never with my things." 
 
 Lucien seemed to have no more to say. He was a 
 merciless critic in the outer world, but on certain subjects, 
 with his father, he was shy. It was useless to speculate 
 on the contents of Wurst's report — and he was not offered 
 Reuss's letter. Lucien devoted himself instead to the seri- 
 ous business of lunching. Margot's cookery was excellent 
 as ever, and in the society which was, with the exception 
 of his wife's, the most congenial in the world to him, his 
 spirits steadily rose and his temper softened. When the 
 coffee appeared, he took his cup to the window, and re- 
 mained there some time stirring it complacently, while he 
 gazed down at the sunny boulevard. 
 
 " Really," he said, as his father came to his side, " it 
 is a relief to be out of London. It is a gloomy, comfort- 
 less place at best. Yes, yes, if Cecile keeps better, I shall, 
 stay a bit." As a hand came upon his shoulder, he added :| 
 " I trust it will do the child good — he has been irritable 
 enough of late." 
 
 " He will soon get over it," said M. Lemaure quietly. 
 " The first season — one has almost forgotten what it is. 
 
A QUESTION OF AGE ii 
 
 Having waited an instant, he added: " This is Hke old days 
 to have you both. I propose now, Lucien, that you should 
 rest." 
 
 " I shall do nothing of the sort," said Lucien. " Do you 
 suspect me of coming over on holiday? When is the first 
 engagement — Sunday ? Rest, indeed ! " 
 
 " Let him be for a time. There is no harm." 
 
 Lucien grunted. " I shall not disturb him while he is 
 seasick, if that is what you mean. It would do him no 
 harm to play scales all the week." 
 
 " Scales — as you will, but not persons. Not Dmitri 
 Tschedin, I mean, nor even me. It is intrusive personality, 
 always, that disturbs the current of Antoine's philosophy." 
 
 " Father ! How absurd." 
 
 " But I have long remarked it. His own individuality 
 fights the alien matter, and it is not till he has either re- 
 jected it or absorbed that he is steady again. Wurst and 
 his Russians have excited him — nothing more natural. 
 For me," said M. Lemaure, plunging into memory, as he 
 stood by his son's side at the window, " at his age, the realm 
 of music did not hold such petulant passions, any more 
 than it held flat heresy, like that of Sorbier and Duchatel." 
 
 " Antoine adores Duchatel," remarked Lucien. " There 
 is no fighting there." 
 
 " Bon ! " The old man laughed. " Heresy on the hearth 
 then, if it must be so. So long as he does not play the stuff 
 in my hearing." 
 
 "There is that attic on the sixth floor," said Lucien, 
 becoming more contemplative. " It is true, he makes more 
 noise than he used. The concierge might let us use it, if 
 it is vacant still. I will see to it, when I go down." 
 
 Shortly after, inspired in part by this useful idea, Lucien 
 left his father alone to his writing, and went out to taste 
 the air of his native city, so far as cigarette smoke would 
 allow him to do so. 
 
12 SUCCESSION 
 
 Antoine was at home indeed, and peace was his for the 
 whole afternoon. He lay full-length in his own little 
 room beyond the kitchen of the limited establishment, and 
 studied the familiar walls, with the familiar stains upon 
 them, and listened for the occasional echoes of his grand- 
 father's voice, and Margot's gentle clatter in the kitchen 
 precincts. 
 
 At five, becoming impatient suddenly of his circum- 
 stances, he dragged himself up, and made his way to- 
 wards the study. But his limbs felt heavy, and cumbrous 
 to move; so he stopped at the kitchen, and rested there. 
 Margot had departed on some business downstairs, and 
 there was no company for him but a gaily leaping little 
 fire, and the great cat. He found the fire soothing and 
 watched it for a while, enjoying the scent of burning 
 wood, which proved he was in France. 
 
 Presently the study door opened, and his grandfather 
 called Margot. Antoine's head, and the cat's, turned 
 simultaneously. He thought of answering, but found no 
 energy. He watched the door intently instead, and after 
 a minute was rewarded. 
 
 " She has gone down," he said, in rather languid, me- 
 chanical utterance. 
 
 '* And you take her place ? " M. Lemaure approached 
 the fire too. " Have you had enough publicity, my child, 
 that you remain thus in the * coulisses ' ? " 
 
 " No, no," the boy said nervously. " I was going to 
 come soon. It was only rather warm in here." He stretched 
 his strong fine hands to the fire, shivering slightly. 
 
 " A kitchen is charming," said M. Lemaure, satisfying 
 the spoiled cat with a touch, though he did not touch his 
 grandson. But his remembered tone was of the most gentle 
 cordiality, a rest in itself to Antoine's overworked ears 
 and nerves. " I remember, you always preferred it, not 
 only on the winter evenings. Except when Margot drove 
 you out, I always found you reading here." 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 13 
 
 " Yes." Antoine looked at the Ccat. " Hector was young 
 then," he said. 
 
 . " Several of us have got old since then," said M. 
 Lemaure. The boy looked up, and saw his smile. He 
 could not be old, he thought, to smile like that. And yet, 
 the music 
 
 " Tell me," said M. Lemaure, taking a hand in his to 
 warm it, "hast thou had these sensations before?" 
 
 " I can't remember," said Antoine, after consideration. 
 " I think this sort is quite new — since Friday. It does not 
 matter, hein ?— if Savigny is not there." 
 
 " But it matters to a few besides the doctor. What oc- 
 curred on Friday ? " 
 
 " A scene," said Antoine thoughtfully. " I made most 
 of it." His eyes smiled, not his lips, remembering the 
 " scene " in that other world of London. " What is the 
 thing you hurt," he inquired, " simply by being angry ? " 
 
 " Your soul, I should think." The old man laughed. 
 
 " Oh no ; my soul was better," said Antoine, with con- 
 viction. " Much better afterwards. When it is quite fin- 
 ished, I am really very happy. But Savigny does not 
 understand that." 
 
 " I imagine not, if you look like this," M. Lemaure re- 
 flected. " Come to the study, darling," he said, with sud- 
 den decision. " It is as warm there as here, and more 
 restful — for both of us." 
 
 " Yes," said Antoine, " you are standing up." He 
 had only just noticed this, which was a serious omission. 
 He bestirred his heavy limbs, rose, and followed. To his 
 relief, his uncle was not there when they attained the 
 study, and he took Lucien's usual place unreproved. 
 
 His grandfather, before settling to his own work, looked 
 out a letter among the many on the table, and dropped 
 it on Antoine's knee. 
 
 " There is for you," he said. " Just arrived to-day." 
 
 " How quick ! "" said Antoine, having deciphered it. 
 " That concert was Saturday, and he is in Berlin." 
 
14 SUCCESSION 
 
 " There are English journals in Berlin," said M. 
 Lemaure. " Also, as you see, Wurst had written at 
 once. You shall have that to keep, it is more yours than 
 mine. And one day," he added, " your own grandchildren 
 will prize it." 
 
 He smiled, but the boy did not. He folded up the Ger- 
 man scrawl, signed with the famous name, with the tips 
 of his delicate fingers, and pushed it into his pocket. Then, 
 as his grandfather seemed occupied, he curled up in his 
 uncle's chair, and reflected deeply on the letter, its writer 
 who was his friend, Wurst the cunning little Russian, and 
 others of the kind whose image brought relief. 
 
 At six he was roused by the apparition of M. Louis 
 Bronne. M, Bronne was a handsome, melancholy young 
 man of dark complexion, and Dr Savigny's faithful slave. 
 He was rather slow in speech and method, but extraordi- 
 narily effective, as the Lemaures had reason to know. 
 Antoine's acquaintance with him was of old date, and he 
 bore his coming well, though he felt impelled by politeness 
 to slide from his comfortable chair to a footstool by the 
 hearth. Dr Bronne accommodated his legs to the vacant 
 chair, and since Antoine was on a convenient level, took 
 him by the chin. 
 
 " Personally, we disapprove of him," said M. Lemaure. 
 " We should be glad to have your opinion also." 
 
 " But you didn't come for that," the boy protested. 
 
 " I heard Monsieur your grandfather wished to speak 
 to me," said Bronne, in a slow, fine accent. " As to the sub- 
 ject, we may talk of you as well as another." 
 
 "You permit us?" said M. Lemaure. 
 
 Antoine resigned himself with an expressive movement. 
 " I will tell you quickly," he said, " and then you need not 
 talk about me." 
 
 " Very good," said the young doctor. " But don't em- 
 broider too wildly, or I shall interrupt." 
 
 " I don't want to embroider," said Antoine. " I shall 
 tell you your things, that is all." He proceeded to give a 
 
A QUESTION OF AGE 15 
 
 close and extremely clever account of himself, and the 
 extraordinary sensations which had shaken his spirits be- 
 fore that last performance in the Regent's Hall. 
 
 " I had been furious, excited, impatient, rude," he said, 
 summing up his sins for commentary. "Savigny would not 
 have liked to see me on Friday night. To be tired after 
 that, or to have an old pain, would have been very well. I 
 speak for him," he added, as Bronne laughed. " But I 
 can't play when my hands shake, and I am afraid of be- 
 ing sick. I don't suppose Lemonski could, or Charretteur, 
 or my uncle, or anybody. You will have to take that 
 right away — you or he." He got more earnest and grasped 
 the doctor's cuff. " I had rather have the other pain, a lot 
 of it." 
 
 " It is probably the old pain that brings this," said 
 Bronne, who was now caressing his own chin with one long 
 hand: the other was just touching Antoine's wrist. 
 
 " Well, take them away both. I don't mind." The 
 boy's short laugh was singularly nervous. He always de- 
 tested these consultations ; and the fingers of his uncap- 
 tured hand were snapping unconsciously with impatience. 
 His grandfather watched him with close interest and a 
 kind of admiration. The two were so much in physical 
 sympathy that he could accurately gauge his feelings, and 
 his remarkable mastery of them, feverish as he was. 
 
 Dr Bronne dropped the wrist he was holding suddenly, 
 and felt inside his coat. " I have to trouble you," he said. 
 " This is the next thing." 
 
 Antoine's glance passed from the instrument to his grand- 
 father. " That is not used for your soul, I believe," said 
 he. 
 
 " You had thought of your heart already, had you ? " 
 said Bronne, watching him unfasten his clothing with rapid, 
 clever hands. 
 
 " I was not sure," said Antoine hastily. The facts he 
 possessed, by means of his grandfather and a medical 
 brother, were various and accurate; but he had a strong 
 
j6 succession I 
 
 ""'There is not enough to write to Savigny," Antoine n> 
 *°™BareV' said Dr Bronne, beautifully serious. 
 
 ..Khr said A-t^./--.^rrt^r:::r 
 
 trate the expression of his tace \y y 
 tell me? I'm not afraid of being dead. 
 
 don ^But you see, nc 1 1 ^^ concert here 
 
 " It is all right," said M. Lemaure to his grandson, a lit- 
 tle lateT"' y'ou'will be well in a day or two <£ you^a« 
 patient. Bronne thmks you have been exct, g :, 
 
 lx:f-S'th:rare :rfz x:jJ^^r. y.. 
 
 ::Sdt— if I^rrsince youth is at fault, 
 
A QUESTION OF AGE 17 
 
 He laughed as the boy shifted the stool with a sudden 
 jerk and flung his weight back against the sofa close to 
 him. 
 
 " Gently ! " he said, touching him. " I have to be con- 
 sidered now." 
 
 " Oh yes ! " said Antoine. He considered obediently at 
 some length, finding the point of view convenient and the 
 change of posture comfortable. It seemed, his grandfather 
 would fit into the old place after all, in spite of recent ob- 
 scurities. He fitted sedulously for a period, the new and 
 the old. M. Lemaure, with excellent tact, did not try to 
 come near too suddenly. 
 
 " He has slipped back to the wild state," the old man was 
 thinking on his side. " Lucien has been inattentive. Per- 
 haps he will tell me what it is, in time." 
 
 Having his grandson now so close beneath his eyes, he 
 could discover little change. Antoine had remained over- 
 slight since his illness of two years back, so that, especially 
 in the present childish pose, he barely looked his fourteen 
 years — they could easily have passed him as twelve before 
 the multitude, had they wished to do so. The little lines 
 of strain, relics of the experience of the last hard months, 
 had vanished in the caressing firelight. He was of those 
 who think deeply without grimacing, though at other times 
 his face was never still. He looked puzzled merely : faintly 
 annoyed, as at the forced study of some old vexatious 
 problem. 
 
 " It is soon — Sunday," he said at last, and his voice had 
 a break of weariness. The old man's intently critical look 
 changed. 
 
 " You are not playing Tschedin on Sunday, my love." 
 
 " No — tant mieux. I will practise," said Antoine, " per- 
 haps, to-morrow." 
 
 " As you will," said his guardian tranquilly. 
 
 " How, as I will ? " in a flash, indignant almost. 
 
 " You are to do as you like, according to Monsieur le 
 
i8 SUCCESSION 
 
 beau Bronne. I am to humour you — Lucien also, natu- 
 rally." 
 
 Antoine gave him a questioning glance round the corner, 
 to judge if he were serious. One could never tell, though 
 personally he did not find the subject of doctors amusing. 
 
 " I am well now," he observed, reassured by the ex- 
 pression he found, and subsiding more completely against 
 his grandfather's knee. 
 
 " You will be, if you are sensible." 
 
 Silence. 
 
 Antoine reviewed a portion of the ceiling above his head. 
 The fire had always made a shadow there of a certain spider- 
 shape when the room was otherwise unlighted. It was 
 pleasant to discover the shape still there, and things in 
 general so unchanged. There was an air of sympathy about 
 this house that London houses lacked. He reflected, watch- 
 ing the pretty flicker of light on the study walls, that it 
 would be easy to be " sensible " in France — " good " as 
 well, if necessary. And even should he fail to satisfy the 
 high standards of his uncle and Dr Savigny in these 
 things, his grandfather was still there, a useful presence, 
 to intervene and interpret to them both. That was the ad- 
 vantage of being at " home," as his uncle called it ; in the 
 place where the three best and most peaceful years of his 
 life had been passed. 
 
 The boy's dark eyes shifted slowly from object to ob- 
 ject, dwelling on each as a memory arose. The prints low 
 down on the walls, as though inviting to expert study — 
 they had been above his head at eight years old, and one, 
 in the corner by the piano, he had feared. The piano, now 
 so seldom opened, then in constant use for illustration and 
 accompaniment — he had never cared for it much, and 
 he had had a special grudge against it for representing an 
 orchestra so badly. The old curtains, with a darn where 
 he and the cat, both in their impulsive youth, had torn the 
 fabric in a game — pausing there, he recalled Margot's 
 voluble anger, and his own disgrace. The portraits of a 
 
A QUESTION OF AGE 19 
 
 few chosen members of the family Lemaure, on the shelf 
 above the fire, he could hardly see from his low seat. That 
 of a certain distinguished cousin was gone, he noticed, or 
 rather obscured by one of his own recent photographs, 
 unframed, which leant against it for support. On the 
 significance of this little change his mind did not dwell, 
 and his eyes moved on to a larger framed portrait on an 
 easel by the piano, of a huge man with bristling hair and 
 beard, scrawled across the corner with a famous name, of 
 which a small part was his own — Friedrich Anton Reuss. 
 Here Antoinc's eyes paused, finally as it seemed. The por- 
 trait represented, not only a memory, but a fact: a very 
 solid fact, and one for which one might be thankful. There 
 were no teasing problems about Reuss ; one need not even 
 be " careful " with him, for he was not old. Age was 
 Antoine's latest study, and it was a wearing one, for he 
 intended to get to the bottom of it, before he allowed his 
 mind to be diverted. 
 
 "Raconte a little," said his grandfather presently, for 
 he saw well that the boy's stillness held no chance of 
 sleep. " It is better than thinking. You must have collected 
 many things of interest." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Antoine, in an expressionless tone. 
 "There are Wurst, and Tschedin, and how they went to 
 the cours at Moscow, and how the police shot him, not 
 Wurst, but Tschedin,— shot him dead. Those are interest- 
 ing things." 
 
 " Thank you," said M. Lemaure. " I still prefer thine 
 own." 
 
 " Oh, bah ! " said Antoine, moving restlessly. " My 
 uncle has told all that." 
 
 " Not about Saturday, evidently, since he was not there." 
 
 " Saturday ? " The storyteller considered. " Yes, that 
 will do," he decided. " He went away just before the con- 
 cert, because he was ennuye, and my aunt was ill. I was " 
 — an expressive gesture — " I told you how. I was quite 
 alone to dinner. Wurst had told me to be punctual, eight 
 
20 SUCCESSION 
 
 o'clock. I was late, extremely. I nearly didn't go. If I 
 had not " In the palpitating pause, he heard the au- 
 ditor laugh. " You would not have laughed then," he 
 finished, in a flash. 
 
 " Excuse me, darling — you are so sensational. Be calmer, 
 or I must simply send you to your room." 
 
 "It happened like that," said the boy uncertainly. He 
 looked from M. Lemaure's face to the hand that lay over 
 his wrist. It was the doctor's hand, still quite impersonal. 
 The face, always benignant, was a little grave. 
 
 " Perhaps," he resumed, rather absently, for he was 
 counting, " I had better talk myself." 
 
 " No — do not ! " exclaimed Antoine, flushing high. He 
 had instantly no doubt that he had guessed through the 
 veil of his son's account. Being what he was, he must 
 have divined the whole. 
 
 " Not ? " said M. Lemaure. " But I have something I 
 cannot leave unsaid, and you remind me. I have to offer 
 you my thanks for your interpretation of my work on 
 Saturday. There is no doubt how it was done, since Reuss 
 heard that from Wurst. It is a pleasure to me inexpressi- 
 ble — unimaginable to you, since you are young. Therefore, 
 since I have you near, I thank you now." 
 
 He bent and kissed the boy's brow, drawing his head 
 back for the purpose. Antoine submitted to it passively, 
 biting his lip. His rare flush had sunk back to extreme 
 pallor again, but that his guardian could not see in the 
 deceptive firelight. Had he remembered, M. Lemaure al- 
 ways accomplished formalities in art, even the smallest. 
 It was thus he had educated the boy in the important mat- 
 ter of etiquette, though he went actually little beyond his 
 courteous nature in doing so. Doubtless now he expected 
 an answer, but Antoine had turned languid and seemed in- 
 different, so the pause was prolonged. 
 
 " It was hard work at such short notice," the composer 
 suggested. " Did you find it difificult ? " A slight nod was 
 answer. " How many rehearsals, eh ? " 
 
A QUESTION OF AGE 21 
 
 " Four or five," the boy said, rousing. " They did not 
 linderstand at first, and Wurst wanted me to go. Up to 
 the last one, it was very bad." 
 
 "Aha? You must show me; there might be simpHfica- 
 tions." 
 
 " Simphfications ! " thought Antoine, and smiled. With 
 his half-dropped lids the smile was haughty — what his un- 
 cle called insolent — for the fraction of time it lasted. " I 
 changed one little thing," he said. " Some time — not now 
 — I will show you that." 
 
 " I am in thy hands," said M. Lemaure, slightly mock- 
 ing, but quite serene. His grandson made a face in the 
 shadow, simply for his own relief. His eyes, straying rather 
 wildly for assistance, found the portrait of Reuss again. 
 
 " Will Fritz be here," he asked, " this spring? " 
 
 " Ah — but I should have told you, dearest. He passes 
 through, no more, next Saturday. He conducts the ninth 
 Symphony and the Rheingold overture at the Trocadero, 
 and goes on to Brussels next morning." 
 
 " He will not have much time," Antoine reflected aloud. 
 " I had better go to that concert perhaps." 
 
 " Is that so distasteful ? " said M. Lemaure, for he had 
 sighed. 
 
 " No. I have only four francs — ^will that be enough ? " 
 
 " Barely. You are late, you see, and it will be crowded 
 to the doors, not a doubt of it." 
 
 '* Psst ! " said Antoine, moving irritably. " It's only to 
 see him, not to listen." 
 
 " You will have to listen too, if I know Reuss. Per- 
 haps he will give you a seat," M. Lemaure added, " if 
 you ask him. He may have some francs to spare. He 
 mentioned in that letter, if you remember, that he had 
 been earning enormous sums of money, and had not had 
 a moment's rest." 
 
 " Fritz does not like resting," said Antoine, " except 
 just after dinner. I expect he likes the money too. Per- 
 haps if they gave him a lot, he would stay in Paris a little." 
 
22 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Well," said his grandfather, " wanting a lot of money, 
 we will try what a little friendship will do — eh? Shall I 
 write to him ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," said Antoine. " Because then I need not." 
 With a breath of relief to be rid of conjecture and plan- 
 ning, for a future which he preferred to be decently obscure, 
 he relapsed into reflection on his own lines again. But 
 his guardian had been reminded of a duty, as much by his 
 fixed wistful gaze at the portrait as by any words he had 
 spoken. In thinking over the quickest, safest remedies for 
 this important child of his, he had forgotten one. It was 
 as well to try, as he had said, what a little friendship 
 would do. 
 
 " He is with us, my youngest," M. Lemaure wrote to 
 Reuss that night. " Very happy to be home, and have your 
 letter, but worn as though he had had years of work al- 
 ready. He and Lucien excite one another, I fear, no es- 
 caping it ; and of the two he suffers the more. They speak 
 of his heart now — alas, you remember Marcel? Each of 
 these shocks, it is as though I had foreseen it. Come to 
 us, Fritz, since you say you will be passing. Here is a 
 house with two that want you, and that is more than 
 can be said for any hotel of Europe. Your presence will 
 give him heart for his first trial, which is Sunday, He 
 has lost his nerve, poor little one, for the first time in pub- 
 lic, and he will be less happy as the week goes on." 
 
 " I come for his concert," Antoine's friend telegraphed 
 in reply ; and on Saturday he came. 
 
 Reuss in his late middle age bristled rather less than in 
 his portrait. His head was called lion-like by his admirers ; 
 but, in fact, he was a good deal more like a bear, and he 
 had always been a bear to Antoine. His eyes were small, 
 twinkling and kind, his person enormous in every dimen- 
 sion. His voice was gruff, like that of the noble beast in 
 a fairy tale; and though it could thunder on occasion, to 
 miscreants in the orchestra, or at worse miscreants on the 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 23 
 
 staff of a daily paper, no child had ever heard anything but 
 its pleasantest growl. He loved all children, and studied 
 thcni in serious Teutonic fashion ; but the son of Henriette 
 Leniaure had always been set apart to him. lie " discov- 
 ered " Antoine at eight years old, and treated his indif- 
 ferent French family to prophecies concerning him. Now, 
 when the prophecies began to come true, Fritz was exultant, 
 while the family remained serene. Nothing that he could 
 do, apparently, would move them from their tolerantly 
 critical attitude : bluster and sentiment were alike in vain : 
 threats to steal the boy so little appreciated met equally 
 with what he called " the eternal shrug of France." So in 
 fine, Dr Reuss growled no more, but contented himself 
 with securing a permanent supply of information about 
 these French Lemaures he loved, and Antoine in particular, 
 at great cost of money and time to himself; and with see- 
 ing the boy and his grandfather perhaps twice a year for 
 five hours, or a little longer if the fates were kind. 
 
 He arrived late, for his own immense rehearsal at a dis- 
 tant hall delayed him. Antoine was practising when he 
 came, under this uncle's vigilant eye, and his grandfather 
 in the study was alone. 
 
 " But that sounds well," said Reuss, when they had 
 greeted. " He has not broken down, at least." 
 
 " No. There is no such thing as illness in the world. 
 Remember when you talk with him, Fritz." 
 
 " He has had more reason than most to dread it," said 
 Reuss, standing with his broad back to the fire. 
 
 " It is singular," his friend agreed, " how that impression 
 remains. I can never quite determine whether the fear is 
 more of himself or of Savigny ; but the mark went very 
 deep." 
 
 "That's the doctor, hey?" said Reuss. "I never saw 
 him, but I like nothing that I hear." 
 
 " Nor I," laughed M. Lemaure. " He himself takes care 
 of that. He flies in the face of popularity — Raymond. The 
 only chance is to know him." 
 
24 SUCCESSION 
 
 "And then you trust?" 
 
 " For my part, completely. I would not fear him," said 
 M. Lemaure reflectively, " but that Bebe's alarm is con- 
 tagious. I am requested to let Savigny know nothing of 
 this little lapse of his. Nor is there need, I think, for he 
 is better." 
 
 Reuss spoke of other matters for a time, though he was 
 listening, as his friend could see. 
 
 " My ears are tired," he suddenly announced. " I have 
 had music noise all day. Can I stop them, Charles? " 
 
 " At your peril. Lucien will blast you." 
 
 " I am not afraid of Lucien." The great conductor stood 
 magnificently. 
 
 " Very well. Open that door before I count ten." 
 
 " You know," said Fritz, long after the ten was finished, 
 " I do not think, as a family, you are artistically concerted." 
 
 " Pish ! we are admirable. What will you say next ? " 
 
 " Do not interrupt me. Lucien has no soul to speak of, 
 and a far weaker brain than either you or Antoine. But you 
 let him constantly make both you and my little one mis- 
 erable." 
 
 " All I know is," said M. Lemaure, after reflection, " if 
 the child failed once, Lucien would not survive it." 
 
 " Well, I am not at all convinced that would not be the 
 best solution," said Reuss. 
 
 " Cecile would make a charming widow, hein ? And I 
 should not have to appeal to your protection so often. Un- 
 fortunately " — he stretched a hand to the fire — " I love Lu- 
 cien. His conscience is a tonic to me. I used to put my diffi- 
 culties before him, in disguise, at twelve years old ; and he 
 never failed to have an expedient." 
 
 " Not the one you would have thought of," twinkled 
 Reuss. 
 
 " Never — but doubtless more pleasing to Almighty God." 
 He looked up half serious at his broad German friend. 
 "You know, he would be on your calendar of saints in 
 Berlin." 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 25 
 
 " Not on mine," said Fritz obstinately. " Lucien may 
 save his immortal soul, and will, no doubt. I had sooner 
 he respected Antoine's." 
 
 " It is not Antoine's soul that has suffered," observed his 
 grandfather. " He himself assured me of that. Really," 
 he added, meeting Reuss's twinkle, " you would say he en- 
 joys the friction half the time. Doubtless his wits need 
 exercise," 
 
 " It is young company he wants," the German reflected ; 
 but, watching his friend's worn looks, he did not say it 
 aloud. " It is inherited perhaps," he proceeded tranquilly, 
 soon. " Lucien and his sister, according to my memory, 
 were snapping all the day. Yet he w^as a devoted brother, 
 as he has been a model uncle — has he not ? " 
 
 " He has failed nowhere in essentials," said the old man 
 emphatically, his face clearing, " nor will. I trust him en- 
 tirely, more and more, even with this, the best thing I 
 possess. I often think, Friedrich, I was unjust to Lucien, 
 when Alarcel and Henriette were alive. He has become all 
 he is to me since that. And what he is, he has made himself, 
 by sheer desire for the good things fate denied. It is won- 
 derful when one thinks " He broke off, as the music 
 
 ceased abruptly beyond. " There, they have finished," he 
 concluded quietly, and his looks took on the cloud of age 
 again. 
 
 The door opened and Lucien came in, frowning. 
 
 " Good heavens, and is that not good enough," scoffed 
 Reuss. " I believe he comes to fetch the rod." 
 
 " Well," said Lucien, " he is very tiresome. He will not 
 play one part at all, father, and I am certain it is because he 
 has doubts of it, though he gives every other absurd ex- 
 cuse." 
 
 " Here is Friedrich," said his father gently. 
 
 " How are you ? " The son cleared his face with an 
 effort. 
 
26 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Suffering from an overdose, like you," said Fritz. 
 " What have you done with the pupil, hey ? " 
 
 " He has gone to his room. I have had enough of him 
 for the present. I said he had better rest, but no doubt he 
 has seized the opportunity to do otherwise. Shall I tell 
 him, father? " 
 
 " No," said Fritz, " let him be. I will go later, when he 
 has forgotten it." 
 
 " What ? " said Lucien sharply. 
 
 " The rest of the concerto. I have no wish for him to 
 think of old masters," said Reuss. " I want him to think 
 of me." 
 
 Inanimate objects, in Antoine's neighbourhood, had a way 
 of ranging themselves to express his inner mood. Drama 
 existed not only in him, but about him, habitually. He was 
 not by nature orderly ; but to-night the music strewn about 
 his room, as well as his own attitude upon the bed, ex- 
 pressed, past any further doubt of the circumstances, dev- 
 astation. Reuss, knowing him well, was more or less pre- 
 pared for it; and he did not smile when he finally entered 
 the little apartment, having got no answer to his knock. 
 The tragedy, he imagined, had grown past smiling, and 
 none was more prompt in sympathy ; though his kind blue 
 eyes twinkled very faintly, as he kicked the shattered re- 
 mains of various great masters aside, and made his way 
 through their wreck to the artist. 
 
 " What is this ? " he growled agreeably, using his own 
 tongue as his custom was. " This is no greeting, surely, 
 for one who comes so far. Come, do not cry, but let him 
 know the worst, the ancient friend. It is for that he has 
 come, to be told." 
 
 " You have your concert to-night? " gasped Antoine, half 
 turning. He was at the last exhausted stage of tears, and 
 his voice was almost extinct, but he spoke German, and 
 correctly. 
 
 " And thou thine to-morrow, eh? " 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 27 
 
 " No. I cannot go. I am afraid." 
 
 " To be sure," said Rcuss. *' You are afraid to-night, 
 for you are shaken and not yourself. But yourself, our 
 friend, is not afraid." 
 
 " Once I was not, when I was your friend. I have 
 forgotten that. I am horrible now. I hate him very much, 
 and all music I hate. I cannot hear that thing again — I 
 cannot any more." His German was charming and odd, a 
 reflection of his grandfather's careful accent. Reuss de- 
 lighted in it, and never corrected him, to M. Lemaure's 
 indignation. Fritz had even been known to mimic the 
 faults, for he was far from serious in education : and was 
 always pleased, in this house, to amuse himself at the edu- 
 cator's expense. 
 
 " Thou art hateful, eh ? " he said, stroking back the boy's 
 rough forelock. " Well, this is a sad condition, and we must 
 move fate to meet it. How ? " 
 
 Antoine had no idea. His great tearful eyes waited upon 
 Fritz, who had been known to have inspirations, even at 
 more intolerable junctures than this. Fritz as usual took 
 his time, glancing about him meanwhile. 
 
 " Talk," said Antoine, catching at his broad warm palm. 
 That benevolent gaze bent on his room was somehow reas- 
 suring. Antoinc's room was not as others, of course, hav- 
 ing been reclaimed from a garret for his sole benefit at 
 eight years old, and presented to him solemnly as his king- 
 dom, a safe retreat from life and his uncle Lucien. Now- 
 adays he worked in it, work of late often distasteful, but 
 it could not lose all its ancient glamour, and still represented 
 peace and security. Fritz no doubt saw it through his eyes. 
 
 Fritz's eyes, kind as they seemed in their scrutiny, con- 
 sidered the place odd as a frame for childhood, and almost 
 repellant in its complete lack of ease and adornment. Beau- 
 tiful things, he imagined, would not have been wasted on 
 this boy, even had his health not warranted a care for com- 
 fort. Yet beyond the violin, and a small store of books, he 
 had no possessions, furniture was scarce, floor and walls 
 
28 SUCCESSION 
 
 bare of interest, and, cold as was the hand that lay in 
 Reuss's, there were no signs of fire. Charles Lemaure, 
 he knew, had ascetic leanings, and had doubtless brought 
 him up to demand little of externals. Charles would never 
 have the child's eye in such things, or picture a child's 
 need as differing from his own. The Lemaures, intensely 
 civilised as they were, hung out none of the insignia of high 
 civilisation. In a beauty-loving race, the trait was curious ; 
 and Reuss, fresh from a life of luxurious hotels, noticed it 
 to-night the more. 
 
 " It seems to me of the simplest," said Fritz composedly. 
 " I see Fauchard to-night at nine, for he has requested a 
 presentation. I take him a note from thy teachers, shall 
 we say : he strikes a name from the programme, and in- 
 vites another artist. Thou hast but the one thing, eh ? " 
 He followed Antoine's eyes to one of the ill-used volumes 
 on the floor. " Well, and most have it on their repertoire, 
 have they not ? " 
 
 " Yes, yes. It is not hard." 
 
 " Not hard, no." Reuss just showed a twinkle. " We 
 have but to say that thou art ill." 
 
 "I am not!" 
 
 " Ach, I am stupid. Hateful, I mean. That you will not." 
 
 "Yes." A pause. "Will you tell him?" hesitated 
 Antoine. 
 
 "Whom shall I tell?" 
 
 " My uncle. If you say it, he will not mind. I could 
 not talk to him in there ; but I knew I could not play. You 
 do not mind, to do it? " He looked piteous: with the child- 
 ishness he could assume at an instant's notice, and tried ex- 
 tremely, for he had let emotion wear him out. 
 
 " I will do all," Fritz declared. " I would play for you, 
 dearest, if I could. Is that not what a friend is for? " 
 
 The strong reassurance of his presence and voice entered 
 the boy by degrees. Reuss's society permitted and even 
 encouraged pauses, things hardly recognised by the eager 
 brain-life of his own household. He encouraged an inter- 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 29 
 
 val now, as he sat grasping the boy's cold wrists in his large 
 warm hands, and during the interval Antoine began to see 
 a star of hope in life again. At the end of it, he let himself 
 be assisted to his feet. 
 
 *' I am better," he said. " I was stupid. It is done." He 
 shook his head back, and sat down on the arm of Fritz's 
 chair. As with many emotional natures, tears left little 
 mark upon him. He looked forlorn and white, his eyes were 
 heavy and their lashes wet. He snatched a handkerchief 
 and rubbed them. " Do not tell grandpapa," he said. " I 
 have been horrible with my uncle because I was afraid. 
 Do you know how that is, to be really afraid ? " 
 
 " To be sure. One is accurst, and miserable." 
 
 " Accurst, yes ; you know." He gazed at the friend who 
 knew. " I thought he would hit me," he confided in the 
 same exhausted tone, " but he never does. He is so good." 
 
 " Lucien good? " 
 
 " Yes ; I was not, I played the notes wrong on purpose, 
 just to make him jump about. He thought I had forgotten 
 it. Forgotten ! " — with sudden and violent scorn. 
 
 " We know it is impossible to forget such things," sug- 
 gested Reuss. 
 
 " When you have played them a hundred thousand years," 
 agreed Antoine. " Perhaps I knew that one before I was 
 born. I can't remember." He shut his eyes, and Fritz 
 had leisure to note the changes his grandfather had men- 
 tioned. 
 
 " Thou mightst of course," he said, with caution, " play 
 in error from another concerto." 
 
 " Yes. I know about sixteen more," said the boy, look- 
 ing absolutely ill and hopeless with his eyes shut. " The 
 Tschedin, for example, which he finds so beautiful, which he 
 loves so much — I might play that for him instead, hein? 
 It is so easy for one's head to mix them up." He lifted 
 a hand to it. " Oh, mon Dieu, I wish I understood how 
 people think." 
 
 Reuss, perfectly satisfied and not a little entertained as 
 
30 SUCCESSION 
 
 well, slipped from the harassing question of personalities, 
 and talked of history and his own concerns ; finding him 
 intelligent and sympathetic as usual, though his German 
 sentences in reply were short. 
 
 He had almost resolved, during that short interview, to 
 leave the other and more intimate question, on which he had 
 longed for enlightenment, ever since his friend Wurst had 
 written from London; but in the end he did not avoid it, 
 though he attacked it rather late. 
 
 He observed Antoine and his grandfather together, and 
 made out that things were as usual, and confidence un- 
 changed between them ; though the boy's new " careful- 
 ness " was as conspicuous to an outside eye, as were the old 
 man's signs of age under the light. Lucien's irritable state 
 of anxiety between them was likewise all too obvious ; but 
 Fritz drowned it and all such moods in a rush of his splen- 
 did spirits. Fritz's method with the over-susceptible was 
 not as other men's. He talked persistently in his most hi- 
 larious Olympian vein, ate a great deal, flattered Margot 
 to her face, and made Antoine share his beer. He took him 
 to his concert, which was a popular one, distant to seek and 
 noisy when found. Unable, owing to his business, to en- 
 tertain him in person, he introduced him to a box full of 
 complete strangers, mostly German Jews, with diamonds 
 in their shirts, who regarded a small French boy as a mere 
 passing diversion, and left him to his own devices. Just 
 before Reuss departed, Antoine swung back and caught 
 his arm. 
 
 " Well," said Fritz, turning. 
 
 " Don't speak to Fauchard," said Antoine, a light in his 
 eye. *' I can play it very well." 
 
 Reuss pinched his ear, and was gone, leaving him to make 
 the best of his new society. The society was good hu- 
 moured, and allowed him an excellent place without pro- 
 test. Antoine attended alternately to them and to the 
 orchestra, and since both appertained to the province of 
 
A QUESTION OF AGE 31 
 
 Fritz, his friend, found both cnthraning. The hall was 
 immense also, and he liked large places. Reuss, he no- 
 ticed, appeared quite small in it, and his violent gesticula- 
 tions became mild, softened by distance. To the first part 
 of the symphony he attended with the best part of his brain. 
 In the slow movement he went to sleep, his head on the 
 soft cushion of the box. He half woke when one of the 
 fat Germans fingered his head approvingly, and remarked 
 upon its probable contents to a friend. At the end, when 
 the chorus had completed the awakening process, Reuss 
 found him in excellent spirits, chatting to them in German 
 that was far more adequate than their French. 
 
 Fritz swept him off without much apology, for with his 
 compatriots and peers at least, he had a brusquerie which 
 Lucien Lemaure called rude, but which Antoine foujid per- 
 ennially amusing. During the drive home Antoine gave the 
 great man, since he seemed to require them, a few opinions 
 on the evening ; but he confided that he thought he had for- 
 gotten how to hear music — " I mean other people's," he 
 appended. 
 
 " This," said Reuss grandly, " is mine. Its quality is 
 recognised, at least in my land. And it is no question at 
 all of forgetting, Antoine, since you slept. Learn that one 
 goes to a friend's concert to listen, not to sleep and be com- 
 fortable." 
 
 " I am not often comfortable at a concert," said Antoine. 
 
 " It was better even thus, than at the last you attended," 
 suggested Fritz. " Antoine, why did you turn my good 
 friend Wurst's hair grey in London ? " 
 
 " How, grey ? " said Antoine, studying the lights on the 
 river attentively. 
 
 " He wrote me a long letter about it. He would be 
 sorry, I gather, to have you for a nephew. He said you 
 were a surprising artist, but a very naughty boy." 
 
 " That," said Antoine, " was because I said all sorts of 
 things at the rehearsals. In England they expect you to be 
 quiet. I was enerve a little that week. But I played the 
 
32 SUCCESSION 
 
 Tschedin concerto very beautifully for Wurst, because 
 his friend had written it. You see ? " 
 
 " Approximately, I see," said Reuss. " And he in his 
 turn did his best for the ' Foret d'Automne.' " 
 
 " His best," said Antoine brusquely. " He is a clever 
 man." 
 
 There, according to his idea, it seemed the conversa- 
 tion would have finished. But Reuss, though deliberate in 
 method, meant to reach the truth. He manipulated Antoine 
 with great skill, as though all the instruments of his own 
 orchestra, from the fine flutes to the obstinate brass, had 
 been united in his composition. 
 
 " You chose it, eh ? " he said, having puffed a little. 
 
 " We chose it," said Antoine. 
 
 "What we, darling?" 
 
 " He did — that is, I knew he wished it — grandpapa. I 
 would not at once. I said it was too hard for orchestra. 
 So it is — ^you have read it ? " 
 
 " No ; it is my duty ? " said Fritz. 
 
 " Bah ! of course. I had better not talk of it any more." 
 The boy turned his shoulder for two minutes. Then the 
 temptation of the friendly presence was irresistible, and he 
 swung back again. 
 
 " Did Wurst like the ' Foret ' ? " he said shyly, insinuating 
 his slim hand under Reuss's. 
 
 " My friend said he had no clear impression from the 
 rehearsals. At the concert he thought only of thy playing, 
 which was wonderful." 
 
 " Yes," said the boy. " That is right." 
 
 " It is so," thought the German. " Wurst had guessed it." 
 
 "It was over that you angered Lucien?" he proceeded 
 gently, soon. 
 
 " Yes. I had tried with him, really," said Antoine. " But 
 he made me so tired, with his voice. What was the use, to 
 say it was good, when the score was there? Wurst came to 
 see us — he called it difficult — oh, most polite. I said, 'Merci, 
 I knew that ' — so did he naturally with the orchestra. They 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 33 
 
 all hated it — it was a French thing, and therefore stupid. 
 Do you understand? Psst! all the stiff English faces! 1 
 was not extremely English, playing it there for them." 
 
 " I gathered," said Reuss, " you had not been extremely 
 English. A trifle of caprice, hey? — even for the composer's 
 grandson." 
 
 " Well, / did not know how he meant it to go! I said I 
 supposed if the first violins played their part right it might 
 sound better — but it didn't much. Then I said a thing was 
 printed wrong, and Wurst knew it was a lie. I did the solo 
 different — several ways — and when Wurst made a little sur- 
 prised face, I laughed. Oh yes, he saw that I 'm'en fichais,' 
 very well. It is a stupid thing — and difficult ! — but all his 
 things are that. And the beautiful Romance of his," he 
 murmured lower, " my own, he made for me, that they 
 would not let me play." 
 
 His expressive tone ran through every note of emotion in 
 the dark, though he sat entirely motionless, his clenched 
 hand still in Reuss's. Fritz clasped it silently, feeling for 
 and with that impatient misery; but knowing it better for 
 him that the thing was said. 
 
 " He is old, hein? " said Antoine. 
 
 " Old — yes, yes, my dear. It is all natural, inevitable, 
 and I have marked it coming for long. After a life like 
 that, one must not complain. We must leave it to the high 
 God, when our lives run out." 
 
 " But he is still the same," the boy contended. 
 
 " Much the same ; not what I have known him. He has 
 suft'ered much these two years, and suffering wears the 
 brain. Thy illness, Antoine, was the beginning. Wait — • 
 was this not written then ? " 
 
 " No," the boy said, with decision. " I know when it 
 was, for I was with him. I was getting better, in Savoie. 
 I did not read it, because I could not bear any music, even 
 his ; but I know he was writing, all the time — in those beauti- 
 ful places." 
 
 " Well," said Fritz, " it is lost, and his children must 
 
34 SUCCESSION 
 
 console him. Thy success has been much to him, my little 
 one. In some sort, I think, it renews his youth. He suc- 
 ceeded early also — though not so soon." 
 
 Antoine did not answer, but Reuss saw his eyes move, as 
 though in attention to a new idea. The German, to his 
 own mind, was uttering the most obvious commonplaces, for 
 a child's ears ; he simply wanted, with all his warm heart, to 
 comfort with a little flattery. To have such utterances laid 
 away and pondered like original truth, was beyond his ex- 
 pectations. But then, since he had seen him first at the age 
 of seven, Antoine had frequently gone beyond his expec- 
 tations in every direction. 
 
 Attaining home after midnight, they found a little food 
 and fire left them in the empty study. Fritz sat down and, 
 being heated with the staircase, wiped his brow. Antoine, 
 serving him with correctitude in his quality as host, hap- 
 pened to catch his kind blue eye in the process, and swinging 
 on to his knee forthwith hugged him fervently. 
 
 " My uncle wants to beat me when I talk like that," was 
 his explanation in confidence of this impulse. " You are 
 better to understand." 
 
 " Lucien is his son," said Fritz, with gravity. 
 
 " Yes ; I have heard that," said Antoine. 
 
 " Picture it," said Fritz, seeking moral illustration, " if 
 Lucien made remarks about your father in your hearing." 
 
 " He often does," said Antoine. " Je me moque joliment 
 bien, of his remarks." 
 
 " So," said Fritz. " Ha well, what would your own 
 father do if you spoke to him as lately to your uncle." 
 
 Antoine giggled at this. He seemed purely amused at the 
 idea. 
 
 " I think it is the father that should manage you," said 
 Fritz clasping him with his powerful arms. " Where is he 
 now, tell me that ? " 
 
 " At Amiens," said the boy. " He has some work for 
 the Nord there, very interesting, he says, but long. He can- 
 not come for any of the concerts. I am to go to him." He 
 
AQUESTIONOFAGE 35 
 
 sighed. " Fritz, does my uncle really like the ' Foret,' do 
 you think ? " 
 
 "lie may see a little crooked, my darling: the com- 
 poser also, a little: possibly you do too. And here am I, 
 the friend of both, of all, indeed, who take the whole at 
 your word. Is that well ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Antoine, with conviction. " Only you must 
 read it, because perhaps you will see it different from all 
 of us — a beautiful thing. Fritz, if some time, with your 
 orchestra, we played it together, just to see?" 
 
 " I could not bear it," said Reuss, with truth. 
 
 " Not if it was really good ? — like the Romance which he 
 gave me, which I love, which I played first to you in here 
 when you came at Christmas to take my room ; and I was 
 so frightened to sleep in the garret because there were 
 things behind the boxes ; and you would ' bisser ' the Ro- 
 mance ; and he, there at the piano, said ' if I would kindly ' 
 — because it was his thing. So very polite to us ; but I saw 
 his little smile." His face twisted, and he stopped, to hide it. 
 
 " Thou art too young to suffer thus," the German thought, 
 fingering his dark hair. " It will be time enough when there 
 are grey threads here for that. It is this cursed French 
 training, that all life weighs on them from the outset. If 
 this were mine, I would not have it so." 
 
 " Thou wilt be a good child to-morrow ? " he whispered 
 at parting. And he got his promise, given with infantile 
 simplicity, before he left him for the night. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE FIRST TEST 
 
 He was " good " next day, according to his only manner of 
 goodness — that is, dreamy. He went to church early with 
 his grandfather, and on his return embarked upon a letter 
 to his father at Amiens : a task on which he spent the rest 
 of the morning, for writing, to however congenial a corre- 
 spondent, never came easy to Antoine. He much preferred 
 to prop his chin on his hand, and think of things he would 
 say, if only Jem were there. After this effort, he ate a 
 large lunch in pure absence of mind, as his relations, evi- 
 dently much distracted, left him alone to its enjoyment ; and 
 was much surprised to be informed, over his book and his 
 dessert, that Dr Reuss's car was below. He cast one look 
 of reproach at the clock, one of regret at the dessert he 
 abandoned, seized the violin at which he had not glanced 
 since he quitted it in despair the night before, exchanged a 
 little parting chaff with Margot — who insisted on putting 
 his hair straight — and joined his elders on the ground floor 
 just before their patience had completely evaporated. 
 
 "You are coming?" he said, amazed to find his grand- 
 father of the party. 
 
 "Dost thou object?" said M. Lemaure. 
 
 Antoine shook his head slightly: he had to readjust his 
 ideas. It might after all be an occasion more serious than 
 he had imagined, if M. Lemaure, who had not attended a 
 concert for five years, chose to honour it. 
 
 All the three elders were rather silent during the drive ; 
 and Antoine, demure in imitation, speculated on their looks 
 
 36 
 
THEFIRSTTEST 37 
 
 in turn. His uncle was always agitated before his per- 
 formances ; he was accustomed to his sharp-edged tone 
 and fussy demeanour, and it caused him little emotion. But 
 the other two, who, he judged, could not have serious doubts 
 concerning the familiar " thing " he had to play, seemed 
 almost as anxious. His grandfather's brow was fixed, and 
 he could hardly get a twinkle out of Reuss. It was not till 
 he reached the Central Hall that he was reminded of certain 
 facts that might account for their nervousness, as they 
 added, beyond a doubt, to his own responsibilities ; and, as 
 he woke to them in turn, the flattering vagueness of the 
 morning hours receded. 
 
 Antoine had lived for three years on the skirts of Parisian 
 professional life, and he was not ignorant of the peculiar 
 point of view held by the schools of music as to a virtuoso 
 performance in this popular theatre. To-day it was true 
 he had only one section of the programme on his hands, but 
 it was undoubtedly a concerto part, and it was awkwardly 
 placed, at least for the player's peace of mind. The first 
 orchestral item had been ill-chosen, by a conductor fresh 
 to the guarded traditions of the quarter. It was a new 
 work, and a bone of contention among rival schools ; and 
 it left the student rabble on the upper tiers more noisy than 
 usual. 
 
 " Do not be alarmed, my dear," said Fauchard, the con- 
 ductor, to Antoine while they waited behind. " They dis- 
 like the composer. It will pass." 
 
 As a fact, Fauchard was infinitely disturbed himself, and 
 Lucien Lemaure was worse. Between the two it would 
 have taken nerves of iron to remain unmoved, and An- 
 toine's this week were far from that. He frowned and whit- 
 ened as the uproar reached them in retirement, teasing his 
 strings with restless fingers, and watching the door for 
 Reuss, who had waited to conduct his grandfather through 
 the crowd to his place in front. 
 
 " If he shows the least panic they will fall on him," gab- 
 bled Fauchard to Lucien, who had no need to be instructed. 
 
38 SUCCESSION 
 
 " He will never fill the hall if he gets shaky, hey? " 
 
 " If he does not, it is the hall's fault," growled the little 
 professor, who disapproved of the theatre intensely. 
 
 " You might say they would not have the heart," Fau- 
 chard proceeded. " But there, the students have the heart 
 for anything. Little Lemonski broke down and cried last 
 year, and that was only the Saint-Saens." 
 
 " Here is Philippe," remarked Antoine, diverting his 
 uncle, whom the name of Lemonski would have stirred to 
 retort; and Lucien, turning, said: 
 
 " Good. Now we shall have some news." 
 
 Depressed as the atmosphere was inclined to be, the pair 
 who entered made a v^elcome stir. They consisted of a 
 broad, burly and bearded German, and a tall young medi- 
 cal student with cropped hair, dressed carelessly in the 
 English fashion. Fauchard, who had been lolling in a dis- 
 heartened attitude, leapt up at Reuss's appearance, and 
 M. Lemaure greeted the young man very kindly. It was the 
 first time he had set eyes on his elder nephew since his 
 arrival, though the brothers had met once. Philip had 
 altered little, he found, and had his customary air of doing 
 the world a favour by walking it, and the company an 
 especial honour by his appearance on the scene. When he 
 felt, as now, a trifle shy and out of place, the manner was 
 accentuated, and Lucien thought him cool to the verge of 
 incivility. Fauchard, engaged with Reuss, ignored his 
 existence. The rest of the company, however, seemed to 
 be flattered quite in proportion to Philip's expectation. The 
 boy lit a welcoming radiance of which his brother was 
 quite aware, though he appeared to overlook it. 
 
 " Antoine," said Reuss, " the case is serious. Your 
 brother says he cannot keep order among the insurgents 
 up there, and he comes down to bid you fly for your life." 
 
 " I paid for my seat," said Philip, with emphasis. " and 
 I wish I hadn't now. It's too noisy near the roof for my 
 taste, and the seat I paid for is beastly uncomfortable." 
 
THEFIRSTTEST 39 
 
 "Why didn't you come for a ticket?" cried Antoine, 
 disturbed. 
 
 "Why didn't you send one, ducky? I'm not a beggar — 
 at least not yet." 
 
 " Don't tease," said his uncle. 
 
 " Well," said Philip, modifying his tone of injury, " I 
 do expect a little attention, now and then." 
 
 " You can go to grandpapa in the ' loge,' " suggested An- 
 toine. " He would like it." 
 
 " Would he? Thanks awfully," said Philip, who was per- 
 fectly happy with his friends above. " May I use your 
 name to get through? It's my own, after all — no others 
 of the kind about. Well, I forgive you this time if you 
 give me a box for the recital. The company will be choicer 
 — my word ! " He turned his eyes skyward, as faint hoot- 
 ing reached them. 
 
 "What are they really like?" said Antoine. 
 
 " Gorillas, most of them." said Philip cheerfully. " Any- 
 thing that is dirty and hairy will do." 
 
 " You are hard on your kind," said Lucien, endeavouring 
 vainly to snub him. Philip, conscious of cleanliness and 
 cropping, smiled. 
 
 " Do you remember Moreau ? " he said to Antoine. " The 
 freak with the long hair that spoke to us in the garden ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Antoine. " I liked him, rather." It needed 
 no effort to recall the occasion referred to, for it was the 
 only time Philip had granted him his company since he 
 came — a momentous though brief half-hour. They had 
 simply eaten their gouter together in the gardens, and Philip 
 had impressed Antoine immensely afresh by his careless 
 charm, by the profound experience of life he had gained in 
 six months' elementary medical study, and, not least, by the 
 wide and remarkable acquaintance he possessed in the quar- 
 ter. 
 
 " Well," Philip resumed, " Moreau's on the warpath to- 
 day, and I can tell you he's a caution. He's out to do a lit- 
 
40 SUCCESSION 
 
 tie reforming, I heard in passing. He's got a gang with 
 him, all ready for a happy afternoon." 
 
 " Does Monsieur Antoine know some of them, then ? " 
 Fauchard inquired, with a spark of hope. 
 
 " I remember him," said Antoine. " He is amusing, but 
 he does not like Beethoven very much." 
 
 " Play something else," his brother advised. The boy 
 looked through him without smiling. 
 
 " Will you come back to dinner? " he inquired suddenly, 
 putting a hand upon him; having done which, he remem- 
 bered Philip disliked to be touched, and dropped the hand. 
 
 " Hadn't you better be certain first you'll ever get back ? " 
 said Philip. 
 
 " I hope they won't be very long," said Antoine, moving 
 nearer, as the elders drew aside. " Grandpapa will be im- 
 patient, do you see ? He hates concerts generally. He only 
 came to-day because Fritz is here — and I am rather afraid." 
 
 " Don't be afraid," said Philip, in a lower and much more 
 natural tone. 
 
 Indeed, it was extremely important Antoine should not 
 be afraid, whether for his own sake or that of others. Philip 
 talked any nonsense that came to encourage him, until the 
 other group moved. 
 
 " Monsieur Fauchard is ready," said Reuss, dividing the 
 pair with a swing of his broad shoulders. " We are off to 
 our posts, hey, Philip? He needs us no longer." He laid 
 his great paws on the boy's shoulders, and looked him in the 
 face, " Nothing can harm thee, fortunately, echter Geist," 
 he murmured, too low for the Frenchmen to hear. But 
 Philip heard, and he could not feel so sure. Family pride 
 was awake in him, as well as personal vanity ; and it seemed 
 to him, especially contrasted with the mighty German, An- 
 toine looked extraordinarily young and pale. 
 
 When he left Reuss on the lower floor, and climbed to 
 his place among the indifferent, jesting crowd, his heart 
 sank rather strangely. He almost wished that public duty 
 and a sense of decency had not obliged him to come. 
 
THE FIRST TEST 
 
 41 
 
 As for Antoine, lie had a moment of perfect solitude 
 when Fauchard had gone, and listened attentively to the 
 reception offered him, his head lowered sidelong on the 
 violin. His face during that moment was a study, and the 
 violin no doubt understood that he did not care for Fau- 
 chard. Then, before the plaudits had quite died out, he 
 followed his conductor very closely on to the open stage. 
 
 He stood serenely through the renewed outbreak of ap- 
 plause and hooting mingled. He did not smile or shrink, 
 but bowed a little to the lower hall, and took in the upper 
 with a penetrating glance, and one eyebrow raised over the 
 violin he was testing, in a manner so exactly like his grand- 
 father that Reuss and all who could remember Lemaure 
 were laughing. In the first pause M. Moreau, leaning down 
 from his conspicuous place, uttered what seemed to be the 
 opening sentences of a speech ; but, elegantly turned as they 
 were, nobody on the platform heeded them. The conduc- 
 tor tapped the desk ; and as the first violins under his charge 
 lifted their bows, the organised storm of protest from above 
 broke again. The students could not bear it. Fauchard's 
 manner was a little too sure, and he at least must be taught 
 his place, even if Beethoven in his grave could not be in- 
 structed not to write show passages. 
 
 The conductor's baton dropped, and he turned round 
 pathetically. 
 
 " See this child," said his gesture to Antoine, though he 
 was unable to speak through the clamour. The child bit his 
 lip, but did not move, standing at attention, as he had been 
 taught. 
 
 " C'est idiot," said half the hall, amused, " Shame ! si- 
 lence ! " cried a few of the more serious ; and started a 
 counter-applause as the hisses died. Fauchard bowed to 
 them sweetly, deprecating the students' manners with his 
 hands, and turned about again. 
 
 " The fool," growled Dr Reuss into his beard. " He will 
 never do it." 
 
 However, it really seemed that Fauchard had succeeded. 
 
42 SUCCESSION 
 
 The calm above was now profound : Antoine's face re- 
 laxed, and the baton above him lifted. It fell softly, and 
 the melody of the strings broke silence. Into the melody 
 came a long cat-call from the young wretches above, so 
 admirably — so brutally done as to be a shock to the players, 
 as well as to every musician in the room. 
 
 " Insupportable ! — a la porte ! " the cries broke out in 
 greater numbers, as the boy started and flushed deeply, 
 catching at the desk. He felt the insult to the composer, 
 as well as to himself and Fauchard. As that person per- 
 sisted with determination against the tumult, and the or- 
 chestra strained to hear themselves play, Antoine sprang on 
 the step of the estrade, and spoke to him quite loud and 
 clearly, Fauchard stopped, with a dramatic flourish. An- 
 toine walked a few steps forward to the platform's edge, and 
 took another survey of his tormentors. He was still flushed 
 a little, but the glance was not at all appealing. 
 
 " Pauvre petit," said the sympathetic in his hearing, but, 
 unheeding them, he still gazed upward. In the mist-laden 
 air of the great theatre, and amid the mass of faces, he 
 could distinguish no feature or expression, unless it were 
 Moreau's saturnine mouth and long lank hair, Moreau was 
 watching his victim with grim amusement, as he had done 
 the day they were introduced. The dutiful demonstration 
 Moreau managed proceeded none the less. The cat-calls 
 continued in well-ordered succession, till Fauchard, after 
 another dramatic dumb-show, took upon himself to sit down 
 with folded arms, 
 
 " Good," said the students, approving it. " A present, de 
 la musique, messieurs." 
 
 Antoine shrugged slightly, but the strain was telling on 
 him. Indeed, his position was not enviable, for the temper 
 of the public was rising fast, and the floor and gallery ex- 
 changed insults in his hearing, while he stood pinned under 
 their eyes, his least movement visible to a thousand critics, 
 and unable either to silence them or retreat. 
 
THEFIRSTTEST 43 
 
 " He will cry in three minutes," pronounced M. Morcau 
 to a friend. 
 
 " What if his handkerchief is missing," said the friend, 
 with a diaholic grin. " It is so often at the tender age. 
 Lemonski cried into his cuff." 
 
 " And swore, so I was informed," said Moreau. " This 
 is too well brought up to swear ; but it cries — oh, very soon," 
 
 M. Lemaure, meanwhile, observed his grandson with in- 
 terest from the side. Far from showing himself " impa- 
 tient " at present of the spectacle provided for him, he had 
 to calm his stolid friend. 
 
 " He must help hunself," he answered Reuss's indigna- 
 tion. " Others have suffered this ; and those up there are 
 within their rights." 
 
 "Rights! What a nation you are," growled Reuss. 
 " They want horsewhipping, the young savages." 
 
 "Anyone but Beethoven, hey?" said his friend. "But 
 Beethoven they particularly dislike, it seems, this season." 
 
 " Really ? And when has he a season, may one ask ? It is 
 no laughing matter, Charles. See, if he gave them a solo, 
 it might quiet them ? " 
 
 " But he will not," said M. Lemaure. 
 
 The inevitable interval of exhaustion came; and Fau- 
 chard, arising, prepared to start once more. All went well 
 this time, for the students were rather tired ; the orchestral 
 prelude was nearly completed, and the soloist, his brow 
 clearing, was settling the violin under his chin, when Mo- 
 reau, leaning a little down from his place at the balcony's 
 verge, said, in a perfectly clear, seductive tone: 
 
 " Si tu nous jouais le ' Frou-frou ' de Maesler, Antoine." 
 
 The whole gallery fell into raptures, for the piece de- 
 manded was the fashion of the moment in the cafe-concerts. 
 Thunderous applause from above broke out, and equally 
 furious hissing from below. The atmosphere, from being 
 merely threatening, became electric. M. Lemaure at the 
 side frowned slightly, and his grandson Philip turned white. 
 
 " He is amused, the little one," said somebody — a tone 
 
44 SUCCESSION 
 
 of surprise that caught attention. It was true. While 
 Fauchard bounced and scowled, and the players bit their 
 finger-ends, or tapped nervously with their bows, Antoine 
 was laughing, leaning against the desk. Whether entirely 
 natural, or instinctive acting, even those who knew him best 
 could hardly tell. M. Lemaure's " Well done " seemed to 
 suggest he thought the latter. But whichever the impulse 
 may have been, it saved him. The flash of young mirth 
 was charming in itself, amid the growing anger and agita- 
 tion of that eminently Gallic assembly ; and it bore witness 
 to a genuine sweet temper that shamed the elder men. The 
 students, laughter-loving, laughed too; the gallery divided 
 instantly on itself. M. Moreau arose like a captain and 
 looked upon his horde. 
 
 " Assez," he observed, with a million s's for emphasis. 
 " He knows his affair, le petit. If he wants to play us his 
 old papa — va ! " 
 
 " It is finished," said M. Lemaure to Lucien, as at last 
 the general applause gave way to silence. "If only he is 
 not too tired." 
 
 It was the question, certainly. The boy had already been 
 nearly half-an-hour on his feet, directly in the public eye, 
 and he had the whole of his task still before him. Yet, on 
 entering at last into his own, he showed no agitation audible 
 to the keenest ears. It was just as though the battle had 
 braced him, for he had been sleepy all the day before. 
 M. Lemaure turned to his son for a glass, and watched, as 
 well as listened, intently. Lucien, literally trembling, 
 watched his face, as a more faithful indicator than his own 
 ears. Once only his father gave him a glance, at a certain 
 little dramatic retarding before a flight of the solo passage. 
 
 " He has always done that," he murmured to Reuss, 
 " since nine years old. We preach the classic at him in 
 vain. Pretty, hein ? " he added, as the boy swung the chain 
 of melody down with infinite grace, quite as charming to 
 look on at as to hear. 
 
 " Himself," said Reuss. " Oh, if I could knock that 
 
THE FIRST TEST 
 
 45 
 
 donkey off his perch." Fritz detested Fauchard, and by 
 ceaseless grunts made no secret of his opinion. His mood 
 only softened now, as Antoine played alone. 
 
 " But he has grown," he murmured. " It is colossal, the 
 strength and delicacy — ah, thunder and fury 1 " He let his 
 fist fall on the rail, shaking it in his rage ; for the excitable 
 hall, gallery foremost, broke out in irresistible admiration, 
 as the noble cadence melted into the innocent softness of 
 the orchestral air. 
 
 " Exquisite — celestial," hissed the capricious gallery, in- 
 terrupting by far the most exquisite and celestial moments 
 of the composition by these appreciations of technical accom- 
 plishment — the one quality against whose exhibition they 
 had come to protest. 
 
 " No, my beloved," Fritz apostrophised Antoine afar at 
 the end of the movement. " Even for you, I will never 
 come to a republican concert again. Thorough Philistine 
 vulgarity can only be suppressed under an autocracy. I 
 repeat it, Charles. I wash my hands of you, one and all." 
 
 "But they love hiin," laughed M. Lemaure; and indeed, 
 as the boy stood breathless with his efifort before the 
 crowd, who nearly flung themselves upon him, the fact was 
 evident. It was himself, not the music, which left the ma- 
 jority quite cool. He might have done what he liked with 
 the reformers then, so greatly had his demeanour pleased 
 them, and they contradicted themselves with the greatest 
 enthusiasm and benevolence. Only Antoine did not stay 
 long to be gratified ; with a glance and a word to Fauchard 
 above, who was preparing to start afresh, he turned and 
 walked from the stage. 
 
 " Go, Lucien," said M. Lemaure ; but the direction was 
 unnecessary, for Lucien had already gone. " Well, how was 
 it? " he added, as his son rejoined him after a few minutes. 
 
 " He was shaking simply. The hounds frightened him, 
 a la fin. And he would take no brandy or anything: only 
 said he was very well, and sat in a dream." 
 
 " He will feel it later," his father murmured. 
 
46 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Take the brandy yourself, my little Liicien," Fritz 
 advised. " You who would dose the gods. You think one 
 needs stimulants, half-way to a sure triumph, and before 
 the monkey population? Ah, but wait a little," he mur- 
 mured ; " there are better things than this, and he shall 
 know it, if I have my will. Yes, they have tired him, see." 
 
 Antoine had slipped back to his place so quietly that his 
 return was hardly observed. Then there was slight ap- 
 plause, but he had silence very quickly when he looked 
 about. His aspect had changed in that short interval: it 
 was difficult to say how, but at least he had the general 
 attention. The students themselves were curious, and had 
 decided tacitly to let him be, and see what he could make 
 of the thing without their kind assistance. His tone at 
 least had gained by the brief rest, and he started glorious. 
 M. Lemaure from the first note bowed under it, assailed by 
 memories. The public, realising Beethoven, possibly, as 
 something less usual than an " old papa," composed them- 
 selves to strict attention. Moreau, in the gallery, had ar- 
 ranged his head upon his folded arms, the lank black hair 
 dropping over the balustrade. He was most probably cry- 
 ing, and enjoying the rare emotion very much. Towards 
 the end, he peeped through his fingers and watched the 
 player; just before the conclusion, he vanished altogether 
 from the hall. 
 
 M. Lemaure asked his grandson in the carriage, accord- 
 ing to the family formula, if he was content. The boy as- 
 sented with a nod but he looked anything but happy. A 
 concert for him rarely produced that after-effect, and to- 
 day it was worse than usual. Something had gone wrong 
 in life, and he could by no means tell them what. In the 
 first place, they did not come up to his expectations. Feel- 
 ing a trifle stupid after the effort of the day, he was in a 
 mood to have things clearly stated. It appeared to him a 
 chance for open dealing, since his uncle, who had business 
 with Fauchard, had been left behind at the hall ; yet neither 
 
T H E F I RS T T E S T 47 
 
 one nor the other of these intimates would give him a frank 
 opinion. The one withheld or postponed it, and vexed him 
 with absent looks ; the other obscured his meaning — a Ger- 
 man habit — with elaborate trifling. Antoine did not al- 
 ways understand Reuss's humour, and at present he did 
 not want to think. His impatience mounted rapidly, and 
 long before he discovered that he was physically uncom- 
 fortable, his friends at hand were driven to divine it. 
 
 " Was Lucien satisfied ? " J\I. Lemaure inquired, for he 
 always upheld his son's right as preceptor. 
 
 The question seemed to offend. " I believe he was," said 
 Antoine, shrugging. " He did not say so, of course." 
 
 " What did he say, my child ? " 
 
 " Oh — he thought it was all right. He did not," said 
 Antoine, " think it was going to be, but he thought it was." 
 
 " Lucien all over," murmured Reuss. 
 
 " Did you like it ? " said the artist, snapping at him. 
 
 " I have seldom been so furious, my darling." 
 
 " Oh, bah ! " He jerked aside. " Some of it sounded 
 funny to me," he said, his tone trembling slightly. " But 
 Fauchard is so silly. Don't you think he is a silly man?" 
 He appealed to Reuss, but he looked sidelong at the higher 
 authority, who, he knew well did not like him to criticise 
 his elders. 
 
 " He might do very well," said Reuss cautiously, " with 
 his native compositions. He doubtless prefers them." 
 
 " Le Frou-frou de Maesler," murmured Antoine. " That 
 was a little funny, yes." He sighed. "Moreau gave 
 me those purple flowers," he resumed, indicating an enor- 
 mous sheaf of iris which had been thrust into the carriage. 
 " He is a ridiculous man." 
 
 M. Lemaure's delicate fingers divided the sheaf, and dis- 
 covered a folded paper. " Tiens," he said. " May one 
 look?" 
 
 Antoine leant over, and they both deciphered Moreau's 
 scrawl, " To the conqueror — his admiring ' claque.' " The 
 boy looked up and laughed — a slight chuckle of real enjoy- 
 
48 SUCCESSION 
 
 ment. Then with equal brusqueness his face changed, and 
 he dropped back, hitting the cushion. 
 
 " The noise they made among the violins was horrible," 
 he said. " I shall dream of that, I know. Oh, what is he 
 waiting for?" — as the car slackened and almost stopped. 
 It was one of the usual points of congestion in the crowded 
 avenue. During the tiresome delay, while trams, cars and 
 omnibuses hooted and shuffled round them, Antoine lost his 
 patience several times over, and never remained still an 
 instant. 
 
 At the same time the old man roused, at least partially, to 
 the state of things. Indeed, he was more or less prepared, 
 for his life's experience of a nervous family left him barely 
 a chance to be taken off his guard. He passed his arm 
 quietly about the boy, in spite of his resistance. 
 
 " Courage — come," he said. " What will Reuss think 
 of us, after but half a programme? " 
 
 . " I did not think — it would be like that," Antoine mut- 
 tered, keeping his eyes turned aside. 
 
 " You had forgotten our habits, hey? Confess it." 
 
 The boy half-shrugged in answer. To his grandfather's 
 succeeding remarks he was, at least according to the family 
 standard, excessively rude, though the rudeness lay more in 
 the manner than the words. Fritz privately thanked his 
 gods that Lucien was not there, for they could hardly have 
 escaped an explosion. His friend's accustomed calmness 
 astonished him, for he could perceive, in the shadow where 
 he shrank from the grasp put upon him, Antoine's pallor 
 had sunk to a grey-white, and his eyes glanced feverishly 
 about under a slightly knitted brow, as though seeking for 
 escape where there was none. 
 
 They arrived, however, without mishap. M. Lemaure 
 went ahead, giving his powerful friend a sign to look after 
 the boy. Reuss did so, taking his time' upon the stairs, and 
 cursing them privately. Fritz, who would have carried any 
 true musician to heaven in a chariot of fire, had his means 
 afforded it, was unable to offer the one beneath his arm the 
 
THEFIRSTTEST 49 
 
 common commodity of a lift. He had reason to recognise 
 fully, while he stayed in this little home of intellect and 
 art, a few of those daily drawbacks which poverty itself.? 
 hardly observes; which AT. Lemaure himself seemed abso- 
 lutely to relish, as uniting him to the " people " he loved and 
 respected. 
 
 He rejoined his friend in the little study, stroking his 
 beard. 
 
 " I have sent him to the woman a moment," he said, in 
 his heavy, kindly tone. " lie is ill at ease, poor little one, 
 and hardly knows what he says. He did his best to master 
 it, I believe." 
 
 " His best ! " said M. Lemaure, with a gesture. 
 
 " To be sure ! " said Fritz. " I often say, you are the 
 most incapable family that exists in bearing pain." 
 
 " Well, you have a glimpse of what is before us," said 
 M. Lemaure, a hint of bitterness in his smile. 
 
 " Fame is before you," said Reuss stolidly. " New fame. 
 Am I to commiserate you, Charles?" 
 
 " You are sanguine," said the old man, whom depression 
 had mastered in his real fatigue. " I had not asked for fame 
 — a trifle of success will content me. I ask for nothing ex- 
 aggerated — and I want it a free gift. Friedrich — I have 
 paid enough." 
 
 " Heaven knows that," said Reuss gently, fingering some 
 of the older portraits on the chimney shelf. " But the gods 
 you serve are exacting. They give unequally, and the pay- 
 ment they ask is often unjust." 
 
 M, Lemaure answered nothing; but his thoughts pressed 
 on him in the painful vein. Something had again reminded 
 him, Reuss saw, of Marcel, the brilliant son who followed 
 Lucien in his family, who was Lucien's complement almost 
 in his talents and his weaknesses, gathered up all their ambi- 
 tion and devotion full-handed, and died at twenty-five. 
 
 His lingering look on Antoine, when he returned, might 
 easily have been in disapproval. The fact was he barely saw 
 him, so greatly he was disturbed by the ghosts he had 
 
50 SUCCESSION 
 
 evoked. His young head was obscured by those shadows, 
 of which he knew nothing, since they existed before he was 
 in being. It had had an effect well-nigh confusing to M. 
 Lemaure, to plunge into the big world again after so great 
 an interval, to hear that music — among all that existed — 
 presented prettily and faithfully in his own manner, a true 
 echo of his past, yet with all the reserve of fiery youth in 
 check behind. It awoke a section of his early life that 
 had been put to sleep, recalled countless forgotten faces of 
 friends, summoned his two dearest children from the dead. 
 Nor was that even all; for, as his friend suggested, the 
 veil of the future had been stirred as well, and age looks 
 that way, when forced, unwillingly, wearily almost. Shades 
 of destiny, grave enough in import, had arisen while he 
 watched the boy's instinctive management of that crowd. 
 M. Lemaure in his public life had had to study crowds, 
 and he knew well that few existed more tough and trying 
 than a Parisian holiday audience. The mere fact of asso- 
 ciation seems to affect that clever population quite differ- 
 ently from their brethren of other lands. It calms them in 
 no degree; on the contrary, it exaggerates all their private 
 caprices, and stirs each individual to assert himself the 
 more, that he feels the social ring about him. M. Lemaure, 
 a Parisian born, loved it; but he knew that it was not a 
 maniable thing, especially when any part of it had a griev- 
 ance, and in a stranger's hands. And a stranger not yet 
 fifteen, with a reputation as young as himself, and no name 
 to back him — for not a single reporter had yet seized upon 
 his connection with Lemaure. It had been absurd, nearly, 
 to see his grasp and comprehension, combined with that 
 extremely simple bearing which, in no matter what society, 
 is the key to popularity. Antoine intended to be popular, 
 that was the effect in brief ; and his grandfather, the first to 
 foresee, was by no means sure yet that he wished it. 
 
 Antoine, on his side, was clearly oppressed by his grav- 
 ity. With that look upon him, he had no doubt that he was 
 in fault to give way to his feelings, as he had done in the 
 
THE FIRST TEST 51 
 
 carriage. While he subsided on his stool, and stretched his 
 long fingers to the fire with conscious pleasure in its warmth, 
 he remembered with disturbance some of the answers he had 
 given lately to his grandfather. Thanks to Margot, the 
 world had improved a little. He had told her about it, in 
 hurried confidence, and she had kissed him, and laughed at 
 him, and informed him that he was better, so he naturally 
 felt so. Now his grandfather remained distant, reproach- 
 ing him, when communication was most necessary. Antoine 
 thought over his recent performance, and decided that 
 there was one thing he might have noticed, though it had 
 fortunately escaped his master's attention. It was better, 
 perhaps, not to have one's family in the audience — though he 
 had hoped he and Philip would enjoy it sufficiently. Philip, 
 all too evidently, had thought of nothing but the disturb- 
 ance, amusing at ordinary times, but unseemly and disgust- 
 ing when a near relation of his own was in the centre of it. 
 Antoine greatly feared that Philip had not listened at all — • 
 which, considering the style of his opening passages, was 
 a pity. He looked furtively at M. Lemaure, who gazed ab- 
 sently at him, and longed for a word of reassurance. Surely, 
 thought Antoine, he must have known also, at some period 
 of his mysterious past life, this sense of chill and dark dis- 
 couragement, that the reaction from the excitement and 
 the effort brought, 
 
 Fritz Reuss could easily have interpreted between them ; 
 and standing behind Antoine on the hearth, he was pre- 
 pared to do so, and have things on the cheerful domestic 
 footing he preferred, before he left the house. He glanced 
 at his big gold watch, and reckoned the time at his dis- 
 posal, for, much as he loved them both, he could not miss 
 his train, 
 
 " May one not drink his health ? " he inquired, in his gruff, 
 cordial tone, pointing to the steaming jugs Margot had 
 brought. " And he mine, since I must soon be gone." 
 
 " I do not want it," said Antoine hastily. 
 
 " Thou dost not want his health," said M. Lemaure, 
 
52 SUCCESSION 
 
 " when he shows such care for thine ? However " — he 
 roused himself — " coffee is forbidden, Friedrich, I beUeve." 
 
 " But now he wants it," argued Fritz serenely, glancing 
 at Antoine's face. " Desire awakens instantly, hey ? One 
 needs but reverse the ten commandments in this land to have 
 them exactly obeyed." 
 
 " It smells nice," the boy admitted. As a fact, he was 
 in the state, mental and bodily, of being unable to answer 
 for his own desires. " Savigny does not mind," he added, 
 rather shyly. 
 
 " It is Lucien, hey ? " said Reuss. " May we not revoke 
 the law of Lucien, Charles? Rules have exceptions, and he 
 has done very well." 
 
 " To be sure," said the old man, half surprised by the echo 
 of pleading in his voice ; and Fritz was actually pouring the 
 savoury stuff, with the composed decision of his lightest 
 action, that manner on which the boy's tired senses found it 
 comforting to dwell, when voices were heard on the stairs. 
 
 "Already?" Fritz growled, setting down the coffee-pot. 
 
 " Who is it? " said ^M. Lemaure, appealing to the keenest 
 ear. " No, stay." He grasped the boy as he would have 
 retreated. 
 
 " It is Fauchard," said Antoine, flushing slightly with 
 annoyance. " I remember, he told Fritz he would come." 
 
 " I never gave him permission," the German growled. 
 " Lucien has no sense." He looked from one to the other. 
 " Let him go, Charles," he murmured. " It will be too 
 much." 
 
 " It is not for long," returned his friend, " and in this 
 case, there is no choice. One is present, naturally — and one 
 is well. Youunderstand, my little one? It is but to answer, 
 not to talk." 
 
 " Let go," said Antoine, and being freed, threw up his 
 chin, and crossed to the farther side of the fire. 
 
 Fauchard swept in upon them, hearty and jocular, sub- 
 limely oblivious that he could be an affliction to any man. It 
 became clear that Fauchard had, by his skilled demeanour 
 
THEFIRSTTEST 53 
 
 solely, torn the most interesting concert of the late season 
 from the jaws of destruction. So he chattered, radiating 
 triumph, swamping M. Lemaure's weary courtesies, and 
 Dr Reuss's far from courteous gruffness; and being kind 
 by the way to the little boy, the novice in public life, to whom 
 his protection had been of such service, lately in the hall. 
 It was comforting to witness a person so convinced as 
 Fauchard that he was doing the right thing, both by his 
 visit, and the distribution of his patronage and attention 
 about the little circle. 
 
 Antoine afforded him slight response at first, since he did 
 not seem to need it, but remained thankfully silent, on his 
 low stool in the shadow. Reuss passed him unobtrusively 
 some coffee in his retirement, but Lucien, whose attention 
 was everywhere, frowned a warning, so that the boy, too 
 dispirited to resist, withdrew his hand from it and subsided. 
 He followed the thin curve of its rising steam absently, re- 
 flecting that in any case it might have been an effort to drink. - 
 Then he turned from it to gaze wide-eyed at M. Fauchard, 
 and to wonder how he talked so much without, apparently, 
 thinking at all ; and above all what he found to smile at so 
 constantly. 
 
 At last there came a pause in his oratory, and neither 
 Lucien nor his father seemed to have a remark ready. M. 
 Lemaure looked, as it chanced, towards his grandson, and 
 Antoine supposed something was expected of him, and 
 roused. 
 
 " Will you have another cake ? " said Antoine in a hurry, 
 the guest having already two upon his plate. For Fauchard 
 could eat and talk simultaneously, and had made himself 
 most comfortable. 
 
 " I thank you," said M. Fauchard gracefully ; but his at- 
 tention was turned upon Antoine, and he considered him 
 with condescension. 
 
 " Well, le petit," said he, " and how did you find our 
 theatre, hey ? Somebody — that cub Lemonski, I think it was 
 — complained of an echo. It is nonsense." 
 
54 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I heard an echo," said Antoine, " near the beginning." 
 
 "Ha! What was it like?" 
 
 " Like a cat," the boy said, gripping his knees. 
 
 " Those young fellows," said Fauchard, laughing toler- 
 antly. " One must not take them too seriously. We felt 
 
 that, doubtless " he spoke audibly to Lucien aside, with 
 
 a nod. 
 
 "It gave me an indigestion," said Antoine, before his 
 uncle could speak, using the uncompromising terms of the 
 French language. " Did it you? " 
 
 In view of the cakes on Fauchard's plate, the question 
 was not considerate, and Reuss hastily intervened. 
 
 " How can you permit such tasteless interruption ? " he 
 said, intending to aggravate and divert the man ; but Fau- 
 chard was unperturbed, and smiled, with a shrug. 
 
 " Permit it, Monsieur? It occurs. It wastes a little time, 
 but in the end it hurts nobody, and keeps the public awake." 
 
 " Hurts nobody ! " Fritz growled. " Might that not de- 
 pend on what there is to hurt? All are not equally in- 
 sensible ? " 
 
 " One was offended then," said Fauchard to Lucien, after 
 a slight pause allowed to this incivility, " Discontented 
 with the reception, possibly." His tone was lowered, as 
 though the boy were a spoiled child, and his vanity naturally 
 to be humoured. 
 
 " Au contraire," said M. Lemaure, with gentle firmness. 
 " My grandson has said he is content — and is ready to re- 
 peat it." 
 
 Fauchard laughed in a manner hardly to be borne. 
 " Tired, we will say," he corrected, studying Antoine closely. 
 
 " I am tired a little," said Antoine. " You see, I could 
 not rest like you in the middle of it, because I had no chair." 
 
 Something in the reply, or in the pose which the boy's 
 limbs had assumed, as though in reminiscence of a noble 
 attitude, disturbed M. Fauchard's state of inner satisfac- 
 tion. The young child, it seemed, was critical : an evil thing 
 for youth to be. 
 
THEFIRSTTEST 55 
 
 " One has some flowers, eh? " said Fauchard, putting his 
 plate aside and wiping his moustache. He looked at tlie 
 sheaf of mauve iris, tied with their festal bow, which had 
 already pricked his curiosity, " It is early for the women 
 to begin," Antoine, flushing, would have responded in- 
 stantly, but a slight authoritative movement of his grand- 
 father's hand cut off the words. Thereafter his head 
 drooped and he sulked, clasping his knees, till Fauchard 
 went. This was soon, for his last remark, intended to be 
 enlivening, had killed the conversation. Even Lucien was 
 impatient of his ill breeding, and Reuss, solid and sulky in 
 his chair, made no longer the least eft"ort to be gracious, 
 
 " Well, my little one," said Faucliard at parting, " felicita- 
 tions, and good-night. We shall hear you soon, I hope, in 
 a more important thing. Or newer, shall we say? " 
 
 " Perhaps you will," said the boy, " when Grandpapa is 
 there," And as Fauchard turned his back, he made a face 
 at it of such electrifying quality, that his grandfather, in 
 sheer terror, snatched him back to his side. 
 
 There was a blank pause, none daring to comment, or 
 even to smile, till the honourable visitor was safely out. 
 Then — 
 
 " On my honour," swore Dr Reuss, when the strain was 
 relieved at Lucien's return, " I should have said it myself, 
 Charles, if he had not. That last was insulting, simply." 
 
 " It was no excuse for impertinence," said Lucien ; but his 
 tone was uncertain, for his father was laughing helplessly, 
 one hand across his face, the other still grasping the delin- 
 quent, who now crouched low beside him, in the attitude of 
 penitence. His face was concealed, and his shoulders heav- 
 ing; but in his case, as was evident, not with mirth. 
 
 Lucien waited a little, his eyebrows up, for the situation 
 was a little beyond him, and his father gave no lead. 
 
 " See, Antoine, you had better go to your room," he said 
 at last, gathering the official tone. " Your grandfather is 
 too tired to be teased, and you are excited." 
 
56 SUCCESSION 
 
 " It IS the word," said Reuss. He also waited a minute, 
 pulling at his beard, and regarding the pair. The boy only 
 clung the closer for his dismissal, and M. Lemaure, not mov- 
 ing otherwise, had laid a hand upon his head. Taking his 
 decision from the movement, Fritz pushed his cup aside, 
 heaved himself up, and informed Lucien that he was to leave 
 the house in less than an hour, and had to write three letters 
 first. 
 
 " Twenty, if you will," said the younger Lemaure im- 
 mediately. " My room is at your service, Friedrich. You 
 know the way." 
 
 " I am most uncertain of it," said Reuss deliberately. 
 
 " Antoine ! " — but the master got no further, owing to a 
 bear's paw on his arm. Fritz's eyes, simultaneously, af- 
 forded him their full blue twinkle. Lucien grunted, but 
 anger with Reuss was a thing impossible, and before he 
 could devise another remark, he was shoved out unresisting. 
 
 This act of self-denial on Reuss's part was not unrepaid. 
 He had a long and quite interesting conversation, and was 
 struck as usual at every point of it, by Lucien's cleverness. 
 Few letters got written during the short time at his disposal ; 
 but it may be Fritz was resigned in advance to leaving the 
 impress of himself instead upon Antoine's master's mind. 
 The full attention of such a man as Reuss was flattering in 
 itself, even without his spoken advice, and it was support 
 of a kind that Lucien's anxious nature often needed ; espe- 
 cially when, as in Reuss's parting words, the flattery touched 
 truth. 
 
 " I need not commend your father to you," said Reuss, 
 gripping the younger man's arm with vigorous warmth, 
 " for you have always been his truest friend ; and we, who 
 see him not so often as we would, must count on you. For 
 the other, Lucien, the small one, I ask you simply, do not 
 hamper him. There is in him the unknown — how shall I 
 put it in your tongue? — the mysterious." 
 
 " For you? " said Lucien sharply. 
 
THEFIRSTTEST 57 
 
 " For me as much," said Fritz. " Understand, I speak not 
 now of his gifts — that is nothing. I speak of his age, the 
 unknown generation. Do what we will, we cannot make 
 him like the old." 
 
 '' I have no wish," said Lucien, with dignity, " to model 
 him on mine." 
 
 "Have you not? Do you not require him, for instance, 
 to reflect your view of your father? " 
 
 For an instant Lucien was silent. " I will not hear crit- 
 icism of my father," he said gruffly, " That is true. I 
 suppose he has been telling tales." 
 
 " Not he," said Fritz. 
 
 " Wurst then — I see. I had not thought he saw so much 
 in London. No doubt he did, though : the Russian can spy. 
 It matters little, Friedrich. I am impatient — what you will. 
 There are things I am not made to bear." 
 
 " I like you for it," said the German. " That loyalty is the 
 quality I admire. Only — ^you have another duty. The new 
 claims our interest, at least, as much as the old. Has this 
 new no claim on you, is what I ask? " 
 
 " Children, as such, have no claim on me, if that is what 
 you mean. I am not sentimental," said Lucien slowly, " I 
 believe I am just. What I mean is, it would make no differ- 
 ence, had Antoine been my son." 
 
 " Excellent," said Reuss, clapping a fist upon his palm. 
 " I never doubted your justice: it is that I would appeal to. 
 You are so frank with me, I may venture all the way. Then 
 the boy's whole value to you is his reflection of your father's 
 genius. Is it so? " 
 
 " I never said that," Lucien exclaimed. But Reuss saw 
 that the saying contained light. Knowing his well-trained 
 conscience, he left the suggestion to work, and embraced 
 Lucien robustly. 
 
 " Your temper has improved, lieber," he said, " so to bear 
 with me; for I own as stranger I have little right to judge. 
 It is not your nation's habit, as ours, to stoop to youth, or to 
 
58 SUCCESSION 
 
 love the thing unmade. You summon the child to you, is 
 it not so ? " 
 
 " When the child will come," said Lucien. And suddenly, 
 whether at Fritz's eyes, or at the memory of Antoine and 
 Fauchard, he laughed. " Go, Friedrich," he said, pushing 
 him -off with a friendly hand. " We never should agree ; 
 and it is surely not worth while, for me, to miss your train." 
 
 M. Lemaure was writing by the light of his small reading- 
 lamp when Reuss went in to take his finaVleave, passing in 
 and out with a stealth surprising in such a massive person. 
 The study, that charming room of his best memories, was 
 very still ; for the moment, a miracle of peace. The great 
 cat, entering in front of Reuss with the condescension of a 
 king, had looked for his customary seat on the fireside 
 couch, and finding it occupied all its length, had for a 
 moment considered returning to the kitchen, a picture of 
 offence, with a jerking tail. Then a judicious snap of his 
 elder master's fingers invited him, and he sprang suddenly 
 up, and settled among the papers on M. Lemaure's knee, 
 pinning him to his place. His low song of satisfaction was 
 audible in the silent room, and he turned on Dr Reuss the 
 superb glance of a favoured rival. 
 
 "Asleep?" said Fritz, very low, having advanced to the 
 chair's side. 
 
 " He will bear disturbing," said M. Lemaure, turning a 
 paper over soundlessly. " He never sleeps by day." 
 
 " And at night? " said Reuss. 
 
 The shadow of a shrug was answer. 
 
 "Do you go?" said M. Lemaure, leaning his head upon 
 his hand. The weariness still hung upon his voice, but his 
 look was more serene. 
 
 " I go — to sleep my nine hours in the northern express." 
 Reuss squared his broad shoulders where he stood. 
 
 " Sleep well, Fritz," said his friend, with a faintly mock- 
 ing smile. " We two will think of you meanwhile." 
 
THEFIRSTTEST 59 
 
 " ]\Iy daylight thinking," retorted Reuss, " is worth as 
 much as yours." 
 
 " ]\Iore," the other assented. " Nightly thinking is worse 
 than profitless — even Bebe could tell you that." He made a 
 gesture towards the couch, for the boy at their voices had 
 slightly moved his head. 
 
 " Wide open, yes," said Reuss, wath disapproval. " Ach, 
 the feverish generation." He crossed the shadowed space 
 beyond the lamplit ring and, kneeling by the couch, laid his 
 arm across the occupant. 
 
 " Be not surprised if I fetch you to Germany in Septem- 
 ber," he said. '' Will you play the concerto there for us 
 once more? Yes? — and when I come, you and the violin 
 will be ready? It is well. Then will be the friend's next 
 happy day. Is it not true, my little angel ? " 
 
 So his rough moustache brushed the boy's brow, and hav- 
 ing looked him over once — the look of a benignant spirit, 
 for all his bristling attributes — Fritz freed him, rose and 
 went. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 
 
 M. Lemaure might not, as he said to Reuss, have asked 
 fate for notoriety, but his grandson had no idea of stopping 
 short of it. Antoine's first recital, which was classical in 
 kind, passed almost unheeded, as things may do in large 
 towns. The second, falling on a night of good spirits, was 
 so brilliant that the critics went down before him; and 
 even his uncle had hardly anything left to say. Lucien 
 would conceivably have fallen foul of the last sonata, which 
 had long been a subject for his eloquence, had not the com- 
 poser of it himself been there, taking a strong view in the 
 matter which could not well be controverted. 
 
 " Duchatel was bouleverse," Lucien informed his father 
 the next morning, for M. Lemaure had missed all talk of the 
 concert through illness. " His monocle dropped at the sec- 
 ond bar, and he forgot to pick it up again before the repeat. 
 I never saw him so moved out of his indifference." 
 
 " Victor is not indifferent," said M. Lemaure, who was 
 an old friend of the Duchatel family. " He is only a little 
 tired of opposition." 
 
 " Well, his pose of indifference, then. Certainly the boy 
 played it neatly, especially the end. And it is difficult," 
 Lucien added. 
 
 " It stood last, eh? Did they recall him? " 
 
 " More than once," said Lucien grimly. " Very agreeable 
 he made himself, I assure you. I told Duchatel, we shall 
 get fashionable at this rate ; and he said, if it is at his ex- 
 pense, he has no objection." 
 
 60 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 6i 
 
 "And what did you say to that?'' The old man was 
 watching him closely. The triumph of the preceding night 
 was more clear to him in his son's geniality than in any 
 words he used. 
 
 " I said it was nonsense — he was watching the door for 
 escape even while we were talking. He would not show 
 himself, and slipped oflf before the end. He is shy, Victor, 
 though one would not think it from his appearance." 
 
 " He is a very engaging savage," said M. Lemaure, " and 
 a very good son, I always liked Victor, for all his extrav- 
 agance on paper." 
 
 " It is the extravagance Antoine enjoys, I believe," said 
 Lucien. " He makes the most of it. By the way, father, 
 Victor wishes to visit you this evening, if he is not pre- 
 vented," 
 
 " I shall not prevent him certainly," said M. Lemaure. 
 " I feel new-made, and shall enjoy his society. I have not 
 seen him for long. You had better tell the boy to be in," 
 he added, as Lucien rose. " Is he much occupied to-day ? " 
 
 " No," said the son, looking out of the window. " I pro- 
 pose to myself to let him rest." 
 
 " A holiday ! " The old man stretched a hand. " We 
 congratulate ourselves." 
 
 " You have not seen him much of late," said Lucien, with 
 a note of apology. " But you will have understood " 
 
 " I understand," returned his father. " You have done 
 wonders, evidently. Lucien " 
 
 " Well ? " said the son, smiling faintly. 
 
 "You will let me congratulate you too? After all, it is 
 you who have led him straight to this." 
 
 " I am glad to hear it," said Lucien. " I have worked 
 hard enough, I know ; but he might tell you another story." 
 His voice had the touch of bitterness to which his father 
 was well used : but he did not refuse the hand extended, 
 and the pleasure from such direct praise was clear in his 
 face. 
 
 " Antoine knows quite well what he owes to you," said 
 
62 SUCCESSION 
 
 M. Lemaure, " as well as I do, in sober moments. If he 
 
 fails to express it always " 
 
 Lucien actually laughed. " There are few things Antoine 
 fails to express," he said. " I do not have to sit down and 
 wait for his sentiments, even in lesson-time ; though grat- 
 itude is not apt to be one of them. But he was charming 
 last night," he added hastily, as he departed. 
 
 Antoine was somewhat surprised to find that his uncle's 
 good-humour had survived the night, though relieved as 
 well. None was more ready to be friendly than he, though 
 his uncle had a way of remembering things he said in mo- 
 ments of stress, and facing him with them when life was at 
 its easiest. Antoine hardly understood a memory like that ; 
 yet he could rarely help laughing when the remark was re- 
 peated to him, as though it had been said by somebody else. 
 To-day, however, even Lucien's memories seemed satis- 
 factory, and he was almost jocular. He snatched the papers 
 over Antoine's head on the breakfast-table, pinched his ear, 
 and took them in to his father. Antoine, who was occupied 
 in telling Margot all about the concert, looked blank for a 
 moment. 
 
 " There, I could have seen," he said, dropping a hand on 
 the table, " and I never thought. Now, he won't tell me." 
 
 " IMonsieur your grandfather will," the cook consoled 
 him. She had already acquired a paper for the kitchen on 
 her own account, and smiled at him superior. 
 
 " No, no ; because my uncle will tell him not to. Perhaps 
 Philippe will have a paper." He looked at the card he held 
 in his hand. It was a frightful scrawl from his brother, 
 dated the previous evening, without stops, representing 
 haste. He let his breakfast get cold while he studied it. 
 
 " Sorry can't nohow come to-night," it appeared to say in 
 English, " Come and have tea with the Rats in Ostrowski's 
 rooms to-morrow. Ostrowski has good cake. I may be 
 there or I mayn't, but anyhow I'll try." 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 63 
 " P.S. You might bring the fiddle. Don't forget." 
 
 Antoine imparted this flattering invitation to his uncle on 
 his return, with the exception of the postscript. 
 
 " Do you know the gentleman who does not invite you? " 
 said M. Lemaure. 
 
 " Ostrowski ? Not much. But I think he was that very 
 tall one last night, w^ith a short nose who leant right over." 
 
 " Do you know where he lives ? " 
 
 " No," said Antoine. " But I can go to de Lussac down 
 there in St Germain. He will know." 
 
 " Have you any idea," pursued his uncle, " what time 
 they want you ? " 
 
 " No," said Antoine again. " Because of course the Rus- 
 sians have tea all the afternoon and at night. But then it 
 doesn't matter when I go, does it ? " 
 
 " One wishes to go when one will be welcome," said M. 
 Lucien. 
 
 " Yes, of course." He paused, wrinkling his brow at the 
 card. " And I want mostly to see Philippe," he said to him- 
 self. " I have not, much." 
 
 M. Lemaure got up and came behind him. Laying one 
 hand upon the boy's wrist, he took the card from him with 
 the other, and considered it at leisure. 
 
 " Disgraceful," he commented, though whether on Philip's 
 handwriting, or his fraternal behaviour, was undefined. 
 " Try towards four, my dear," he said. " Philippe will prob- 
 ably be hungry then." 
 
 " You will not want me at three ? " said Antoine, sur- 
 prised at his kindness. 
 
 " No. I want you to be with your grandfather a little 
 to-day ; but I have no use for you. Be home at five," he 
 added, recollecting, " in case people come." Whereupon he 
 passed into the vestibule to get his coat. 
 
 Antoine followed him almost at once, abandoning his 
 breakfast to its fate. He was not at all hungry this morn- 
 ing, and could consequently forget to eat. 
 
64 SUCCESSION 
 
 " You go to the library ? " he queried. " Will grandpapa 
 come to lunch to-day ? " For during the week past he had 
 been constantly alone. 
 
 " Yes," said Lucien. " Your grandfather is better." 
 Antoine did not say he was pleased, but his face cleared 
 enormously. He became simultaneously absent; and only 
 when his uncle was gone beyond recall, he remembered sev- 
 eral important things that remained to ask him anent his 
 studies for the morning. 
 
 He was driven, as frequently, to confide in Margot. Mar- 
 got came to speak seriously to him about the breakfast 
 question. 
 
 " Cheri," she said, " here is a week you have not eaten in 
 the morning. Am I to continue to make you good chocolate, 
 of which you leave the whole upon the tray ? " 
 
 Antoine regarded her. It seemed a reasonable protest. 
 " It smells so nice," he explained. " I do think I want 
 it, and then I don't very much." 
 
 " You should drink all the same," said the cook. " Then 
 you will find you can finish it." 
 
 " Yes, I will," he said. " I think I only forgot." He 
 went quickly back to the dining-room and found an empty 
 cup. 
 
 " I did finish it," he cried triumphantly. 
 " Bon Dieu ! " said Margot ; a general apostrophe to the 
 failings of a family, whom she loved not least for their 
 failings. " Does he imagine I intended him to drink it cold ? 
 Monsieur Antoine, your chocolate is in the kitchen. If you 
 have patience for two minutes you shall have it again." 
 
 But no such thing. Antoine followed her to the kitchen, 
 cup in hand. Margot snatched the vulgar paper she had 
 bought, and put it out of his sight. It contained an endear- 
 ing reference to him, but it was not for his eyes to see. 
 Fortunately the subject of its laudations did not observe 
 the manoeuvre, he was too deeply engaged in considering 
 the question of the music. 
 
 " I don't think I am to play any of those things again," 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCIIATEL 65 
 
 he explained to the cook. " Well, for two at least, I believe 
 it is finished. The Duchatel I might have again, because 
 that is rather new ; but I don't think so. I can't remember." 
 
 " When is Monsieur's next concert? " said Margot, heat- 
 ing the milk. 
 
 " The second of May." 
 
 " Then it will be advertised surely on the back of the 
 programme of last night." 
 
 " Oh yes, it will. But I did not have a programme." 
 
 " Monsieur your uncle may have it in his coat." 
 
 " He has taken his coat." 
 
 " Tu es sot," said Margot, abandoning the formalities. 
 " It is not the same coat. Here, hold the saucepan and I 
 will see." 
 
 She brought back the programme before the milk boiled. 
 
 " Tenez, cheri," she said, having rapidly compared the 
 two sides. " There is nothing in it that is the same." 
 
 " I thought not," said Antoine, regarding the list. " Tant 
 mieux." 
 
 " Better, when it means more work ? " 
 
 " It is better — I hate those old things." He tossed the 
 programme cheerfully into the coal-box. " I know it now," 
 he reassured her, as she stooped to rescue it. Margot, with- 
 out responding, dusted it carefully, and laid it aside with 
 her newspaper. Then she served him his warm chocolate 
 with a fresh roll, and tapped his head, once or twice, as he 
 leant by the stove, to remind him to drink. When he really 
 discovered an appetite, she paused in her work to watch him 
 admiringly. 
 
 " It is not that Monsieur can't eat when he likes," she 
 moralised, as she filled his cup. " It is that he thinks so 
 much his stomach is disturbed." 
 
 " Yes," said the boy, with a sudden smile at her. 
 
 " P'tit ange," muttered Margot. " Not one of those gen- 
 tlemen can ever make him what he is. Monsieur has fin- 
 ished?" she added, cutting off the question he was prepar- 
 ing. 
 
66 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Yes — it was very good. Margot " 
 
 " Va-t-en," said the cook brusquely. " I have to go to 
 Monsieur." 
 
 Antoine had not heard the bell ; but he abandoned inquiry 
 as to the gentlemen alluded to, and went to his occupations. 
 
 Antoine started early on his voyage of discovery, accord- 
 ing to direction on the post card, or rather the lack of it. It 
 was fortunate he did so. He had reached the fountain in 
 the garden before he remembered that Philip had told him 
 to bring his violin. After a moment's hesitation, he went 
 back for it. His magnificent brother had a way of putting 
 a request carelessly, and then falling on him as if he had 
 broken a law if he disobeyed. He wanted at all costs to 
 please Philip, whom his family had hardly seen of late. 
 Having got the violin, and reached the house near St Ger- 
 main, where Philip's principal acquaintance dwelt, he learnt 
 that M. de Lussac was out, having gone " chez M. Os- 
 trowski." 
 
 " Do you know where he lives. Monsieur Ostrowski ? " 
 said Antoine, one eyebrow lifted, to the concierge. He had 
 begun to be amused. 
 
 The concierge did not know precisely ; but it was some- 
 where on the hill near the church of St Stephen, because 
 MM. Ostrowski and Jespersen went by the name of the 
 Mountaineers. 
 
 " Has Monsieur Edgell been here to-day? " asked Antoine. 
 
 The concierge thought not. There were many students, 
 of course. What was he like, M. Edgell? 
 
 He was very tall, '' rase a I'anglais," with a little accent 
 in French. 
 
 " Le bel anglais? " Oh yes, the concierge knew him. He 
 had spent the previous evening with M. de Lussac, on the 
 sixth floor, climbing on the roof. Which was not safe, 
 especially at night, when one has, like M. de Lussac, taken 
 wine. But was he, the concierge, responsible, if the students 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 67 
 
 killed themselves by falling in the court? The same gentle- 
 i man had come lately to fetch M. de Lussac, he added, 
 i Antoine thanked him and resumed his journey, retracing 
 I his steps in the direction of " the hill." So Philip's impor- 
 i tant engagement had been exploring the roofs of the arron- 
 dissement with Andre de Lussac. It certainly accounted for 
 ; his not turning up at the concert. He marched on, recross- 
 I ing the great streets in turn, extremely attentive to traffic for 
 '■• once, for he bore within the case he carried a life more 
 precious than his own. It had begun to rain, so he hugged 
 the violin up under his rough cape, and putting up the hood, 
 looked like fifty other little Parisians of his age, who were 
 scouring the busy streets. He was completely vague, when 
 he attained the church, as to what next step he ought to 
 take, and having skirted round the Place to the rear of the 
 Pantheon building, stood staring at the tall houses doubt- 
 fully. Then he turned suddenly to an old woman who sold 
 post cards at the corner, and asked her if she had seen two 
 students pass that way within the last hour, one very short, 
 and one very tall and beautiful. 
 
 But yes, the old woman had. Most certainly, monsieur ; 
 and they had entered the corner house where live the noisy 
 gentlemen all together. Antoine thanked her warmly, grate- 
 ful as he had never been for his conspicuous brother, and 
 proceeded to the corner house referred to, where he inquired 
 quite gaily for M. Ostrowski. 
 
 It was not well received. The caretaker regarded him 
 coldly and asked if he were a model. 
 
 " No," said Antoine, with some indignation. " I wish to 
 |, visit hrin, and he doesn't paint." 
 
 " Pardon." The woman relaxed a little. Monsieur had 
 looked Italian in the obscurity of the hood. M. Ostrowski 
 was so violent when more models arrived than M. Jespersen 
 had asked for. They were violent gentlemen — and noisy ! — • 
 the house was not worth living in. Had they not had her 
 out of bed at three that morning, singing in the street to 
 wake the neighbourhood? 
 
68 SUCCESSION 
 
 In fact, if Antoine chose to mount to the top storey, his 
 life was in his own hands. 
 
 Antoine chose, and climbed rather wearily, for the violin 
 and the wet cloak were heavy in combination. It was an 
 old house, dank and dirty. There were three doors on the 
 last landing, which was extremely badly lighted. Antoine 
 got his breath, and then, hearing voices loud upraised and 
 the tinkle of a piano behind one of the doors, he rapped it 
 boldly. The tumult within ceased, and the door swung 
 open. There were a number of young men in the room, 
 which was so smoky that he could distinguish for a moment 
 no faces. Then he saw Andre de Lussac on the piano-stool, 
 and advanced to him, holding out his hand. He wavered, 
 for the silence at his entrance was alarming. Then he re- 
 coiled, for the whole room fell on him as one man. 
 
 Andre, giving the lead, snatched a newspaper from the 
 pianotop and cried " Bravo." The room echoed it in the 
 accents of four nations following it up with the students' 
 salvo of applause. A fair Swede — Jespersen presumably — 
 taking the visitor's right hand, relieved it gently of the 
 violin. Ostrowski, surging from the mist on Antoine's left 
 like an ungainly windmill, seized himself, and, lifting him 
 like a baby, set him in the great chair on the model throne 
 where he had himself been lounging, and seating himself 
 alongside on the arm, grasped him cordially by both his 
 hands. 
 
 The wave of genuine and impetuous enthusiasm in that 
 mixed company of easy-going youths had something in it 
 fine and sweeping that brought the tears to Antoine's eyes, 
 laughing as he was. He was not exactly astonished at it, 
 for a show of frank feeling never astonished him, though 
 it had taken him unawares. The Paris student is rather a 
 dangerous specimen of his kind — hot-blooded, cool-headed, 
 a tough customer to defeat or deceive ; but his appreciation 
 of a good thing, when found, is abundant and hearty. Out 
 of the nine men or boys in this room, of whom six were 
 French, the only one apparently unmoved was the English- 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 69 
 
 man, Philip; and Philip was motionless chiefly from 
 amazement. 
 
 He had heard enough of Antoine lately, and resented 
 rather the freedom with which his artistic acquaintance 
 bandied his name. To-day he had read impatiently the ar- 
 ticles that his friends thrust into his hands, unable to adjust 
 his ideas to the fact that his young brother could make such 
 a sudden stride to fame. It was " push," it was " blague " 
 — ^journalists' folly: a part of it must be. Ostrowski, al- 
 ways a person of whims and extravagances, told the room 
 generally and individually his opinion of the last new player. 
 De Lussac, whom Philip considered a much better critic, 
 allowed himself to be persuaded on hearsay, and regretted 
 ardently that he had not been there to add to the noise. The 
 confrerie of Rats, in de Lussac's opinion, had not done half 
 enough, particularly considering that the performer was, so 
 to speak, a relative. He proceeded to explain what they 
 might have done that they omitted, to cheer up the second 
 recital. 
 
 " No use, mon cher," said Ostrowski. " There is a refine- 
 ment, a sacre intimite, about that plastered little feminine 
 salon that restricts all one's natural ebullitions. We teased 
 him at the end a little for Edgell's sake, but he only laughed 
 at us. He has a genial way of laughing that is discouraging. 
 It is almost — almost as though he did not take us seriously." 
 
 " He shall to-night," said de Lussac, who loved a dem- 
 onstration. 
 
 " He'll hardly come now," said the sober Swede, who was 
 busily engaged with his sketch-book. " I expect Edgell 
 gave him the wrong address. Edgell, for Lord's sake, keep 
 still." 
 
 Philip, who was the temporary model, swung up. " I 
 gave him no address at all, that's all," he said. " I've just 
 remembered. What a joke!" 
 
 "A joke?" Ostrowski cried. 
 
 " I mentioned your name, of course ; but the other side 
 of the Pantheon, you're less known. What will he do?" 
 
70 SUCCESSION 
 
 " He'll only think you don't want to see him," said his 
 intimate de Liissac at the piano. " And he'll not be far 
 wrong." 
 
 " You're jealous," cried another dear friend called Char- 
 pentier. 
 
 " The English," called Ostrowski, " do not love their rela- 
 tions or their wives. They only love their horses." 
 
 " The passion for pure art," appended Jespersen's fine 
 bass, " is unknown among them. Edgell, get your nose 
 round, can't you? I want it against the chair-back." 
 
 " The raging apaches," pursued Andre, " are thick in the 
 streets around our home. The poor child will get lost look- 
 ing for you, and have his throat cut into the bargain." 
 
 " And we shall never hear him play again," said Os- 
 trowski. 
 
 It was somewhere about this point, as indicated, that 
 Antoine actually came. During the acclamation at his en- 
 trance Philip, deep in his fireside chair, did not move; and 
 the boy, searching the room by flashes through the smoke 
 and shifting figures, missed him altogether. He was late, 
 and thought Philip might be gone. He asked a question, 
 but was not heard in the clamour, and settling back in his 
 seat, Antoine turned his attention perforce to his admirers. 
 Philip was surprised at the natural ease with which he took 
 the ovation. He sat sidelong in his conspicuous position, 
 just as Ostrowski had dropped him down, the folds of his 
 short blue cloak falling round him like a royal mantle. He 
 listened with his eyes fixed attentively on Ostrowski, whose 
 extreme volubility, combined with his odd accent, made his 
 wit difficult to appreciate. Antoine was served on all hands 
 with food, and introduced to six people at once ; but he did 
 not lose his head for a minute. He chose what he wanted to 
 eat with gravity, and answered when necessary — and pos- 
 sible — with a kind of conscientious grace, as though half 
 nature, half a lesson he had learnt. He was, moreover, en- 
 joying it extremely, and Philip heard his little giggle con- 
 
 i 
 
THE R A T S — A N D D U C II A T E L 71 
 
 stantly in the pauses, as M. Ostrowski, with an air of god- 
 like disposition, laid his friends at his feet. 
 
 " Charpentier and Robert having heard, Monsieur, ap- 
 preciate you sufficiently. Robert, whose voice will never 
 make his fortune, narrowly escaped the police by singing 
 the presto of Duchatel beneath these windows at two o'clock 
 this morning. It was not well sung — you play it better. 
 That is de Lussac, who, being fat, and slow after meals, 
 did not hear you, and now mourns the omission. De Lussac 
 is the least interesting of our community, though of excel- 
 lent family. His ancestors — oh, you know him ; then we 
 had better pass hastily to Jespersen. Jespersen, of whom 
 I am the best friend and worst critic, is principally cel- 
 ebrated by having painted your brother for the Salon. 
 Knowing your brother, I need not tell you it was painted 
 behind his back. For pure imagination, I have rarely seen 
 a portrait to equal it. But it is finely conceived, with plenty 
 of green on the lower jaw, which is what the Salon demands 
 this year. Cornichon, whose real name I have temporarily 
 forgotten, is a man with a past, but unmusical. You, hav- 
 ing a future, will sympathise." 
 
 " Really, Ostrowski," said the last-named, as the Russian 
 paused to save Antoine's cup. " It's very polite of him to 
 laugh. I think you are offensive." 
 
 " Possibly," said Ostrowski ; " but I don't offend. Mousse 
 there has an appetising name, but little else to recommend 
 him. The other Charpentier I should have mentioned be- 
 fore, but he was lost behind the samovar. He is far the 
 most distinguished of us, as well as the oldest, but he makes 
 little noise and so we forget him. That is my samovar, and 
 here am I, your servant. The rest" — he made a gesture 
 into the void — " are known to you." 
 
 " Philippe is there?" said Antoine, making a movement, 
 lie still could not believe it. 
 
 " Oh, certainly. Only his susceptibility is such, that he 
 is more shy for you than you are yourself. Oh, don't move. 
 He really isn't worth it." The Russian youth swung to his 
 
^2 . SUCCESSION 
 
 feet as Antoine got up, just saving their common chair from 
 capsizing by the movement. He was laughing, but his eyes 
 were keenly fixed on the pair from his post of vantage above 
 their heads. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Antoine to Philip. " I thought you 
 had not come perhaps." 
 
 " Why shouldn't I have come? " said Philip, barely greet- 
 ing him. " You're precious late. I shall have to go direct- 
 ly." He spoke English, regardless of the audience, of whom 
 few could follow the language. Ostrowski and de Lussac 
 exchanged a glance, as the boy continued in French. 
 
 " I could not find the house. I had to ask a lot of 
 people." 
 
 " I've told you heaps of times where Ostrowski lives," 
 said Philip. 
 
 " Rot," said Charpentier audibly. 
 
 " It was extraordinarily clever of him to find us at all," 
 declared Jespersen, " but we haven't mentioned it." 
 
 " We left out heaps of things," moaned Andre, his head 
 against the piano. 
 
 " He has the effect," said Ostrowski, gently and clearly, 
 " of dazzling the intelligence." 
 
 " Oh — they are silly." The boy collapsed again, resting 
 one hand on the chimneypiece. " I must go soon too," he 
 said to Philip. " I will come with you." So speaking he 
 swept a shy, half-apologetic look about the room. 
 
 " I cannot see," said Andre to the nearest friend, " why 
 we should be punished for Edgell's idiocy? " 
 
 " I am sure we all apologise for such an unexpected over- 
 sight," said another Rat with emphasis. 
 
 " If he would grant us ten minutes more," said Char- 
 pentier, " it shall not occur again." 
 
 " Stay where you are, Monsieur Antoine, if you love me," 
 murmured Jespersen, whose pencil was continuously oc- 
 cupied. 
 
 The boy looked from one to another while they spoke. 
 " I must go," he murmured. 
 
 i 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 73 
 
 Ostrovvski was silent, but Charpentier said, " Why must 
 
 you 
 
 Antoine hesitated ; but PhiHp would not help him, so he 
 had to speak. " Because I cannot see him often now," he 
 said to the last questioner. " You know how that is, when 
 two people are busy." 
 
 Charpentier and de Lussac both opened their mouths; 
 but before words could emerge thence, Ostrowski had a 
 hand before each. 
 
 " Taisez-vous, freres," he said, low and clear as before. 
 " We must protect him, though it be we who suffer." 
 
 " We will," said the Rats as one man. In the dead silence 
 that ensued, Antoine gazed at them inquiring and a little 
 alarmed, Jespersen sketched with concentration, and Philip's 
 set face slowly relaxed. 
 
 " You are a set of fools," he said suddenly. " Can't you 
 see," he added to Antoine, " what they want is for you to 
 play ? You'd better hurry up and get it over." 
 
 There was a faint cry of protest from the gravely watch- 
 ing herd. The guest had blushed, and stood wavering. " It 
 is so late," he said, rather low. " I — am sorry." 
 
 " For heaven's sake don't apologise," cried the Russian, 
 striding forward on the word. " Edgell's manners are al- 
 ways insufferable." 
 
 " You have to put things clear with him," Philip retorted. 
 " You might pile up hints for hours, and he'd never take 
 one of 'em. Get along, kid," he added, sitting down. " I 
 can stop ten minutes, if you're quick." 
 
 He put his arms behind his head, and looked at Os- 
 trowski ; the two were rivals, both in the schools and at 
 home, and hardly ever ceased sparring. Antoine was un- 
 aware of it, and his doubts were not diminished by the 
 temper in Philip's tone. 
 
 " No, no," he said, as the artist, rising, proffered his 
 stool. He looked at him in the same wide-eyed perplexity, 
 and Jespersen, collapsing upon the seat, added the ex- 
 pression to the sketch he had been touching at intervals. 
 
74 SUCCESSION 
 
 After a minute, the boy advanced to his violin. The 
 circle of young men drew back from the model throne by 
 common consent, and he occupied it without embarrass- 
 ment. Having tuned and looked about him, he offered 
 Duchatel's last movement, and the audience thanked him 
 fervently. 
 
 " It's awfully good of him, really," said Ostrowski, who 
 stood for a minute by Philip's chair on the hearth; and 
 Philip saw that he was flushed. In spite of himself the 
 spirit of the company began to affect him, and the im- 
 pression, once made, grew rapidly. The Russian left him 
 and went to the piano, for Andre, at the first mention of the 
 composer's name, fell backwards on to the sofa off the 
 stool ; and Philip attended to Duchatel's presto with none 
 to observe, which was as well. He was more boulevcrse 
 than the composer had been, far more than he cared to show. 
 Yet the boy was playing no more beautifully or delicately 
 than he had heard him a hundred times, in private and 
 semi-public life ; only the situation had changed. He was 
 angry with the fellows for making him see it, for pressing 
 upon him the fact of this subtle transformation. They 
 stood for the public, the larger world that exists even with- 
 out the Latin quarter. While he fooled with Andre upon 
 the roofs last night, this world had stolen a march upon 
 him, and that windbag Ostrowski as well. They had all 
 " got there " before him, who should surely have been first. 
 It was a painful thing to realise, for a person of Philip's 
 importance ; and he may be excused if he spent some time 
 and temper in fighting the conviction. 
 
 He hurried the boy away brusquely when he nad finished, 
 with no further apology. Antoine, beyond a smile or two, 
 had nothing more to offer, and seemed ready enough to go. 
 When he stepped off the model throne, the audience stood 
 up, and took leave of him formally, each in his fashion. 
 Only M. Ostrowski, at the top of the stairs, had a word 
 from him. 
 
 " Au revoir, Monsieur," he said. " The Rats will not 
 forget." 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 75 
 
 Antoine said that it was good of him to play. M. Os- 
 trowski bowed. 
 
 " I'll work it up a bit," he said. " I am out of practice." 
 
 " Oh yes," said the boy cordially, and went. 
 
 "Are you aware you told Paul he was out of practice? " 
 said Philip, when they were in the street. 
 
 " Hein ? " said Antoine. " Oh well — he is. But he has 
 played well, once. Am I very late ? " he added quickly. " I 
 said five to my uncle." 
 
 " It's after six," said Philip. 
 
 " Psst ! " said the boy, grimacing. He might have offered 
 the remark to the rain, for it was pouring again smartly. 
 " I will take the tram," he observed, " because of this violin. 
 You will come too? " He sent a shy glance sidelong at his 
 distinguished brother. 
 
 " Of course," said Philip calmly. " I always intended to 
 come to dinner. No one works at this time of day — serious 
 work." He looked severely at Antoine, who made no re- 
 mark, though his eyebrows were moving about. " What's 
 for dinner, do you know? " 
 
 Antoine knew approximately, having spent a period in 
 the kitchen that morning. " No place like home," said 
 Philip thoughtfully. " Grandpapa never did a better day's 
 work than when Margot fell in love with him. I say — how 
 is grandpapa?" 
 
 " Better, since yesterday. He was ill, yesterday morn- 
 ing," said the boy, frowning. " I could not bear, how he 
 looked. I think he has sometimes dreadful nights, do you 
 see? But he won't say anything; he just waits in there till 
 it goes better — then he comes to talk." 
 
 " Has he talked to you to-day? " 
 
 " Oh yes. I have seen him more to-day," said Antoine, 
 reckoning, " than I have for three years." 
 
 " Rot," said Philip. 
 
 " Yes. Since I was eleven." 
 
 "Haven't you seen him this last fortnight?" 
 
'je SUCCESSION 
 
 " No — only to say good-night. He has been always a lit- 
 tle ill, you see." 
 
 " And you've been always a little busy." The boy admitted 
 it with a faint shrug. " I shall be de trop, I perceive," said 
 Philip. " Very good, I'll go home again — after dinner." 
 
 Antoine gave him a close glance, as he always did before 
 registering such a remark as pleasantry; only, the jester 
 perceived, he had no smile. They were by this time in the 
 tram, and the boy leant back as though glad of the rest, and 
 the excuse for silence. Philip told himself he had been 
 making conversation, and tried to scoff at him for artificial- 
 ity, as he had tried to do lately when he faced the students. 
 But as a matter of fact he felt the new barrier, the thing 
 that had grown while he slept, very keenly ; and he was both 
 impressed, and a little ashamed. 
 
 There could be no serious doubt that M. Lemaure was 
 pleased to see Philip. 
 
 " Both of them," he said, holding out a hand. " That is 
 right. Margot will be delighted, Phil." 
 
 " I just glanced into the kitchen in passing," said Philip, 
 sitting down by him, " and Margot and I exchanged a wink. 
 Her face lit up — I think that's the proper expression. She 
 looked low — as if none of you had l3een eating lately." 
 
 " I fear Margot's arts have been wasted on me," said M. 
 Lemaure. " But you she can count upon in any emergency. 
 You will take your uncle's place at dinner, eh ? His idea of 
 a holiday is to work for me all day long at the library. He 
 must have found more to do than he thought. Perhaps that 
 is where you should have been, useful little boy." His eye 
 turned to Antoine, who had not sat down. 
 
 " He said he did not want me. I was to stay with you," 
 he replied. 
 
 " Lucien mentioned that, eh? Well, I like at least to 
 know where you are, in order to inform the world." 
 
 " You're getting precious at last, ducky," commented 
 Philip, very comfortable on the sofa. " Value going up in 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCIIATEL ^^ 
 
 the market. Better get him a collar and address, grandpapa, 
 in case he gets mislaid." 
 
 " Insolent," said the old man, clasping Philip's hand 
 rather closely; whereupon it occurred to that gentleman 
 that his wit was not wanted for the moment, and he held 
 his tongue. The younger boy still stood as though waiting, 
 the violin held in both hands by the fire, drying it deliber- 
 ately while he warmed himself. So held, his grandfather's 
 eyes could not miss it. " You took that out ? " he said. 
 
 " I played to them down there," said Antoine. 
 
 " To whom? Not the boys ? " There was a pause. " Do 
 not again without telling me," said M. Lemaure, with a 
 manner Philip hardly knew. Antoine received the rebuke 
 without perceptible surprise, though he was still stationary 
 for a moment. 
 
 " You have been alone? " he asked then, turning. 
 
 " No. Several people came. Victor Duchatel was one," 
 he proceeded at leisure. 
 
 " Oh " — the boy bit his lip — " and my uncle was not 
 there? " 
 
 " He did not ask for Lucien. He sought you, to thank. 
 He should have done so last night, he said, but he had no 
 chance to stay. He is a charming person — I wish I could 
 repeat some of the things he said, but my memory is so bad. 
 You should have been present yourself." 
 
 " Yes. I am very sorry. I could go to see him " — the 
 boy hesitated — " on Sunday." 
 
 " That would do very well," said his grandfather. " Do 
 not forget. Those," he signalled to some cards on the shelf 
 against which Antoine was leaning, " are the others, whom 
 I did not see. I fear I refused Monsieur Bertrand even, 
 or IMargot did so for me. He wrote that beautiful sentence 
 on his card." 
 
 " I am sorry I was not there," said the boy again, still 
 facing the fire. He had barely glanced at the manager's 
 message. 
 
 " He'll cry in a minute," remarked Philip. " You needn't 
 
78 SUCCESSION 
 
 scold him, grandpapa. I sent him about a mile out of his 
 way to start with. That naturally wasted a little time." 
 
 " I had better begin by scolding," said M. Lemaure. 
 " Then we shall have it done. There are many things now 
 to consider — an increasing number." He kept a penetrating 
 look upon the boy, the look of the surgical expert testing 
 the effects of work that must be painful. " Of course," he 
 pursued, in his easiest social tone, " one might say his rela- 
 tions stood first ; only " 
 
 "All right," said Philip calmly. "You needn't go on. 
 I've been a rag for hours." 
 
 " You ? " said his grandfather. But the look he turned 
 on Antoine's nearest relation showed that he was not with- 
 out a very complete grasp of the state of things. 
 
 Philip had it out with him later, for he dismissed Antoine 
 to bed very soon after dinner. Philip noticed that he treated 
 the patient with marked gentleness after the operation was 
 completed, though he did not address him much. His eyes, 
 as usual, were chiefly occupied with the elder boy, whose 
 every word and movement brought back the spoiled 
 daughter he had adored. Philip's faults were if possible 
 dearer to him than his virtues, since the latter were inherited 
 from the English side, and, to his grandfather's mind, 
 seemed a trifle commonplace. But at least he had never had 
 to complain of any lack of affection in him ; Philip showed 
 even a kind of childish softness when they were completely 
 private — a manner of the other race to which the old man 
 had no objection. As for Philip, he quite liked a little con- 
 fession in his company. 
 
 " I have one left to console me," M. Lemaure said, as 
 they settled tcte-a-tcte in comfort after the little meal. 
 " You did well to come back with him, my dear. I think it 
 will soon pass." 
 
 " What, grandpapa? " 
 
 " But I remember it myself. He feels entrapped — we are 
 his enemies for the moment. He has been so free, has he 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 79 
 
 not? Of old I gave him his freedom consciously, suspecting 
 this time would come.'' 
 
 " You suspected, then ? " 
 
 "There were signs, to my mind, that he would not stop 
 halfway. And it is forward now, for him. There is no 
 looking back." 
 
 " I think he is very plucky," said Philip almost angrily. 
 
 " En effet, he is. These little panics are nothing." 
 
 " He looks frightfully delicate, grandpapa." 
 
 " Do you think so too ? " 
 
 " Yes — more every time I see him." 
 
 " It makes no difference," said M. Lemaure, after the 
 pause. " He may get stronger as he gets older. This is such 
 a difficult age, in any case." 
 
 " Was it for you ? " said Philip. 
 
 " I ? " His grandfather laughed. " I was always strong, 
 tough as leather. Nothing could tire me. I should not be 
 alive now, otherwise." 
 
 Philip considered for a space, screwing his eyes at the 
 fire. In his devotion to microscopic work he had managed 
 to strain his sight. He had lost his looks a little, during 
 this, the first period of his life of real mental stress ; but 
 he had gained simultaneously in other ways, which no artist 
 of humanity would disdain. He had assumed a little sci- 
 entific briskness, and was less elaborate in his ordinary deal- 
 ings ; though he had never been that with M. Lemaure, 
 having probably strong suspicions that it was useless. 
 
 " Lord," he ejaculated, after a period, with pleasing frank- 
 ness. " Antoine did make a fool of me before the fellows 
 down there. If he'd studied for a year he couldn't have 
 done it better. He simply said all the right things, with all 
 tlic proper pauses ; and I hadn't even the common-sense to 
 follow his lead." 
 
 " He should not have played," said M. Lemaure, slightly 
 smiling. 
 
 " That was my fault too. Everything was, I tell you. 
 You were quite unfair to bully him, you know." 
 
8o SUCCESSION 
 
 " No, no. He must learn his lessons, while there is a 
 chance. It saves suffering later. Lucien would be vexed if 
 he knew of it." 
 
 "It's because of my uncle you mind then, is it?" said 
 Philip. 
 
 " I don't think so," said M. Lemaure. Only when his 
 grandson seized his shoulders, he had to unbend. 
 
 "Look here," said Philip. "Why don't you scold me? 
 You never do." 
 
 " I will try, if you Hke," said M. Lemaure. " There must 
 be something, if I consider." 
 
 " No," said Philip. " I don't matter enough, that's the 
 fact. I don't have reporters crawling after me, and man- 
 ager swells writing compliments on their cards. You've 
 probably not even noticed how little I've been to see you 
 lately." 
 
 " Yes, I have noticed it. I thought — poor child, how 
 hard he works." 
 
 " Well, you thought wrong. I could have come up al- 
 most any day." 
 
 " You could not have found me, my dear, almost any 
 day." 
 
 " I know that too, from Antoine. It makes it worse." 
 With that, Philip put on his glasses, the better to investigate. 
 M. Lemaure made no objection to the proceeding, and an- 
 swered almost all his questions quietly. Philip was a serious 
 student ; such details were therefore his right, and rights. 
 he always regarded. 
 
 " The remarkable thing, really," he said, " is that I have 
 these days of ease. I even slept after lunch while the little 
 one read to me, a compliment of which I hope he was un- 
 iaware. Have you studied me sufficiently, Phil? " 
 
 " I'm never sure if you're speaking the truth." said 
 Philip. "You lie so awfully well. I mean, of course — ifi 
 you did lie, you would do it well." 
 
 "Thank you — I hope so," said his grandfather. "Ah, 
 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 8i 
 
 yes, my pulse if you like. I rather enjoy your fingers — the 
 liand of nuisic nianqucc." 
 
 " You can't offend me Hke that," said Phihp, with scorn. 
 
 " I am charmed to hear it." He asked him about his 
 work for some time with close interest and understanding; 
 and Philip regaled him in return with students' stories. He 
 had long given up trying to shock his grandfather with the 
 semi-medical gossip, which is apt to be strong meat for the 
 amateur stomach. So long as it was not either brutal or 
 stupid, such entertainment was sure to have a good recep- 
 tion ; and Philip had learnt to tell cleverly, largely owing to 
 this present critic, even when using the language that was 
 to him the less familiar of the pair he had by birth. 
 
 " Don't stop with me if you have business, Phil," M. Le- 
 maure said at last, as his grandson lay silent in meditation, 
 pulling the hairs of a moustache that was really not yet 
 visible, but which it was his aim to encourage, in order that 
 he might have the pleasure of shaving it. " Lucien must 
 soon be in." 
 
 " I was just thinking," said Philip, " I had meant to tell 
 you. I went to Savigny's lecture on Thursday." 
 
 " Aha! " His grandfather was interested at once. " He 
 is back, then, our tyrant." 
 
 " \^ery much so," said Philip. " I say — V\'hat the world 
 would be if he had the management of it. I can't think," 
 he proceeded, teasing the invisible moustache lazily, " why 
 ])eople don't pick out a great scientist, and a great states- 
 man, and a great artist — you would do — and give them the 
 arranging of the world. They'd agree, fast enough." 
 
 " Savigny and I should agree," said M. Lemaure. " I 
 fear the other gentleman might think us crazy." 
 
 "Crazy? Savigny's flatly reasonable; and he has hun- 
 dreds of living cases in evidence of everything he says." 
 
 " He is convincing," said M. Lemaure. " But do not 
 forget to reckon with his will-power on you." 
 
 " Grandpapa ! " The boy looked a trifle taken aback. " He 
 can't hypnotise an entire audience. There were hundreds 
 there."' 
 
82 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Students — or the curious ? " 
 
 " Students chiefly. Men and women." 
 
 " I am glad to hear it. Did he see you? '* 
 
 " Yes. I got hold of him afterwards." 
 
 " Did he ask about us ? " 
 
 " Not a bit," said Philip. '' He knew. He had seen An- 
 toine once on an omnibus, for about three seconds. He said 
 he thought of stopping him, but he looked too like state 
 affairs. How he could have stopped him, on an omnibus 
 
 " Had him off it," said ISI. Lemaure. " You do not know 
 half his resources. Well, what else?" 
 
 " He said you could drop sending him tickets, because he 
 had no time to waste at concerts. Then two minutes after 
 I found he had seen all the programmes." 
 
 " He approved them, I hope ? " The musician laughed. 
 
 " Let me see. He said you had better be less conceited, 
 and more economical." 
 
 ]M. Lemaure struck his hands together. " I must tell 
 Lucien he is conceited," he exclaimed. " That is a com- 
 mon reproach of his to the boy." 
 
 Philip glanced round. "Is it? Does my uncle arrange 
 the programmes then ? " 
 
 " Entirely." 
 
 " Savigny sent the message to you," said Philip. 
 
 " Raymond always thinks I can manage Lucien," said M. 
 Lemaure. " I wonder if we are conceited. He is so often 
 right." He reached one of Antoine's programmes which 
 lay on the mantelpiece and looked it over thoughtfully. 
 " There was nothing further, Phil ? " he said. 
 
 " I asked him when he was coming to see you, and he said 
 — when you least expected it." 
 
 " Oh," said his grandfather, somewhat perturbed. " I 
 trust it will not be this week." 
 
 " You'll have to be well in a hurry." scoffed Philip. " All 
 of you. It would be kind to warn the kid, if he intends to 
 go round looking like he did to-day." 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 83 
 
 " No, no : do not speak of it to him," said M. Lemaure, 
 after an absent pause, laying the programme back in its 
 place. " Pauvre petit, he has enough distractions. Ray- 
 mond is never in a hurry, and we must take our chance." 
 
 Antoine stormed and conquered the fortress of Duchatel 
 on Sunday afternoon. It cost him some little effort, it is 
 true ; and it would have surprised some of Victor's friends 
 that he accomplished it at all ; for though the young com- 
 poser was decidedly popular in society, few visitors ap- 
 proached his mother's house. 
 
 Antoine considered with some anxiety, on arriving at the 
 door of their mansion, whether he ought to ask for its mis- 
 tress. Old Madame Duchatel had always frightened him, 
 when he brought messages from his grandfather as a child. 
 In infancy she had afforded him, as his mother's son, some 
 slight interest, but since then she had happily forgotten his 
 existence for a considerable period. Yet he was aware he 
 was here to-day to do the proper thing ; and as M. Lemaure 
 had offered no assistance in the matter, he had to judge for 
 himself. So he gathered all his courage, and asked the 
 smart serving-man if Madame was at liberty, offering at 
 the same time his grandfather's card, on which he had 
 scrawled his name. 
 
 The servant would see, and ushered him into the salon. 
 Its style was severely elegant, with gold-edged mirrors and 
 a polished floor. Antoine, who was strange to elegance as 
 
 I such, grew more anxious as he waited. A parrot in a cage, 
 with a strong resemblance to its mistress, pecked at him 
 furiously when he tried to make an approach ; and on the 
 ij servant's reappearance, uttered a series of shrieks which 
 I drowned the message, and made the boy wince involun- 
 |; tarily. 
 
 ji " Pardon," he said. " You were saying " The ser- 
 
 j! vant approached him, and explained through the clamour 
 I that Madame was engaged for the moment, and seeing 
 nobody. 
 
84 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Tant mieux,"' thought Antoine. " She is asleep. Mon- 
 sieur Victor is there perhaps ? " he queried. 
 
 M. Victor was also engaged — not for the moment, but 
 permanently, was the implication. The man looked the boy 
 over with slight curiosity. He thought it highly improbable 
 his much-sought master would see any boy who happened to 
 ask for him. 
 
 "It is Monsieur ?" he suggested. 
 
 Antoine gave his name, enunciating clearly. The servant 
 went to Duchatel, and informed him that a young man 
 named Edgell was there asking for him. He supposed 
 monsieur 
 
 " Bring him at once of course," said Victor. Whereupon 
 the servant retired, and conducted Antoine to the beautiful 
 little study, well concealed behind a double portiere of 
 Indian embroidery, and a soft swing door. Duchatel came 
 right to the door to meet him. 
 
 " A thousand pardons," he said, as though he had been 
 speaking to a stranger of his own age. " This is intolerable 
 treatment, and when you had sent us notice of your coming. 
 I thought my mother had given orders." He shot the last 
 remark at the offending servant, who stood wondering. 
 
 "You are not to be disturbed," suggested Antoine, to 
 make things comfortable. " That is how we do at home." 
 He did not suppose smart servants could be bullied, and M. 
 Duchatel's " Go ! " surprised him. The man withdrew in 
 haste, and shut the door. 
 
 Antoine passed his hand over his brow, as though in re- 
 lief at the solitude which all those curtains secured him, 
 and obedient to his host's compelling hand, sank down be- 
 side him on the silken couch by the fire. 
 
 " It is beautiful here," he murmured, wondering. " You 
 hear nothing at all, no." He looked round him at the treas- 
 ures of the room, and then at its fortunate master. 
 
 " Monsieur Antoine," said Duchatel firmly, " you must 
 let me thank you again. I have not seen yourself since the 
 evening." 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 85 
 
 " No ; I was out," said the boy mechanically. " You were 
 good to come." 
 
 " Why good ? " The young man's eyes were looking 
 through him, for they were facing each other and close to- 
 gether. He w-as a very exquisite person, Duchatel, with the 
 society manner, and a glance that was by nature slightly 
 supercilious, to which the requirements of nature rather 
 than fashion had attached a single eyeglass. Yet, for all 
 this alarming surface, Antoine exhibited no grain of the 
 shrinking from him that he showed for Victor's mother. 
 He knew his host as well as one can know a person one has 
 never addressed. Since first he secreted a score of Ducha- 
 tel's at nine years old, he had broken a lance in his cause at 
 home, whenever a just occasion appeared to do so. Indeed, 
 Antoine had been snubbed more times than he would have 
 liked to count on the subject of the young man he faced, 
 whose exterior he knew from portraits chiefly, and a few 
 ill-natured caricatures. 
 
 " I mean," he explained, "you are so busy." 
 
 " I can pay my debts," said Duchatel. 
 
 " That was right then," said Antoine. 
 
 " I had no idea the last movement was half so pretty." 
 
 "And the first?" 
 
 " Courageous in the extreme. One never hoped to hear it 
 played at all." 
 
 " Was it right ? " the boy repeated. 
 
 " Too fast," said Victor, screwing in his eyeglass. An- 
 toine made a face. 
 
 " He would not let me any slower," he confided. 
 
 " I was sure of it," said Victor equably. " He thought it 
 ugly enough as it was, probably." 
 
 " Grandpapa did," said the boy. 
 
 " Aha! And he thinks with grandpapa? " 
 
 " But — naturally ! " signalled Antoine's vigorous gesture 
 as clear as words. He fell back on the couch, and both were 
 silent a minute, Antoine a little breathless, for the exchange 
 had been rapid. 
 
86 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I like your uncle," said Duchatel, as though starting a 
 new subject. 
 
 " Yes ? " said Antoine. " He also — oh, he told me to say 
 some things to you when I came to-day." 
 
 " What things ? " 
 
 Antoine considered. " Perhaps — about the sonata. We 
 did not understand — " 
 
 " Nonsense," said Victor calmly. " Try again." 
 
 " I have forgotten the other things," said Antoine, after 
 a pause. 
 
 " Ha ! " said M. Duchatel. " Well, you are sure to re- 
 member before you go." 
 
 "Why?" said Antoine. 
 
 " Because you will stay here a considerable time." 
 
 Antoine sat up, looking round his host at the table. " My 
 uncle said twenty minutes at the most," he observed. 
 
 "Did he?" said Victor, with interest. "You remember 
 that then. Aren't you comfortable?" 
 
 " Yes." The boy sank back again. " This is the most 
 comfortable place in the world. What are you writing — 
 Monsieur ? " 
 
 " A string quartet — Monsieur." Duchatel reached the 
 papers on the table. " I shall be happy to dedicate to you, 
 if you approve the upper line." 
 
 " But I have no quartet." Antoine turned his attention 
 to the papers. He made no further remark for some min- 
 utes, and Victor remained motionless, using the eyeglass. 
 
 " You are like your grandfather, Antoine," he said. " I 
 suppose you have heard that pretty often." 
 
 " Hein ? " said Antoine, who was reading. " Yes, I 
 have heard it. Oh, this is ugly stuff — and difficult ! I had 
 better not attempt it." He giggled as he spoke, and tossed 
 the score from him. Then he swept his hand across his 
 brow again. " I must go," he declared. " I have not said 
 any of the things they meant." 
 
 " Fortunately," murmured Victor. " Why should you 
 go? Is your grandfather alone? " 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 87 
 
 ** No ; my uncle is amusing him. There is a great deal 
 to say from yesterday." 
 
 "He hands on your opinions, does he?" 
 
 " I have no opinion," said Antoine. " He says, ' That is 
 your opinion, mon petit ' — and then it is finished, of course." 
 
 " Of course," Victor agreed. " What do you say? " 
 
 " Oh, I say — it has been for four years. He says, the 
 older, in your case, the less important — because he thinks I 
 am young. Do you see ? " 
 
 " I follow the pleasantry," said Victor. " Your lessons 
 must be worth attending. Do you talk all the time? " 
 
 " Not here," said Antoine, " because there is grandpapa. 
 He does not understand now, when I am not quiet. It is 
 so easy to be quiet, hein ? " 
 
 " It comes with practice," said Duchatel. " I have learnt 
 to keep quiet. My mother is an old woman." 
 
 " Not so old." The boy looked round, attentive. 
 
 " Pretty near. I am her youngest son — and I am older 
 than you, you know. How old are you, by the way ? " 
 
 " I shall be fifteen on Friday," said Antoine. 
 
 " Good heavens — I'm twice your age. I wish I hadn't 
 asked. Well now, as to myself," said Victor, " I have a 
 quiet existence, and comfortable, as you observed. Mamma 
 refuses me nothing in reason, and I am allowed out at cer- 
 tain hours to see my friends — though it annoys her to have 
 them here. She grows jealous of them, easily. In the eve- 
 ning we chatter a little " — Duchatel was a celebrated racon- 
 teur — " and she reads me aloud every word the critics have 
 to say. Twice over sometimes, for her memory is short." 
 
 "Yes?" said Antoine, still attentive. Victor had the 
 Jiame of a good son, which in France covers many enorm- 
 ities, and even eccentricities. It was a feather in the cap 
 of old Madame, to have retained him so long at her side. 
 Exactly what it meant to the man of thirty, few had trou- 
 bled to inquire, contenting themselves with the customary 
 little jokes at Victor's expense. 
 
 " She is really fond of music, though not mine," said 
 
88 SUCCESSION 
 
 Victor. " It is my misfortune, Antoine, that I cannot 
 play." 
 
 "Misfortune!" the boy ejaculated. 
 
 " Come, don't tell me you don't like playing." 
 
 " Once I liked it," he said. 
 
 " Last Thursday," suggested Duchatel. 
 
 " Oh yes, perhaps." His dark eyes passed the questioner 
 by, a world of impatience in them. 
 
 " Less agreeable than we thought, perhaps," said Victor. 
 
 " He told me I should * rater ' yours," the Loy burst out. 
 " That I deserved to — I had not worked enough. No, don't 
 laugh." He grasped his auditor. " He does not know what 
 is work to me, ever. He does not know how music comes 
 to you, I think. When I am not playing — making a noise 
 like that parrot — when the score is not there with a pencil 
 to draw little lines upon it — I do not work." 
 
 He broke off as sharply as he had started. Duchatel con- 
 sidered him coolly for a period. 
 
 " You write yourself," he suggested at leisure. 
 
 " Yes, sometimes. I have not a place like this, where he 
 may not come. And for a great deal of the time, I must 
 make that parrot noise." 
 
 " Don't — don't. " Victor shrank. " I can hear that sacre 
 bird's shriek through all the doors. But I would shut it 
 out, wring its neck, mon petit — if you came to work with 
 me here." 
 
 " She would not like it, hein? " said Antoine. 
 
 " She need not know." 
 
 " And I could not come often." He sat up restlessly. 
 " Even now, if I was good, I am at home." He swept his 
 hair back with that characteristic movement. " There is the 
 post, of course," he said. " I should like to send you some- 
 thing." 
 
 " Don't you show them generally ? " 
 
 " Some, to grandpapa ; but not all. There are some he 
 wouldn't like." 
 
 " Those you will send to me." 
 
JHE RATS — AND DUCHATEL 89 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur." 
 
 " Encore Monsieur," said Victor. 
 
 " You are it. I do not know how to write. You will 
 see how bad it is." 
 
 Duchatel assented agreeably. "And tell you, hey?" 
 
 " Tell, do not write," entreated Antoine. 
 
 " As you will — telling's cheaper. I will come round." 
 
 " Come, yes. Why do you laugh ? " 
 
 " I was merely wondering how I should describe you to 
 mamma this evening. It may be wiser not to attempt it." 
 
 Antoine grew thoughtful. " She knows I am here, your 
 maman," he remarked, warming one long hand at the leaping 
 little log fire to which he bent. 
 
 " Does she ? And she will know when you depart." 
 
 "Shall I not see her?" 
 
 " Not unless you wish." 
 
 " I do wish." said the boy, without hesitation. 
 
 " You are simply one of the cleverest people I ever met," 
 Duchatel declared unexpectedly. " Stay where you are," 
 he added, just touching the boy's head as he arose. " I may 
 be some time gone; but I will work it for you if it can be 
 mortally managed." 
 
 The interview with Madame was managed — with diffi- 
 culty; for she was, as her son said, very jealous; and her 
 natural obstinacy of disposition, which the jealousy in- 
 creased, needed all Victor's wiles to get round. His most 
 cunning effort, which he never confessed to Antoine, was to 
 say the boy looked ill. Madame awoke at once, with the air 
 of an old campaigner in the fields of pharmacy; and her 
 son, slightly smiling, was sent to fetch the " little Lemaure." 
 
 Antoine, for his part, was literally trembling when he en- 
 tered the salon, where she sat very stiffly, within arm's-length 
 of her parrot's cage. Before her the patience cards lay 
 out on a polished table, for the intruder was to understand 
 clearly he was interrupting. The intruder gave her his 
 hand, and bore her piercing stare without visible shrink- 
 
90 
 
 SUCCESSION 
 
 ing, though his jaw was set, and Victor saw his nervousness 
 very well. 
 
 " Your grandfather is better, I trust," she said. " Victor 
 informed me on Thursday he was ailing." 
 
 " He is better," said Antoine. " He sent his homage to 
 you — if I should see you." He only hesitated very slightly ; 
 as a fact he was speaking the strict truth. 
 
 " Ah, well, you have seen me, and I accept it, and thank 
 you." The boy made a slight movement, complete as an- 
 swer. " You are also, I believe, to be congratulated," said 
 the awful old lady. " I understand from my son, and sev- 
 eral of the morning papers, that you enjoyed success on 
 Thursday." 
 
 " I enjoyed it," said Antoine, with a brilliant smile. Vic- 
 tor trembled for him, but old Madame's composed front 
 did not change. 
 
 " I suppose the young," she said, " can enjoy success with 
 no sense of the responsibility it entails. They allow you to 
 see the papers, do they ? You are aware they are not always 
 to be believed? " 
 
 " I do not believe them," hesitated Antoine, " when they 
 are stupid." He was in dread of catching Victor's eye, and 
 moved a little. 
 
 " I have not asked you to sit down," said IMadame in- 
 stantly, on the movement, " because I understood you were 
 in a hurry to be gone. Are you tired ? " 
 
 " No," said Antoine. Accustomed to stand before the 
 crowd, he held himself easily, and she noticed that his idle 
 hands were not awkward. Only the one behind him, as she 
 could not see, was snapping two fingers faintly. 
 
 " The papers," said Madame, with a jerking head, " have 
 been at times extremely insolent, on the subject of my son. 
 At times, no doubt, their remarks were just." 
 
 " Almost never," Antoine assured her. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ? " said Madame, and left a crushing 
 pause. " I was speaking of my own son." 
 
 " Yes ; so wa-s I. I have read what they say." 
 
THE RATS — AND DUG H ATE L 91 
 
 "And you have an opinion? All your mother's impu- 
 dence," thought Madame. 
 
 " You see," Antoine explained, " I have read what he 
 writes, Monsieur Duchatel. The people who say those 
 things have not." 
 
 " You seem very certain." 
 
 " I know some of them." 
 
 "You know the critics? To be sure you might." She 
 stared at him steadily. " He has your support then," she 
 said. 
 
 " I have, what is better, his advertisement," her son 
 suavely interposed. " Did I not tell you what he did for 
 me, mamma ? " 
 
 " I heard of it, Victor, and read." His mother froze him. 
 " Do not imagine that I wish to see you popular." Victor 
 was silent, well knowing that it was the one thing on earth 
 she did wish to see him. " At present, I understand. Mon- 
 sieur Edgell draws what little there is of your popularity 
 into his." 
 
 " Surely you are hard on both of us," said Victor, doing 
 his best not to laugh. 
 
 " You seem to be amused," said Madame, noticing his 
 transformed appearance with surprise. 
 
 " I fear Monsieur Edgell's audacity affects me," said 
 Victor. " He has no reverence." 
 
 " He is a little too ready with his tongue," pronounced 
 Madame. " But even that is better than protracted silence." 
 
 " That is my habit." 
 
 " You know it is. I frequently have to wait for your 
 answers." 
 
 " Can the parrot talk ? " said Antoine. Madam Duchatel 
 turned on him. 
 
 " Yes ; more readily than Victor. I suppose that is the 
 bearing of your question. Are you fond of birds?" 
 
 " Not when they scream," said Antoine. " But perhaps 
 he will not, when you are there." 
 
 " Superb ! " thought Victor in a gasp. " He is really 
 
92 SUCCESSION 
 
 inspired." The parrot was his mother's weakest spot. 
 Though still stately, she unbent at once. Not even her hon- 
 eyed wiles, though, could induce the grey parrot to say a 
 word. He regarded the stranger with cold suspicion, and 
 kept his head lowered in readiness to attack him if he ad- 
 vanced too close. 
 
 " Scratch his head," said the old lady, " and he will 
 never scream at you again." 
 
 As Antoine advanced to the cage the master of the house 
 snatched back his hand with a " Gare, mon cher ! " that was 
 quite unstudied. The boy drew the hand back, with a 
 slightly heightened colour: he put two fingers between the 
 bars upon the parrot's head, and scratched in accurate imi- 
 tation of his hostess. The grey parrot unbent as she had 
 done, and became instantly sentimental, trampling his perch, 
 and bowing. 
 
 " Tchk," said the parrot. " Au revoir, mon vieux." 
 
 " Perfect ! " The old lady absolutely smiled. " He even 
 speaks to you." 
 
 " He tells me to go," said Antoine, and held out his hand 
 to her. 
 
 " He told you, if I did not mistake him, to come again." 
 
 Antoine looked at her. Her chilly touch filled him with 
 shrinking, and her steely eyes seemed to have no power to 
 soften even had their owner wished it. He thought of 
 Victor all alone with her and his books, from year's end 
 to year's end — and he seemed to see whence came Duchatel's 
 fine polish, and his impeccable manner. He acted a part 
 before the world, and he performed it well and gracefully. 
 Antoine marvelled at Victor and admired him profoundly, 
 and his dark eyes, moving to him, spoke all the feeling. 
 
 " Thank you, I will try to come," he said. " I mean, I 
 will ask my uncle." 
 
 " To be sure," said IMadame, pleased at the mark of docil- 
 ity. " If Lucien Lemaure will bring you, so much the 
 better." 
 
 Duchatel bit his lip, and Antoine gave him one glance. 
 
THE RATS — AND DUCIIATEL 93 
 
 " No," he said, " for then my grandfather would be left 
 alone. Of course, we must do that already a good deal. 
 For visiting, I expect my uncle would not.'' He added no 
 phrase of courtesy, the man of the world observed ; but he 
 was perfectly, even attentively polite to the old lady's criti- 
 cal eye and ear. 
 
 " Just so," she said. " You are well organised, it seems. 
 Well, come yourself some afternoon. INIy son is almost in- 
 variably at home from one to four." She extended her 
 bony fingers to him. " I shall hope to see you also." 
 
 Antoine bent to her hand as he had been taught ; and 
 with an equally formal word of farewell to Victor, departed. 
 
 Madame Duchatel, after his departure, observed that 
 " she would like to have that boy here for a week, and dose 
 him." 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE TYRANT 
 
 Dr Savigny returned to the capital in his own good time; 
 and at his own good leisure — which allowed the lapse of 
 some three weeks — came to see his friends in the Avenue. 
 He announced at once on arrival that he did not intend to 
 stay; but finding M. Lemaure alone in the house, was 
 tempted to linger longer than he had originally intended. 
 He discoursed on the investigations he had been making dur- 
 ing his holiday, as to the effect of alcoholism in various parts 
 of France : questions which interested him a great deal, and 
 his old friend not a little. He described also how things 
 had got out of hand during his absence from town, not only 
 in the dispensary and household under his charge, but in the 
 social, political and academic world. Since his return he 
 had been, it appeared, so busy putting things straight in all 
 these departments, that he had little time for society. 
 
 " A comfort to see you in peace like this," he observed 
 in appendix to his soliloquy, stretching his legs. " No cubs 
 interfering." 
 
 " My descendants will be sorry to miss you," said M. 
 Lemaure. 
 
 " Won't they ? " agreed Savigny. " I can picture their 
 expressions when they hear I have come and gone. Last 
 time I came, I cut Lucien off his coffee — you remember 
 the uproar? " 
 
 " Lucien protested," said his father equably. " He said 
 you were not his doctor, which is true." 
 
 " Grossly conventional," said Savigny. " However, I 
 
 94 ' 
 
THE TYRANT 95 
 
 never supposed he would stop drinking it. I only pointed 
 out he was ruining his nerves and those of others by sheer 
 intemperance. You've the gosse with you again, Bronne 
 tells me." 
 
 " The gosse is with me, yes. That is, he sleeps in my 
 house." 
 
 " Good, you're getting jealous of Lucien now. He's busy, 
 I suppose." 
 
 "Antoine? Yes, he has plenty to do." 
 
 " That's all right. Things are going on well, I hear." 
 
 " Not at all well," said M. Lemaure. 
 
 " Hey ? I thought the last concerts had been a score for 
 him; and I supposed, in consequence, for you." 
 
 " Ah, yes. I thought you referred to his health." 
 
 " His health ? " said the doctor. " When did I ever waste 
 time with you over that? I've heard all I want from Louis 
 Bronne. More than I want, for Louis is inclined to niggle 
 over trifles — womanish, his one fault. Where are they to- 
 day?" 
 
 " Let me see. Lucien has gone to see his wife's relations. 
 Antoine is at a reception." 
 
 " I ought to be at a reception," said Savigny reflectively. 
 "Mrs Adler's." 
 
 " You don't say so. You will find Bebe there." 
 
 " If I go, you mean," said Savigny. " I hate receptions, 
 especially people of that sort." 
 
 " You refer to the wealthy ? " Do you know Mrs Adler ? " 
 
 " Sufficiently," said Savigny. " She evidently thinks she 
 knows me, on the strength of a consultation. She brought 
 her daughter to me, by your recommendation — or Lucien's, 
 was it? You might as well have left it alone anyhow. The 
 case was a rotten one." 
 
 " Neurasthenia, poor girl, her mother said." 
 
 " Laziness," said Savigny. " Mrs Adler's poor girl hadn't 
 enough to do. I asked her what she wanted, and she said 
 she thought it might do her good to go to Cannes. So I 
 gave her the address of a doctor who could be trusted to 
 
96 SUCCESSION 
 
 send her there. For myself, I really could not take the 
 responsibility." After this discursion, which aroused him, 
 he settled again with divers grunts. " What's Antoine 
 up to?" he said. 
 
 " Business of a sort. I had no wish for him to go, but he 
 was literally raided." 
 
 " By whom ? " 
 
 "Actually, by Victor Duchatel. Indirectly, by Mrs 
 Adler. That lady, who is the barest acquaintance of either 
 of us, was in difficulties. She had made up a trio for her 
 party, it appeared, and it went wrong, as things will do 
 when artificially constructed. The leader quarrelled with 
 another member, and threatened to fail her at the last min- 
 ute. She went to Victor, to get him to patch things up ; and 
 he came to Lucien in despair to-day, and borrowed Antoine 
 in case of need. Do you know Duchatel ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Savigny. " A clever fellow." 
 
 " He is the general peacemaker in his sets. But not even 
 he could manage this young Charretteur." 
 
 " Hallo ! " The doctor was interested. " Is that Jacques 
 Charretteur, the violinist ? " 
 
 " The same, yes. He has become the fashion in the for- 
 eign quarter, they tell me, and is getting spoiled by a set 
 of rich women. He chose to consider he had been insulted 
 — ^by whom, I forget — and Victor, though he is an acquaint- 
 ance, could do nothing with him." 
 
 " He won't turn up, you mean ? " 
 
 " Well, I trust not now, for the sake of peace. Besides, 
 if he does, Bebe will be superfluous; and that Lucien con- 
 siders beneath his dignity." 
 
 " It's good for children to be superfluous," said Savigny ; 
 and then rose rather suddenly. " Au revoir, Charles. I 
 am going to do my duty, chez Madame Adler." 
 
 " Aha ! You would seize the chance of hearing my grand- 
 
 son 
 
 " No. I would miss no chance of seeing Charretteur. I 
 
THK TYRANT 97 
 
 have heard he is a flourishing case in my line ; and I want 
 to diagnose and class him." 
 
 M. Lemaure was disturbed. "A drunkard, Raymond? 
 He's not twenty." 
 
 " So much the more interesting," said the doctor. " Un- 
 der twenty, he may be teachable," he added thoughtfully, as 
 he turned his back. 
 
 " It takes two to teach," his friend reminded him. " What 
 if Monsieur Jacques will not come to be classed? To judge 
 by my son's account and Victor's, he is not a facile person." 
 
 " Tant mieux," said Savigny, unmoved. " I like it bet- 
 ter when they kick. The only drawback to you and Antoine, 
 as I have often told you, is over-facility. I can do what I 
 like with you both, at any time. It is dull." 
 
 " We are dull," M. Lemaure assented absently. He 
 seemed still rather disturbed. " I hope Victor will keep the 
 boy clear of him," he reflected aloud. " I mean, if Charret- 
 teur should arrive by a freak, and find his place filled." He 
 looked at Savigny 's back, but appeal in that quarter was 
 useless. 
 
 " I recommend Victor as trustworthy," said the tyrant. 
 " For myself, if the young fellow is not there, I shall not 
 further waste my time." He was engaged in turning over 
 the illustrated programmes on the mantelpiece as he spoke, 
 and reading extracts from notices with his lower lip criti- 
 cally thrust out. " Lot of clap-trap," he ejaculated unex- 
 pectedly. '' He's a good investment, is he ? " He shook the 
 paper he held. 
 
 "Bebe? You can put it that way if you prefer. Friends 
 can take shares in the business, Raymond, with perfect 
 propriety." 
 
 " Hey?" said the doctor. " I've no wish to take shares 
 in a public performer. His music never did interest me in 
 the least, and you have wasted his other qualities. That is 
 a very bad portrait, if you want my opinion — better to have 
 none." He tossed the programme down and turned. " If 
 I find him down there," he said at the door in his most 
 
98 SUCCESSION 
 
 ranting manner, " and he is getting petted and spoilt, I 
 shall take it on myself to send him home. It's that that 
 has made him out of sorts, most probably." 
 
 Savigny did not remain long at the wealthy Mrs Adler's 
 house, but he was not bored. Coming with a single object, 
 and strictly guarding a point of view, he found wherewithal 
 to be interested at a fashionable reception. He administered 
 this view of society to a colleague he picked up near the 
 entrance, and the friend grew annoyed with him. 
 
 " They are a lot of well-dressed women," he argued, " and 
 a few tame men." 
 
 " I have seen four marked neurasthenes and a dipso," 
 said Savigny. " That tall woman over there takes drugs." 
 
 " And the man behind her? " 
 
 " Nothing interesting," said the doctor, diverting his eyes, 
 " Tuberculous. Have some tea, Paul." He stopped to 
 help himself from a tray in a angle of the long room they 
 were traversing. " Those iced drinks mark the American 
 house. They are a rapid poison. Tea is a slow poison, so 
 I prefer it. Hullo, there's a little boy. What's he doing? " 
 
 Paul explained it was the son of the house: a stunted little 
 fool, he added, not worth attention. Savigny, drinking tea, 
 returned that he was eminently worth it, 
 
 "Not another alcoholic?" said Dr Paul, "Well, see 
 here, I'll venture the pale fop by him is as bad." 
 
 " You venture beyond your depth," said Savigny. " The 
 pale fop is a charming fellow, talented to his finger-tips. 
 Don't you know Duchatel ? " 
 
 The young composer, strolling languidly along through 
 the room, had been accosted almost in the doorway by 
 another man entering, and the doctor's hawk eye had leapt 
 instantly beyond the person he was describing to the new- 
 comer, who presented a striking contrast with Duchatel in 
 every particular. He was quite young, with some of the 
 movements of the overgrown boy about him still. He was 
 tall and strongly made, though he held himself badly and 
 
THE TYRANT 
 
 99 
 
 dragged his feet, and his equipment showed a carelessness 
 as deliberate in its way as Victor's elegant precision. Nor 
 could anyone have called him handsome ; his features were 
 too marked, his colour rather sickly, the expression of mouth 
 and eyes both ill-tempered and furtive ; yet the whole had 
 a harmony approaching to attraction, which could be traced 
 to no detail in particular, and which w-as evidently under- 
 valued or rather ignored by its possessor. From the instant 
 Savigny's searchlight was turned on him, he was sure he had 
 found his game. 
 
 " Would you care for an introduction ? " he said suddenly 
 to his colleague. " Victor is worth knowing." 
 
 " He is engaged," the other man was protesting, when 
 he ceased. The doctor, without moving from the corner 
 where he leant against the wall, lowered his head and fixed 
 a steady gaze on Duchatel. After a few seconds Paul, 
 watching the manoeuvre with amusement, saw the young 
 man thus honoured frown and glance about him, as though 
 aware of another claim while he conversed. A minute later, 
 perceiving Savigny's gaunt form by the wall, he Uirned at 
 once in that direction, with a word to his compan'ion. The 
 companion also looked round, took in the striking doctor, 
 looked away, and looked again. Then he edged by degrees 
 to where the host, young Adler, was standing near the tray 
 of refreshments, as though from that vantage-ground to 
 spy on the proceedings of the other group. 
 
 " Who's that fellow, Victor ? " said Savigny, having 
 barely left Duchatel time for introductory courtesies with 
 Paul. Victor followed his eyes. 
 
 "Young Charrctteur," he said, "the vertuose. He is 
 entertainer-in-chief to-day." 
 
 " He doesn't look entertaining," remarked Savigny. 
 
 " His rudeness is called originality," Victor explained. 
 " Jacques is a primitive. I have spent a laborious day try- 
 ing to serve him, and he has just been telling me what he 
 thinks of it. I shall certainly never try again. Do you feel 
 a sympathy, sir ? " 
 
100 SUCCESSION 
 
 Savigny gave him a passing gleam. " What is primitive 
 rudeness ? " he said. " You're getting bald, Victor — and 
 cynical. That boy there is rude because he is out of health. 
 I can see that, at a distance of half-a-room." 
 
 " He takes poison," said Victor lower, having glanced 
 round him. 
 
 " Good," said the tyrant. " Can you tell me which ? " 
 
 " I imagine, absinthe." 
 
 " Your imagination, Victor. What is it worth ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Duchatel, smiling. " I learn that, from 
 the critics, every day. I have to go, sir," he added, " I 
 have a prodigy in charge, the young Edgell. You know him, 
 do you not ? " 
 
 Savigny admitted it. " Is he also an entertaining ele- 
 ment ? " he asked. 
 
 " As it happens, no." Victor touched his arm, for Char- 
 retteur and Adler were close. " We have better, hein, 
 Jacques ? Antoine, for the time, is doing nothing." 
 
 " That's the one thing," said Savigny, " I never allow my 
 patients to do." 
 
 " Patient ? " said Victor, really surprised ; and at the same 
 moment Savigny caught Jacques' cat-like glance. 
 
 " Name ? " he said audibly to young Adler aside. The 
 doctor himself cut across the host's communication. 
 
 " I am Raymond Savigny," he said. " That may not help 
 you, sir." 
 
 Jacques intended to ignore him evidently ; the line of his 
 half-turned shoulders was most sulky ; but after an instant, 
 he had to break the silence. " I have been m-mis-informed," 
 he said, in a harsh voice, stammering slightly. " I was told 
 you dealt in criminal cases." 
 
 " Not entirely," said Savigny. " I experiment in various 
 lines. That boy we mentioned, for instance, is not a crim- 
 inal at present. He is not even a patient, properly speaking. 
 He's a cure, and an ungrateful one." 
 
 " Perhaps he did not ask to be cured," murmured Jacques. 
 
 " Who is the boy ? " asked Dr Paul. 
 
THE TYRANT. ipi. 
 
 " The grandson of Lemaure," said Savigny. " I have a 
 respect for the Lemaures ; so at a period of Antoine's youth 
 when nobody was making an effort to educate him, I took 
 it upon myself — that is all." 
 
 " Pie is not a musician, then?" 
 
 " Quite by the way," ranted Savigny, cutting across Vic- 
 tor this time. " There are other forms of education infi- 
 nitely more urgent than that. Some include control ; control 
 of the desires for example — the study of the will " 
 
 " At least," said Jacques to Adler audibly, " he m-makes 
 his own advertisement ; and he looks the part." 
 
 Savigny w^as furious — but of course superior to the pas- 
 sion. He did not expect his chosen subjects to kick exactly 
 in this way. His eyes burnt like coals upon the insolent 
 youth, so clearly in need of his skilled assistance, whose 
 slightly bent shoulders were turned to him. Yet while he 
 raged, he took a mental note upon his mode of speech. 
 
 Despite his harsh and hasty utterance, Jacques' accent 
 was a good one, nothing in its quality either mongrel or slip- 
 shod, as might be expected of his nondescript exterior. It 
 answered for all sorts of things to Savigny's practised ear : 
 strength of character, sense of beauty — pride of race above 
 all, whencesoever he might be sprung. Race meant much to 
 Savigny, whose own was of the highest, and it gratified him 
 to mark his new study as good French, with no hebraic or 
 other element to confuse the issues, in his scientific pursuit 
 of the disease. 
 
 " I paused," he said to Dr Paul, with emphasis, " because 
 it struck me the study of music would not necessarily in- 
 clude such control as I mentioned." 
 
 " C'est vrai ? " said Jacques, sneering like a schoolboy. 
 " Here, Victor, we are to hear about the study of music. 
 Wish I could wait." 
 
 " To be sure," said Savigny, " I know nothing about it, 
 beyond what a listener can learn." 
 
 "A listener to m-music or to discourse upon it?" said 
 Jacques. " Pity you came late for our little performance — 
 
-to;; ;S.UC CESS ION 
 
 listeners are so scarce." He looked at his watch with elab- 
 orate rudeness. It gave the doctor a chance to study his 
 long lithe hands. All his movements were cat-like, and 
 suggestive of slow tenacity, possibly cruelty. His face was 
 so conspicuously clever that Savigny could not be sure he 
 had not conquered the brute that lingered in his movements. 
 
 " I've got to go on to Bertrand's," Jacques told Victor. 
 " The gosse is going there to rehearse, so he said. I'll 
 take him with me if you like." 
 
 " Stop that," said Savigny under his breath ; and Ducha- 
 tel, with easy tact, disposed of the offer. 
 
 " I have exact directions from Lemaure," he said, " which 
 is as much as to say, I obey them. You've finished here, 
 then, have you, Jacques ? " 
 
 " Adler may know," said Charretteur. " I've forgotten 
 the programme." 
 
 He moved av/ay, and the young Adler followed, looking 
 like a little monkey beside an animal of the woods. The 
 contrast brought out Jacques' inner distinction strangely. 
 
 " Have a drink ? " Adler suggested, taking his arm. 
 
 " Can't stop," said Jacques, with a ring of defiance. 
 " Tell your mamma one's had a charming afternoon and so 
 forth, won't you? Sorry to disappoint the ladies; but if 
 they want more they can come to my c-concert on the four- 
 teenth." And with a careless salute of two long fingers to 
 Victor, he slouched away. 
 
 " Excited," said Savigny sardonically. 
 
 " You frightened him," Victor laughed. 
 
 " Not quite sufficiently," said the tyrant. " What's his age 
 — twenty ? " 
 
 " Thereabouts," said Victor. " Perhaps less, it's hard to 
 say." 
 
 " He has had a struggle of it, hey ? " 
 
 Victor shrugged. " Out of the mud, they say ; he has 
 made himself entirely. This is his first taste of success, 
 and heaven knows it may not last, if he treats it so reck- 
 lessly. His pride is in his way, that is the fact." 
 
THE TYRANT 103 
 
 " Do you admire him ? " asked the doctor. 
 
 " Yes," said Victor, after a pause. " I shall be sorry 
 when he kills himself." 
 
 " That's to be the end of him, then," said Paul. 
 
 " I see no other end — unless " Duchatel's gesture 
 
 was to Savigny. 
 
 " I am not sure I would undertake it," said Savigny. " He 
 has a tremendous will of his own in reserve, hey ? " 
 
 Victor nodded. " And he would never set it against 
 dying. Life's a poor story with a bad plot, he told me 
 lately." 
 
 " So he wants to tear it across. Well," said Savigny, 
 " so long as he doesn't tear other people's." 
 
 " He's no belongings," said Victor. " His mother died at 
 his birth, and he's a natural son. He informs the world of 
 it freely." 
 
 " So much the better," the tyrant reflected. 
 
 While Victor talked with his careful charm to Paul, 
 Savigny spun his webs at leisure, with a perfect air of a 
 spare-limbed master-spider in his corner by the wall. Sa- 
 vigny desired Jacques greatly, the more for his defiance. 
 Indeed the defiance itself proved much, for he had been 
 evidently sensitive to the will-force put upon him ; and con- 
 sidering his state, must have used genuine courage to fight 
 it. The tyrant did not personally care for patients who 
 were blocks or fools, though society flung them daily at his 
 feet. He tired of such very soon, or handed them to the 
 more patient Bronne. He perceived in Jacques quick senses 
 and a good brain, and a situation where both might precip- 
 itate him at a moment's notice into vice. That they had not 
 yet done so he conjectured, but could not be sure. It was 
 eminently a case where if something could be done, it should 
 be done at once. He thought once of his little fly Antoine, 
 and wondered if he could be used to attract the larger game ; 
 but it was the idea of an instant only. He put it aside with 
 promptitude, for the risk was evidently too great to the 
 younger boy. 
 
104 SUCCESSION 
 
 "What does Antoine think of him?" he said quite sud- 
 denly. 
 
 Victor looked round. " Of Charretteur, you mean? He 
 was surprised a trifle, but he did not try to avoid him, 
 though Jacques was pretty savage. He seemed interested 
 in the animal, on the whole ; and," Victor added, " he lent 
 him the violin." 
 
 " Does that mean anything particular ? " 
 
 " A good deal, I should say, to both sides. It proves, 
 first, Antoine was impressed by the performance, for he 
 would only lend it to hands he trusts. Two strings of 
 Jacques' went in the first trio, that was how it occurred. 
 The baby passed the instrument as a matter of course. 
 Jacques' grace in accepting it was not conspicuous. His 
 own violin is a sore point, as we others know, for it is not 
 famous, and he is incapable of saving. After that the boy 
 mended his strings for him — uninvited — and they ex- 
 changed again at the end. I do not imagine he was 
 thanked, in either case." 
 
 " Why not ? " snapped Savigny. " Was it not correct ? " 
 
 " Oh, impeccable," said Victor, " and amusing too. Ces 
 dames were much attracted. The Adlers head Jacques' 
 clique, and he is accustomed to be sultan here." 
 
 " He's jealous, you mean." Savigny 's brows were bent. 
 
 " Impatient of interference, might be truer," said Victor. 
 "He is touchy to a degree, and bears neither help nor 
 hindrance pleasantly. He presumes to make his way by his 
 own help alone." 
 
 " Then I prophesy he will fall," said Savigny : and he 
 seemed, still in the character of the master-spider, not dis- 
 pleased at the prospect. 
 
 When Savigny arrived in the room where the buffet was 
 spread, in quest of his hostess, to whom it seemed only 
 decent to speak once, he found Mrs Adler on a sofa by the 
 window, and facing her Antoine himself, with his hands 
 behind, as though undergoing a somewhat ungrateful in- 
 
THE TYRANT 105 
 
 terview.. The boy's eyes were on her face, or he might have 
 seen them enter, and Duchatel, when he would have inter- 
 rupted, was stopped by the tyrant's hand on his arm. The 
 boy stood in a good light, and Victor saw Savigny's eyes 
 fix upon him, and rake him up and down. The doctor al- 
 ways liked leisure to take his observations before he inter- 
 vened. 
 
 *' I thought you came prepared to supplement," Mrs 
 Adler spoke in English to him, low and sharply. " Duchatel 
 told me that." 
 
 " I came," said Antoine, " to play instead of M. Char- 
 retteur, if he w^as not here." 
 
 " Well, he's gone. Isn't that the same thing? " 
 
 " It is his programme," explained Antoine. " I cannot 
 take his solos, do you see ? " 
 
 Mrs Adler, being much annoyed, did not see. " I must 
 say the lot of you are pretty hard to manage," she observed. 
 " What do you want ? " The money calculation was in the 
 cold eyes fixed on him. Antoine had never met it full be- 
 fore, and his temper slipped his hold a little. 
 
 " I want to go, if you please," said he. " Of course I 
 would not have come here, if it was only to interrupt him, 
 and you as well. I will play my programme, and not his. 
 Now I find Monsieur Duchatel " 
 
 " He is here," said a voice behind. 
 
 " Oh, Dr Savigny, how charming," fluttered Mrs Adler, 
 all her aspect changing on the instant. 
 
 Savigny gave her a hand, courteous but unmoved, and laid 
 the other upon Antoine. The boy had started violently, 
 and coloured with clear annoyance. He was cross 
 enough already, for he had wasted a precious afternoon 
 among a mass of people for whom he did not care. Mrs 
 Adler's society and his grandfather's did not overlap, except 
 in the matter of Duchatel, who went everywhere. This 
 eminently smart American circle bored him ; also his position 
 in the house was anomalous, and, since Duchatel had soon 
 been reft away, he had been left to face its problems alone. 
 
io6 SUCCESSION 
 
 Jacques, out of a kind of sullen mischief, had made the 
 position as difficult for him as possible, and as absurd. 
 Strange women had sought to pet him simultaneously. The 
 dignity so cherished by his uncle had been assailed by flat- 
 tery and mockery, on either side. Yet in defending it he 
 had to steer clear of offence, of ladies above all, or his 
 grandfather would certainly be vexed. Thus Antoine had 
 had to think continuously, on lines to which his brain was 
 not accustomed, and now found himself, on the verge of 
 escape, caught by the person in the world whose criticism 
 he most dreaded. 
 
 All the same, the doctor brought with him, into that 
 strange room, a breath of accustomed air. Antoine, listen- 
 ing to the dialogue with Mrs Adler, revived the memory of 
 certain odd tones, and turns of phrase. He might have 
 found leisure to be amused — had he been at liberty. But, 
 as soon as he made a movement to escape the claw-like 
 hand, it slipped from his shoulder down his arm, and en- 
 circled his wrist, which made things no better. " I have to 
 go," he murmured, pulling gently. 
 
 " Dr Savigny," said Mrs Adler, who had not missed the 
 distinguished man's tacit familiarity, " if you know this 
 young gentleman, cannot you persuade him to play for us? 
 The girls have been teasing him do it, but he's perfectly 
 obstinate." 
 
 " I never persuade," said Savigny. " I counsel occasion- 
 ally, or recommend. How many ices have you eaten, An- 
 toine ? " 
 
 " Two or three." A' look crept up. " Shall I get you 
 one? " 
 
 " No ; stand still. Why can't you oblige Madame, when 
 you have eaten two or three of her ices? " 
 
 " Oh — voyons ! " murmured Antoine, protesting at the 
 manner of attack. " This is Monsieur Charretteur's pro- 
 gramme, look." He held a little card to Savigny, one of his 
 supple fingers under the name. 
 
 " Ha! You mean you can't play the thing." A pause. 
 
THE TYRANT 107 
 
 " Yes, I meant that," said Antoinc thoughtfully. " I am 
 sorry I can't." 
 
 " Some silly notion of eticjuette," said the tyrant to Mrs 
 Adler. " A trifle of resentment, and more jealousy. That's 
 my diagnosis. Among the lot of them, it's a common dis- 
 ease." At the quotation Antoine bit his lip. The hostess 
 did not even recognise it. She had recovered her good- 
 humour, and Savigny's behaviour put the boy on a new 
 plane. He might even be worth cultivating, she thought, as 
 an ultimate alternative to Jacques — for Jacques that day 
 had gone a little far. 
 
 " We can only hope he will favour us another time," she 
 said, searching her memory in vain for Antoine's name. 
 " And compose a programme for himself." Then she took 
 leave of him with beneficence, and he sighed almost audibly 
 with relief. At least, thanks to Savigny, she did not intend 
 to complain of him to the home circle. 
 
 " Come to breakfast to-morrow," said the tyrant, when 
 he turned round. 
 
 " First breakfast ? " 
 
 " Yes, at eight. Too early for you ? " 
 
 The boy frowned faintly. " No, no," he said. " I will 
 come." 
 
 " Good," said Savigny, and kissed his brow at parting. 
 " Now get the business done and go home," he said lower. 
 " You're wanted." 
 
 Jacques heard again of the Lemaures at Bertrand's, where 
 he went to dine. It was as though he could not escape the 
 I, connection. 
 
 : Madame Bertrand, the wife of the concert manager, was 
 \'. among his lady patronesses ; and as they were extremely 
 i, wealthy people, and gave good meals, Jacques went there 
 pretty often. Jacques was not at all particular about his 
 society, having been through every stage of shadiness, snob- 
 bishness and smartness on his upward career; and Mme. 
 r.rrtrand and her friends in his better times amused him. 
 
io8 SUCCESSION 
 
 and in good and bad times alike had been useful. As for 
 him, he was quite capable of amusing them in return, only 
 to-night he did not try. 
 
 When the name of Lemaure came up, he had only been 
 attending with half-an-ear to the dinner-table dialogues, 
 which filled him with a sort of savage contempt by their 
 futility, so that his attention kept drifting away. Jacques 
 was aware at intervals of capacities far above the level of 
 this monde, where he was expected to act the tame lion to 
 please a set of women who were nothing to him, to whom 
 his gifts, his art, and even the vice that threatened his ruin, 
 were entertainment purely. To-night, into the bargain, he 
 felt desperately ill, and needed all his determination not to 
 show it to the circle of sharp, unfeeling eyes. After his 
 departure from the Adlers he had had, as though in revenge 
 for his abstinence there, a crisis of pain, and had resorted 
 in despair to his usual remedy, which had had less effect 
 than usual. If even his familiar demon of strong spirit 
 failed him, he had nothing to envisage but defeat. Defeat 
 stared him in the face, with his foot on the upper rung, and 
 his hand on the top of the ladder. He felt as a self-made 
 man must feel, that to be ill now was the end of his ambi- 
 tions. Physical disease, even that which arrives unsought, 
 has an especial terror for the strong, lonely worker. It is 
 a menace, and almost a disgrace. But this was infinitely 
 worse, for it was an illness Jacques had made himself ; that 
 was the finishing humiliation, intolerable to his pride. He 
 had believed for long that he could fight it, but with the 
 memory of fall after fall, his hopes began to ebb. 
 
 He still felt that doctor fellow's eyes upon him, so keen, 
 so calm in their discernment. It was partly to avoid the 
 thought of Savigny that he had flown to society again ; but 
 now he felt if possible more lonely than before. Even the 
 food that lay before him seemed a useless farce. In the 
 period of his poverty, not so far distant, he would have 
 given much to sit at a table like this. But now food was 
 before his eyes, in the most delicate variety, he could not eat 
 
THE TYRANT 109 
 
 it. He loathed it, as he loathed the tricked-out figures who 
 sat about tlie table. 
 
 Occasionally, when he felt he could no longer bear the 
 lights, the clatter of dishes, the women's shrill voices ex- 
 changing volleys void of sense, the talk and laughter 
 dropped a minute, and he was just aware, through many 
 closed doors, of a fine and distant strain. Jacques, like An- 
 toine, sufifered largely through his ears. The commonest 
 sounds had become avenging demons, springing at him on 
 the least occasion. His own violin, imperfect in timbre, had 
 joined the enemy of late, and taken to annoying him so bit- 
 terly that he could barely play. The only hour of relief 
 that day had been the one during which he held Antoine's 
 beautiful little instrument close to his ears, and enveloped 
 himself in his own music from the senseless noises of the 
 world. 
 
 That violin's voice he had heard when he had entered the 
 house, for he had come late, and the rehearsal was already 
 in progress. He had walked down the passage towards the 
 music-room and stopped for some minutes to listen. Had 
 any seen, the look on his face was the look of a man in love. 
 Jacques was in love, as only an artist can be, with a thing 
 of wood, and somewhat bitterly jealous too. Not but what 
 the gosse could play. He had never doubted that, since 
 people had told him so, whose judgment counted : people 
 like Victor Duchatel, whom Jacques despised and admired 
 in about equal measure. That was not the point : only the 
 injustice of fate to Jacques, to lay the thing in his arms for 
 half-an-hour, and then, in the person of the boy Edgell, to 
 snatch it back. 
 
 It was to the attainment of that very object, a good in- 
 strument, that Charretteur had been working, endeavouring 
 to save where saving was not in the blood. Now the money, 
 what there was of it, must go to the doctors, he supposed : 
 a doctor — not that fellow with the eyes, of course. Jacques, 
 to escape the image of Savigny, began to recite desperately 
 to himself the names of all the doctors he knew, hot and cold 
 
no SUCCESSION 
 
 alternately, trying the effort of brain to keep his senses 
 clear. 
 
 " Yes, the younger Lemaure's a bit of a stick," said 
 Madame Bertrand, a gay lady with a high voice ; " but the 
 little boy's amusing. Guy says I mustn't tease him any more, 
 because I made him cry last week, and the Lemaures might 
 hear of it. They keep him close — old style, you know, very 
 stiff. But he knows a thing or two, and he has a tongue ! 
 He'll break out, one of these days, so I told Guy." 
 
 " Have you had him here ? " said somebody. 
 
 " More than once. That sort's no fun unless you get him 
 alone. He has ' du toupet ' I promise you. You never 
 know what will come out next, tears or tantrums, if he is 
 really stirred. And his playing, they all say, is extraor- 
 dinary. I tell Guy it's all very well, but you can't be an 
 utter innocent to play like that." 
 
 The company in general agreed. They greatly preferred, 
 at least, that a boy of fifteen should not be an utter in- 
 nocent. 
 
 " He's rehearsing here this evening," said Madame Fau- 
 chard, a kind, slow woman, and an intimate of the family, 
 " with his uncle." 
 
 " I told Guy to bring them in when they had done," 
 Madame Bertrand informed her guests. " But we sha'n't 
 get the child to say anything, when the uncle's there. We 
 asked them to make use of our room whenever they wanted. 
 They are only too glad, for their place is a long way out, 
 and tiny — oh, minute. Resources? My dear, what artist 
 of an advanced age ever had them? But Guy said one 
 should do the civil thing by the old man, for though he's a 
 wreck now it's a good name. Besides, if the boy should 
 make something of it " 
 
 " One never knows," her neighbour agreed. " He was 
 rather chic at the Adlers' ; wasn't he, Jacques ? " 
 
 Charretteur shrugged. He had already been treated to 
 teasing by those who had been at the Adlers', but he had 
 not been drawn. He rather wished they would go on talk- 
 
THE TYRANT in 
 
 ing of the Lemaures — the family who possessed the violin — 
 hut he was too proud to question. Towards the middle of 
 dinner, when he was beginning to consider the chances of 
 escape, the host Bertrand came in, with a short, grey-haired 
 man of composed appearance, whom Charretteur recognised 
 as the younger Lemaure. Lucien looked small and dry as 
 usual, but he had the unconscious ease of the Lemaures in 
 manner and gesture, that gift for moving and speaking 
 naturally and neatly in the eye of the world, at once effective 
 and unpretentious. He came round to the hostess's side a 
 minute before he took his place, and Jacques, forcing him- 
 self to attend, noticed how the fair Madame Bertrand's 
 exuberance seemed to shrink beneath his eye. 
 
 " But wdiat have you done with him ? " she protested. 
 " You see, Reine, these people simply will not show their 
 treasure. It is despairing." 
 
 " For the moment," said Lucien's well-bred, sharp tone, 
 " my treasure is not presentable." 
 
 " How — he is ill ? " 
 
 Lucien's gesture spoke. " We will say so, Madame." 
 
 " Naughty, then." A ripple of amusement ran round the 
 company. " Tell us what happened, Guy," Madame Ber- 
 trand said to her husband. 
 
 " Nothing will induce me," said that gentleman, taking 
 his place. " I leave the question of direction, apart from the 
 concerts, entirely to Lemaure. Monsieur Edgell is a trifle 
 exalte after his efforts, and will not honour us." He looked 
 at his wife. " It may be Jacques to whom he objects." 
 
 " Throw Jacques overboard," said Madame Bertrand, 
 flushing rather. She had counted on the attraction. " Guy, 
 go and fetch the little silly, do you hear. Nobody will bite 
 him." 
 
 " Go yourself, my friend," said Bertrand, who seemed 
 amused and was telling the tale low-voiced to a friend. 
 " At your peril." 
 
 " I'll take him something," cried Madame Fauchard, half 
 rising, a hand on a dish. 
 
112 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I entreat you," said M. Lemaure very earnestly, " not 
 to move. A little starving will be good for him." And he 
 proceeded himself to dine with great composure. 
 
 " Men have so little tact," pouted Madame Bertrand. " I 
 am sure I could have persuaded him. What are you laugh- 
 ing at, Guy ? Why can't you tell me what he said ? " 
 
 " Lemaure was more than tactful," said Bertrand. " He 
 was ingenious. When Monsieur his nephew refused to 
 move, he bade me turn the lights out in the music-room. 
 He said it would be as good as a douche for the little one, 
 because he dreads the dark. Sure enough, he tracked us as 
 far as the vestibule. He is left there, sitting like a mes- 
 senger. He is really a killing actor — the servants were con- 
 vulsed." 
 
 " But what a shame," murmured Madame Fauchard. 
 " Two hours rehearsal — he must be dying of hunger." 
 
 " That is the other moral inducement — hey, Lemaure ? 
 He can smell the food from there." 
 
 " But it is treating him like an animal," Fauchard's wife 
 protested, still alone, to her neighbour Lucien. 
 
 " That is the treatment one deserves," muttered M. Le- 
 maure, and she saw he had been both vexed and worried 
 exceedingly. Lucien indeed was to be pitied. The problem 
 of keeping a boy as quick as his charge, in the mixed society 
 he was daily more obliged to frequent, from knowledge 
 beyond his years, was often vaguely upon his mind. He 
 had not annoyed his father, with whose ideals of liberty 
 Lucien did not agree. He was simply nervously resentful 
 of the state of things, and inclined to be over-sharp with the 
 boy for a form of excitement he felt he could neither fore- 
 stall, nor remedy. Of all the problems of precocity, this 
 was the most intimately annoying. 
 
 " I remember being afraid of the dark," said Charretteur, 
 in his harsh, uneven voice. Jacques was spying at Lucien 
 the pedagogue furtively. His own youthful experience had 
 comprised only one form of education, and he had no idea 
 but that Antoine suffered the same. The little fellow Le- 
 
THE TYRANT .113 
 
 maure looked sour enough, feeding himself with that line 
 upon his brow ; and he could obviously laugh at nervous 
 terror, that most cruel of all youthful torments. That ter- 
 ror had returned, with complications, to Charretteur of 
 late. 
 
 " There," said Madame Fauchard. " Jacques agrees. See 
 now, you go to the baby, and take some food. Genius 
 understands itself." 
 
 The proposal was acclaimed with laughter, by all but 
 Lucien ; and oddly enough, Charretteur did not resist it, 
 but rose tamely to follow the suggestion. His brain could 
 take in little more than the fact that it offered a plausible 
 chance of escape. He took the plate offered and rose. 
 
 " Tell him," he heard Madame Bertrand's high voice say, 
 " there is more where this came from, if he will be a good 
 boy and come and talk to us. Our conversation is very 
 amusing, and suitable ; and his uncle shall not touch him 
 while we are there." 
 
 " Jacques will do him no harm," Madame Fauchard 
 added soothingly to Lucien. " For once he has not been 
 drinking. On my word," she added to the table, " he is 
 better company when he has. Isn't he losing all his sparkle, 
 Jacques? He will be as dull as anybody soon." 
 
 They fell into tales of Charretteur's adventures, the 
 escapades by which he had marked himself and pushed his 
 way ; and Lucien, attracted by the scandal, attended. He 
 did not care for his surroundings, and Madame Bertrand, 
 in particular, affected his nerves ; but he was not oblivious 
 either of the excellence of the repast, or of the value of 
 patronage to a rising artist, and he bore with the frivolous 
 little party long — as he told himself, for the boy's sake. 
 
 " The boy," meanwhile, sat with his head resting on his 
 hand in the Bertrands' vestibule. The servants did not 
 know what to make of him, and having tried a little teasing 
 in the style of their betters, and then a little sympathy, 
 retired and left him to himself. No one had offered him 
 food, which was what he most needed after the work and 
 
114 SUCCESSION 
 
 subsequent agitation of the evening. Jacques, who had a 
 kind of freemasonry with the servants of the fashionable 
 houses he visited, caught the eye of the valet on emerging 
 from the lighted dining-room, and the man came instantly 
 near to confide. The story, like Bertrand's, appeared to be 
 diverting; but Jacques did not smile, though he had little 
 love for his hostess. 
 
 " That's what's wrong with him," finished the man. The 
 boy's instinctive and savage aversion from the w^oman to 
 whose fashion of tormenting he could find no reply, had 
 already served to entertain her household, for he had be- 
 trayed it pretty freely at every meeting. Among the various 
 performing animals w'ho frequented these rooms in the sea- 
 son, of whom Jacques himself was one, Antoine took the 
 place of a rather dangerous variety of monkey. Lately, 
 goaded by his uncle's tongue, he had used her name ; and 
 the servants, following the example set by her husband, 
 had simply laughed during the subsequent storm. " He's 
 writing something there for the fellow that brought him," 
 said the valet. " I've been waiting about to stop him if he 
 cuts." 
 
 " You needn't wait," said Jacques. " I'll see to it." As 
 the man disappeared, he passed to Antoine's side, and stood 
 there, looking him over attentively, plate in hand. " There's 
 a ring of them, all grinning, waiting for you in there," he 
 said, in his strong, rather harsh voice. " She told me to let 
 you know." 
 
 " I hate her," said the boy, his eyes on the table. Before 
 him lay a card, scrawled in his odd, bold hand with a mes- 
 sage to his uncle. Jacques bent to look at it with his short- 
 sighted eyes. 
 
 " Well," he said, with apparent approval, " you won't 
 catch it worse for that than you will already. Why don't 
 you go ? " 
 
 " The violin is down there," was Antoine's answer. He 
 nodded towards the music-room passage, unlighted, and 
 raised his eyes to Jacques' face. A very odd look it was, 
 
THE TYRANT 115 
 
 apprehensive, dubious — rather desperate. Antoine's posi- 
 tion had just become desperate when Jacques appeared. He 
 was bound, obviously, to infuriate everybody to-night ; but 
 on the whole, his grandfather's fury was the safest, and that 
 haven was the one in his mind. '' He made it quite dark," 
 he murmured, his clever long fingers supporting his head. 
 
 " I'll g-get it," said Jacques, after a pause ; and laying 
 down the plate, with one cautious glance about him, he went. 
 " There you are," he said, when he stood again by the gosse's 
 side, in a superior tone. " Now come along. It's time kids 
 like you were in bed. Bring the bread along if you like." 
 For, in his absence, Antoine had found the food, and was 
 devouring it eagerly, like a famished little animal. While 
 Jacques watched, he seized the soup-plate, and tipped the 
 remainder down his throat, licking his lips thereafter. 
 
 Jacques, smiling slightly — a smile that said he knew the 
 breed — held the door open a crack. The air, coming from 
 the outer world, up a single flight of stairs, spoke for itself. 
 The boy's eyes brightened as he sniffed it, gazing that way. 
 Jacques appeared to Antoine's mind, if not quite an angel, 
 at least an inspired person, and in the matter of pure reason, 
 equalled by few. It was far easier to take the extreme step 
 he had contemplated, with this support. Simultaneously a 
 high voice, reaching him from the dining-room, made him 
 shiver angrily. Where that voice figured, duty was not in 
 the reckoning, he was sure. It was a bad thing, beyond the 
 pale of what, for public reasons, he could be expected to 
 tolerate. As for his uncle — was there not that card on the 
 table, his own idea? He settled the card in place with a 
 delicate touch, took the violin in one hand and the bread in 
 the other, and followed M. Charretteur through the door. 
 It shut behind them — the echoes of the high voice vanished 
 — they were in the street. The solution to a complicated 
 social problem was very simple, when one came to think. 
 It is delicious to walk in the night air, v/ith a sympathetic 
 friend, beneath the stars. He ran a hand through Jacques' 
 arm, so greatly he was pleased by the change. 
 
Ii6 SUCCESSION 
 
 Had Lucien had a little more intuitive knowledge of An- 
 toine's age, and of the actual state of his mind and spirit's 
 growth, he would have known it must occur. It was in- 
 finitely more obvious and natural than the sympathy for 
 Duchatel. The ages round twenty have, in the first place, 
 an irresistible attraction for the ages round fifteen. Further, 
 Jacques was beyond question an accomplished artist, who 
 had won the boy's frank admiration, and played his violin. 
 Lastly he had arrived by fortune's guidance at a critical 
 moment, in order to save Antoine from great doubt and 
 misery of mind, and to restore his powers with excellent 
 soup and bread. All the Lemaure instincts, primitive, 
 dramatic and artistic, had required such an appearance when 
 he came; and the boy was ready to adopt him, without 
 further question, as a guide and interpreter on his difficult 
 way. 
 
 On the other side, Jacques, being a twenty-year-old, was 
 perfectly aware of his power, and the effect he had pro- 
 duced. From the first moment of their meeting that day he 
 had been aware of it, and it had amused him beneath all his 
 show of jealousy and caprice. In his self-contempt it was 
 even a curious consolation, this innocently betrayed ad- 
 miration of a younger boy. And it was notable that, des- 
 perate and wretched as he was, he did not now abuse it, 
 when he had the chance. 
 
 " You needn't come with me," Antoine assured him 
 politely, still holding his arm. " These streets are all quite 
 light." 
 
 " I'm coming, of course," growled Jacques. " Got any 
 money, kid? " 
 
 " No," said Antoine, having investigated. " Haven't you? 
 Never mind, I know the way." He prepared to conduct M. 
 Charretteur, much pleased and elated at his situation, and 
 as easy in his company as though he had been Philip. He 
 walked well and lightly, and Jacques had some ado to fol- 
 low him. Antoine had also to do the conversation for two, 
 but that was never beyond his powers. His companion in- 
 
THE TYRANT 117 
 
 lerrupted little, but he stopped now and again, leaning on 
 a hand as though to rest. He did not seem to wish the 
 action to be noticed, and Antoine made no remark. Plis dark 
 eyes dwelt at moments on his companion's movements, or 
 on his face, but exactly how much they absorbed of his 
 condition, or exactly how much his understanding had ab- 
 sorbed in advance, Jacques himself could not divine. The 
 gaze was generally vague, and his tongue, that convenient 
 and hardly worked member, was going ceaselessly all the 
 time. He commented freely on the things they passed, 
 glanced obliquely off any reminder of Madame Bertrand 
 or his professional work, chattered a little of the violin, 
 since his companion seemed interested, and branched to his 
 family on suggestion. 
 
 "You've a grandfather," said Jacques. "What else?" 
 
 " A father." 
 
 " Never — a real one? A real mother as well, no doubt." 
 
 " No ; my mother is dead." 
 
 " Well, that's all right," said Jacques recklessly. " So is 
 mine. Here, where are you making for, orphan! This is 
 the way." 
 
 The boy, following a twisting line of his own to the 
 markets and the quays, turned with decision down a small 
 street. After a second's hesitation, Jacques went after. 
 " It's all right," he admitted. " You know the town better 
 than I do. I thought Victor said you trained in England." 
 
 " Only three years. Three years I was here." 
 
 " Three, plus three," scoffed Jacques. " How old were 
 you here ? " 
 
 " Eight, nine, ten," the boy said briefly. " When I was 
 ten I knew all Paris. I have forgotten rather." 
 
 " Played truant, hey? " said Jacques. 
 
 " No ; not often. I did things for them. My uncle told 
 me the way generally, but grandpapa never did." 
 
 " Grandpapa's in his dotage, I suppose." Jacques had 
 stopped, and was looking away towards the river, a frown 
 on his averted face. 
 
Ii8 SUCCESSION 
 
 " No," said Antoine ; " only, you see, he has lived in 
 Paris all his life, so I suppose he thought I knew. I didn't 
 always." 
 
 He had stopped also, at Jacques' side. After a minute 
 or two, as his companion did not offer to move, he gently 
 detached the violin from his slackened hand. " It is easy 
 from here," he explained the action. 
 
 " Oh, just as you like," returned Jacques, with exactly 
 the snap of an animal in pain. The boy hesitated in doubt, 
 then moved on. He was at no great distance up the dimly 
 lighted street when Jacques discovered that, pain or none, 
 he could not let him go. Affinities are inexplicable things, 
 and he had found one, in that short time, through the 
 medium of the quite superficial ideas they had exchanged. 
 The boy suited him, like the violin — it is possible the iden- 
 tities were a little confused in his mind — and both were a 
 link with safety. Cursing his own folly, Jacques still 
 plodded in Antoine's wake, he remaining unaware of it, 
 until an incident occurred to awaken both. 
 
 That was when, in the dingy neighbourhood of the 
 markets, a skulking figure snarled something vile to the boy 
 in passing, unobservant of the taller shadow behind. Jac- 
 ques, rousing instantly at the call to action, as though quite 
 relieved at the discovery of any definable aim in life, sent 
 the skulker spinning across the road, with a single turn of 
 his wonderful wrists. 
 
 " He was drunk," Antoine said briefly, without thanking 
 him, or even glancing round, as he drew alongside. He 
 had undoubtedly heard, Jacques reflected, and he was no 
 fool. He felt the weight of genuine intellect in every word 
 he said, elliptical and childish as the phrasing was. It was 
 no illusion, the power he possessed to help ; and Jacques, 
 who acted on instincts always, as an animal upon scent, 
 trusted him before the next half-hour had passed with 
 most of his secret. Still under the stimulus of that slight 
 physical excitement, he began to confide in turn ; and An- 
 toine heard, by slow degrees and in laboured language, of 
 
THE TYRANT 119 
 
 the " £-friend " who was looking for a doctor to cure him 
 of a mysterious and fateful ill. The f-friend was a very- 
 poor disguise, considering Jacques' eager and stuttering 
 fashion in speaking of him ; but the boy, as before, re- 
 spected it attentively. 
 
 As they lagged side by side up the long hill, and later 
 resting in a shady place near the dark masses of the 
 schools, Antoine told his companion all about the only 
 doctor he knew — a hesitating, deeply considered description 
 that it was a thousand pities that doctor could not overhear. 
 He was very earnest on the subject of Savigny ; yet in- 
 nocently in two minds himself whether he could safely rec- 
 ommend to Jacques, or rather Jacques' acquaintance, a per- 
 son of such petrifying qualities. 
 
 " Dr Bronne is nice," he said at one stage wistfully. 
 " But Savigny is much the best. Grandpapa has said that 
 a lot of times, and he knows about it. Savigny talks about 
 his things to him and my uncle much more than to me. 
 Perhaps " — he hesitated — " your friend would not like him 
 at first. One has to be careful with him a little — Savigny. 
 Only he is not really mcchant, do you see?" 
 
 " I expect," he said, at a later point of the persuasion, " it 
 is horribly hard, the things he does. That is what makes 
 him angry. It is awful how they have to be, doctors like 
 him. Grandpapa says he bears the troubles of all the 
 world — so of course he seems impatient. I expect," he re- 
 sumed again, as Jacques had nothing to say, his brows still 
 more earnestly bent on the problem, " it is kinder really to 
 be like he was to me in the Clinique. I was much more 
 easily afraid then, of course." He sighed, reflecting on his 
 summons for the morrow. " Only," he advised softly, 
 " you had better tell him the things at once, even the most 
 horrible ; because anyhow he will make you, with his eyes." 
 
 " Curse his eyes," said Jacques unexpectedly. 
 
 "You have seen him, hein?" said Antoine, with instant 
 sympathy. " Voyons," he slid a supple hand round Char- 
 retteur's arm, " if you came to see grandpapa a little. He 
 will not have gone to bed." 
 
I20 SUCCESSION 
 
 "What's the good of that?" said Jacques uncertainly. 
 " Unless," he added, after a space, " you are afraid to go 
 in alone." 
 
 " Yes, I am afraid," Antoine assured him. " Perhaps it 
 is ten now. After ten it is extremely dark upon our 
 stairs." 
 
 Thus was Jacques, hardly able to reason on his fate, 
 pushed the next stage of the way ; for, having fought the 
 gosse's battle in the market-place, it was impossible to let 
 him climb up the dark stairs alone; with a reception un- 
 known, perchance ill-treatment, awaiting him at the top. 
 
 Jacques, having speculated largely about Lucien, had not 
 troubled his imagination greatly as to M. Lemaure. He 
 judged he would be, in the character of the " patron's " 
 father, either a silly or a savage old man. But his be- 
 haviour to his grandson that night could not well fall un- 
 der either title. He scolded Antoine a little, it was true* 
 but in a manner to Jacques so entirely novel, that he found 
 it, dazed as he was, absorbing. 
 
 " It is you, my children ? " he queried, as they entered, 
 bending his brows to peer round the lamp. 
 
 " It is only me," said the boy, breathless with his rapid 
 climb. " We have left him in the dining-room, with Ber- 
 trand and his ladies. Here is M. Charretteur." 
 
 The old man roused. " Pardon," he said. " I assumed 
 it was my son." He extended a hand. " You bring this 
 animal home then, Monsieur." 
 
 " We left together," stammered Jacques, feeling vaguely 
 for his manners. He was not at all prepared to have them 
 claimed. 
 
 *' My uncle doesn't know I came," Antoine elucidated 
 rapidly. " At least now he knows, of course, because I 
 have not gone back. I left a little thing on the table in the 
 vestibule to show^ him. He was having dinner with her 
 inside, because when I told Bertrand I would not, of course 
 he had to be polite. He did not want to dine there either, 
 
THE TYRANT 121 
 
 and he was furious with me. He had not seen how I was 
 at Mrs Adler's. I was quite polite to her. I picked up 
 her handkerchief once, and it smelt horrible. I cannot go 
 on being polite for thirty hours, with people who smell 
 like that." 
 
 " Psst," said the old man, frowning slightly down at him 
 as he crouched by his side. " How ill-mannered and un- 
 necessary." 
 
 " You are vexed, hein ? " said Antoine. 
 
 " I am, my little one. It is not fair to Lucien. Bertrand 
 is of importance." 
 
 " And his wife is so beautiful," said Antoine. 
 
 " Beautiful or not, it is your business to behave." 
 
 " He will say I am mad or something," said Antoine. 
 " They will only laugh. Yes, he will be rather angry, when 
 he comes. But if she had spoken to me in that voice, I 
 should have made a face at her — I should have been obliged 
 — and then he would have been more furious, wouldn't 
 he?" 
 
 He dropped his head upon his folded arms. M. Le- 
 maure put a hand on the head and looked at Charretteur, 
 who shrugged simply. 
 
 " You walked the whole way home ? " he asked. 
 
 " I wanted to," Antoine cut in on Jacques' attempt. " I 
 was not reasonable to-night. Do you know who that is?" 
 He flung a hand back. 
 
 " To be sure. Most people should know." 
 
 " He liked the violin," said Antoine, by way of introduc- 
 tion. " I let him carry it a little. Talk to him, hein ? — 
 because I must go to my room." 
 
 " You are tired, my love," was the old man's answer to 
 this, in a decidedly troubled tone. The boy's restless fingers 
 were teasing his while he talked, and his dilated eyes shone 
 in the lamplight under a brow painfully tense. 
 
 " No, no ; I am very well," he answered ; " only it has 
 been a stupid day — rate, you understand. If my uncle 
 wants me, I shall not be in bed. To-morrow " 
 
122 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Well, what of to-morrow? " 
 
 " To-morrow I go to Savigny at eight." 
 
 " To Savigny ? " The guardian's attention concentrated 
 visibly. 
 
 " He said so — I saw him at that place. It is to go to 
 breakfast — no ! " He slid an arm about his grandfather's 
 neck, reaching to touch the frown with the tips of his fine 
 fingers. No one could have helped smiling. 
 
 " I wish to understand, darling, that is all. Raymond is 
 to talk to you, or you to him? " 
 
 " Perhaps I shall tell him some things." He paused and 
 bit his lip. The old man saw the trouble in his eyes very 
 well. " I don't know how long I shall stay, into the morn- 
 ing, so I will get up earlier, at half-past five. You will 
 tell him that as well ? " 
 
 " I advise you to do nothing of the sort," said Lucien's 
 father. 
 
 " Why ? " Antoine demanded. " I will go au sixieme. 
 You shall not hear." 
 
 " If I could, my child, I should not be content merely 
 to advise. I might insist." 
 
 " Insist ! " The boy laughed a little, though he was half 
 crying with pure fatigue. The rare bond of friendship, 
 bridging two generations, had never been more apparent. 
 It was incredible almost to Jacques, who had never seen 
 anything like it in his experience compact of monotonous 
 neglect and irregular cruelty. The master of the house, 
 looking up, met his curious eyes. 
 
 " I am sure Monsieur will support me," he said, " that 
 grandfathers are permitted to insist." 
 
 " He has no grandfathers," said Antoine. " He is too 
 old, I think." 
 
 " You will not have one long, unless you release his 
 throat." He laughed, as Antoine pulled away his hands in 
 haste. " A pity to destroy me, hey ? " he said. " I am too 
 useful as mediator. Go now, my little one," he added, 
 without a change of tone: and Antoine went. 
 
THE TYRANT 123 
 
 M. Lemaure had gathered a good deal as to Charretteur's 
 state and history, and he discovered the rest without much 
 time or trouble wasted on the way ; for the young man was 
 helpless, and for the moment broken by pain. He asked 
 him but f ew^ questions, for he was pitiful ; and he offered 
 even his skilled advice with a gentleness and deprecation 
 Savigny would certainly have scorned. But Jacques, to 
 him, seemed very young; and the force he was in danger 
 of wasting completely seemed worth his most exquisite 
 efforts to save. 
 
 " You mean to fight, then ? " he said at last, leaning back 
 to observe the wreck his visitor looked, almost in w^onder. 
 
 " The worst fight of all." Charretteur clenched his long 
 hands, as he crouched to the fire. " For I shall not abstain. 
 I do not intend to." 
 
 " You cannot do it, my friend," said M. Lemaure very 
 earnestly. " You cannot do it alone. I would not have 
 you try. Listen now, and have patience. Not even a god 
 could do what you would attempt. You are not a god, 
 but a man out of health." 
 
 " I realise the strain," said Jacques. 
 
 " Perhaps. Not the solitude." 
 
 " I'm used to solitude." 
 
 " Not such as you will face. Excuse me, but I have met 
 the thing before. These devils are not unknown to me, 
 during sixty years. The best of us reach a point where we 
 cannot stand alone. I have reached mine, long since. You, 
 for the moment, are in equal need. Why not take friend- 
 ship, then ? " 
 
 "Whose?" 
 
 " Savigny is ready for you — waiting, I might say. On 
 my honour, he is the finest friend a man could have. I 
 do not mention," he added quickly, " my grandson and 
 myself." 
 
 " I will not have you or him," said Jacques. " I will not 
 come n-near you. I shouldn't have touched him to-night 
 — only there were others worse. As to the fellow you 
 
124 SUCCESSION 
 
 speak of, I can't say. I looked at him a bit. He has a 
 devil equal to mine." 
 
 " He is my friend," said M. Lemaure. " My best friend, 
 to whom I would have given my daughter." 
 
 " Yes," said Jacques, with a cat-like look at him side- 
 long. " I have known things as astonishing even as that. 
 I suppose you have never seen what I saw." 
 
 " Friends," the other repeated. " My poor child, I be- 
 lieve you do not know what friendship means." 
 
 " I don't know. How should I ? You mean to say a 
 fellow with those eyes is not a brute? " 
 
 " Brute is the last thing he is. He has perhaps," said 
 M. Lemaure at leisure, " some of the qualities of a god — 
 of a fate. He is relentless." 
 
 " That clever boy is f-frightened to death of him," 
 jerked Jacques. 
 
 " No, no. Nervous perhaps. Antoine has every reason 
 for confidence. To be sure," he added, after a moment, 
 *' nobody likes to confess." 
 
 "What has he to confess?" said Jacques, 
 
 " Failings : we all have them. I hate myself to admit 
 my body is weak ; yet all the world can see the old ma- 
 chine." He stretched his rheumatic fingers, and regarded 
 them thoughtfully. 
 
 Jacques, who had risen, subsided again by the table in 
 one of his careless, not ungraceful attitudes. " Yes, you're 
 old," he said. " You have carried it through. Did you 
 ever hate your career? " 
 
 "At your age? Frequently." 
 
 " You mean it ? Yet you never had anything but suc- 
 cess." 
 
 " Nor you, I understand, of late." 
 
 " Oh, lord, yes — I suppose Fm successful, curse the 
 fools. Fm a b-blight on the world," said Jacques. 
 
 " Do not flatter yourself," said M. Lemaure, peacefully 
 warming his hands. 
 
THE TYRANT 125 
 
 Charretteur gave him another glance. " You've the gift 
 of humour,'' he said. " I beHeve I've lost it." 
 
 " You will re-discover its value, with Savigny. He will 
 rake it up, be sure, with all your embers." 
 
 " I am to go to him, then ? " 
 
 " I counsel you to go. He consults to-morrow at ten." 
 
 " Not at eight ? " said Charretteur. 
 
 " Oh, Bebe goes to breakfast, I understand. I daresay 
 Raymond will only tease him a little." 
 
 " You're as anxious as possible," said Jacques suddenly. 
 
 "Ah — you must make allowance for parents. Now " — he 
 moved with decision and extended a hand — " I am going 
 to turn you out, young sir. Lucien will be arriving, and 
 for the child's sake, I had better be alone to explain." 
 
 Jacques rose at once, pushing the chair with a clatter. 
 He touched the hand doubtfully, took a last look at the 
 violin on the table, prowled about it a little, turned, wa- 
 vered, and spoke. 
 
 " I s-say," he suggested, " you won't let that little fellow 
 thrash him? " 
 
 "Thrash? Lucien? Mon Dieu, he will be too tired." 
 
 " You can laugh," Jacques exclaimed. 
 
 " You must excuse me. But really, my poor son ! to 
 take charge of that firework all day, and beat him in the 
 evening — it is too much to expect." Then, as Jacques still 
 stared, wondering, his tone changed. " Mon cher enfant," 
 he said, "what sort of life have you led?" He rose him- 
 self, painful as all his movements were, and took the young 
 man by the arms. 
 
 " A life like lota of others," growled Jacques. " I insult 
 you, I daresay, by supposing it could be yours." 
 
 " No, no, you do not insult me. My own life was hard 
 enough, heaven knows, though I escaped brutality. I 
 doubt," said M. Lemaure, " if any one was interested in 
 me sufficiently. There was less hot rivalry in my day, and 
 more flat indifference. Yes," he said, almost with im- 
 patience, " it is far harder nowadays, to struggle to the 
 
126 SUCCESSION 
 
 front : infinitely harder. And that is what you have done — 
 alone ? " 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " None to help you, hey ? No women ? " 
 
 " None you would counto" He pulled away from the 
 grasp. 
 
 "I count all women — what are you to judge for me?" 
 Jacques looked down, a little cowed by his vivacity. 
 " Where," said M. Lemaure, " do you mean to pass the 
 night ? " 
 
 " You n-needn't be anxious," gibed Jacques. " The com- 
 pany will be good." 
 
 " I have no right to ask the question. But you are the 
 age of my own grandson, and I ask." 
 
 " All right," said Jacques, like a schoolboy. " I shall 
 pass the night in my rat-hole at Montmartre — and w-with 
 my violin." 
 
 Antoine went to Savigny with very fair exactitude, after 
 some hours' work in the morning. His tongue was as swift 
 as ever, but he looked languid, and seemed more restless 
 than usual. The doctor was engaged in writing when he 
 entered the small dining-room ; so, after a cursory greet- 
 ing, he flung himself on a couch by the window, looking 
 out with a yawn. This and the neighbouring room were 
 private to the doctor, but to Antoine's mind they were 
 within the dangerous ring. That magic ring had retained 
 him, for the five most terrible months of his life. It was 
 not a prison any longer, he repeated to himself. He could 
 open the door and go when he wished. Yet he felt the 
 walls closing round him, the grip of the old hopeless dread 
 on his heart, and he pressed his head to the open window, 
 as though the spring air drifting in relieved the trouble of 
 his thoughts. 
 
 Meanwhile, Savigny gave his notes to the servant, caught 
 up a large book, and made some rapid entries. 
 
 " I hate accounts," he observed. " Come and do this 
 
THE TYRANT 127 
 
 column for me, Antoine, while I bring my engagements up 
 to date. Alight as well be useful," he added, in a mutter. 
 
 Antoine came to his side, and leaning one hand on the 
 table, ran the other fingers slowly up the column of heavy 
 figures. 
 
 " What a lot of money," he commented. 
 
 " Add it, and don't talk." 
 
 " I have done it. It is right." Savigny turned quickly ; 
 he had seemed entirely careless, and was yawning again. 
 
 " Do the next page," he said, after a short pause, re- 
 lapsing. The next page was longer still. The boy made 
 a single sound of annoyance at the end, and went up it 
 again, in the reverse direction. 
 
 " Well ? " said Savigny, as he swept his hand off the 
 book, with a very expressive gesture. 
 
 " It is wrong." 
 
 " You are inaccurate." 
 
 " No — it has come the same twice — if that eight is not a 
 five." 
 
 " That eight is an eight," said vSavigny grimly. " Well, 
 I suppose I shall have to do it myself." 
 
 "Why?" said Antoine. He looked at the doctor with 
 slight curiosity as he plodded down the figure column. 
 When he came to the end, Savigny muttered something, 
 and corrected two of them. 
 
 " That is right," said Antoine, leaning to look in a flash, 
 before he shut the book. 
 
 " Go and get your coffee," said Savigny. 
 
 Antoine availed himself promptly of the permission. He 
 loved coffee, and was rarely allowed it. A slight advantage 
 of his doctor's roof was that he w^as permitted to eat what 
 he liked beneath it. Savigny 's cook, if she were not Mar- 
 got's equal in pure genius, was an able person. Her con- 
 fitures were admirable also; and he had already noticed 
 some upon the tray. At home he could never eat jam with- 
 out his uncle making personal remarks all the time. Here 
 he ate it with a spoon, and tore his bread to pieces with his 
 
128 SUCCESSION 
 
 fingers, and was really comfortable. Savigny watched him 
 at intervals, and presently abandoned his books and came 
 across. 
 
 "Is there enough milk?" said Antoine rather anxiously, 
 as he looked into the jug. 
 
 " No," the doctor grumbled, pouring it. " What a quan- 
 tity you've drunk." 
 
 " Shall I go to the kitchen ? " He was half-way to the 
 door. 
 
 " No," said Savigny, with astonishing emphasis. " Come 
 back, do you hear ? And keep still for a time, if you know 
 how." 
 
 Antoine returned and subsided into his former chair. 
 
 "What are you so thirsty for, eh? You've come no 
 distance." 
 
 " I think working makes me thirsty, perhaps." 
 
 " Adding a few figures ? " 
 
 " No — the other work." He nodded carelessly in the 
 direction of the Avenue. 
 
 There was a pause. "What time did you go to bed?" 
 Savigny probed him of a sudden. 
 
 " Before twelve," stammered Antoine. 
 
 " That's why you're yawning like a fish, then. Do you 
 call that enough sleep ? " 
 
 " I — thought it was enough. I slept a good deal." He 
 looked at the jam-pot. 
 
 " You may as well finish it," said Savigny. " It can't 
 make you more sticky than you are." 
 
 Antoine licked one finger delicately, and looked at him 
 sidelong. He did not look particularly unkind, for all his 
 rough tones. " I don't want any more," he said, leaning 
 back and stretching his arms. " Is the internat full now? " 
 
 " Room for another," said Savigny, with unnecessary 
 expression. " Have you heard of a candidate? " The boy 
 said nothing and blushed slightly. His pallor showed a 
 blush easily, and a less acute eye than Savigny's would 
 have marked it. " Get on," he snapped. " What's the mat- 
 ter now ? " 
 
 
THE TYRANT 129 
 
 " That was all I wanted to know — if you had a room." 
 
 " I sha'n't take anyone without good reasons." The 
 tyrant's eye was piercing him. '' And plenty of them." 
 
 " I know." He rested his head on his hand. " Suppose 
 you want very much to drink, and always " 
 
 " To drink? What? " The doctor's manner would have 
 seemed brutal to an outsider: the boy was hardly moved. 
 He was used to Savigny, and the case he was pondering so 
 troubled his mind that it was far from him to suspect a 
 misunderstanding. " Do you think a little thirst is worth 
 complaining of?" said Savigny, as he did not answer at 
 once. 
 
 " It is not to complain " He grew confused, then 
 
 untwisted his thoughts with an effort, rising to his feet. 
 " I had better not talk about it," said he. " I think I am 
 stupid. You will know yourself soon, perhaps." 
 
 "Look here, my boy," said Savigny, sitting forward. 
 " You used to be straight, and fairly clear-headed, li you 
 are getting fanciful, it is best to say so. What did you 
 want to drink, and when ? " 
 
 " I ? " The question, and its hesitating look, sent a shock 
 of such relief through Savigny, as to astonish himself. He 
 had not realised till that instant his anxiety. That the most 
 sordid craving in the world should find an entrance into 
 the family of his old friend, should attack it at what he 
 knew well was one of its weakest points — that and no less 
 had been his dread. He rose too. 
 
 " My little Antoine," he said, " I beg your pardon. I 
 do not often do as much as that; but nor do I often get 
 on such a completely wrong tack. I have been trying to 
 bully something out of you that was not there. Now see; 
 we have not long. I will give you five minutes to talk 
 about this other person, if you really wish to. I cannot 
 give you more, because I have other business." 
 "With me?" 
 " With you." 
 
I30 SUCCESSION 
 
 The boy lifted his eyes, paling visibly. 
 
 " That then," he murmured. " For the other, it is fin- 
 ished." 
 
 " Good." Savigny sat down again, " Now then," he 
 said, taking his visitor by the wrists. " Keep your head, 
 because I want all there is of it. If you answer really 
 carefully and well, I will let you off with the second 
 catechism only. If you correct yourself and flounder 
 about, I shall go on to the last one. If I pass you in 
 either, you shall go home within the hour. If you fail in 
 both " The tyrant paused, his cutting eyes diverted. 
 
 " I will try," said Antoine, thinking of the empty room. 
 
 Savigny still waited a minute or two, holding him. The 
 pulse under his fingers was not reassuring. Nor was the 
 expression on the boy's white face, though he was looking 
 steadily. 
 
 " Please will you begin," he said, with barely controlled 
 impatience. 
 
 Savigny began, and carried him through the raking series 
 of questions he called his second, or private catechism. 
 They were all delicate, and difficult to answer from at least 
 two points of view. But Antoine showed no shyness, and 
 no hesitation worth the name ; though he never failed to 
 leave a moment's pause after the question, to realise it, and 
 choose his line in answer. It was an ordeal truly, and of the 
 most severe ; for Savigny's art lay on the border-line be- 
 tween the physical and spiritual kingdoms. It was a con- 
 tinuous effort of brain for both of them, and in a marvell- 
 ously short space of time the doctor learnt all he desired ; 
 a store of clean facts, and fine impressions. At the end he 
 waited, and asked another question. 
 
 " Why are you so frightened ? " 
 
 " I am always frightened, here." 
 
 " Well, listen : I pass you, with high marks. Now do 
 things look better ? " 
 
 " Yes." He gave one sob, and brought his eyes round to 
 Savigny's. 
 
THE TYRANT 131 
 
 "Have you nothing to tell me, on your own account?" 
 
 The pause that followed betrayed much. " I had better 
 tell you, yes." 
 
 " Ha ! Wait a little, then. There is no hurry." 
 
 " I feel sick," said the boy impatiently, while he waited. 
 
 " That is nothing — it will pass. It is the misfortune of 
 our both being busy people, that I have to disturb your 
 nerves so early in the day." 
 
 " Yes." He still stood a moment, frowning. " May I sit 
 down to tell you ? " 
 
 " If you must." He sat down, and leant his head on his 
 hands. Savigny's harsh looki changed instantly to such 
 tenderness and trouble that it seemed a pity the boy's head 
 was turned away from him. After a period, Antoine lifted 
 his head, folded his hands on the table, and looking away 
 past Savigny with the same slightly distended eyes — the 
 look of fatigue and disgust that physical discomfort gives 
 — spoke. 
 
 " I don't think I am very good," was how he began ; and 
 proceeded to explain how he had discovered that a good 
 many people in the w^orld were wicked, and in new ways. 
 As to w^hat ways, he produced slight, but quite sufficient 
 evidence. People had spoken to him in the streets, and 
 much better-dressed people had said things in his pres- 
 ence, in good houses. He supposed that was how this new 
 mental and physical trouble — which he also shaped very 
 clearly in his short, nervous words — had begun. 
 
 " Wait," said the tyrant sharply, " You have told your 
 grandfather? " 
 
 No, Antoine had not. He had thought of him, and of 
 Savigny, and of confessing in church. But of course he 
 was not in that church — yet ; there was that, and his father, 
 to be thought of. He stopped here, looking wretched ; and 
 then passed with an effort from what was plainly none of a 
 doctor's business. So it came to his grandfather — and Sa- 
 vigny. 
 
 "And you decided for a doctor. Why?" 
 
132 SUCCESSION 
 
 Because doctors knew a great many people ; and his 
 grandfather knew only and chiefly him. 
 
 " Is that not an advantage, in such a case — to know you? " 
 
 That seemed almost too difificult to answer. His suffer- 
 ings had been definite lately — he evidently felt it approached 
 more to Savigny's department. M. Lemaure's education 
 inclined him to consult first-hand authority. He did not 
 find words for these things, but Savigny discovered them, 
 secretly and most exquisitely flattered by the confidence. 
 
 " I could talk to grandpapa — when I know," Antoine fin- 
 ished, freeing himself from the toil of laboured thought. 
 
 " Granted there is anything to tell," said Savigny. His 
 eyes had lightened strangely, though his voice was cold. 
 He was evidently hot on the track of one of his private in- 
 terests. " Go on, I want more details," he ordered. 
 
 " About — which ? " The boy's two fine hands clenched 
 more tightly together. 
 
 " Take the dreams first." Antoine sketched the form of a 
 new dream, which came first of all in the night, when he 
 had been tired. 
 
 " Last night, eh ? " 
 
 Yes. Almost as soon as he had left the light and his 
 grandfather's side, it had come. It had been short, and 
 clear, and hateful. 
 
 " Makes you afraid of sleeping, hey? " 
 
 A look — no answer at all. 
 
 "Whom did you see yesterday?" demanded Savigny; 
 and he heard about the Bertrands, and a shadow in the 
 street by the Halles. The boy did not name Jacques, but 
 the doctor was sure on good evidence that they had met, and 
 privately cursed his carelessness. He sat noting all the 
 evidence, and the changes in his face. He had dropped the 
 sharp manner, which was merely a habit to a man much 
 pressed and often misunderstood, and was quite leisurely 
 and still. 
 
 He asked if the sick feeling had passed, and the boy said 
 it was better. 
 
THE TYRANT 133 
 
 " You are capable then of telling the other things — my 
 own ? " the doctor said. Antoine believed he was. Where- 
 upon Savigny drew him into the chair, within the grasp of 
 his long arm, and examined him with the greatest care and 
 delicacy, making every stage of the confession easier by his 
 skilled anticipation. It was as though he had sworn to 
 himself that the child should gain by his courageous instinct 
 to appeal to knowledge rather than to love. Savigny gave 
 him the best essence of his knowledge, some of the truths 
 for which he had given his life's work, in language as ex- 
 quisitely chosen as it was clear. He paid the boy's under- 
 standing the compliment of leaving nothing unsaid ; but the 
 saying, had he realised it, touched art. And possibly by 
 right of that art Antoine understood it. 
 
 He followed with little effort, and wonderful relief. He 
 grew younger under Savigny's eyes, and it was more than 
 recompense to him to see the unnatural trouble clear. Need- 
 less to say, the torment that had followed him for weeks, 
 during that soft spring weather, had been nothing in reality ; 
 one of the endless nervous miseries that track such tempera- 
 ments through life, and tease them often to their death. 
 The doctor had been convinced of that, knowing him, from 
 the first. But to make all safe, having set his mind at ease, 
 he examined the young body in turn, and tested rapidly its 
 principal organs. The boy's serious submission to the pro- 
 ceeding touched him profoundly. Even his fear had van- 
 ished, in the reaction from the last terrible eft'ort, and he 
 was simply grave, and languid to the verge of drowsiness. 
 
 It must be confessed that Savigny's proceedings, in this 
 second and more practical part of the demonstration, might 
 have seemed to the disrespectful critic a trifle perfunctory. 
 It might be, as some enemies said of him, that he had a 
 leaning himself to the spiritual rather than the physical side 
 of his functions. He exalted mind, and the use of mind in 
 the least things of life; and occasionally the claims of the 
 body escaped him. Antoine, to whom bodily pains were 
 quite definite and most abominable things, would have been 
 
134 SUCCESSION 
 
 glad o£ a little enlightenment on that head as well. But 
 Savigny, having pulled him about a little, and asked a few 
 more sudden questions, seemed to get tired of him unex- 
 pectedly and turned crabbed again. 
 
 " That is all right ? " queried Antoine, in a tone suggesting 
 he was quite ready to be satisfied, if Savigny pleased. 
 
 " That's enough for to-day," returned the doctor. 
 
 *' It's ten," observed Antoine. " I heard St Sulpice." 
 
 " You had no business to hear it," said Savigny. " While 
 I am engaged, the time is nothing." 
 
 " Oh yes," murmured the patient, reproved. Ten was 
 Savigny 's consulting hour, and very late indeed in his own 
 morning — that was all his remark had suggested. But 
 there sat the tyrant immovable, pondering, with his chin in 
 his fist, condemning Antoine's manner of dressing himself 
 apparently. The boy sought any possible remarks to dis- 
 tract his eyes, but conversation under that fixed glare did 
 not come easily. He was not in the smallest degree awk^ 
 ward for being nervous, Savigny noted among other things ; 
 he always liked to watch the Lemaures use their hands. At 
 least three distant bells had warned him that patients in the 
 consulting-room claimed his professional attention, before 
 he stirred. 
 
 " I may go?" Antoine asked hastily, at that sign of life. 
 
 " I suppose so," grumbled Savigny. " I don't know why 
 you are always in such a hurry, you public people. You 
 used to get time to be sociable, now and then." 
 
 " If you come to see grandpapa up there, I will," said 
 Antoine. 
 
 " Needs a third party, doesn't it ? " said Savigny. " That's 
 what I expected. Go along." 
 
 Antoine put a hand on his chair, leaning on it in hesita- 
 tion. " It will be all right ? " he hinted again. 
 
 " You're not an ideal construction," said Savigny, " but 
 you'll do." 
 
 Antoine considered this diagnosis : it sounded disparaging. 
 
THE TYRANT 135 
 
 " I wish I knew your things," he remarked, swinging him- 
 self on to the chair. 
 
 " No doubt you do. Be content with your own, for the 
 present. What are you up to to-day, tell me that." 
 
 " I must practise that concerto of Tschedin," said Antoine, 
 leaning back with a yawn. " I expect I have forgotten it 
 since London." His eyes were fixed past Savigny, on the 
 spring sun without. Any scientist should have considered 
 the distension of those eyes excessive and their dilation un- 
 reasonable. Savigny merely thought that, with the excep- 
 tion of his mother's, they were the most beautiful he had 
 known. 
 
 " You can sit down to practise it," he observed. 
 
 " No, I cannot," said Antoine. " Pas possible — any- 
 where." He turned a glint in the doctor's direction. " I 
 often find it funny," he rapidly remarked, " that you do 
 not know." 
 
 " I know as much as I need," said Savigny. " Couldn't 
 you have sat down ' anywhere ' yesterday ? " 
 
 " Yes. That was some old sonatas. All the time." 
 
 " Why didn't you, then ? " Savigny grew violent. 
 " You've got no " 
 
 " He just did that when I tried," said Antoine, interrupt- 
 ing. He crooked a finger, with a dry jerk of the head to 
 somebody unseen. 
 
 " Lucien's got no sense." Savigny finished his violent 
 observation. " Look here : was it Lucien let you loose on 
 an those people?" 
 
 "What people?" 
 
 *' Drunkards and others." 
 
 Antoine blushed. " He has not been always there, of 
 course," he began delicately. 
 
 " Well, you can tell him he should be there. What's he 
 paid for, hey? " 
 
 " He is not paid," said Antoine. " He says, perhaps I 
 shall have to be alone in the autumn, if my aunt wants him 
 
136 SUCCESSION 
 
 then, so he shows me all those things. He is careful, very," 
 he added, blinking in the sun. 
 
 " Careful," repeated the doctor, in a growl. " Are you 
 sleepy, boy ? " he snapped. 
 
 " My head's not sleepy — only my eyes." 
 
 " And your mouth. Keep it shut." 
 
 The boy cut short a yawn to laugh. " That is rude, hein ? " 
 he said. " I shall be better awake to-night, perhaps. Now 
 I must really go — psst ! " He swerved nervously and started 
 to his feet as a servant entered. 
 
 " Pardon, Monsieur," said the servant at Savigny's black 
 look. He knew Monsieur was engaged. But a young man 
 had come for him, not for M. Bronne, and absolutely re- 
 fused to wait. 
 
 " He can go to the devil," said the tyrant, without a 
 glance at the card, " and I will come in five minutes." Then 
 in soliloquy, as the servant shut the door, " That will be our 
 friend Jacques, no doubt. He is well up to his time, now, 
 isn't he ? " He laughed as Antoine, who had turned his 
 back, swung round upon him. 
 
 "You knew?" he ejaculated, his colour high. 
 
 " Don't excite yourself now," said Savigny. " I guessed 
 of course who your tipsy protege must be. I intended to 
 have him yesterday — though I never asked your precious 
 assistance. Have you been doing me the honour to recom- 
 mend me, Antoine ? " Standing, he put an arm about the 
 boy, and turned his face forcibly. 
 
 " Perhaps — grandpapa did." 
 
 " And who took him to grandpapa ? " 
 
 " He came," said Antoine, on the edge of tears. " Go to 
 him now. He gets angry very fast if he has to wait." 
 
 " I shall tell him I was detained by the most accomplished 
 violinist of my acquaintance." 
 
 " You will not," snapped Antoine. " He can't under- 
 stand those things now — jokes." 
 
 " It's not a joke. I'm to be serious, am I ? He won't 
 thank me if I am." 
 
THE TYRANT 137 
 
 " N-not too serious. Only not to laugh, because " 
 
 He broke off at Savigny's heartless smile. " Oh, mon Dieu 
 — I expect you know best." 
 
 " I should hope I did, my innocent. I don't manage char- 
 acters like that with the gloves on. He'll have a bad time 
 when I go — worse than yours." 
 
 " Not worse ! " the boy gasped. For an instant he dropped 
 his head in his two hands against the tyrant's arm. Then 
 he shivered and stood straight again. " I have not cried," 
 he said, pushing from the doctor's grasp. " Good-bye." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 Reuss did come in the autumn, sweeping through from 
 Vienna in early September to fetch Antoine as he had 
 promised ; but many things happened before that, and one 
 too important in its subsequent results to be disregarded. 
 
 The boy, owing to a new honour which was, to say the 
 least, ill-timed, had had particularly hard-working holidays. 
 Instead of resting with his father by the sea in Brittany, 
 where he had been sunning himself in great enjoyment after 
 the signal successes of his spring season, and scribbling at 
 intervals as the fancy took him, or the family claims allowed, 
 he was brought back to Paris in early July by a turn of 
 Fate's wheel that could not have been foreseen. 
 
 This occurrence was, shortly, that Dr Moricz, one of the 
 oldest and most renowned teachers of Europe, having ar- 
 rived to spend the summer months in Paris, sent a person- 
 ally inscrilDed summons to Antoine to join him there without 
 delay. Moricz had been of old his uncle's professor for a 
 season, and had already sent word to Lucien that he would 
 be graciously pleased to teach the last of the Lemaures, 
 though Lucien at the time had paid small attention to the 
 message. Antoine himself had seen the terrifying old sor- 
 cerer once only, after one of his afternoon recitals, when 
 Moricz had hobbled in with M. Lemaure to have a look at 
 the " grandson," as he called him. He had said little, 
 only glowering at him, and feeling the muscles of his arm 
 and hand ; and the boy, though a little put out and puzzled 
 by his behaviour, had been too busy to regard him much, or 
 138 
 
M O R I C Z 139 
 
 lend much weight to the incident. Thus the curt and ex- 
 tremely uncivil summons that reached him at St Aviel 
 towards the end of June, disturbed him not a little. 
 
 He went for counsel naturally to his grandfather, who 
 had been at a given historical moment the sole rival of 
 Moricz as exponent of his art, and who would surely have 
 the necessary information. M. Lemaure, however, receiv- 
 ing the boy's news by letter, found himself perplexed by it, 
 divided between prudence and exultation. The ofifer could 
 only be viewed as flattering, a piece of rough but royal con- 
 descension. He sought Moricz at once, in his grand hotel, 
 and had a personal interview, which only served to pique 
 and puzzle him anew. Moricz opened by informing him 
 sans fa-Qon, that howsoever he might flatter himself, his 
 grandson was not up to the mark, and could not " last." 
 
 " He has had an unusual and prompt success," M. Le- 
 maure contended. 
 
 Moricz was unmoved. " I refer to performance," he 
 said, in his extraordinary mixed jargon. " You prefer to 
 depend on personality. Yes, so I always heard." His gleam- 
 ing eyes pierced the rival musician. " A bright light upon 
 his head, eh, eh ? It is so pretty to be young." 
 
 He could hardly have chosen a better method to prick 
 the artist's pride. M. Lemaure was aware instantly that 
 he did depend, and had throughout depended, upon An- 
 toine's personality, if not, as charged, upon his youth. 
 
 " As you will, it will be, of course, since this subject is 
 inside your family," said Moricz, and coughed for a time ; 
 but his eyes kept shifting to his visitor's face. " There is 
 Rudolf Lemonski, also young, who is a pig in public. A 
 pig, oh, granted — but I finished him and he can play. His 
 family ruined themselves for my lessons, but they do not 
 regret it now." 
 
 " It has been our aim to avoid rivalry," said M. Lemaure. 
 
 " You have avoided it," blinked Moricz. " The boys are 
 not rivals in my sense — no, no. Your child is clever, I do 
 not deny it; but put him and Rudolf in a dark room, send 
 
I40 SUCCESSION 
 
 the judges to listen — yes, go yourself — and I will let you 
 decide. It is not your fault completely " — his little eyes 
 gleamed again — " but there are things your boy cannot do. 
 I could write a passage here and now he could not play. 
 And if he gets no better, he gets worse. It is up, or down." 
 
 M. Lemaure pleaded for time. " The child must rest." 
 
 " He has already rested too much," retorted the sorcerer. 
 " Trust me, he grows spoiled, and limper every week. For- 
 tunately, he is young, and it is not yet too late. I offer my- 
 self to show him these, the inner things, in the summer, when 
 I teach best, before I return to the East, where I shall die. 
 I had wished for no other pupils, but now I am willing to 
 show. Attend then, and beware ; for I do not offer long." 
 
 M. Lemaure rose at last. " My grandson is not strong," 
 was his culminating argument, somewhat uncertainly 
 offered. 
 
 " I will cure him," smiled Moricz, with a snake-like dip 
 of his head. " He shall be treated softly, never fear, this 
 little one. I am old, rich, tired, Lemaure; and those always 
 love to be at ease." 
 
 M. Lemaure took a tour, before he left, of the beautiful 
 apartments, full of treasures and mementoes. He was 
 guided by a quiet-footed German servant, who seemed well 
 used to his office as showman. Thereafter he went home to 
 reflect ; and coming to no conclusion of any finality, he 
 travelled in the hot weather down to St Aviel to consult his 
 son. For Lucien always knew his own mind very promptly, 
 and had a store of good reasons at call ; and his father often 
 used him, at least as a touchstone to evoke his own true 
 opinion. 
 
 Lucien was naturally injured with his nephew for not 
 having consulted him in the first place. Urged through 
 this to the subject in hand, his decision was immediate, and 
 so forcibly expressed that his father was surprised ; for he 
 had thought Lucien's vanity would be tickled at least as 
 much as his. He was vigorously, almost violently, in favour 
 of rejecting Moricz's offer; and his reason was not that 
 
M O R I C Z 141 
 
 his pupil was incapable of standing the test, either in 
 physique or virtuosity, but that Aloricz himself was useless, 
 and even harmful. It could not have struck his- father, 
 who had competed with the man at his zenith, to doubt his 
 capacity to teach ; but Lucien was not given to scruples in 
 such cases, and he flung contumely upon it. His father, 
 still disagreeing with his reasons, was dragged round slowly 
 to his point of view. 
 
 " His methods w-ere never anything but clap-trap," de- 
 clared Lucien. " Certainly he never paid the slightest at- 
 tention to me. It is true," he added hastily, " that I was 
 twenty-five — too old in his eyes to matter at all." 
 
 " You improved under him, nevertheless," his father ob- 
 served. " And what you repeated of the lessons on your 
 return interested both me and Marcel. You were more en- 
 thusiastic then than now, my son." 
 
 Lucien grunted. " I had caught up some of the catch- 
 words then, most probably. There were always plenty — 
 he was a perfect centre of scandal. His temper was always 
 bad, and he indulged it deliberately." 
 
 " He has been hopelessly ill for years," said M. Le- 
 maure. " One must make allowances. Being a bitterly 
 hated man, he is bound to have suffered too. As teacher, 
 I must admire him, for he has produced some splendid 
 artists. Claude Moult, whom you never heard, was his 
 best pupil. And Lemonski you know yourself is good." 
 
 Lucien growled a criticism of Antoine's rival ; but for all 
 that Lemonski's name produced a silence. 
 
 It was about this point in the conversation that Antoine, 
 himself, who had listened closely to all the opinions given, 
 skirmished to the front; declaring that the letter was his, 
 and that he intended to accept the offer it contained. It 
 was entirely characteristic of him, both to flout his master's 
 spoken advice, and to penetrate sheer through the veil of 
 gentle diplomacy to his grandfather's unspoken desire. 
 Ever ready both for argument and adventure, he took up 
 the contest where M. Lemaure abandoned it; and to com- 
 
142 SUCCESSION 
 
 plete the comedy of the generations, both the elders instantly 
 united in an endeavour to turn him back. 
 
 " You do think he knows some things ? " he demanded of 
 the older man. 
 
 " He is a person of ideas," said his grandfather, with 
 caution, " even of inspiration. But I agree with your uncle 
 so far as to think that what was once highly original in his 
 methods is verging now on mania. He pretends to be 
 more than mortal, which is hardly prudent in a man whom 
 death may catch at any moment." 
 
 '* He's in his dotage," growled Lucien. " Hardly respon- 
 sible for his actions, still less for his words, according to 
 Joseph." He alluded to a former pupil of his own, whose 
 lively reports of Moricz's senility he had been quoting 
 largely during the interview. He quoted some now ; but the 
 endeavour to terrorise Antoine was more useless than the 
 effort to persuade. He was sure, increasingly sure by M. 
 Lemaure's eyes, while he listened, that his own sight and 
 knowledge of the man outweighed Lucien's third-hand re- 
 ports ; and that he believed in his heart the risk worth tak- 
 ing. 
 
 " Voyons," he said, with a bright idea. " Will you teach 
 me here, if I do not go to Moricz ? " 
 
 " No, my dear. I shall teach nobody before September ; 
 and I insist on Lucien's resting, even more than you." 
 
 " I have rested," said Antoine, and set his lips. What 
 he wrote to Moricz that same evening did not emerge, 
 though his grandfather would fain have seen it, for An- 
 toine's epistles were often curiosities of style. Before he 
 actually set forth on his adventure, however, the boy had 
 a serious interview with his father. 
 
 That is, Antoine was serious. James was inclined on 
 holiday to his laziest teasing mood. Personally, wanting 
 Antoine, he did not approve of the plan; but the author- 
 ities, as it seemed, were not going to stop it, and he found 
 Antoine would not be chaffed out of his purpose. He was 
 shown Moricz's letter, which, translated out of its scrawl, 
 
M O R I C Z 143 
 
 read more like an order to a dog than an invitation to the 
 pubhc favourite his son now actually was, 
 
 ** I think he is rather mad," explained Antoine. " But 
 grandpapa believes he knows some things, and so I want 
 to learn them. There is an express to Paris at nine to- 
 morrow." 
 
 "Really?" said Jem. "What then?" 
 
 " There is the ticket to Paris, and the lessons " — he reck- 
 oned rapidly — " about a guinea each time, I think. And I 
 have no money at all, papa." 
 
 " You mean you've come to beg ? " 
 
 " I don't want to ask grandpapa, do you see, because my 
 uncle does not want me to go." 
 
 " Humph. And I'm only too glad to get rid of you, 
 eh ? " 
 
 " No, no. We have been happy here, at St Aviel." He 
 clung to his father's arm, looking wistfully at the sea. " But 
 to-morrow, I go to IMoricz." 
 
 " What an obstinate little dog you are," said Jem. " Why 
 are you so set on learning, eh? You know quite enough, 
 for my purposes." 
 
 " Your purposes ! What are they ? " 
 
 " Oh, showing you around, and making a good thing of 
 you. That's all they ever wanted too, I imagined." 
 
 " No," said Antoine, with decision, " I think grandpapa 
 wants it to be good." 
 
 " Well, isn't it good ? " said Jem, who liked driving An- 
 toine into corners, and seeing what came of it. 
 
 " Perhaps it will be," said the boy, with a glance, " the 
 day you come to hear." 
 
 James found the corner a little too small for comfort. 
 He talked intelligently about the concerts, and quite hoped 
 that Antoine had missed the fact that he had never attended 
 one of them. Pie explained the queer fact to himself more 
 easily than to other people. 
 
 " Well now," he said, " as to business. How much do 
 you want ? " 
 
144 SUCCESSION 
 
 "Eight hundred francs." suggested Antoine. 
 
 " Pish ! Don't you wish you may get it ? " 
 
 "Are you poor, papa?" 
 
 " Beastly poor," said James, to whom his father-in-law 
 had transferred several thousand francs that morning. The 
 situation appealed to him. They sat down together on the 
 sea-wall, and he searched his pockets. After sufficient teas- 
 ing, he gave Antoine enough for the journey and ten francs 
 over. " You can give the old fellow that from me," he 
 said, " and tell him he ought to be only too glad to get you 
 at all." 
 
 " My uncle says, if I talk like that," said Antoine, " he 
 will do things to me." 
 
 "What things?" 
 
 " Oh, like mad people do. He can be awful, Rudolf Le- 
 monski says. Rudolf used to cry every lesson, and he plays 
 very well, because I have heard him." 
 
 "Did you tell your grandfather that?" said Jem. 
 
 " Oh no," said Antoine ; " because it was a secret. 
 Rudolf said his papa would kill him if I told anybody." 
 
 "And now you have," said Jem. "Or don't I count?" 
 
 " I meant in music," said Antoine, unabashed. " In talk- 
 ing, I shall have to be rather careful with Moricz," he 
 added, watching the sea. 
 
 " My dear kid ! — you'd best keep out of it, if caution's 
 the word." 
 
 Antoine was pensive. " He is very old," he said, " and 
 I am extremely afraid of him. I don't suppose I shall talk 
 much." 
 
 He got his money finally, in generous measure, and next 
 day he went, pale but determined. The three he left looked 
 at one another, each annoyed secretly with another for not 
 preventing it. The boy's will in full tide had a force they 
 would barely admit. 
 
 " You will come soon ? " Antoine murmured at part- 
 ing from his grandfather. 
 
]\I O R I C Z 145 
 
 " After the fete," he answered. " Be wise, my dear 
 child." 
 
 When he returned to Paris, delayed some days later 
 than he intended, Antoine was practically living with the 
 ogre at his grand hotel by the river, and had quite a new 
 line in his forehead. Margot was in despair, because he 
 stayed out to meals, or, as she suspected, missed them. 
 Certainly, after the interval, his grandfather found him 
 thinner and changed. He practised at home very little, 
 it appeared, except the first hour of the morning ; and often 
 left the violin in Moricz's charge — a signal mark of con- 
 fidence, for Antoine. 
 
 " What does he say to you ? " said M. Lemaure, on the 
 evening of the first day. Antoine shrugged. 
 
 " Every time another thing. Of course, I can't do it 
 right." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Nothing — not a scale. I see what he means, some- 
 times ; but I can't do it. I think I am not strong enough." 
 
 " How long does he teach you ? " 
 
 " Sometimes for hours — sometimes for five minutes, and 
 locks me in to practise." 
 
 "Imprisonment. Has he beaten you, darling?" 
 
 " No ; but he says some dreadful things." 
 
 " Tell me what he says." 
 
 " No ; I can't. It is ugly. The French he knows is all 
 that kind." 
 
 At this point the boy cried a little, as though he had to 
 for relief, and then shook the tears off with impatience the 
 instant afterward. " It is stupid to mind words," he said. 
 " It doesn't matter, really, when what he shows me is good. 
 Sometimes it is all good : I know, though I can't do it when 
 he looks at me." 
 
 "You are content then, on the whole?" His guardian 
 was still curious. 
 
 " I shall be," said Antoine, " when I get the certificate. 
 I shall get it for you, hein? You will see in the autumn 
 
146 SUCCESSION 
 
 what we have done. First I will practise his things a lot, 
 then you will see." 
 
 " Perhaps, when he abuses you, he is ill," was the next 
 suggestion. 
 
 " Yes." Antoine seemed struck. " He has been ill some 
 days when I have been there. Then the servant comes to 
 him, and says I had better go away." 
 
 " Ah, but I remember the servant. Capable, is he not ? " 
 
 " Yes," said the boy, and set his lips, " Moricz is very 
 quiet with Ensbach." 
 
 M. Lemaure, who was considering the question of the 
 master only, did not see the line deepen in his grandson's 
 brow, and all his face take on again the mask of strain. 
 With Moricz alone, Antoine's intercourse would have been 
 clear enough, as between a skilled master and a clever 
 pupil it should be. But for all that a new and teasing 
 problem had shaped itself under the rich old sorcerer's roof, 
 though Antoine, as daily visitor, had done his best to look 
 away. It was, in some sort, the sequel to that problem of 
 age that he had studied with such pain that spring; but it 
 was an ugly sequel, not at all as he would have invented it, 
 for here the valet Ensbach took a hand. Antoine, whose 
 dearest friends were among the ranks of chauffeurs, rail- 
 way employees and hotel servants, had disliked this quiet 
 German furiously on sight, and could not recover from his 
 repulsion. Being incapable naturally of concealing his 
 sentiments, the enmity between them had grown ; and 
 though daily let in and out by Ensbach with perfect 
 decorum, he felt the man's sneering eye upon him even 
 after he had left the house. 
 
 " Perhaps you had better shorten it, my dear," said his 
 counsellor at last. " Moricz is too old, and you waste your 
 strength trying to follow him, do you not ? Ce n'est pas la 
 peine," he added, smiling. 
 
 " Si, c'est la peine," the boy declared, with impatience. 
 " I tell you I must finish now. Yesterday he told me it was 
 very well. I could have finished, but he spoilt it." 
 
^1 O R I C Z 147 
 
 " How did he spoil? " 
 
 " He knocked me there." He touched the back of his 
 right hand. " And the bow flew straight into .tlie corner, 
 because it made my fingers stiff." 
 
 M. Lemaure exclaimed. " And you ? " he said. 
 
 " I was angry," said the boy, his eyes flashing. " I think 
 Moricz was afraid for a minute, when he thought the bow 
 was spoilt. He pretended he had not meant to touch me, 
 and went to pick it up." 
 
 " Thy training in revolt assists thee," the old man re- 
 flected, half amused. " What would Lucien say to that, I 
 wonder? Does he abuse thy master?" he said aloud. 
 
 " Oh yes — and you. The old gander, he calls you, the 
 days he talks German. I think he thinks I don't under- 
 stand German," said Antoine. " But if he thought I did, 
 he wouldn't mind." 
 
 "Did you mention I had returned?" said M. Lemaure 
 the following day. 
 
 " Yes ; I told him. He said, had I complained of him to 
 you ; and I said yes, I had. He laughed at that, and while 
 I played the concerto he wrote a letter for you. Here it 
 is." 
 
 He held out a shabby scrawl, almost unreadable. It was 
 in villainous German, and it alluded to Antoine throughout 
 by a neuter pronoun. 
 
 " The little gosling is not bad," it ran, " but too soft. 
 He has not even Lucien's conceit to stiffen him. Conceit is 
 a good handle, failing others. Being already so elusive, it 
 is not my wish that you should cosset and distract him be- 
 tween my lessons. To-morrow he comes to me at midday. 
 You will send things after him for a week. Thus, having 
 him at hand, I may be able to finish. As you value the im- 
 mortal song to which the few may listen, you will tell him 
 no word of this before he leaves you." 
 
 M. Lemaure pondered over this, especially the exalted 
 phrasing of the finish. He was very silent that evening, 
 
148 SUCCESSION 
 
 for he was perplexed by doubts. Antoine also was almost 
 too tired to talk, and seemed to have plenty to consider. 
 He was growing rapidly older, M. Lemaure reflected sadly, 
 as '- - chafed the beautiful arm and hand that lay across his 
 knee. Moricz had put him through some elaborate 
 manoeuvres in the morning that had cramped him, and his 
 grandfather had noticed that he struck this left forearm 
 angrily at moments, as though he still felt the effect. So 
 after dinner, when he came according to habit to read on 
 a stool by the sofa, M. Lemaure took upon himself to slip 
 that arm out of the coat, run the sleeve up to the shoulder, 
 and attend to the little strain in his own way. Antoine let 
 him do as he would without protest, only glancing round 
 from his book with an absent frown when the masseur 
 hurt him. M. Lemaure did not read himself, giving his 
 whole mind to what he was about, with a muttered solilo- 
 quy from time to time on the new development his trained 
 eye found. 
 
 "It is just there it hurts you, eh?" he said, having 
 tracked the damage down. " I think it is partly this bruise 
 higher up the muscle. Did thy tyrant do that as well ? " 
 
 Antoine shook his head. He had laid it back on the 
 couch beside his grandfather, for the gentle friction was 
 soothing. " I did it against the piano," he said, " when he 
 came at me once. He called me three names," he added 
 pensively. 
 
 " It was a bad day to-day, then ? " 
 
 " No. Except that, it was all interesting. And when he 
 had finished he showed me photographs of all the people 
 he had taught — oh, hundreds — and all his names for them. 
 It was amusing." 
 
 "What did he call Lemonski?" said M. Lemaure, with 
 a sly glance, 
 
 " Pig," said Antoine. " Rudolf is rather like one." 
 
 "Was there none he approved of the hundreds?" 
 
 " There was one — Claude Moult — who, he said, played 
 like all the devils let loose. I think he liked him — loved 
 
M O R I C Z 149 
 
 him," the boy corrected himself. " I asked what happened 
 to him, and Aloricz said he killed himself." 
 
 " Did he also say he married his daughter? " 
 
 " No." The boy moved his head. " Where is the 
 daughter, then ? " 
 
 " I cannot say. She was a worthless woman. They 
 said it was her behaviour drove Moult to his end." 
 
 " She — they — did not have a child ? " 
 
 " No, dearest. Moricz is less fortunate than I." 
 
 Antoine did not smile. " No children," he murmured. 
 " All his pupils hate him. Nobody at all — and he knows 
 a lot of things." 
 
 "Thou growest to admire him more, eh? Thou wilt 
 quite despise our lifeless teaching after this." 
 
 Still no smile. Antoine was trying to find any resource 
 for Moricz — except Ensbach. It seemed a fatal thing. As 
 he rose to say good-night he murmured, fastening his cufif 
 with a frown : " It is a pity to have nobody, isn't it ? " His 
 grandfather agreed, catching him close on the words. He 
 did not at all want his own child reft from him for a week, 
 and he felt that he failed the mute bargain of their friend- 
 ship in not warning him at least. Yet Moricz, though tot- 
 tering, was a prominent figure still in European art, and he 
 felt through all his eccentricities the flattery of his genuine 
 interest. That was a thing he could not but regard. He 
 could by no means resist the temptation to let his pupil tri- 
 umph, now his ambition was fired. For the boy's own sake, 
 his career's, his family's, it seemed necessary ; and even a 
 little for old Moricz, whose child had turned against him. 
 
 The boy himself was quickly aware of some unusual 
 emotion, but he was too tired to be curious. 
 
 " You have made my arm feel nice," he said, feeling 
 something required of him ; and drawing away from the 
 clasp, he went to bed. 
 
 He penetrated the full significance of his grandfather's 
 manner the following day, when Moricz, at the close of the 
 lesson, gave him to understand that he was a prisoner. 
 
I50 SUCCESSION 
 
 " You seemed to me a little slow," he said, with his snake- 
 like dip and smile, " so I thought seven days together in myj 
 apartments might give you leisure to understand the simple] 
 things I say." 
 
 " I am going home," said Antoine, seizing the violin, andj 
 gathering himself to combat. 
 
 " This will be your room," said the old sorcerer, disre- 
 garding him. " Or another, if you like it. My man will 
 arrange your things," 
 
 " I have no things," said Antoine, 
 
 " They are sending them," said Moricz. 
 
 " They are not," said Antoine, flushing high. " It is not 
 true." 
 
 " Softly," laughed Moricz, who relished his vivacity, since 
 that was a first necessity of the trade equipment. " Of my 
 truth, the eyes can judge." 
 
 " Grandpapa knows ? " He could not believe it. 
 
 " He knows the fact of my retaining you. As to details, 
 I must decide," 
 
 " You mean I cannot go there at all ? " 
 
 " Not for a week, I said. Are you deaf this morning, 
 little one, as well as stupid? A week should suffice us. 
 You will promise me to have no communication with out- 
 side, and I promise you to complete our work, A bar- 
 gain, hey ? " He cackled, seeming greatly pleased with this 
 ingenious plot for his pupil's good. 
 
 " Can I not go out?" said the boy, after a pause. One 
 eyebrow was comically raised — for the affair had its amus- 
 ing side, 
 
 " You may go out on the balcony. It has an interesting 
 view upon the court. Except dinner," added Moricz, " at 
 which I desire your company, you will have your meals in 
 here. Ensbach will wait on you." 
 
 Antoine bit his lip, " Do not send that man to me," he 
 said, in quick entreaty, " I don't like him, I will come to 
 you for the meals." 
 
 Moricz cackled a laugh and tweaked his ear. " Be care- 
 
M O R I C Z 151 
 
 ful, hey? " he said, suddenly rather serious. " I enjoy that 
 spirit, but all do not. You will find Ensbach very atten- 
 tive — I have trained him for my work; but he is not used 
 to pertness." 
 
 That was the first hint Antoine had of the inner working 
 of the sorcerer's household. As the days passed it be- 
 came clearer yet. He felt, sensitive as he was, ensnared 
 himself in the trap that was closing round the aged man. 
 Yet he could complain of nothing definite, for he was well 
 treated, allowed the run of Moricz's splendid musical libra- 
 ry, and daily examination of his treasures; and he was 
 taught with concentration for three hours of every day. 
 The food he was given was most dainty and plentiful, and 
 the valet who was certainly accomplished, if scornful of his 
 presence, served him delicately. 
 
 The third day he saw Ensbach's other incarnation, for 
 Moricz was in bed. The man, coming upon Antoine at 
 lunch-time, found the food untouched, and the boy leaning 
 at the window. 
 
 " Alonsieur is ill," Ensbach suggested softly, Antoine 
 hated this manner, having seen him rough with the old 
 man. 
 
 " No," he said, without turning. " I want to go out. Tell 
 Herr Moricz that I must, my head is too full of things. 
 I will not run away." 
 
 The valet left him and went to Moricz, whom he had in 
 charge. 
 
 " Monsieur the little goose wishes to go out," he ob- 
 served. 
 
 " That name is not for you to use," the sorcerer retorted 
 on him, quavering. 
 
 " Pardon — my master used that name to me." 
 
 " I was wrong. He is clever, the boy, and may go far. 
 We must be careful." 
 
 " Monsieur Edgell intends to go out," said Ensbach 
 blandly. " He is insolent as to my master's orders, as 
 usual." 
 
152 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Why cannot he be content ? " the sick man complained. 
 
 " He thinks he will be ill," said Ensbach. 
 
 " Ha — no, he must not be that." Moricz blinked. " He 
 had better go for a time, and come back to dinner. Per- 
 haps I shall be rested then." 
 
 " I will take charge of him," said Ensbach slowly. " But 
 I cannot leave my master to-day for long. An hour will 
 be sufficient." 
 
 " Yes, yes," muttered Moricz, fingering the sheets, " He 
 must not leave his work for long. Tell him it approaches, 
 Ensbach, and he will understand." 
 
 The valet took a general view of him before he left. " I 
 think it approaches also," he thought, as he shut the door. 
 
 " Monsieur may walk for an hour," he informed Antoine, 
 with a smile. " I shall have the honour to accompany him." 
 
 "No!" jerked the boy hotly. "I do not need you — I 
 have promised to come back. I am not a dog." 
 
 " Monsieur must not be so difficult," said Ensbach. " My 
 master is ailing, and cannot be vexed. Orders had better 
 be followed." 
 
 " I will go to him now," cried Antoine, indignant at the 
 insolence barely veiled. The man only laughed. 
 
 " No, no, liebchen," he said. " It is decreed, and one 
 must submit. Either I go, or you do not." 
 
 Antoine shrugged, and submitted to all appearance ; they 
 started out together, but Ensbach came back without him 
 in half-an-hour. The man was fuming, and not so neat as 
 usual. 
 
 " He is clever, as my master said, the young Herr," he 
 told Moricz. " He gave me the slip at the crossing. Er ist 
 weg." 
 
 " Fool ! " hissed Moricz. " He is of value — his face is 
 known. He has been kidnapped, for all you know." 
 
 " That does not happen here," said Ensbach. " He has 
 gone home, as he intended. Well, we are done with him." 
 
 " He will return to me," the old man contended feebly. 
 " We have the violin. " 
 
MORICZ 153 
 
 " I say he will not," said Ensbach. " And it is better so. 
 Surely," he added, " since mcin Herr is ill." Moricz 
 watched him as he moved about the room, and fear lay in 
 his blinking eyes. 
 
 " It was two hours we said, did we not ? " he asked, 
 when more than that period had sped. 
 
 " My master said one hour," replied Ensbach. 
 
 " If he comes back now he will be hungry," said Moricz. 
 " Listen, you are to take his supper in : and warm the room, 
 in case he feels the cold. He cannot work if he is cold. 
 He must play to me to-morrow — I am tired to-night. If I 
 cannot rise, he must come here to play. Ensbach, you 
 hear?" 
 
 Ensbach found it impossible to hear him, as he was mak^ 
 ing a clatter with the blinds. " He will adopt him yet, the 
 old dotard," he muttered between his teeth, as he wrestled 
 furiously with a cord. " If I had had the sense to give the 
 cub his fiddle to-night, and send him about his business ! " 
 
 The exultation which in private the aged teacher could 
 not always contain, on the subject of his latest pupil, had 
 served to produce a misapprehension in the valet's some- 
 what limited mind. Ensbach knew nothing of artistic pride, 
 and read the old man's increasing interest in Antoine as 
 personal affection. He had judged the boy at first a little 
 fool, genius or none; but affairs in the house had reached 
 a delicate stage where he did not want an eye from without, 
 even a fool's, on his proceedings. He and his old master 
 were far too comfortable for that. Indeed, Ensbach's com- 
 fort for life was in question, and that was not a prospect 
 to be lightly risked. 
 
 His bland face was not agreeable as he thought of An- 
 toine, who had both flouted and fooled him that day in a 
 manner somewhat disturbing to the theory of his silliness. 
 Ensbach hoped greatly he would not return ; but he still 
 kept a course in reserve, if he were rash enough to do so. 
 He had been admired and spoilt, and would not bear hard- 
 ship long. He would ask himself to be taken home, if 
 
154 SUCCESSION 
 
 he were not attended to sufficiently. As a first step to this 
 end, Ensbach intended to overlook the little matter of his 
 supper, and if he complained, to quiet him by other methods. 
 Ensbach, a bully born, thought he could manage boys, if 
 left to himself ; and Moricz, he knew by experience, should 
 be safe for forty-eight hours. The valet was an accom- 
 plished liar as well ; and between this pair of hot-blooded 
 artists, old and young, both for the moment in his power, 
 he foresaw a prospect of mediation which was not without 
 its amusement, by the way. 
 
 It never occurred to M. Lemaure in his solitude, per- 
 haps fortunately, that his tacit agreement with Moricz for 
 the benefit of Antoine's artistic education, included his 
 abandonment for two days at least to the mercy of an ill- 
 bred man, of no education at all but that which goes to the 
 making of a rogue. He had seen Ensbach, and noticed him, 
 only in his public incarnation as an excellent servant, ruddy 
 and young-looking, with smooth manners and singularly 
 perfect French. His exterior was entirely in his favour, 
 and M. Lemaure had even been reassured to think that 
 Antoine would profit by his capable surveillance while in 
 contact with a master so old and irascible as Moricz was 
 now said to be. Antoine himself, as ever in a case which 
 concerned his deepest instincts, had betrayed nothing of 
 his feelings towards the man, and his grandfather felt at 
 ease, on the whole, as to his situation and condition. It 
 is true, during the early part of the lonely week, he did 
 suffer from an occasional attack of doubt ; though, being 
 greatly interested in a monograph he was preparing, and 
 the acquirement of materials for the purpose, such misgiv- 
 ing could attack his mind in the intervals only. 
 
 The first person to occasion a bad moment was Margot. 
 She had naturally to be informed about Moricz's latest 
 freak on the day of the boy's departure. She heard her 
 master's explanation out in blank surprise. 
 
 " Monsieur has let Monsieur Antoine go to live in that 
 
MORICZ 155 
 
 house," she cried, " from which he returned every night 
 of the first week to cry? " 
 
 "Ah?" said M. Lemaure. "He did not tell me that: 
 only that he found he could not do what this new profes- 
 sor required. One's vanity was piqued, Margot, probably. 
 It is often the beginning of wisdom." 
 
 " Monsieur knows well he is not vain," said the woman 
 warmly. " Monsieur Lucien has often made him cry, as a 
 little one, but never because he failed to do the thing he 
 tried. Alonsieur Antoine cries when he is frightened and 
 furious — voila tout. With Monsieur Lucien when he is 
 furious," she added, lower. 
 
 ]\I. Lemaure smiled at the remark. He liked to be freely 
 treated. 
 
 " Dr Moricz is startling," he observed, " but we had 
 warned him of that. He is stimulating also, for I noticed 
 the signs in his pupil." 
 
 " Monsieur thinks Monsieur Antoine wants stimulat- 
 ing?" said the cook,^ with a very odd expression. "That 
 he is lazy, hein? " 
 
 " Not precisely. He is often absent," said M. Lemaure, 
 " especially of late. It is very natural at his age, in a world 
 so full of varied interest; but we cannot afford it — as it 
 seems." He looked at her comically, for he had no disdain 
 at all for her advice. " We must go briskly," he said, 
 using the common tongue, " or we shall be run over. Once 
 started, there is no escape." 
 
 " Monsieur is not content," said Margot, greatly puz- 
 zled, " when the newspapers talk of him ? " 
 
 " There are degrees even in newspaper fame," said her 
 master thoughtfully. " I have a wish — I may be wrong — • 
 to see this last one stand on something firmer than paper." 
 
 Margot pondered a little, still puzzled, though watching 
 him with deep respect. " Monsieur might teach Monsieur 
 Antoine here," she suggested softly. " Without Monsieur 
 Lucien, hey ? " 
 
156 SUCCESSION 
 
 He laughed. " Exactly what Alonsieur Antoine himself 
 proposed," he said. " Only I greatly fear I am useless." 
 
 " Useless, Monsieur ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I have come to that conclusion. He is too like 
 me, au fond. It is unfortunate." 
 
 " Ah, ah," said Margot. " That is what IMonsieur 
 thinks." She took it in slowly, this draught of novel in- 
 formation. 
 
 " It is an amazing and distressing fact," said M. Lemaure, 
 " that, as professor, the nearest relation is often useless. 
 See — I taught Lucien and Marcel, did I not ? " 
 
 " Et Mademoiselle Henriette," said Margot. " It is true, 
 they were different from Monsieur." She sought within 
 herself, Frenchwise, words for the difference her instinct 
 saw. Yet, though she found some telling phrases, they 
 failed to satisfy her completely. Conversation, with Mon- 
 sieur, had to retain a proper level, Alargot imagined. So 
 she changed the subject regretfully to the current prices of 
 cheese. 
 
 On the third solitary day, Antoine paid them a flying visit 
 towards dusk. He was in high spirits, owing to his success- 
 ful piece of truancy, and though he did not stay long, his 
 grandfather found himself reassured, and turned peacefully 
 to his writing again. The boy had spoken of nothing at all 
 but his work, only that ]\I. Lemaure did not observe, since 
 the work was his own interest also. Two days later, again, 
 he had new slight misgivings over a letter from his son. 
 Lucien, if not brilliant in argument, was at least tenacious. 
 He had been at the pains to write instantly on his defeat to 
 his old pupil in the sorcerer's native town ; and summarised 
 the story he received thence incisively. It was an earnest 
 letter, and if his father had not known Lucien a little too 
 well, he might have been affected by his warmth. 
 
 " Moricz," Lucien wrote, " is by common report in Pesth 
 absolutely under the thumb of a vulgar knave, a low-class 
 German, who pretends to be his servant, but is really his 
 
M O R I C Z 157 
 
 master. Moricz is said to have promised huge sums to this 
 person under seal, having long disinherited his daughter. 
 He is not responsible for his actions at times, Joseph says, 
 though his mind has not given way completely. He sees 
 only the doctors recommended by this man, who also sees 
 the interviewers, and invents the stories without which 
 Moricz's name could hardly continue to exist in the public 
 mouth." 
 
 " Beautifully put,'' thought Lucien's father, " only it 
 does not occur to him that this might be invented too. The 
 detail is thrilling, certainly." 
 
 M. Lemaure had already revolted from the romantic at- 
 mosphere of the pupil's story. His son, he felt sure, would 
 have done so as well, had it not happened to support his 
 own contention. But he did not even stop there. 
 
 " The fellow, like all Moricz's neighbourhood, has been 
 through ill-treatment and humiliation; and has borne it 
 all with the fixed purpose of becoming indispensable — 
 which he has done — and triumphing in the end. He flatters 
 Moricz constantly, chooses the occasions to exhibit him, 
 and uses his name with effect to gather honour and advan- 
 tage upon their travels. He must be an incredible rogue." 
 
 " Incredible," thought the Frenchman, but his smile faded 
 as he read on. ^ 
 
 " If it is still your wish, father, that Antoine should visit 
 daily a household such as this, I say no more. For my part, 
 even if all the story of Moricz's vast genius were true, all 
 his undoubted reputation honestly earned, I could not sup- 
 port so great a risk. I need not inform you at this period 
 how sensitive the child is, and how the worldly horrors 
 revolt him. If it is simply ambition and obstinacy on his 
 part, it should be as simply overruled. Alone I should of 
 course have overruled him, only you were easy, and James, 
 as usual, amused. I have represented the whole case to 
 Cecile here, and she agrees with me completely. As she 
 says " The daughter-in-law's opinion, founded exclu- 
 sively on the son's report, could not concern the reader very 
 
158 SUCCESSION 
 
 keenly, though in other ways he regarded her. He put the 
 letter aside, and though he let the scandal drop from his 
 serious mind, he remained a little impressed by Lucien's 
 honest disagreement from him. It had not occurred often 
 in his memory ; and it surprised him on this subject. 
 
 On the last day but one of the stated week he received 
 from Moricz's hotel a second German note, considerably 
 better written and composed than the former one, and far 
 more courteous in tone. A secretary, he judged, might 
 have written it. It informed him in Moricz's name that 
 he had better remove the boy, who was naughty and useless. 
 
 M. Lemaure lifted his eyebrows, and prepared to follow 
 instructions, wondering a little what had taken place. He 
 arranged his papers and manuscripts, informed Margot 
 that he should bring back le petit, who would probably be 
 hungry, and drove round to the grand hotel. 
 
 " It is you? " said Moricz, turning at his rival's entrance. 
 He was completely master of himself, but he looked very 
 ill, and was wrapped in a mantle of costly furs by the 
 fireside, though it was a warm summer day. He looked 
 fiercely at the intruder, and without offering him a seat, or 
 even rising from his own, seemed to be waiting an explana- 
 tion of his presence. 
 
 M. Lemaure, allowing for age and illness, explained it; 
 and waited in turn, for IMoricz, watching him with his 
 head lowered, had no answer at once. 
 
 " Well, take him," he said, after the interval. " As you 
 will." 
 
 "He has been troublesome?" 
 
 " Obstinate — it exhausts me. There are nothing but 
 quarrels here since he came. I am old, and inclined for 
 peace." 
 
 " Do you give him the certificate? " said his visitor. 
 
 " What is that to you ? He has not asked for it." 
 
 "Has he paid you?" said M. Lemaure, sitting down. 
 
M O R I C Z 159 
 
 since he was not asked to do so. ]\Toricz looked blacker 
 still, lowering his snake-like head. 
 
 " That is between us," he said. " We finished that this 
 morning." 
 
 "Since when he has been useless, perhaps?" No re- 
 sponse. " Has he thanked you ? " said M. Lemaure more 
 gravely. 
 
 " No, nor will," said the great teacher. " His thanks are 
 to be hard ones — yes, I know the kind. I tell you " — his ex- 
 citement rose — " all my life I have not thought of money. 
 How could I think?" 
 
 " I believe it," said the other. " I have heard it always, 
 Moricz." 
 
 Something in the shattered artist's look, for the minute, 
 moved him greatly. He was as sensitive to impressions as 
 his grandson, though this he could not explain. 
 
 " You believe it, eh? " said Moricz. " Who was it taught 
 that boy, at that age, to ofifer money like an insult ? It must 
 surely have been you." 
 
 " That is what my grandson did ? I can but fear you have 
 oflFended him, if he will not take your teaching as a gift 
 when offered." 
 
 " I have not offended him," said Aloricz, his fingers work- 
 ing slowly on the mantle's edge. " Not of intention." His 
 eyes wandered about the room and never reached the vis- 
 itor. " He is bold in speech, that boy ; but boldness is a 
 quality I regard, if it shoot straight to the true mark. My 
 own speech is bitter, yes. I can learn no other now. But 
 there are few — I tell you few — I have not treated worse." 
 
 " He is worth teaching, then? " 
 
 " In that I chose him, he is worth it," said the old mas- 
 ter, a relic of the grand manner hovering about the words. 
 
 In what I gain — but none are ever worth ! " 
 
 " Will you not give him the prize, then ? " said M. Le- 
 maure. "Not if I bid him thank you, and make peace?" 
 
 "Your bidding! " Moricz jeered. " That child's thanks, 
 evoked by you, will be a privilege. There is a thing to work 
 
i6o SUCCESSION 
 
 for, hey ? Ah " — he clutched the mantle — " what it is to 
 be hated by all, and most by those one serves." 
 
 " You have served us both," said M. Lemaure, approach- 
 ing his chair and speaking clearly. " Magnificently, I doubt 
 not. And I esteem your generosity if Antoine does not. 
 Only, beyond this once I will not thank you, for my child 
 is good to teach." 
 
 Moricz, still gazing motionless, said nothing; and M. 
 Lemaure left him and went to Antoine. 
 
 " Monsieur wishes to know Monsieur Edgell's room ? " 
 said Moricz's well-trained servant, coming to his side. 
 " Pardon, Monsieur, this way." 
 
 " The child is not ill ? " said M. Lemaure on the way. 
 
 The man shrugged. "Perhaps frightened a little. My 
 master abused him — it happens sometimes when he is ex- 
 cited. He did not strike Monsieur Edgell, because I 
 watched. This is the door," he added, advancing to intro- 
 duce him. 
 
 ■" I thank you," said M. Lemaure. " If I need you, I 
 will ring." The valet bowed and opened the door of the 
 room. 
 
 Antoine did not look ill at all : he had more colour than 
 usual. As they entered, he was writing, and did not turn 
 at once. 
 
 " Ensbach, there are some notes in there — money," he 
 said, in a manner formal to haughtiness, such as his grand- 
 father had never known him use to a domestic. " Perhaps 
 you found where I left it. You had better go and count it 
 soon, or perhaps he will throw it in the fire." 
 
 " Monsieur is prudent," said the servant, admiring. 
 " Here is Monsieur his grandfather, who requires to see 
 him." 
 
 Then the boy moved, started almost, and stared. It 
 was as though, like Moricz, he was completely put out by 
 the apparition. Ensbach, smiling faintly, left them together. 
 
 " Thou art not often called prudent," said M. Lemaure, 
 in his familiar easy tone, advancing. " Indeed, for my- 
 
M O R I C Z i6i 
 
 self, I should call the proceeding rash. You are sure the 
 servant can be trusted ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," said the boy, with impatience. " He knows 
 what to do." He made no movement to embrace his grand- 
 father, only a stiff little sign to a chair. There were many 
 in the room, which was handsome and comfortably fur- 
 nished, though darker a little than the front rooms, since it 
 gave upon a court. 
 
 " I am quite well," said Antoine, in answer to a ques- 
 tion, for it struck the old man he might be suffering. " I 
 did not think you would come." It then occurred to M. 
 Lemaure — what in the intervening period he had forgotten 
 — that he had his own peace to make as well as Moricz's. 
 
 " I am docile to instruction," he said, as lightly as he 
 could. " I was bidden by your teacher to let you be at 
 first, and now I am bidden to fetch you home." 
 
 " Fetch ? " said Antoine, " Who wrote ? " 
 
 " Moricz himself." At the boy's gesture he put the note 
 into his hand. 
 
 "Psst!" said Antoine to himself, crumpling it slowly. 
 " That is the money. He w^as afraid he would give it back 
 if I stayed. Oh, it is amusing." 
 
 "How do you mean?" said M. Lemaure, completely 
 puzzled by his new manner : cold, mature, stiff — everything 
 that Antoine had never been known to be. 
 
 " I stay till to-morrow," he answered, with indifference, 
 setting the writing things straight mechanically. " A week, 
 do you remember ? He said he wrote a week to you, and I 
 have paid for that." 
 
 " My dear child, you are strange ! " He could not avoid 
 the exclamation. " I think you have been ungracious over 
 this. See, there is no harm in letting Moricz present his 
 teaching, if he wishes. It is probably a compliment." 
 
 " I don't want compliments," said Antoine, adding with 
 impatience: " It is finished — I have arranged it. You will 
 see, he will not say any more." He looked up for the first 
 time, and it seemed to his grandfather that his eves had 
 
i62 SUCCESSION 
 
 changed. Their expression gave him exactly that little 
 shock that an animal's may do, in pain or distress. 
 
 " The wretch hurt thee," he said instantly. " Bebe, what 
 did Moricz say." 
 
 " Nothing," he answered obstinately. " He has not hurt 
 me. I think I hurt him. I — forgot he was old." 
 
 M. Lemaure thought of the old man's words and bitter 
 look. 
 
 " Ah, but thou shouldst be used to old people," he said, 
 in gentle reproof. There was no reply to this. " Have they 
 fed you well ? " he proceeded, watching the thin fingers that 
 were teasing the tray of silver writing implements. 
 
 " Yes, Since Sunday I have had all my meals with him." 
 Antoine did not add that he had practically starved the two 
 preceding days. 
 
 " What do you complain of, then ? " 
 
 " I complain ? Have I complained ? " He laughed, and 
 pushed the tray from him. " Listen," he said. " Moricz is 
 my master, you have said it. I am his pupil, in this house 
 for a week. Bon! For two days I have no lessons. I do 
 not see him even. He talks to me through the servant." 
 Excitement almost conquered his voice. " I cannot prac- 
 tise, or read, or think, because of him. The next day, Sun- 
 day, I go to him — malgre Ensbach — and he is very well, sit- 
 ting there. He will give me my lesson, oh yes. When I 
 play, he is surprised I have not done more for him. I had 
 had the time. . . ." he stopped again. " I let him be 
 surprised, provided he will finish now. I have paid for all 
 the lessons, the days before Sunday as well, and I will have 
 the last one. Papa would not like it," he added, his voice 
 dropping as he turned aside. " He would have said to do 
 that, I believe." 
 
 " You are like your father." The Frenchman made the 
 sudden discovery. " You are English a little, Antoine, in 
 this matter. Money-value is not a stable thing. Its sig- 
 nificance varies greatly. In this case it means nothing, since 
 the man is rich, and his will to be generous proved." 
 
]M O R I C Z 163 
 
 Antoine remained immovable, uncomprehending. His 
 whole soul, plainly, English or not, revolted at being given 
 , what he had learned that week. Moricz's pride, at least, 
 had met its match. 
 
 " It is my money, papa said so," was his final remark, as 
 though that had some bearing. " I am learning his things," 
 he added more gently. " All these last lessons, it has been 
 good." 
 
 M. Lemaure left him finally, and went home to explain, 
 so far as things could be explained, to the disappointed 
 Margot. 
 
 Antoine came home the next day, somewhat later than 
 the hour he had said. He looked better and more natural, 
 though it might have shown to a keen eye as the serenity 
 after storm. He was, in fact, simply childish, as often in 
 weariness, and seemed eager to turn to the new, and put the 
 old problems behind him. 
 
 " Did you thank your professor? " was M. Lemaure's first 
 question, when he turned from his work at the boy's en- 
 trance. 
 
 " Oh yes, I did," he answered seriously. " It is all right. 
 Yesterday — I had not understood. What are you writing? " 
 He flung himself on the manuscripts that lay scattered about 
 the study table. 
 
 " Never mind that for the moment. Bebe ! I am curious." 
 
 "Yes?" said Antoine, his eyes deciphering the score. 
 
 " Did Moricz give you the certificate ? " 
 
 The boy patted his pockets with an absent hand, and 
 finally drew out the much-coveted paper. It w^as an auto- 
 graph testimonial to his proficiency, signed in full by the 
 forcerer's hand. Antoine displayed it with the same al- 
 most infantile seriousness. 
 
 " You see, it is all real here what he says," he observed, 
 his fine fingers underlining the scrawl. " Not mad and 
 stupid. I saw him write it at his table. We talked about it." 
 
 " The quarrel is finished, then." 
 
i64 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Yes, yes ; we are very well together." He frowned, 
 swerving a little from the hand laid upon him. 
 
 " Did he embrace you ? " said M. Lemaure. 
 
 " Yes . . . when I thanked him." He was vague 
 for a second, his hand working on the table-edge. Then he 
 returned to the diploma. " It is six lines," he concluded, 
 " and Rudolf Lemonski's was only two." 
 
 " ]\Iagnificent," said his grandfather, openly amused and 
 secretly gratified. " What does this mean at the end? " 
 
 " Finis," said Antoine. " It means ' la fin ' — because he 
 will not take pupils any more. Perhaps it was rather mad to 
 put that," he admitted lightly. He looked his testimonial 
 over with a kind of dubious complacency, as though it was 
 in part his production. M. Lemaure found him," as fre- 
 quently, very diverting, and grew prepared to tease. 
 
 " Will you keep it ? " requested Antoine, thrusting it at 
 him suddenly. " Chez moi, that little thing will get lost." 
 
 " Chez toi is all in order," said M. Lemaure, glancing at 
 the cook, who had insinuated her cheering presence upon 
 the scene. " This friend of thine can account for every 
 paper there." 
 
 Antoine smiled at Margot, though absently. 
 
 " Please keep it," he insisted. " You will be very kind." 
 
 " As you will," replied his grandfather, " but it was your 
 own adventure." 
 
 " But you like it," said Antoine. " I mean — that will be 
 good? " 
 
 " Oh, absurdity. Take him to lunch, Margot." 
 
 " You have not read it really," said Antoine, snatching 
 at the folded sheet. " It is not very bad writing — look." 
 
 " I have read," said his grandfather, " and am disap- 
 pointed." 
 
 " How disappointed? " 
 
 " It is not nearly good enough." 
 
 " Content him, Monsieur," murmured Margot. " He is 
 tired, pauvre chou, and cannot think." 
 
 " Doubtless thy master feared the full truth would of- 
 
M O R I C Z 165 
 
 fend," said M. Lemaure, offering a hand, for he still would 
 not come near. " That is the worst of certificates." 
 
 " Oh, did he tell you that? " returned the boy, whose eyes 
 had moved to the manuscripts again. 
 
 " Tell me what ? " 
 
 " I mean — that I am to play better than you." 
 
 M. Lemaure struck the papers on the table and made him 
 start. '' I am repaid, Margot," he said. " I retire. No, my 
 little grandson, he did not tell me. I beg you not to repeat 
 such nonsense. I would sooner have the diploma as it 
 stands." 
 
 " I will not tell my uncle," said Antoine hastily ; and then 
 laughed himself with sudden and rapturous mischief, throw- 
 ing back his head. He had re-discovered the easy world, 
 the blessed people whose ways he followed without pain. 
 The room was just as usual, dimmed and worn by the dig- 
 nity of age and use, with nothing to remind him of the 
 white and gold ornament, the soft, hot atmosphere of a 
 great hotel. Margot, brown, beaming and heavy-footed, 
 had nothing at all of Ensbach's smile and gait. His grand- 
 father, old though he might be, was not Moricz, that mas- 
 ter of strange secrets, strange deceptions, and stranger for- 
 get fulness ; and there were several new manuscripts, ac- 
 (|uired, no doubt, by inordinate extravagance in Lucien's 
 absence, to which to devote himself in the evening hours. 
 
 The master of the house observed suddenly after lunch 
 that he wished to be embraced. '' I have had no greeting," 
 lie said, " to-day or yesterday. Moricz has more than I." 
 
 The boy, who was bent over a manuscript in the window, 
 shrank, stared beyond it a moment, and then went to him 
 without a word. Ten minutes later Margot, entering, 
 glanced with her kind squeezed eyes about the room. 
 
 " M. Antoine is not there ? " she said. 
 
 " He is here," said her master. " He is not very well, I 
 think, Margot. We must care for him a little." Never, in 
 
i66 SUCCESSION 
 
 the course of all the boy's miseries and maladies, had she 
 heard him speak in that tone. 
 
 *' Qu'est-ce qu'il y a, cheri ? " said Alargot, bending to him. 
 " Voyons, you alarm monsieur. Look up." 
 
 He was in a paroxysm of perfectly tearless sobbing, both 
 hands gripped upon his grandfather's chair, in a furious 
 effort to control the storm that shook him from head to foot. 
 They had known such crises far back in his youth, but had 
 seen nothing like it for many years. It was certainly alarm- 
 ing to witness, but there was nothing for the family to do 
 but wait — the old man quite cursing himself for so rashly 
 touching the spring of emotion. The calm, genial treatment 
 to which he was accustomed could be, and had ever been,, 
 the only thing. 
 
 " It is as he was as a little thing, when he saw the horse 
 killed in the street," said the woman later, when she had put 
 the boy to bed, and consoled him in her simple fashion. " He 
 was furious with crying first, and turned sick afterwards. 
 Monsieur remembers?" 
 
 " Revoke, yes." He nodded, reflecting in his chair. " He 
 might have seen something disagreeable on the way here, 
 possibly. If so, it is finished, Margot, for he will never tell 
 us. We should never have heard the other horror, baby as 
 he was, if Lucien had not been there." 
 
 Margot thought he looked vexed : brooding at least. She 
 did not in consequence point the moral of the imprudence 
 of dismissing " le petit " to unknown persons and strange 
 cooking for a week. Monsieur must now, after all, feel that 
 for himself. 
 
 " Monsieur Antoine will forget," she said cheerfully. " It 
 is not as if one was a girl, hey? He has so many things." 
 
 " Fritz will come," said M. Lemaure : a clear confession 
 that he felt at sea. 
 
 " It was Monsieur's M. Fritz who went to him that time- 
 when he was ill about the horse," said Margot, who seldom 
 attempted Reuss's name in public. " It was singular, with 
 all his beard, and the noise he makes, and those strange 
 
M O R I C Z 167 
 
 words he uses, to see him take up the little one. . . . 
 But it was always a brave child," Margot finished to her- 
 self, as she withdrew, to resume her sadly interrupted cook- 
 ing. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 HOLIDAYS 
 
 Antoine had satisfied even himself as to the dainty com- 
 pletion of every composition he had studied under Moricz, 
 when, at the least expected moment, Reuss arrived. 
 
 Coming back from a morning visit to the library with 
 his grandfather, he found a bulky form in the largest study 
 chair. Fritz had found the album of press opinions col- 
 lected by Philip, and was shaking over it. He read one out, 
 in stilted French made more absurd by his accent, as the 
 pair entered. 
 
 "Is this he?" he inquired. "This unfamiliar sprig of 
 perfection? " 
 
 " Put it down," said Antoine, seizing the book. " They 
 are all stupid papers that Philippe reads. He finds them on 
 purpose, to be stupid." 
 
 " But it is an admirable series — in order above all. Thy 
 Philip is a wit ; and what devotion to collect them." 
 
 " He meant me to mind," replied Antoine, " and so when 
 I didn't, he stopped. I am glad you have come." Insidious 
 strong fingers slipped round Reuss's neck, and he was 
 diverted from his studies." 
 
 " He is thinner than ever," he grunted, feeling the boy 
 in return. " Say, my most celebrated, thou art ready to come 
 with me at once? Know that we are both promised for a 
 concert in Miinchen ten days hence." 
 
 " That will be all right," said Antoine, looking him over 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 i68 
 
HOLIDAYS 169 
 
 " What arrogance ! You do not ask what I have offered 
 them ? " 
 
 " A great deal for you, and a Httle for me in the middle 
 of that noise.'' 
 
 He laughed at the great man confidently. It was genuine 
 relief to M. Lemaure to see him so happy. Turning aside, 
 he left them tctc-d-tcte deliberately. 
 
 " Impudent," said Reuss. " I have given you also some 
 noise to make, and against my brother-in-law's orchestra, 
 which is not Fauchard's." 
 
 " Bah ! " Antoine grimaced. " It will not be like tJiat. 
 There will be very good and serious (ernst) people." He 
 clasped his hands unconsciously. 
 
 "What do you know of it?" ejaculated Reuss. "That 
 is the first time, Charles, I ever saw him look pious in his 
 life." 
 
 " Perhaps he remembers," said M. Lemaure. 
 
 " Six years ago," said Reuss. " It is not possible. Be- 
 sides, he slept at all our concerts — that is his habit." 
 
 " I will not sleep at this," said Antoine. " Miinchen is a 
 nice hot place. Yes, I remember it." He had paid a visit 
 to Reuss's family there at eight years old — one of his most 
 enchanting memories. 
 
 " Hot it will be, in September," the stout conductor 
 groaned. " Listen now : we leave Paris to-night, no chance 
 to think twice." 
 
 " To-night, yes," assented Antoine, undisturbed. " There 
 is an express by Strasbourg about nine." 
 
 Reuss shook again. " Thou hast not lost that taste then 
 — ^the child it is! Antoine, if you will indulge me so far, I 
 wish to forego trains. We have six days to waste en route, 
 you understand, and I wish to stop everywhere. Your 
 patience will be greatly taxed with me, since we could go in 
 one night. But I am fat, and like leisure." . 
 
 Antoine could barely wait to hear him out. His eyes 
 blazed, and he seized Fritz by the collar. " The auto? — the 
 new one? — oh, may I drive?" 
 
lyo SUCCESSION 
 
 " You may not," roared Reuss. " I make this pkn for 
 the sake of your company solely ; and you prefer mechanism 
 to me." 
 
 " No, no," Antoine reassured him. " It is only — I do 
 know. I can do it very well, if he likes to change." 
 
 " He will doubtless have his moments of exhaustion," 
 said Reuss, with concentrated sarcasm. " We will watch 
 for them behind, hey? — and meanwhile you will talk to me." 
 
 " That one can safely promise," murmured j\I. Lemaure 
 over his letters. 
 
 " To be sure, Charles. You will be left in peace at last. 
 You have found such a rattle exhausting probably. I will 
 take him off at once, then — I had thought of it. And he is 
 ready." Indeed the boy's awakened look said as much. 
 
 " Do not be impatient, children," said ]\1. Lemaure. " You 
 stay to lunch, and talk to me politely afterwards. After 
 three, you may start when you like: the sooner the better, 
 doubtless." 
 
 " It is our holiday, maitre," pleaded Fritz, " and it will 
 soon be over. Now come." He drew Antoine to him, ob- 
 serving that before the start, he wished to know the worst. 
 His questions were penetrating, and his eyes still more so, 
 but Antoine bore it well, from him. 
 
 " Humph," said Fritz. " Well, that is not so bad. I need 
 not fill the car with drugs and stimulants, as I had thought." 
 
 " No, no," said Antoine, frowning. " I want none, with 
 you." 
 
 " And which am I, of the two ? " demanded Fritz, with 
 interest. 
 
 " Not the stimulant, I beg," said the guardian's voice, 
 beyond. " He has had it this season." 
 
 " Hey ? Whom hast thou had ? " 
 
 " Moricz," said Antoine very gently. 
 
 " Never ! The black demon. . . . Charles " — he swung 
 about — "what are you thinking of? You are mad." His 
 vigour was terrific, and M. Lemaure had then and there the 
 last of his qualms. If Fritz was on Lucien's side, he was 
 
HOLIDAYS 171 
 
 certainly out-matched. Behind Antoine's back, his glance 
 crossed his friend's, and he shooki his head slightly. 
 
 " Which way do we go to Bavaria? " said Antoine, study- 
 ing his fingers. 
 
 " One moment," said Reuss. " Art thou couronne ? " 
 
 " Moricz said — be quiet, Bebe — that he had proved him- 
 self worthy of our high traditions, by a pedantic persistence 
 he could only trace to an English origin : and that if he holds 
 the same rate of advance for ten years to come, when he 
 will be of a respectable age to face the world, he sees no 
 reason why we should be ashamed of him." 
 
 " It is not true," said Antoine, whose frown had cleared 
 to relief. " Can't he make up a lot of words, when he talks 
 like that?" 
 
 "Never mind words, Thoii hast the thing? It is im- 
 portant." 
 
 Antoine nodded, and signified his class with a finger. 
 
 " Oho ! but we will flaunt it in Franz Lorbeer's face ! He 
 who wished at the last to replace thee with Lemonski." 
 
 "Has Rudolf played wfth that orchestra?" snapped 
 Antoine. 
 
 " No, liebchen. How, wert thou going to refuse? " Fritz 
 laughed at him, his whole great body shaking. " Give me 
 l^iper, Charles. I must write a line to Franz at once, and 
 Antoine shall help me. Personally," Fritz murmured, " I 
 always suspected that little crab of having forged his testi- 
 monial. Ours is autograph, hey ? Oh, it is colossal ! " 
 
 His triumph was childish, and as loudly expressed. The 
 boy beside him looked under his lashes in M. Lemaure's 
 direction, as though asking leave to smile. The first blaze of 
 Reuss's broad sun almost disconcerted him, accustomed now 
 to the half-lights as he was. But he loved it, to the point 
 of rapture, as was clear to see. His very appearance had 
 changed, and his face wore its natural youthful lines, almost 
 sleepy in their pure contentment. Fritz was the nearest to 
 a spirit of play he had ever known, and his coming chased 
 the clouds of school-time as none other could do. He was 
 
172 SUCCESSION 
 
 far less serious than Reuss over the letter, as an occasional 
 dry suggestion showed. 
 
 " Moqueur, thou art of thy race," said Reuss, pinching 
 him left-handed. " But these things are the weighty ones, 
 be it understood. We practise competitive advertisement, 
 the science of the age. While I and our Herr Philip ad- 
 vertise you, you do well to keep silence." 
 
 So Antoine kept it, not unwillingly ; for he had really 
 too many pressingly agreeable thoughts to talk. 
 
 M. Lemaure chose to make himself so charming that 
 afternoon that it was fully five o'clock before Dr Reuss 
 found himself able to carry his captive away. He simply 
 telephoned to the hotel at intervals to say " an hour longer," 
 and Antoine was rather scandalised — thinking of his prob- 
 able friend, the chauffeur. Even, at the last moment, and 
 on an impulse, Fritz invited M. Lemaure to accompany 
 them. 
 
 " Never," he said, with emphasis. " I am never de trop, 
 of my own seeking." 
 
 Antoine glanced at him. " You might come in the train, 
 for the concert," he observed, with hesitation. 
 
 " There are trains, to be sure," said M. Lemaure. " Fast 
 and slow. But, on making a comparison, I find myself so 
 much better here." 
 
 " You will be quiet, without the violin." Antoine gave 
 the straps of the instrument a deprecating pull, and picked 
 it up. 
 
 " To be sure; life is more peaceful without scales at six 
 o'clock." His grandfather settled back on the cushions. 
 " One has one's cat and one's chimney corner," he mur- 
 mured. " There is all that is left." 
 
 " I will write to you about it," said Antoine suddenly. 
 
 " Ah, mon Dieu, what a privilege ! Keep him to it, Reuss. 
 It is a sight to see him write a letter nowadays. The more 
 he plays, the less he can write or spell. And in French, too, 
 
HOLIDAYS 173 
 
 from Bavaria! — even if I cannot read, I must store it for 
 the curious." 
 
 " I will write well," said Antoine, gazing at his violin, 
 evidently troubled. 
 
 " He will learn soon enough, if the thing does not go," 
 his conductor suggested softly. 
 
 " He shall not learn it ! " cried Antoine, trampling out of 
 the net of teasing phrases. " It is to be good this time. It 
 will be! " 
 
 Nor indeed, seeing him stand at the friend's side, and 
 knowing the patient work he had done, did his grandfather 
 doubt it would be good. 
 
 The six days' summer journey was a fairy tale, so won- 
 derful that for one at least of the companions it hardly bore 
 the telling. 
 
 The smooth run by night to the frontier that inaugurated 
 it was not the least wonderful part. Antoine had never 
 been in such a great car before, with such a dignified driver 
 or such lordly lamps ; and he and Reuss were alone in pos- 
 session, sole company in the darkness. He looked on at the 
 pageantry of their start from the great hotel as if he made 
 no part of it, but withal enormously amused. A crowd of 
 bowing grooms and waiters was an entertaining show to 
 Antoine ; and the fact that Dr Reuss took it gravely only 
 added to the comedy. Reuss, a potentate born, was not 
 averse to show, and demanded ease. Antoine's comments, 
 suggesting a frivolous attitude, provoked from him a lecture 
 on the subject, or rather the opening sentences of one which 
 certainly sounded very grand in German. It was not im- 
 pressive apparently. The audience simply giggled at his 
 best period, which happened to have three verbs at the end 
 of it — and the lecturer thought it unprofitable to pursue. 
 
 " The young and inexperienced know nothing of these 
 things," said he. " Now, what is the meaning of this 
 laughter ? " 
 
 " It is not at you," said the audience, breathless. 
 
174 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Not? Is it likely it should be? What is it then, dear 
 child ? " 
 
 " It is nice to laugh, rather. I think I have not, for a 
 long time." Antoine wiped his eyes. "I am glad," he said 
 unsteadily, " to come away from all that. I do not know 
 why I feel so glad. I suppose I was tired, rather." 
 
 Reuss put a solid arm about him, as though to protect. 
 " Listen," he said, " and let me know the truth. Wouldst 
 thou rather that Lemonski took the solos on Monday week ? 
 It is still very possible, for Franz had been inquiring. A 
 telegram to him from Cologne would do it." 
 
 " No, no," the boy protested eagerly. " I would rather 
 nothing. It is very well, with you. I have practised so 
 much," he added rapidly, " I want to play a little." 
 
 " We will make one big success." The old conductor re- 
 turned his smile, looking into his eyes. " And having that 
 intention," he pursued, with equal decision, " we will think 
 no more about it." 
 
 It was a bargain : they did not. 
 
 Antoine became immersed instead, during that night and 
 the days following, in a new and interesting study — that of 
 a rich man's life. He had had a glimpse of it with Moricz ; 
 but Reuss's idea of the thing was decidedly superior — in 
 fact, bore no comparison. He sowed money about him as 
 he moved through the world, like a large and happy child ; 
 and only the best things, by some special favour of Prov- 
 idence towards him, grew from his seeds. On the very first 
 evening, when the boy turned cold — and he had a way of 
 shivering suddenly — Fritz produced with no apparent effort 
 a mantle lined with fur, made to his charge's measure, as it 
 seemed, by his private staff of fairies. That was an ex- 
 ample of his royal methods, and but a slight foretaste of 
 what was to come. 
 
 They flew from city to city, making by the way elaborate 
 plans with extreme trouble, chiefly for the pleasure of chang- 
 ing them at a moment's notice, if they came upon a more at- 
 tractive stopping-place. For the first time in his career the 
 
HOLIDAYS 175 
 
 boy led the life of luxury, travelling or resting when he 
 would, rising late, eating of the best, driving in state to see 
 the sights — and he would see everything despite his stout 
 friend's protests — being literally spoiled and petted as much 
 as Fritz could spoil him. He took it wonderfully well, show- 
 ing himself perhaps a little quieter than usual, for indeed 
 there was nothing in Reuss's steady sunshine to excite. He 
 was divinely happy, for all his occasional gravity ; and he 
 watched Reuss's proceedings with an untiring curiosity, as 
 though his companion had actually possessed a wizard's 
 wand. 
 
 Several of the places they passed on their travels he had 
 heard about already, as came to light in their planning; for 
 Antoine's European geography had been picked up in con- 
 versation with his grandfather, who had made the best of 
 his opportunities, during the long period of his celebrity ; 
 and once he came actually upon M. Lemaure's tracks, in a 
 small town, where Fritz, having friends to see, passed a 
 night. Simultaneously, as it chanced, he touched the orbit 
 of Rudolf Lemonski, his boy rival, who was also touring in 
 southern Germany, and who had been engaged to play at 
 two local concerts the very morrow of the day of their de- 
 parture. In this town, for a short period, Antoine had to 
 be " careful " and decorous again ; but, beyond that not till 
 he arrived in Munich was he reminded of the ennuis of 
 public life. 
 
 Fritz's family welcomed Antoine open-armed. It was 
 fully six years since his earlier visit, but neither he nor they 
 had forgotten it. He remembered the handsome modern 
 house, at the junction of two pretty avenues, looking so 
 clean and orderly to his French eyes ; the spacious rooms, 
 always " hot " in his memory, for he had arrived at Christ- 
 mas, shivering from a long solitary journey, and the great 
 stove had been his first friend ; the furniture, a revelation 
 of harmonious shape and colour ; and lastly, moving against 
 this background, Reuss's two prophetess sisters in their 
 
176 SUCCESSION 
 
 sweeping gowns, who took the attitudes of pictures with no 
 effort, and made their language beautiful in Antoine's ears, 
 critical as were those young ears, even then. 
 
 The remaining sister, with her husband and two children, 
 had the floor above, and swelled the circle round Fritz's 
 hearth at every opportunity hospitality could invent. 
 Though his official residence was now Berlin, it was still 
 his house in his sisters' eyes, kept faithfully for him on the 
 open-handed lines he had instituted before an imperative 
 command carried him away to the north, to reign in an alien 
 land. The Lorbeers, Antoine found, had not changed 
 seriously either, though Franz was greyer and more distin- 
 guished, and Hans and Lotte larger and more responsible. 
 They had been his playfellows before, older a little in years, 
 but far younger in thought than he. Now the welcome of 
 the whole group was tinged with respect ; for in the very 
 vortex of art which this house represented in the town, the 
 boy whom two capitals had acclaimed could no longer be 
 treated like the charming baby of another land, half play- 
 thing, half curiosity, that he had been at eight years old. 
 
 Hans and Lotte, evidently warned by parental instruction 
 to be on their good behaviour, were carefully formal at 
 first, until Antoine's unconcealed surprise at their de- 
 meanour, and the mistakes in his German, reassured them. 
 Then they leant their arms on the table to either side of him 
 and, round-eyed, demanded news in confidence: Hans of 
 his work and Lotte of his health, pursuing him with close 
 questions in turn with terrible seriousness, until the victim's 
 answers began to grow wild, and he looked for relief to 
 the group of elders, who had dropped talk about the stove 
 to listen, amused. It was in fact a natural entertainment, 
 for Antoine, sympathetic and fluent in response, and most 
 anxious to satisfy, never by any chance gave the German 
 children what they wanted. 
 
 " Useless, Lottchen," said her uncle. " Leave the poor 
 boy alone. His health is perfect and always has been, hein, 
 Antoine? He lives most irregularly, seeks no baths, takes 
 
HOLIDAYS 177, 
 
 no tonic but brandy, of which he is rather fond. He prefers 
 a bounding- car and a rug to sleep in to the best hotel bed, 
 as I have proved, and he eats all the most impossible things 
 by preference." 
 
 Lottchen sighed, her motherly gaze upon the visitor. 
 " Perhaps," she said, " he works too much." 
 
 " I have not practised for six days," said Antoine. 
 " Nearly a week." 
 
 " I should tell you the rehearsal is at ten to-morrow," 
 said Lorbeer, turning. " And the concert on Saturday 
 night. I was explaining to Friedrich, we have had to shift 
 it back." 
 
 " Ten ? " cried Hans, concerned. 
 
 " And a dinner-party to-night ! " cried Lottchen. They 
 gazed at one another, and then in consternation at the visitor 
 between them. 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " said the visitor, tilting his chair. " I will 
 not go to bed." 
 
 " But you must, dear," said Lottchen earnestly. " See " 
 — she put a kind hand on his arm — " when do you get up ? " 
 
 " At six, generally," said Antoine. " Only this week, 
 with your uncle, I have been rather late." 
 
 " I will awaken you at six," said the owl-like Hans. 
 " Then you will have three hours. I sleep just over you, 
 and can tread heavily." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Antoine ; " if you like." 
 
 "If Hans likes!" Fraulein Clara murmured, with a 
 touch to call Lorbeer's attention to his son's face. " The 
 dear little angel — we will allow no stamping. I shall waken 
 him myself, at nine. That will be time enough to tune his 
 strings." She swept the soft skirts across the floor to the 
 boy's side. " I would I could put him to bed now, but we 
 have these wearisome heavyweights coming at six o'clock, 
 who must see him, must they not, Franz? Will Friedrich 
 in all his glory not suffice ? " 
 
 " No, no," said the boy, in haste. " I am only sleepy with 
 the wind, because we came so fast from Niirnberg." He 
 
178 SUCCESSION 
 
 rose to his feet as she still stood at his side, a hand upon 
 his chair, 
 
 " He has grown polite," observed Clara regretfully. " He 
 is taller too. Bertha. He would not need to sit on six vol- 
 umes now, when he shares with Franz in the quartets. 
 Change seats then," she added with a touch, " and go to our 
 professor. He has much to ask you." 
 
 The circle of elders made room for him at once. 
 
 " You remember that occasion ? " said Lorbeer. 
 
 " Oh yes," said Antoine gravely. " I was very afraid of 
 you. I thought, if I made a mistake, you would be so angry. 
 But you and he only laughed when I did." 
 
 "Do they never laugh at home?" said Fraulein Bertha. 
 
 " When I make mistakes? " He lifted his comical brows. 
 
 " He cries, rather," said Reuss. " That is more the order 
 of the day." 
 
 " Not nowadays, I am sure," said Clara. 
 
 " I do not play much ensemble nowadays," said Antoine. 
 
 " Aristocrat," said Reuss, from the farther corner. The 
 boy turned his look that way, and the quick-witted company 
 expected him to make the obvious retort on the autocrat 
 conductor ; but he failed to attack, only smiled faintly, and 
 dropped his eyes. He was standing close to his friend the 
 stove, touching the porcelain dragon-heads with absent 
 fingers. He remembered every grinning mouth, every flower 
 of the wreaths they held, with a child's unfailing memory. 
 They had been, unaware to himself, the symbol and centre 
 of the romance woven about him that long-past Christmas, 
 almost the only season of true childhood he had known. 
 
 Feeling a hand upon his arm, he took a seat, finding him- 
 self placed between Franz Lorbeer and his wife, who had 
 touched him. She was the youngest of the Reuss sisters, 
 and unknown to him, for when he had stayed there before, 
 she was away. While the talented family talked, and he 
 answered now and again as necessity arose, Antoine ex- 
 plored Frau Lorbeer with curious, sidelong glances. She 
 was smaller than her sisters, plump, and delicately made. 
 
HOLIDAYS 
 
 179 
 
 She had pretty hands, which she kept peacefully folded ; 
 but her observant eyes seemed to be everywhere in the room, 
 and Antoine was sure by the way her husband spoke to her 
 that she was clever. A lift of her eyebrows to Franz made 
 him hand her a fan ; a glance at the clock and a nod to her 
 children was sufficient to dismiss them in good order from 
 the room. She said so little that she made Antoine feel 
 rather afraid, and his nervous glances showed it, as he an- 
 swered her few soft questions : he was certain she noticed 
 all his faults, and she did not smile at them. Only one 
 thing reassured him, which was that at one point in the dis- 
 cussion, Fritz laid unobtrusively his great paw in her lap, 
 and she touched it in caress with two little pointed fingers. 
 Fritz caught at the fingers, but before his hand could close 
 even, hers were again folded on her knee. Antoine glanced 
 at her face, but still she did not smile. He thought her, 
 though alarming, extraordinarily attractive. He could not 
 help wondering if she had ever cried, her brow was so 
 serene; yet he vaguely recalled a sad story of her youth, 
 to which his grandfather had alluded. His curiosity grew 
 to such a point that he only began to give his mind to the 
 dialogue, when she spoke. 
 
 " How could I warn you ? " — Lorbeer was contending on 
 the subject of the change of date — " when you never passed 
 two nights in one spot, or let us know where you would be." 
 
 " That was Antoine's fault," said Fritz. " Fortunately, 
 he will suffer chiefly. But I had hoped to have a little leisure 
 first." 
 
 " It is better surely to get it over," said Frau Lorbeer. 
 " Then we shall all be comfortable." 
 
 The company laughed, as at a family joke; her fair face 
 did not change. 
 
 "Will you not come to hear me, Carlotta?" said Fritz. 
 "Or him? I tell you, he is worth an effort." 
 
 " I do not doubt it, since you say so," said his sister. 
 "Shall I come?" 
 
i8o SUCCESSION 
 
 To Antoine's disturbance he found her grey eyes turned 
 on him. 
 
 " No, no," he said. " Not if you have some things at 
 home." 
 
 She looked in mild triumph at Fritz. " I need not, you 
 see," she said. " He knows where my duties are." 
 
 " He may well know," growled Fritz, " with one of them 
 overhead at her scales." 
 
 " Does it tease you? " said Carlotta to her neighbour. 
 
 " No, no," said the boy again, and blushed visibly. The 
 honourable regard the rest paid him he could hardly bear 
 from her, though why, he could not have told. 
 
 " Now that girl is seventeen," Bertha observed, " it is 
 Carlotta's duty to take her out a little. I have told her so 
 countless times." 
 
 " And why ? " said Carlotta. 
 
 " To marry her," said Fritz, at a venture, and the com- 
 pany applauded. Frau Lorbeer just shrugged her shoulders, 
 and her eyes lay on her husband's for a fraction of time. 
 
 " You would not know, Friedrich," he said. " I have had 
 two offers for Lottchen during the last six months. It 
 grows a penalty to have daughters so well trained. Car- 
 lotta bade me discourage both, and I suppose I must look 
 higher." 
 
 " Poor Franz has so little time for matchmaking," said 
 Bertha, neatly copying his tone. 
 
 " And meanwhile," Lorbeer proceeded, " on the kitchen 
 table, in the intervals of cookery, she instructs Hans in the 
 law." 
 
 " And the tradesmen in justice," Clara cried. 
 
 " And alarms us all by her debating skill," said Fritz. 
 
 " I think this little one had better rest," said Carlotta ; 
 and with no delay, a prophetess-sister swept round, and 
 putting a hand on Antoine, drew him with her from the 
 room. He was astonished, but submissive, that being clearly 
 the general attitude to the fair little lady. 
 
 " Madame your sister does not like music," he suggested 
 
HOLIDAYS i8i 
 
 rather shyly to Clara, who showed him the resources of his 
 room, some of which pleased his mechanical mind in their 
 delicate ingenuity. 
 
 '' Carlotta? She knows more of it than anyone of us ex- 
 cept Friedrich," said Clara. " What she does not like is 
 assemblies — crowds. She goes out very little." 
 
 " That is like grandpapa," said Antoine; but on reflection 
 and comparison of the two, he found the peculiarity less 
 explicable in a young and pretty woman, than in M. Le- 
 maure. 
 
 Returning to the family, Clara found them advancing 
 theories as to Antoine's speechlessness, and promptly took 
 a hand. 
 
 " I thought you said he was a chatterbox," said Bertha. 
 " Certainly he used to be. He can hardly be shy, with his 
 training." 
 
 " He is sleepy, poor dear," said the younger sister. 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Lorbeer. " He was very wide 
 awake while he sat here, taking you all in as you talked." 
 
 " He has lost the habit of the family ensemble," Clara 
 suggested, " like the musical. He has lived in the small 
 circle, or tete-a-tete probably." She appealed to Fritz, who 
 nodded, amused. 
 
 " A clever child," Bertha struck in, " spends so much 
 brain on each unit, that the mass at first is sure to disturb 
 it. Remember, to all practical purposes, we are strange to 
 him entirely.'' 
 
 " Friedrich is not strange," said Clara, " but he was more 
 forthcoming to Franz than to Friedrich. Flow do you ac- 
 count for that? " 
 
 '■ Has he grown fearful of you, Fritz?" said Bertha. 
 
 " Far from it," said Dr Reuss. 
 
 " He never even used your name. The Hcrr Doktor, the 
 Herr your brother — most paralysing formality." 
 
 " It must," Bertha concluded, " be timidity. He was con- 
 fused by numbers." 
 
 Fritz, appealed to, waved his hands. 
 
i82 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I should call it rather the instinct of society," Frau 
 Lorbeer said. 
 
 " Good, my dear," he smiled. " But explain it for them, 
 will you not? " 
 
 " Why should not you, when you know him well? " said 
 Carlotta. 
 
 Fritz roused to action at the summons. " I can only 
 demonstrate by opposites, Bertha," he said. " A shy child, 
 of common race, would have fastened upon me, as knowing 
 me intimately, while he knows you not at all. He would 
 have worked by slow degrees from me to others. This, the 
 Lemaure breed, starts the other way. He takes in the whole, 
 and my place in the whole, which is, be it noted, a majestic 
 one." 
 
 There was a feminine exclamation, but Lorbeer nodded 
 gravely. 
 
 " You are right, my friend," he said. " Go on." 
 
 " There is no more to go on to," said Fritz. " He works 
 by pure instinct on the large scale always. He has grasp in 
 everything — was that not your idea, Carlotta? He would 
 have it of Lorbeer's orchestra, if I gave it him to-morrow. 
 You will see the results of his study, most probably, this 
 evening." 
 
 And later the critical sisters admitted that it might be 
 true. 
 
 Antoine awoke next morning singularly seYene, and pre- 
 served the tranquillity all day. There was nothing to dis- 
 turb him indeed. The day was laid out for him in the work 
 he could do best, and attentive indulgence from all filled the 
 intervals. He had slept well, almost to his own surprise, 
 and his brain was very clear and vigorous ; he felt sure of 
 himself, and charmed by his new surroundings, which struck 
 his fancy even more by daylight, mellowed by the sunlight 
 which filtered into every corner of the building through the 
 large clean windows of the flat. It was all, to Antoine, the 
 outcome of a happy idea ; not suspecting that two ladies and 
 
HOLIDAYS 183 
 
 a succession of servants had spent for years minute and 
 constant pains upon it. He imagined that Clara was the 
 inspired inventor, too, because he hked her best, and treated 
 her with care and attention in consequence. 
 
 During the leisurely morning hours, when nobody seemed 
 to wish to hurry him, he discovered that Lorbeer had been 
 deputed to escort him to the hall of rehearsal, whither 
 Reuss had already gone before. Everything was prepared, 
 and Lorbeer had laid aside his occupations for the purpose, 
 it seemed as a matter of course; so that Antoine did not 
 venture to suggest that he could find the way alone. 
 Whether they regarded him more as a baby or a royal per- 
 sonage it was really useless to consider. They were all as 
 agreeable as they were "curious," these German people; 
 and he let things take their course contentedly, 
 
 '" Will you walk? " said Lorbeer quietly, at starting. " It 
 is some w^ay." 
 
 " We have the time? " queried Antoine surprised, 
 
 " Plenty. Reuss takes the symphonies first." 
 
 " Please, then," said the boy. " The sun is so beautiful." 
 
 So Franz took the violin out of his hands, and they walked 
 through the clean decorous streets. It was a brilliant morn- 
 ing of early autumn, and the charming town was looking 
 its best. Munich was full of visitors, returning from the 
 highlands beyond, or stopping for the musical festivals 
 which followed one another, in this or that quarter of the 
 city, almost without cessation. They saw concerts and 
 operas advertised on all hands ; and once Lemonski's name, 
 in truly immense letters, seemed to clamour for remark. 
 
 " He plays in a month's time," said Lorbeer, " but not in 
 our hall." 
 
 " Tiens ! " said Antoine demurely, " You do not conduct 
 at that?" 
 
 Lorbeer glanced at him, and feared his brother-in-law 
 had told tales. 
 
 " Friedrich dislikes Lemonski," he said, smiling slightly. 
 " But when we spoke of it, he was already in Germany. 
 
i84 SUCCESSION 
 
 My sole arm, Antoine, would not have reached as far as 
 Paris, I admit it." 
 
 The boy laughed with good humour. " You like Fritz to 
 take your orchestra ? " he suggested, coming near. 
 
 " How should I not," said Franz, " when half of them 
 once were his ? " 
 
 Antoine walked on for two minutes before he said, " I do 
 like to be here," looking round the gay little park they were 
 traversing, with a concentrated delight that matched the 
 tremble in his tone. " It is all such a happy place," he said, 
 with a gesture. " All the grass is so green. Everyone has 
 happy faces." 
 
 " It is an exhilarating air," said Franz still soberly, though 
 his eyes shone with pride in his city. " You would feel the 
 change from Paris, doubtless. It is but a little distance, 
 that way, to the mountains." 
 
 " Do not ! " the boy cried sharply, " or I must go." He 
 paused and gathered himself together. " I remember the 
 snow mountains in Savoie," he said. " I went there once 
 with grandpapa, to get well." 
 
 " Ha ! " said Lorbeer, glancing at him, as though in 
 recollection. " My wife says you should go there again." 
 
 " She said so ? But I cannot. I mean, I have not time." 
 
 " My wife's advice," said the professor, as though urged 
 by an unusual impulse to speak, " is, if I may so express 
 myself, independent of circumstances. It is the ideal, al- 
 ways. She will not make the best of what must be." 
 
 " I thought she was like that," said Antoine reflectively. 
 " That is the Residence, I think, down there." 
 
 Lorbeer returned to his role of cicerone ; but he had lit- 
 tle to do, for Antoine's eight-year-old impressions had been 
 deep, and his memory for buildings and bridges, as much 
 as for people, was surprising. 
 
 In the artist's room behind the concert hall, a telegram 
 lay upon the table. 
 
 " It is Monsieur Edgell?" said the hall functionary, and 
 handed it. It was merely a short message — " Best luck in 
 
HOLIDAYS i8s 
 
 Germany " — from his Scotch friends the Earraids at Baden, 
 who had doubtless seen the papers ; but in Antoine's present 
 mood it was an added crumb of joy. His eyes were bril- 
 liant, and he smiled at Lorbeer unconsciously as he took 
 the violin from his hands. He looked the instrument over 
 closely once, fixed his bow, and walked up the little stair- 
 way, downi W'hich floated unspeakable sounds of instrument 
 language, and so out upon the stage. 
 
 He stood there by Reuss, who welcomed him with a 
 touch, seeming, amid the immense empty vistas, very small 
 indeed. He had his ordinary morning clothes of English 
 grey tweed, and carried himself with the straightness of an 
 English schoolboy on his good behaviour. He was a sur- 
 prise to the majority of the orchestra, who had been expect- 
 ing his appearance with curiosity. He turned once half 
 round to them, for there was a little applause, and gave them 
 his serious little nod, his dark eyes taking in the manner of 
 their placing in one practised sweep. Then he glanced up 
 at Fritz, and took his own place fronting forward again. 
 But that single look backward had been enough for the 
 curious ; for it was the keen young face and beautiful hands 
 they knew already by his photographs. 
 
 One of his solos was unaccompanied, the other orches- 
 trally supported ; but he gathered by the general sobriety, 
 the military order, and the idleness of certain members of 
 the orchestra, that he was to go through his concerto first, 
 though that itself was a mere form. Reuss, who had already 
 rehearsed two symphonies, stood Jove-like and impassive, 
 looking down upon his world. Nothing tired him, as they 
 knew ; they also knew by his eye that they had got to 
 please him, and the silence before the opening of the move- 
 ment was much like a pause for prayer. 
 
 Then once more Antoine's eyes and his conductor's met, 
 and Reuss raised the baton with a single tap. The prelude 
 began, dawning like an embodied spirit'on the stillness. 
 
 The whole went with the most elastic ease, and the morn- 
 ing peace of Antoine's spirits were very apparent while he 
 
i86 SUCCESSION 
 
 played. To have Reuss above him was in itself security, 
 not the constant exasperation of the nerves he found in the 
 genial M. Fauchard. Further, as he soon found, no more 
 than that single royal presence was needed. The accom- 
 paniment was like wax in Reuss's hands, he made them him- 
 self, and gathered his child Antoine into the whole without 
 difficulty. There seemed, at the end of all, really nothing 
 to say. Fritz gave his single short nod implying satisfaction, 
 the orchestra relaxed and fell into discussion, low-toned. 
 The soloist stood transfixed, absently reviewing the tasteful 
 decorations of the hall, 
 
 " That will suffice, sir? " his conductor queried in French. 
 The boy, starting round, caught the twinkle under his heavy 
 brows. Throwing off his dream, he leapt upon the step of 
 the rostrum. 
 
 " It is beautiful," he gasped. " But I am afraid of you 
 up there." 
 
 " And what wouldst thou say, if thou wert not afraid, 
 thou least audacious of my acc|uaintance ? " 
 
 " I would say thank you." 
 
 " It is said. Thou art not tired ? " The question was very 
 low indeed. 
 
 " I think I never should be here. Everything is easy." 
 He threw a look round at the high roof of the hall. 
 
 " So it seemed, truly," said Reuss, raised his head again, 
 and straightened his broad shoulders. " You would per- 
 haps like to take the Romance," he observed, in formal 
 tones and with a plural pronoun. 
 
 " If one has time," said the soloist demurely. 
 
 ** We have the time," said Reuss, glancing at his watch, 
 " unless these ladies have to go." He turned to the harpists, 
 hitherto unoccupied, and sitting like two of the serene 
 statues on the classical museums of Munich. They smiled 
 simultaneously in graceful dissent ; and the orchestra, rein- 
 forced by them, gathered to close attention. 
 
 This item, contrasted completely as it was with the former 
 in style, went with almost identical ease, and only one 
 
HOLIDAYS 187 
 
 interruption. M. Lemaure's Romance, with its peculiar 
 rhythms, and constant changes of tempo, was as easy to his 
 grandson as breathing. It had been his earliest programme 
 piece of any note, and might almost hav>e been written for 
 him, so singularly did it fit the ardour of his youthful style. 
 To Reuss, who had heard him play it first at nine years old, 
 his rendering to-day seemed well-nigh perfect in its natural 
 grace, and the finely controlled force behind that was 
 Moricz's dowry. There was a considerable solo towards the 
 end. charmingly leisurely and lyrical, in which none but the 
 expert could have detected the difficult tricks of a cunning 
 master wdio wrote for his own instrument. To-day the per- 
 former, recognising the limit of time at their disposal, had 
 no hesitation in shortening this section. Skipping the more 
 effective passages, he passed straight, with a deprecating 
 little bend of the head, to the arpeggios that heralded the 
 orchestral chord. 
 
 There was a sound behind him as he did so, just per- 
 ceptible, like many mouths shutting on a sigh. Fritz the 
 autocrat struck the desk, and flung the musical fabric from 
 him, with a movement of his great chest. A cloak of silence 
 descended instantly. 
 
 " Pardon," said Antoine audibly in the pause. 
 
 " It is pardon," said Reuss, his eyes on his people. " I 
 must trouble you to go back, Alonsieur." His brows were 
 still bent low, and not a gleam came through. 
 
 " Yes. How many bars? " 
 
 " Before the opening of the solo, if you will be so good. 
 The number of bars," said Reuss, " we leave to you." 
 
 Antoine followed his steady gaze to the faces of the first 
 violins. 
 
 " I shall play it all? " he said graciously, half to them. 
 
 " So we might waste less time," replied the leader, a sour- 
 faced, lanky Pole ; and those behind him laughed beneath 
 their hands. 
 
 " I am sorry ; I did not know," Antoine addressed the 
 conductor in French, blushing slightly. 
 
i88 SUCCESSION 
 
 " We are obliged, nevertheless, for your consideration," 
 said Reuss. " Now, gentlemen." 
 
 They went back to the point indicated, and Antoine, turn- 
 ing half about, with the same gracious manner, and the 
 same little flush beneath his downcast eyes, played the show 
 passage in its entirety for the private benefit of Lorbeer's 
 orchestra. The effect it made was disdainfully easy, as far 
 as possible from what his looks implied ; but when he gave 
 the theme away to the accompanying instruments, with a 
 characteristic and dramatic little toss of his wrist, the sour- 
 faced leader found time to raise his brows at his neighbour, 
 who shut his mouth in response and nodded. 
 
 At the close of all, Reuss came down from his Olympian 
 heights, and presented Antoine to a few chosen members of 
 his company. Antoine gave them each a careful remark, 
 and took their compliments with gravity. He was perfectly 
 demure till they had got rid of the last gentleman on the 
 steps of the exit, and had seen him turn the corner as they 
 crossed the street. Then he shrugged the effects off him 
 vigorously, and shook himself. 
 
 "Is everybody good here?" he cried, stopping short in 
 the very centre of the roadway. The only result of the 
 pathetic appeal was that he was seized forcibly by either 
 shoulder, shot forward, and then conveyed between Lor- 
 beer and Fritz, like a prisoner in disgrace, to the farther 
 pavement. 
 
 " You do not break out till to-morrow is past," one of his 
 gaolers then replied. " And when you do, Antoine, I should 
 prefer it not to be under the wheels of a beer-dray." 
 
 Antoine glanced behind him. " They would have walked 
 round me," he observed on the horses whose powerful 
 hoofs he had just escaped. " They were very good as well: 
 I saw their careful eyes." He looked up at his gaoler, in 
 mischievous apology. 
 
 " I will have none of thy street-urchin pranks here," 
 growled Reuss. " How thou hast survived so many years 
 in Paris is what I wonder." 
 
HOLIDAYS 189 
 
 " I was very nearly dead once," said Antoine, turning 
 over his memories, " in the Place de Rcnnes. I did not tell 
 grandpapa. It is a difficult place sometimes, with all those 
 streets." 
 
 " How old were you ? " said Lorbeer. 
 
 " Oh, about eight," said Antoine carelessly. " I did not 
 remember the tramway, that was all. I had thought of all 
 the other things." 
 
 Dr Reuss shrugged, and took him home in a taxicab, to 
 avoid further casualties. 
 
 Great days, so called, are much like others when they 
 arrive. Saturday arrived, shone gloriously like the preced- 
 ing morning, and passed unimpeded into evening and night. 
 The earnest, impressionable public of Munich was stirred 
 to its depths by the concert, the cheap seats especially were 
 notable for their intense silent sympathy, and their rapture 
 of applause: the two crowned heads present were — Reuss 
 was assured of it — most pleasurably affected; but for An- 
 toine, though he behaved very nicely, and took immense 
 pains in Beethoven and in Bach for the sake of the great 
 man whose guest and protege he was — the excitement of 
 the day was already past. And if any wish to know how 
 this could happen on an occasion, obviously portentous, it 
 is necessary to explain that the unfortunate anti-climax was 
 the fault of Frau Carlotta Lorbeer; and the mistake lay 
 in her proposing calmly, at an early hour of Saturday morn- 
 ing, by the mouth of Hans, that Antoine should drive her 
 daughter and herself into the country, in Franz's little open 
 car. 
 
 " Is your mother mad ? " inquired Reuss of the messenger 
 Hans, Antoine having already projected himself like a 
 rocket up the stairs. 
 
 " No, uncle," said Hans. " She is just as usual. Yester- 
 day," he added, " she had a headache." 
 
 " She took perhaps some imprudent remedy," said Fritz. 
 " Something exciting." 
 
190 SUCCESSION 
 
 Hans shook his head. " She told us," he explained, " that 
 she had been reading too much, and deserved it. My 
 mother," he added, " is very reasonable." 
 
 " She is not," explained his uncle, " in this instance. It 
 is folly. Are you going? " 
 
 " No," said Hans rather sadly. " Mother reminds me 
 that I have to see the Schuhmachers to-day. The driver is 
 to accompany them, my father says." 
 
 "Ha!" said Fritz. "She v^^ould have dispensed with 
 that, would she ? " 
 
 " She says," says Hans, in a tone discreetly lowered, 
 though there was no necessity, " that unless Antoine could 
 really drive, he would not say so. My father seemed to have 
 more doubt." 
 
 " I am fervently of your father's opinion." Fritz put his 
 hands behind him and gazed at his nephew, who gazed 
 back. " Does your mother recollect," he said, " that we 
 have engaged to present our guest complete this evening at 
 the Tonhalle? I mean, not a part of him only ? " 
 
 " You are jesting, uncle," said Hans, and smiled. 
 
 "I am not. She may have forgotten it is the concert 
 day." 
 
 " She has not, I think," said Hans, having paused. " She 
 intends my sister to go to-night, for she has been washing 
 her hair." 
 
 " That is good evidence," admitted Fritz. " You will go 
 far in the law, Hans. I must ask you to do me a favour." 
 
 " Yes, uncle," said Hans. 
 
 " Will you ask your mother, if quite convenient, to come 
 down and speak to me while Lotte's hair is drying." 
 
 Hans retreated, and was replaced after an inten'al by 
 Carlotta, not at all demented of aspect, and dressed already 
 for the outing. The long veil of silvery gauze wound about 
 her head and shoulders, suited her fair face, as a cloud 
 might suit the moon. She even showed the pale light of a 
 smile as she came to her brother. 
 
HOLIDAYS 191 
 
 "Have you made your will, my love?" said Fritz, en- 
 deavouring to be stern. 
 
 " He is so happy," said Carlotta, " the little darling. It 
 is all he wants in life, Friedrich, to be both free and trusted." 
 
 " And what of Franz and myself," said Fritz, stroking 
 his beard. " Have we not earned your ladyship's trust as 
 well?" 
 
 " Franz is less miserable now," said Carlotta, and smiled 
 completely. " Dear Fritz, I regard you also, if you would 
 believe it. See, you only mean the boy is careless — do you 
 not? — and nervous. They are merely words. Shift the 
 connection a little, and they have no sense. Fle is not 
 nervous of a difficult corner, or careless with women behind 
 him. Transferred to the road, in fact, they have no mean- 
 ing." 
 
 " I trust they will not," said Fritz, biting a broad finger. 
 His defences were collapsing pitiably as usual, and his argu- 
 ments grew wild. " Is Franz," he inquired, " to marry 
 again? I only want directions." 
 
 " My directions are," said Carlotta, " that Franz lunch 
 with you. Interest him — you can — and he will not think of 
 me so often." 
 
 " Thank you," said Fritz. " Hans is already disposed of, 
 eh? I imagined it, by his flattened expression. Say, what 
 of Lottchen's future, if her nose is broken?" 
 
 " It is partly for Lottchen that I do it," said his sister 
 undismayed. " If she had shown the least alarm, I should 
 have left the plan and said no more. But she trusts my 
 judgment, as I trust his — and she is much interested in the 
 picnic basket." 
 
 " He will be also," said Fritz. " Where do you go? " 
 
 Carlotta told him, name by name, as she fastened her 
 long gloves. He could not but approve her taste: though 
 the choice of beautiful roads round Munich is paralysing 
 to any but the strong of will. 
 
 " We shall all return better for it," said Carlotta, " you 
 will see." 
 
192 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Antoine's back," began Fritz and stopped. " I beg your 
 pardon, my darling. Yes, yes, two hours at midday will be 
 sufficient. No, I do not value kisses when my will is scouted 
 in this fashion — go." 
 
 Carlotta went; and the party started at the hour first 
 arranged ; with Lottchen looking charming, her clean, glossy 
 braids veiled in blue, as her mother's were in grey, and an 
 admirably packed basket, on which her eyes were anxiously 
 fixed. They followed a twisting way among the wooded 
 hills, and touched at a lake-side town for two hours at mid- 
 day; and the official driver was not used, except to direct 
 the course now and then when the unofficial driver was in 
 doubt. It is true he lectured a little at the start, and helped 
 Antoine with a phrase at the worst turnings, but on the 
 whole, he had a very pleasant country drive, and smoked — 
 since Antoine suggested it — a number of cigarettes. He 
 offered relief coming back, once, thinking the boy looked 
 white, but Antoine intended to finish, and did. 
 
 They were home by four o'clock, and Frau Lorbeer ob- 
 served, at the door of her brother's flat, that she had better 
 say good-night. 
 
 " Mother is not coming to the concert," said Miss Lotte 
 in unnecessary elucidation. 
 
 Antoine took Carlotta's gloved hand rather doubtfully, 
 and then found it easier, since she was not a tall prophetess 
 like her sisters, to put his arms round her neck. Lottchen, 
 who had never seen Hans hug her mother, was a little 
 amazed at his daring. 
 
 " The first day," she observed on the staircase, " he kissed 
 your hand." 
 
 " He was probably taught that," said Frau Lorbeer, " in 
 France. It is a habit I don't care for, under twenty years." 
 
 "Why did you thank him, motherling?" said Lottchen, 
 taking her arm. 
 
 "Why not?" said Frau Lorbeer. "He drove us very 
 well. Why did he thank me, is the question you should ask." 
 
HOLIDAYS 193 
 
 "He enjoyed our expedition," said the girl demurely. 
 " He said so five times in his funny way. It is rare," she 
 added, as they reached the door, " to see the mountains so 
 clear in September as they were this afternoon." 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE PENALTY 
 
 " I WILL not have it," said Dr Friedrich Anton Reuss, strik- 
 ing the breakfast-table with his fist. " Tell them Monsieur 
 Edgell is in bed, and cannot be disturbed. Sunday, too," he 
 growled. " It is intolerable. Who is the fellow ? " 
 
 " For a newspaper, mein Herr," said the puzzled servant. 
 
 " Tell him to go to the devil — and let other people go to 
 church." 
 
 " He asked for Monsieur Edgell, sir. I think Adele went 
 to see." 
 
 " A plague on Adele," growled Reuss, and turned in his 
 sisters' direction. Clara flew with all the haste of which 
 she was capable. It was a little time before she returned. 
 
 " Too late," she informed her brother, pausing by him. 
 " He was half up, and quite resigned. I tried to send him 
 back to bed again, for he is not half rested." 
 
 "How? A bad night?" 
 
 " Wretched, evidently. What is to be done. He sent a 
 message he would see the man, and clearly intends to do 
 so." 
 
 " Ugh ! " said Reuss. " I fear your famed Adele is a 
 fool." He heaved himself up and went to the hall. A red- 
 faced, pompous-looking man stood there, who bowed low 
 at the sight of him. 
 
 " A thousand pardons," he said, adding all Reuss's titles 
 in a string. 
 
 " Who are you ? " said Fritz. 
 194 
 
THE PENALTY 195 
 
 He was, it appeared, the Kritischer Kunstblatt (or some- 
 thing of the sort). 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 He wanted M. Antoine Edgell — a personal interview. He 
 would not keep him five minutes. He was horrified at the 
 idea of disturbing the honoured etcetera family. 
 
 It was M. Antoine Edgell he should be horrified at dis- 
 turbing. He, Reuss, would tell the Kunstblatt all there was 
 to know about that gentleman, 
 
 " Admirable." The stranger beamed and bowed. With 
 then five minutes from the young man himself, he would be 
 more than satisfied. 
 
 '' I should be less than satisfied," roared Reuss. " The 
 child is tired, and cannot see you." 
 
 " Yet I have his message," said the Kunstblatt sweetly. 
 
 " I withdraw it," said Reuss. " He does as I tell him." 
 
 The Kunstblatt extended a scrap of paper. " Dans 10 
 minutes, faites attendre. A. Edgell." It was scrawled quite 
 clearly. Reuss frowned at it a second. " Sit down," he said 
 briefly; and leaving the smiling Kunstblatt on a chair, he 
 went to Antoine's room. 
 
 " See, my love," he said, with decision. " This is gro- 
 tesque. Give me a word to kick him out. My boots are 
 very big." 
 
 " If he will wait a little," murmured Antoine. He was 
 sitting still half clad on the edge of his bed, shivering and 
 looking his very worst. The faint blue circles of a sleepless 
 night were marked round his eyes, as he turned them to 
 Reuss. His friend came to his side. 
 
 "What is this?" he demanded. "When did this oc- 
 cur?" 
 
 " Early in the morning — it does sometimes. Fritz, can 
 he come here? I do not want to walk just yet — it is my 
 head." 
 
 " You shall not move," swore Reuss. " Get back to bed 
 immediately." 
 
 " No! " said Antoine. " I am very well here, if you give 
 
196 SUCCESSION 
 
 me my coat. It is only for five minutes, and I always say 
 the same things. You can tell him, this is how we do in 
 France." He made an effort to smile. 
 
 " You think I shall show you to a reporter like this ? " 
 
 "Does it look wrong? It will be better soon. I said 
 ten minutes." Still sitting, he extracted Reuss's great gold 
 watch. It was as though his languid fingers could hardly 
 wield it. As he looked at the face of it, Fritz studied his. 
 
 " Sick, is it? " he said. Antoine nodded and shrugged. 
 
 " It comes that way," he said, as he put the watch away. 
 " But he cannot see inside me, so it will not matter." He 
 rested his brow upon his hands. 
 
 " I think you need a lesson," said Reuss, caressing his 
 beard, " as well as he. And I think I shall give it to both, 
 Sunday morning or not. Keep very still, my dear." With 
 strength there was no resisting, he pinioned both arms, and 
 unfastened and drew off his clothes, without letting him 
 make one unnecessary movement. It was all so neatly, 
 quickly and powerfully done, on an almost helpless subject, 
 that it would have been comic to a spectator — much like 
 using an engine to drive in a nail. Lastly, Reuss lifted him 
 completely up in his arms, kicked the bed-coverings aside, 
 and laid him down with delicate precision, as though he had 
 been made of wax. Then he seized the down quilt, and 
 enveloped him from chin to feet. " That is my good child," 
 he said, putting one big hand across his eyes. " Shut them 
 up, and when I have slain that fat brigand below, I will 
 return." 
 
 " Come," Antoine murmured. " Not she." 
 
 " You are not to go, Clara," said Fritz, looking into the 
 breakfast-room. 
 
 "Why?" she demanded. 
 
 " Because he cannot be polite for an hour or two. He is 
 sick and wretched. Go to church all, and leave us. I have 
 business and he shall sleep." 
 
 Then he went to the Kunstblatt. 
 
 " One of Monsieur Edgell's peculiarities," he said, " is 
 
THE PENALTY 197 
 
 an amiability which is commonly and widely abused. Will 
 you take a note of that ? He is also a devout Catholic, and 
 that Church forbids a Sunday interview." 
 
 The Kunstblatt gasped, "■ I had his word " 
 
 " He had forgotten the day when he sent it ; being awak- 
 ened rather suddenly out of sleep he was much in need of." 
 
 " I regret " 
 
 " Well," said Reuss, cheerfully rude. " Do a little regret- 
 ting. It will hurt nobody." 
 
 " The honourable Doctor's character is known," said the 
 man, smiling. 
 
 " Fortunately," said Reuss. " And his will be unknown 
 till to-morrow, which is your misfortune." 
 
 " You have known him long? " the Kunstblatt insinuated. 
 
 " Since he was eight. He is now just fifteen. A trifle 
 of arithmetic will give you the number." 
 
 " Seven years," noted the Kunstblatt gravely. " He is 
 of humble origin, we hear," 
 
 " An origin to speak of humbly," snapped Reuss. 
 *' Charles Lemaure, whose work he played last night, is his 
 mother's father; and Lemaure was Jacob's favourite pupil, 
 and has been decorated by his compatriots, and holds two 
 foreign doctorates and the Imperial order of merit. Possi- 
 bly it was not in your time that he was famous in Berlin." 
 
 " Your pardon, sir." The man was busy scribbling. 
 "Anton is your godson?" 
 
 " No," said Reuss. " His name is not Anton either, but 
 Antoine, and his family name is English. He came out in 
 England." 
 
 " The same season, I believe, as Lemonski. How does 
 he stand, in his honour's opinion, with regard to Lemonski? " 
 
 " Will you give it as my opinion," said Reuss, " or your 
 own ? " 
 
 " I can conceal the authority," said the Kunstblatt. 
 
 " Be sure you do, then. How he stands to Lemonski is 
 head and shoulders above him. For people of taste, there 
 is no second opinion." 
 
198 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Lemonski was trained by Moricz, I believe." 
 
 " This gentleman has also passed Moricz, and holds the 
 first-class testimonial." A close eye could have detected 
 Fritz's evil triumph in this announcement. 
 
 " Ah — er — I was misinformed. Then their schools are 
 similar — their style?" 
 
 " I leave it to the critics to judge," said Reuss. " They 
 like quarrelling over such things. Now — will that do ? " 
 
 " Pardon. The noble Doctor mentioned his character — 
 his tastes." 
 
 " His tastes are those of any clever schoolboy ; and his 
 manners, as you have seen, very good. A German would 
 have sent you to the devil, as I did." Reuss himself rep- 
 resented his art in a strong paper, and knew that he was 
 safe. 
 
 " His health?" ventured the Kunstblatt. 
 
 " His health is not rude, but sufficient." Fritz looked at 
 the door. 
 
 " He is a wit, they say," said the Kunstblatt. " If the 
 Doctor would give us a ' mot.' " 
 
 " Ah — no," said Reuss, taken off his guard. " Nothing 
 he says bears translating or repeating." 
 
 " The noble Doctor is devoted to him," said the Kunst- 
 blatt serenely. 
 
 "And what if I am?" growled Reuss. " It is no affair^ 
 of yours, or your paper's." 
 
 " Pardon, mein Herr. We are infinitely obliged for your 
 unequalled graciousness. You said Monsieur Edgell's char- ? 
 acter was unfortunately unknown to us. Why unfortu- 
 nately?" 
 
 " I leave you to discover, if you can," said Reuss crossly. 
 " I have finished." 
 
 " They say he cannot live," said the Kunstblatt, his eyes 
 not quitting his notes. The great Reuss was perfectly 
 silent and stolid, his hands behind him. The man glanced 
 at him once, and rose. " Pardon," said he once more. " A 
 
THE PENALTY 199 
 
 thousand thanks, Excellency. Eleven o'clock to-morrow? 
 Good." And he fumbled his way out, 
 
 Reuss, after standing like a statue for five minutes, went 
 back to his charge. He stood beside him a moment or two, 
 watching statue-like again, before he spoke. Then, see- 
 ing the boy's eyes open : 
 
 " Eleven to-morrow," he said quietly. 
 
 " Yes. Did you say I was sorry ? " 
 
 " No," said Fritz. 
 
 " I ought to have told you." Antoine moved restlessly. 
 " Fritz, I had better go home, hein?" he said, 
 
 " As you will." Fritz bent lower, and looked with new 
 attention. " Art thou warmer now, a little ? " 
 
 " A little, yes. This thing is very warm." 
 
 " Thou canst not go to sleep ? " 
 
 " No. But go up to Herr Lorbeer, and do your things." 
 He extended a hand, the touch of it chill in spite of the 
 warm coverings, 
 
 " How," said Fritz, warming the hand between two 
 cushioned paws, " didst thou feel at five this morning? " 
 
 " How? I don't know. It is all stupid — a dead feeling. 
 I do not mind anything when I am like that." 
 
 " Did you know it was coming before you went to bed? " 
 
 " When those people went — I was rather tired." He 
 licked his stiff lips, and turned his eyes sidelong, as if 
 pinioned. "It is a pity, hein?" he said, 
 
 " It is piteous," said Reuss. " See, we are friends, my 
 little one. Would you rather I left you, or stayed ? No one 
 else is at home." 
 
 " I had rather be alone. I know just how it will be." 
 
 "When shall I come back, then?" 
 
 " In an hour. I should like you in an hour." The side- 
 long eyes were on him. 
 
 " There is nothing you want? A little brandy? " 
 
 " Not while I am so sick." 
 
200 SUCCESSION 
 
 Fritz had turned to the door in despair, when he again 
 heard his name. 
 
 "You spoke, darling?" 
 
 " Yes. Some water — something to drink." 
 
 " You shall have it. Wait a few instants." His sisters 
 were out, and the blowsy Adele alone upon the scene. So 
 he went up to the Lorbeer kitchen, and applied to the house- 
 wife he knew he should find in charge. 
 
 " Shall I send Lottchen?" asked his sister, whose atten- 
 tion was divided between the clock, and a seething pan upon 
 the stove. 
 
 " No. He will have nobody, and asks nothing but this." 
 
 Not more than five minutes after he had left Antoine's 
 room, he returned to it with a Venetian glass of iced min- 
 eral water. But though he used it instantly, it was not for 
 the original purpose, for the boy had fainted. 
 
 It was a prolonged swoon, utterly stupefying to Reuss. 
 He telephoned for help to the floor above, without a mo- 
 ment's delay, but Frau Lorbeer, who left her cooking reck- 
 lessly to spoil, and flew down to his assistance, could do 
 nothing either for a long period. She drove Fritz out, and 
 laid the boy in a hot bath, using every effort known to her 
 wisdom for restoring circulation, until the doctor came. 
 When at last one arrived, Antoine had at least partially re- 
 covered his faculties. 
 
 Dr Franck came to Reuss, where he sat with his head on 
 his hand in the study. This doctor was both a musician 
 and an acquaintance, and Fritz's look distressed him. 
 
 " It is the little virtuoso? " he said at once, when he had 
 asked the patient's name. " I had guessed it. Do not be 
 too anxious, sir. There is no reason, I hope, for such 
 alarming symptoms to recur. He was much over-tired last 
 night ? " 
 
 " I suppose so. He seemed happy, and did everything 
 easily to all appearance." 
 
THE PENALTY 201 
 
 " Doubtless ; indeed, I was there. Do you know how the 
 crisis occurred? He could not speak just now." 
 
 Reuss told what he knew. The doctor listened closely. 
 
 " He has had the weakness for some time, then. Who is 
 his doctor? " 
 
 Reuss gave the names of two in Paris. Franck bowed, 
 for both were known. " I will wire for information to 
 Savigny," he said. " I have his address, for I take his 
 review. Monsieur Antoine has nothing else before him 
 here — public work, I mean?" 
 
 " No. We hoped to keep him a week, to rest him." 
 
 " You anticipated the possibility of ill effects, then ? " 
 
 " One must anticipate all, knowing him delicate. It is 
 impossible to be too careful," said Reuss. 
 
 " Humph," said the doctor, whose private opinion was 
 that somebody had been grossly careless. He considered 
 a moment. " You are in charge, Herr Reuss ? You can act 
 for the guardians absolutely, about the boy? Profession- 
 ally and privately — that is good. What about the press?" 
 
 " I must beg you to be careful. Nothing must get about : 
 it would damage him. He has appointments with two papers 
 for to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Humph. Change to the evening and he might do it. 
 It is a question of his nerve, chiefly. Are you writing to 
 his home ? " 
 
 " I have written — and telegraphed — ^triumph." 
 
 The doctor paused. " Well, leave it so. I take it on 
 myself to restore him, to many triumphs yet, I hope. Does 
 Savigny know his people?" 
 
 " They are old friends." 
 
 " Excellent." Franck glanced at his watch. " Will you 
 have me to lunch? — I thank you," And he turned back 
 again to the boy's room. 
 
 Antoine was lying not on the bed, for he had managed to 
 struggle out before he dropped, but on the low couch under 
 the window, supported by Frau Lorbeer's strong, kind arm. 
 His colour had come back a trifle, and his brow was knit 
 
202 SUCCESSION 
 
 under the hair still wet with its drenching. The room was 
 full of smoke from a wood fire hastily lighted, and a widely 
 opened window. A faint cheering clatter and bustle of holi- 
 day arose from the street beneath. 
 
 " He is better," said Carlotta, lifting her clear eyes. " He 
 has spoken to me." 
 
 " Good," said the doctor. " Perhaps he will speak to me 
 as well. No hurry at all. Does he understand German ? " 
 
 Antoine answered for himself. 
 
 " Easily, I mean, of course. Then I shall talk it, for my 
 French would put your nerves on edge." The doctor laid 
 two fingers on his wrist and waited. " Do you remember 
 what happened?" he said. "Yes? In the night for in- 
 stance? Did you sleep soon? No? Did you dream? 
 Good dreams ? " 
 
 Here the simple answers would not serve, and the patient 
 strove to explain. The dreams were all good at first, ow- 
 ing to his happiness and the mountains he had seen. Then 
 one " horrible " dream at dawn — great anguish of mind — 
 Franck judged from his expression — and " his heart was 
 wrong." 
 
 "That is your theory, is it?" The doctor studied the 
 lines of his face, and wished he would lift his eyes ; but he 
 seemed too languid. He waited a little, to give him a rest. 
 Articulation and comprehension were evidently a pain, for 
 supreme languor weighed on lips and brain alike. Franck 
 rather cursed his ignorance of the language that would 
 have been easy to him. He found himself consciously curb- . 
 ing an overwhelming curiosity and the desire to ask more 
 and subtler questions than the patient's powers in their pres- 
 ent state could cope with. He was certain by the shape of 
 his head that he was a clever boy, though the evidence of 
 the eyes was lacking. 
 
 " Would you like to try French ? " he said. 
 
 " No. It is all right." 
 
 "Your head is not aching?" 
 
 " No. I did not fall." 
 
THE PENALTY 203 
 
 " Ah ! You have fainted before, have you? " 
 
 " Once I did — in Paris. I hurt my chin on the table." 
 His hand moved as though to show the place. " The bonne 
 caught me; but my head hurt for a long time. To-day is 
 better. I am very well." At last he lifted his eyes, with 
 their shadowed frames, to Franck's face. " Wasn't it curi- 
 ous," he said,, " when I was doing nothing? Herr Reuss 
 had done my man for me, you see. He told me to be quiet, 
 and I was trying " 
 
 " Could you not be quiet ? " 
 
 " There were noises in my head," 
 
 " Music ? " 
 
 " Some music, but — interrupted." He did not seem to 
 have found the word, and his brow knit up again. 
 
 " Do you write music ? " said Franck, after another pause. 
 His tone was easy and friendly, and, unlike most doctors, 
 he seemed in no hurry to go. 
 
 " I have written some. . . . You know about that ? " 
 Antoine queried. 
 
 " I was at the hall last night." 
 
 " Oh yes." A pause. " I never expect," Antoine con- 
 fided to Frau Lorbeer, " how everyone has music here. I 
 suppose if I stayed long in Munchen, I should." 
 
 " Would you like to stay ? " said the inquisitive doctor. 
 
 " Yes. But I think I shall have to go to my grandfather." 
 
 " Your grandfather need not know of your illness till you 
 return, unless you think it right to tell him." 
 
 "You do not think it right?" 
 
 " I shall tell your doctor, whom I know by repute." 
 
 " You mean Raymond Savigny ? Only he will tell grand- 
 papa, I think." The boy waited a moment, frowning. 
 " Would it be better," he said painfully, " if I told Savigny 
 myself? I mean — if you wrote what I said — just a few 
 things, to show him." 
 
 " No, my dear. I do not want you to make the effort." 
 
 " I remember very well — when I think." 
 
204 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Just so. I do not wish you to think about it. It is not " 
 — he smiled — " the role of the patient." 
 
 " No," He submitted again, and shifted his position a 
 trifle, moistening his lips. Frau Lorbeer moved her clever 
 arm to the right angle of support exactly, and gave him a 
 little water without his asking for it. Her own silence 
 had been unbroken, and might have been a hint to the talka- 
 tive doctor, but that silence has so many interpretations. 
 Franck ignored her possibly ; Antoine, feeling her arm, did 
 not. 
 
 " Can you really stay here? " he asked her suddenly. 
 
 " Yes ; as long as I am wanted." 
 
 " Of course I want you, when you are so kind." He 
 turned back to Franck. " Tell me what is my role," he said, 
 in his slow, exhausted tone. 
 
 " Well," said the doctor, smiling, " the part is passive. 
 You have acted enough for the present. Let the reporters 
 talk about you, and Reuss write your letters, and this lady 
 feed you and put you into bed, and M. Savigny come or not 
 as he chooses." 
 
 " Comer Oh, but he can't." 
 
 " Leave that to him. I do not say he will." 
 
 " You will write to-day?" 
 
 " I telegraph." 
 
 "Telegraph? But how? All that?" He turned his 
 eyes, in a kind of distress, to Carlotta, and she broke silence 
 for the second time. 
 
 " You must leave everything to us, dear child," she said 
 clearly and firmly. " It is the only way." 
 
 " Yes. . . . But — Savigny will be very angry. I 
 know how he looks when long telegrams come from abroad. 
 He is — he is a curious, impatient man." 
 
 The doctor rose, accepting the suggestion at last to do so. 
 " I risk enraging him," he said. " A doctor may annoy a 
 doctor when a patient may not. Good-morning, my little 
 musician. You have been helpful." 
 
THE PENALTY 205 
 
 " Good-bye," said Antoinc, relieved that no more was 
 required. 
 
 " Not good-bye; I shall come back to-night." He turned 
 to Frau Lorbeer. " Shall I send you any assistance ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," said Carlotta. " We are stocked with 
 women here. My daughter above there could manage two 
 households if necessary." 
 
 " Excellent," said Franck hastily. " I could wish for 
 nothing better for him." And he departed with no further 
 directions to the nurse. 
 
 " He was very kind," observed Antoine, after a long in- 
 terval, during which he had almost imagined himself alone, 
 she sat so motionless. 
 
 " Unnecessarily," said Frau Lorbeer. " You need not 
 make his excuses to me. No — be quiet." And she kissed 
 him. 
 
 There ensued, after the strain of the medical interview, 
 a " horrible " period, during which Antoine relapsed. There 
 w as no further disguising from himself the fact that he was 
 ill, and though he had hardly life enough to be actively ter- 
 rified, the conviction was numbing. He dropped from stage 
 to stage, each more hopeless than the last, into dark cold 
 places, through which he groped unhappily, as things grope 
 in ocean depths where no ray of earth can penetrate. He 
 wondered at intervals if he were alive, and if so, why; 
 for living no longer attracted him at all, and living people 
 he had loved became mere shades, harassing him only with 
 memories. Occasionally — a change he did not welcome — 
 he was made aware of life by an inner demon of pain, which 
 clawed at him, grasped all the threads of his brain, and 
 pulled gently, teasing. Occasionally — he resented it only a 
 little less — hands lifted him to the surface, strong warm 
 hands, and he became aware of Carlotta, who had no 
 scruple in interrupting his thoughts, to wash him, or feed 
 him, or even now and then to speak. Now, Antoine had no 
 desire for food — naturally, since he wished to die ; but his 
 
2o6 SUCCESSION 
 
 antagonist was insidious as she was strong, and it was gen- 
 erally too much trouble to resist her ruses. He listened to 
 her voice with vague approval, and occasionally gave her a 
 word in answer for civility's sake. Nor did he refuse to look 
 at her, since she was in the line of vision and he could not 
 move; but he did not always trouble to realise what he 
 watched. 
 
 During the first and worst day, Carlotta grew almost to 
 dread his gaze, which followed her about the room, or rested 
 on her as she sat beneath the light in her high-backed chair, 
 setting stitches in dainty trifles for her daughter's wear, 
 things like snowflakes which fluttered from her pretty hands. 
 His dark eyes, lowered rarely, but never closing, had an 
 effect upon her which she had to work consciously and 
 constantly to throw off. Such weariness, indifference, pas- 
 sive disdain had never met her view before, reflected in 
 young eyes. They seemed to grow more hollow, too, from 
 hour to hour, and his pallor to grow greyer and more un- 
 earthly. Especially during the first night she spent by him, 
 she was haunted by the impression that, for want of some- 
 thing she failed to find, his hold on life was slipping; and 
 that unless she tracked and followed constantly, with all 
 the energy of her will and brain, he would move from her 
 into some retreat of his own, where human love and aid 
 could no longer reach him. 
 
 Some of these impressions she confided on the afternoon 
 of the second day to her brother, together with such theories 
 of any profit as she had been able to extract from Franck. 
 The doctor had shown visible embarrassment and per- 
 plexity that morning, during his short and almost silent 
 visits, and his manner to the nurse showed that he counted 
 principally upon her. Used as she was to being counted 
 upon, Carlotta felt in this instance overburdened. 
 
 " He speaks of shock," she said, " as usual. He says 
 shocks with such natures are hard to trace; that he might 
 have thrown it off in the press of active and other interests, 
 
THE PENALTY 207 
 
 and it recoils on him now at low ebb. I give you that for 
 what it is worth." 
 
 " Did he inquire into history ? " said Reuss, having pon- 
 dered a little. 
 
 " Pie asked, had he suffered in the same way before. I 
 said he had once, but that his high spirits are normal. I 
 quoted your phrase, that he had scrambled to fame in nine 
 months, with apparent ease, and little aid but his own. And 
 that he seemed to love the work — though, of course, I did 
 not answer for that." 
 
 " Have you doubts? " said Reuss, with the smile the fam- 
 ily accorded to Carlotta on the subject. 
 
 " I did not trouble him with my opinion," she said drily. 
 " Work, as such, is prescribed for the case, I gather." 
 
 Fritz smiled still. " It would take all your wit to pre- 
 vent him working. But you are right. Both Charles and 
 the French doctor incline to that theory. . . . Leave 
 theorising now, and assist me. What am I to say to these? " 
 He signed to the letters spread upon the table. " This above 
 all ? " He tapped the one under his eyes, crumpling his 
 beard with one powerful hand. 
 
 Carlotta leant over him to read, drawing his head to her, 
 for he was weary and worried extremely, by the extra toil 
 and responsibility, as she knew from his manner without 
 inquiry. Having deciphered the short scrawl on a thick 
 sheet, signed by a single name that, being illegible, had to 
 be guessed, she looked down and met her brother's eyes. 
 
 " Well," he said, " my fairy — what advice? " 
 
 " It is really singular," she said. " How does he manage 
 it? Are they both there, then? " 
 
 " They are there," said Reuss. " And she was at the con- 
 cert." 
 
 " How can I advise? You are more used to courts than 
 I. You must attend in person, surely, since she writes. 
 Do you know her?" 
 
 "A little. What shall I say?" 
 
 "Why not the truth, to a woman? The letter is very 
 
2o8 SUCCESSION 
 
 kind. She even asks if he was tired, so she must have 
 noticed something." 
 
 " I noticed nothing," Reuss murmured, " and I was near- 
 est. That last time he looked up — brilliance itself — a little 
 alarm at the extent of his triumph, while he gave me his 
 hand. They had been so quiet — good is his word, is it not? 
 — that he had not expected such a noise from them. He 
 would not, of course. Well " — he moved his chair — " I 
 suppose I must go to her Serenity, empty-handed. What a 
 chance missed, my little sister. Think of Lucien ! " 
 
 " I am taking this," she observed, sliding a hand upon the 
 royal letter. " It will amuse Monsieur in time — when he 
 can attend to such trivial matters. You trust me, do you 
 not ? " 
 
 " Since I must," he replied, and went, looking lighter a 
 little for the interview. 
 
 Carlotta, who never left her guard for more than ten min- 
 utes, returned to the patient's room, where her practised eye 
 discovered changes. 
 
 In the interval the hidden demon had attacked Antoine, 
 in a cowardly fashion it had, at a moment when he felt 
 weak. Having tried, without much hope, to master it d la 
 Savigny, he had given up the effort suddenly, torn himself 
 up, beaten the unoffending bed, and twisted all the blankets 
 into an ill-tempered heap. Then, having gained nothing 
 by the exhausting proceeding, and feeling entirely miserable, 
 he lay among the wreck and cried. When his nurse re- 
 entered, he tried to conceal his misdeeds, and especially the 
 last, by unnatural and rigid immobility. It was fruitless, of 
 course, considering that quality of universal observation he 
 had first noticed in her, while she sat silent among the 
 family by the porcelain stove. She approached at once to 
 rearrange the bed, which she did without a word, seeming to 
 make nothing of its complicated disarray. Then, still quite 
 at leisure, she took the patient by the arms. 
 
THE PENALTY 209 
 
 " Is that better ? " she said, most deceptive softness in 
 her tone. 
 
 Antoine assured her it was, keeping his lashes lowered, 
 to conceal the traces of the storm. He felt convinced a 
 German lady could not approve of that, necessary as it had 
 been. He used her own tongue to thank her carefully. 
 
 " You are in pain ? Have been for some time ? " He 
 nodded, making a faint effort to draw his wrists away. 
 
 " Well," she proceeded, " why did you not ring, if you 
 wanted me ? Here is the bell at hand." Antoine looked side- 
 long at the bell. It was there, certainly, but such a use for it 
 had not struck him. Even to summon servants, the thing 
 was not used in his home ; and to summon one's host's sister 
 
 Added to this, he had not been aware of wanting 
 
 Frau Lorbeer, only one could not exactly tell her that. 
 
 " I cried," he observed, after consideration, abandoning 
 concealment. 
 
 " So I see," she said calmly, " Crying out is simpler, 
 when people are there to help you. You have no idea at 
 all, I may tell you, how to be ill. Will you promise me to 
 complain next time? " 
 
 He promised nothing, in words. He only frowned, a 
 trifle dazed, watching the light play on her gold chain, a 
 pretty thing, and the nearest object as she bent to him. 
 Carlotta thought he looked an absurd baby, lying helpless 
 under her hands like that ; but she saw the lines of late 
 suffering very well. 
 
 " Tell me where it is," she said, her clear tone modulating 
 sweetly. "You cannot, darling? Show me then." He 
 tried to do so, his lifted hand a little vague. 
 
 " Here? " Carlotta freed his arms, and clasped his head. 
 " Well, that is nothing uncommon ; I have had that myself. 
 I know twenty ways to cure it, and if those fail, we will 
 try a twenty-first. Only you must be with me, not against, 
 do you hear? I will not be thanked, and despised," said 
 Carlotta. 
 
 " But I do not," he said ; and a gleam of mirth came to 
 
2IO SUCCESSION 
 
 the surface, working its way up through all the layers of 
 oppression and indifference. It was ridiculous even to 
 think of despising a person who so handled him, who spoke 
 so oddly, and looked so cordially sweet. Even the way the 
 little gold chain shone among the lace, glinting here and 
 there in the afternoon sun, as she delivered her views as to 
 the " role " of patients, and knocked the pillows about, was 
 fascinating to his tired mind. He did not mind such as 
 Carlotta assisting him to be ill, if they wished; and as to 
 method, since it was really too much trouble to remember 
 Savigny at this distance, she must have her way. 
 
 She continued during day and night to reawaken his 
 surprise and attention at intervals, when she thought he 
 could bear it ; sufficiently at least, from his point of view, 
 to make it worth remaining alive to watch her proceedings. 
 The novelty of her attracted him, evidently ; in the full tide 
 of his life, he might have called her amusing. Somewhere 
 in the small hours of the second endless night, since he 
 still could not sleep, she produced a book and proposed to 
 read it to him. Antoine had no objection to Frau Lorbeer's 
 pursuing her studies aloud if she chose, especially as her 
 voice was pleasant. He supposed clever ladies in southern 
 Germany did such things, though an hour after midnight 
 seemed a remarkable time to choose. Having thus excused 
 her eccentricity to his own satisfaction, it exceeded all 
 previous surprises when he found the appointed book both 
 simple in statement, and in subject such as he would have 
 chosen in leisured hours to read himself. 
 
 It was a graphic tale of some ship-wrecked men in dis- 
 tant seas ; scenes of life as far removed as possible from any- 
 thing he had known — which was a vast relief — though re- 
 minding him dimly of some of his father's stories. The 
 detail, both local and technical, was clear and good ; the 
 men's experience related with such ingenuity that his 
 thoughts could hardly shift from the problem their situation 
 presented. He thought it out as she read, creasing a corner 
 of the sheet with his agile fingers and flashing a glance at 
 
THE PENALTY 211 
 
 her from time to time as fresh details in the problem came 
 to light. She was as serious as he was, fortunately ; so 
 there was no doubt it must all be a good case, worth con- 
 sidering. 
 
 Later, as the plot thickened, and the hero's embarrass- 
 ments also, Antoine made a few suggestions, to Carlotta's 
 delight ; for they showed not only an unaltered fertility of 
 brain, but a credulity and ingenuousness which matched 
 his age. She laid down the book and let him argue it, before 
 she read on. He was a little vexed at last, when she stopped 
 at a peculiar and quite unforseen crisis, and refused entirely 
 to go further. 
 
 " I am tired," was Carlotta's excuse, as she marked the 
 place with a letter she had been holding, and put the book 
 on a high shelf, regardless of the hand he stretched for 
 it. The hand dropped, and Antoine's brow expressed con- 
 cern. Such was the interest of the story, and the crisp light- 
 ness of her tone in reading it, that it had not occurred to 
 him once the read^^ could be tired. Yet he had often been 
 so himself, in the days when he read aloud to his grand- 
 father, and the old man's interest carried them beyond the 
 stated hour. It was unpardonable in him; and with this 
 lady, who had attended him unresting — as soon as he came 
 to consider it — for forty-eight hours and longer. 
 
 " You go upstairs ? " he suggested, brilliant-eyed. " Good- 
 night." 
 
 Frau Lorbeer smiled at her dismissal. She straightened 
 the sheet his restless hand had crumpled, touched his brow 
 and wrist with an almost professional manner, and generally 
 went through the correct forms of separation for the night. 
 Only, she failed actually to go. Lowering the light, she 
 settled instead in her chair, all of her concealed by its high 
 projecting back except a slight glitter of gold chain, and the 
 hand she left beside him on the bed, on which another thin 
 gold gleam betrayed her wedding-ring. There she sat 
 motionless, contented to all appearance, a very inspiration of 
 repose. Antoine felt the invitation to do likewise, though 
 
212 SUCCESSION 
 
 the only immediate effect her proceeding had was to turn his 
 too active mind upon her. 
 
 However, after a long period, immeasurable as are all 
 periods of the night, during which the boy all unconscious 
 idealised Carlotta, disembodied her, and set her to music, 
 he slid his fingers under her hand, and turned sidelong on 
 the pillow, to doze or dream of those sailors' probable fate, 
 and the faint glimmer of hope for them which the talented 
 author had left, which seemed, in the shadow-world between 
 sleep and waking, to be his own hope also. 
 
 Next morning the world was better, and Antome found 
 his tongue at an early hour. His first observations were 
 offered over the humours of a recalcitrant fire, which Frau 
 Lorbeer had seen fit to take out of the hands of her sisters' 
 maid, thus saving waste of time and material, and giving the 
 girl a lesson by the way. Antoine watched the demonstra- 
 tion with interest from afar, and then giggled a little when 
 the fire, at the first attempt, still refused to burn, puffing 
 clouds of smoke instead upon lecturer and lectured alike. 
 
 " The wood is wet," said Carlotta calmly. So, having 
 given it a poke, she set light to the structure again. At 
 this critical moment, when the flame was just starting, the 
 audience admiring, and the lecturer taking off her gloves, 
 a knock announced the doctor's visit, of earliness unpre- 
 cedented. Frau Lorbeer, with one glance upon her hands, 
 which were speckless, w^ent to the door. 
 
 " Is your patient awake ? " inquired the German doctor. 
 " Tell him I bring a friend." A tall, gaunt shape filled the 
 doorway. 
 
 Carlotta went to the boy, and leaning down, gave the 
 message, which he hardly seemed at once to take in. He 
 slightly turned his head, and the tall man moved forward. 
 Then his sleepy face changed slowly. 
 
 " M. Raymond ? " he said, puzzled. 
 
 " And what do you mean by this ? " said the tyrant. 
 
 " But — were you here too ? " 
 
 " No. I have come from Paris." 
 
THE PENALTY 213 
 
 " But how ? " 
 
 " By the night train, most slow-witted. How else should 
 I come? I had to stop a day, to get things into order, that 
 was all. Now, what is all this about? " He laid hands like 
 claws on Antoine's shoulders as he lay prostrate. 
 
 "Did he send the telegram?" said Antoine, instantly 
 clasping the wrists of the hands. His relief and happiness 
 at seeing a face from home, and speaking French again, 
 were clear in touch and upward gaze, though he lacked 
 energy to move. " How could you leave the clinique? " he 
 added quickly to the other question. 
 
 " Be kind enough to mind your own business," said 
 Savigny. 
 
 " I have none," the patient chuckled, " here." 
 
 Savigny's grim face showed a faint smile. He had the 
 boy pinned under the full light now, and was searching 
 him keen-eyed. " Your grandfather sends his love, and 
 you are to regard me as himself," he observed. 
 
 " Yes, I will," said Antoine, " if you bend right down ; 
 but I cannot move very well." 
 
 Savigny glanced at the other doctor. " You will treat 
 me with respect, Antoine, before members of my profes- 
 sion," he said. " Now you are going to be examined, and 
 perhaps hurt, so you can stop talking." 
 
 " I do not mind talking French." 
 
 " I mind hearing it. Get these things off." 
 
 "Must I come into the cold?" 
 
 " Do what I tell you ; and hold your tongue." 
 
 " You must be cold too, in the train all night. I wish 
 
 " Veux-tu te taire," barked Savigny. A pause. 
 
 " This is Frau Lorbeer," said Antoine. " Herr Reuss's 
 sister. Do you remember him ? " 
 j Both the bystanders broke into laughter; for the hot- 
 I tempered doctor was caught, and had to turn and bow. 
 { Antoine was quite serious, and rather surprised at their 
 ! amusement over an introduction. 
 
214 SUCCESSION J 
 
 " He must speak German again evidently," said the nurse 
 in very good French. " He is less eloquent in our tongue, 
 Monsieur." 
 
 " I cannot think quite so quickly," Antoine apologised. 
 " French is so beautiful. Do you mind?" 
 
 " I can follow you," said Carlotta gently. 
 
 " We are wasting time," observed the tyrant, who ob- 
 jected to social inanities in working hours. Having waited 
 for the woman to go, which she did not, he came to close 
 quarters with his shrinking patient. He had not set eyes 
 on the boy since May, and the first thing he marked with 
 annoyance was how wasted he was. 
 
 " No wonder you are cold," he snapped, " when you don't 
 nourish yourself properly." 
 
 " But I eat a great deal," protested Antoine. " Of course 
 just these days " 
 
 " There is no of course," said Savigny. " Your afifair is 
 to eat what you are given. I taught you that some time 
 since. Attend to me, will you ? " he added, for the boy's 
 eyes had moved to his nurse again. She had been master- 
 ful too, in the matter alluded to, but they understood one 
 another. Savigny shot her one glance, by no means pleas- 
 ant, still keeping a claw on the victim. He was suspicious 
 of any nurses but such as he had discovered and subjugated; 
 and even so, he preferred men. This person did not look 
 easy to subjugate. In short, after inspection, he put Car- 
 lotta off; and proceeded so far as the amateur eye could 
 judge, to make Antoine suffer for his disapproval of her. 
 During his subsequent operations, Frau Lorbeer's fury 
 mounted steadily. The boy's obvious and pitiful terror of 
 being moved Savigny set at nought, rode down his frantic 
 resistance with greater violence, seized, jerked and tossed 
 about in what appeared to be the most careless manner. 
 Only the other expert, attending with extraordinary interest, 
 could not but suspect the roughness studied, and the haste 
 mercifully designed. 
 
 "Tears?" Savigny scoffed, when he finally threw his 
 
THE PENALTY 215 
 
 victim back into position. " That's temper. I did not hurt 
 you." He put a hand under his chin and watched critically 
 his struggle for self-control. "Done?" he inquired at 
 leisure. " Well, that's not so bad, considering everything. 
 I did not hurt you really, now, did I ? " 
 
 " I think so," said the boy, not looking as high as his 
 face. " I — I imagine it still hurts a good deal. When it 
 s-stops I will tell you." With which he tugged from the 
 tyrant's grasp and buried his face. 
 
 " Pure temper," said Savigny thoughtfully ; but his hand 
 on the patient's head seemed to suggest approval neverthe- 
 less. So standing, he took a critical survey of the German 
 room, the new scene of his labours, ignoring the occupants 
 carefully meanwhile. Then he turned on Franck. 
 
 " Leave me, will you? " he said carelessly. " I shall stay 
 a little — in jMadame's place, since she must have her affairs. 
 We will meet at midday." 
 
 The doctor bowed, and held the door for Carlotta to pass. 
 They both stopped in the passage without, a little astonished 
 to find themselves there. 
 
 "Who," said Frau Lorbeer, "is that person?" 
 
 " Raymond Savigny," she was informed. " The mag- 
 netic specialist; a rather remarkable fellow." 
 
 " He looks mad," said Carlotta. " I do not at all like 
 his eyes. I think you should not have left them, sir." 
 
 " He is a friend of the family, your brother says," ex- 
 plained Franck, who, recovering from the sway of the 
 stranger's will upon him, felt some degree of excuse neces- 
 sary. " I suppose he does not care to exhibit his greatest 
 secrets publicly." 
 
 "Secrets?" said Carlotta, with disdain. "If it is hon- 
 est work, he will show it. He frightened the child, and hurt 
 him too." 
 
 " Less than I should have done, had I attempted it," said 
 Franck. " He is clever, and quick to a marvel. I never 
 saw such hands." 
 
 "Do you think so?" said Carlotta coldly. 
 
2i6 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Will you not rest ? " the doctor asked her, smiling. " It 
 seems a chance." 
 
 " I shall go above," said Carlotta, glancing at her watch, 
 " for an hour or so, since I have some affairs with my 
 daughter. But I shall return at eleven, glare at me as he 
 will." 
 
 But Savigny did not glare. When she returned he was 
 sitting in deep meditation over his patient, his long limbs 
 oddly arranged, his chin on his fist. The boy was lying pros- 
 trate, under him almost, for one of the doctor's elbows rested 
 on the bed. He was fast asleep, a sleep so motionless that it 
 looked like death ; only Carlotta drawing nearer, saw that 
 his chest was rising and falling slightly but regularly, and 
 his face, though white, was composed and tranquil. 
 
 " You have not been trained? " said Savigny of a sudden 
 quite aloud. He had been watching her still deft movements 
 as she straightened the room. She shook her head, with 
 a glance at the boy. " So much the better," said Savigny, 
 and relapsed. 
 
 "Is that natural sleep?" she asked, unable to avoid the 
 question. 
 
 " Depends how you regard nature. It's sleep I gave him, 
 because he told me he could get no other. I suppose it was 
 true?" 
 
 " He has not had two hours' consecutive rest since his first 
 night in this house," said Carlotta. 
 
 " Good," said Savigny. " Then I have not wasted it." 
 
 " I thought you knew him," said Carlotta, letting her dis- 
 dain appear. 
 
 " So I do. But in the progress of maladies such as I 
 study, one does not rest on preconceptions." 
 
 *' Character does not change," said Carlotta. 
 
 "Doesn't it?" said Savigny, with amusement. "I am 
 speaking professionally, Madame. I get every kind of lie 
 from imaginative patients : and this has a powerful imagina- 
 tion." 
 
THE PENALTY 217 
 
 " You are waking him," said Carlotta, with contained 
 fury, for the absent-minded tyrant had tweaked the lock on 
 the boy's brow, in speaking. 
 
 " Hey ? " Savigny bent to look into the eyes that were 
 half opened. He laid two fingers of each hand to the brow 
 above them, and whispered something, syllables Carlotta 
 failed to catch. The eyes closed again, and the worried line 
 under his finger-tips disappeared as by magic. Then the 
 strange doctor removed his hands and dragged himself up- 
 right. 
 
 " Hard work," he commented, stretching his long limbs. 
 " I had little sleep of my own to give away." He looked 
 at Carlotta's half -averted face, which eloquently expressed 
 the equal blending of disgust and curiosity. " So you speak 
 up for my patient's character," he said. " Has he behaved 
 himself? " 
 
 " He has been nearly incapable." 
 
 " That's not saying much for him. Has he helped you, 
 or hindered? " 
 
 " He is always angelic," said Carlotta, with her back 
 turned. 
 
 " You've been spoiling him," decided Savigny. " Very 
 good ; that will be the more work for others later. Is there 
 a good hotel near here? " 
 
 "Good gracious!" Reuss's sister nearly jumped. 
 " Friedrich will never forgive me." She turned to face 
 him. " Of course you stay with us, sir. My husband or 
 my brother would be equally honoured." 
 
 " Whose house am I in ? " said Savigny. 
 
 " My brother Dr Reuss's." 
 
 "Good; then I stay here. I believe I know him." 
 
 " I would present you at once, if it were not " Car- 
 lotta glanced beyond him at Antoine. 
 
 " Leave him," said the tyrant easily. " He'll do for the 
 present. It's one method of giving the nurse a holiday. " 
 He smiled ; and the smile was such that Carlotta wondered 
 
2i8 SUCCESSION 
 
 whether in certain circumstances she might not have liked 
 him. She took him to find Reuss. 
 
 " The little thing is not bad," wrote Savigny, " but 
 languid, and his pulse extremely poor. He was astonished 
 to see me, but not frightened as much as I have known him. 
 His faculties are in order too. He presented me round the 
 company, juggling with tongues fit to turn the brain — as 
 though I cared about the lot of them. However, I have 
 come on a visit, I suppose, to see fat Germans, and the 
 beauties of Bavaria. Well, so I teased and tormented him 
 for the first twenty minutes ; and he told me hometruths ly- 
 ing prostrate for the next twenty. Not such a paralysing 
 experience as his last performance, but pretty good in its 
 way. Then, since he would do everything in the world but 
 look straight at me, I laid a pretty trap, caught him off his 
 guard, and sent him to sleep. 
 
 " Apropos, you recollect when I reported the last engage- 
 ment, you said he was growing beyond us, and I called you 
 a fool ? Well, you were right. It took longer than it used 
 to manage him to-day, and more effort than I care to give ; 
 and he made no secret of his opinion of my dirty tricks, 
 during the period I held his eyes. Charles, I tell you for the 
 minutes while he struggles, they are a revelation: all his 
 soul there — sulky, furious, beautiful — just like hers. I 
 never feel so far from him, or so near. And then the veil 
 drops blank, and he shuts me out with the other hideous 
 things of earth. . . . Still, I scored that last time, did I 
 not? You will never better that. . . . 
 
 " I send you what details I can sweep up of the collapse 
 on Sunday. I don't know they could have done more than 
 they did. The local man, though a chatterer, is not an ass, 
 and there's a woman with wits on the premises. The house 
 has resources too : cooking capable of anything, and first- 
 class wine, fruit, ice — I can't stump them anywhere, though 
 I put on my upper-class airs for the occasion. They appre- 
 ciate me more in this town than they do at home, though 
 
THE PENALTY 219 
 
 that's not saying much. I shall stay a bit, Charles: it's 
 rather comfortable, and the company, especially in the sick- 
 room, good. Tell my people, for I have little time for writ- 
 ing. Oh yes — and give Bronne the sheet of data, will you? 
 He was interested. . . . Everyone says Antoine played 
 gloriously on Saturday, so that is something scored, on your 
 side. Not much, I grant, on mine. But there is no work- 
 ing for him, in this state : even I cannot think of it. There 
 is nothing to do but look at him, and gnaw one's fingers, 
 and wait for to-morrow ; which he is doing now, with his 
 eyes open. It's the waste I can't get over. Your gods must 
 be off their heads — material like that. I've got him by the 
 hand, though, no retreat possible: and there must be a 
 rally soon. . . ." 
 
 "Did I mention there was a woman?" wrote Savigny 
 the next day. " Lorbeer, the name seems to be : Char- 
 lotte or something — perhaps you know her, Charles. She's 
 pretty after a fashion, though it is not the v^ild-bird style 
 I care for, between ourselves. Compared with that, Ma- 
 dame Lorbeer is stony. There are points, however, in her 
 favour, and cooking is one of them. Did I tell you that it 
 was she timed the syncope to a minute that day, watching 
 the clock for a soufflee when she was called ? How's that ? 
 She is a trifle too pleased with herself, but sharp enough. 
 ' Did you think he would die ? ' I said, to catch her. ' No,' 
 says she. * I thought he was dead, until I found a pulse, 
 and then I thought of dying no longer.' I said, by way 
 of compliment, that if she was a widow I should have her 
 to Paris. ' So long as I had children, sir, you would not,' 
 says Madame. I advised her not to tempt me to try. She 
 might have a gift for children, I can't say. The boy likes 
 her — follows her about with his eyes. It's true she's nice 
 to look at, and Antoine has taste of a sort — I always said 
 so. . . . 
 
 " Little Madame asks me all sorts of prying questions 
 about your family, which I amuse myself by not answering 
 — at considerable length. I have the pull iit dialogue, since 
 
220 SUCCESSION 
 
 we talk French at these times. Women originate theories, I 
 observe, and then find evidence to build them on. I habitu- 
 ally work the other way. I told her that, and she seemed 
 annoyed; a pretty colour that fair complexion has. She 
 thinks she is a philosopher, and a bel esprit, and tries to 
 trip me in public. She had better be making soufflees or 
 plaiting her little daughter's hair, which would be a righteous 
 satisfaction to any mortal. Two children, Charles, the em- 
 bodiment of health: equable, blooming, exquisitely ordi- 
 nary : enough to make the outworn French physician weep 
 tears of pure envy. Better than all the theories in the 
 world, I assured Madame, and she little guessed I was 
 serious. . . . 
 
 " The brother, your Reuss, is something of a man. He 
 has appeased these cursed prying papers and photographers 
 somehow, though I gather it has been a task. To judge by 
 his physiognomy, he would not lie well ; and Antoine's 
 beaux yeux have brought down the city of Munich en masse. 
 Some queen or other wrote him a letter, and the queen's 
 husband sent him a photograph by Reuss, and a decora- 
 tion. Will you mention these facts carelessly to Lucien, 
 and tell me how he bears it? The reporters are smart for 
 such things though, and may have been before me. I should 
 be entertained myself, if it did not chance to be a bore. 
 How can I get him out, I ask you, if this goes on? They 
 would throw things at the carriage, and frighten him. . . . 
 
 " Tell Lucien he can go ahead with the autumn pro- 
 gramme, certainly. I only want a little time, and freedom 
 to manage in my way. He is quite responsive, and as clever 
 as he ever was ; only confused a little by his failure, as we 
 regard it. He feels it necessary to apologise, when he 
 makes mistakes, or when one has to wait for him. But I 
 feel the wit's there, it is only that the connections do not 
 adjust immediately. Your letter was very ingenious, 
 Charles. It made him happy, and woke him up a little. 
 Write again in a few days: it's good for him to wish for 
 it. . . . 
 
THEPENALTY 221 
 
 " Lucien need not be in a taking, you know, for I acquit 
 him. In fact, you can tell him I never imagined for an in- 
 stant he was to blame. He irritates the child, of course, but 
 he could not derail him like this, if he tried for fifty years. 
 Lucien is a healthy nonentity — no, stop before you say 
 that, Charles; it is a little too true. I am still fumbling 
 myself, which always spoils my temper, but the deuce is 
 in it if I do not put my finger on the culprit soon. See 
 here: what would you say to a scoundrel who smiles, and 
 tells untruths, with a German name? Never mind how I 
 got that, I am not ashamed of my methods. Reuss says 
 the portrait fits no one in the house, seems a little incensed 
 at the idea. Well, how could I be sure, with scoundrelly 
 Germans all about me? Reuss has doubtless discovered 
 that I hate the race, though he is certainly a decent excep- 
 tion. He talked about Henriette last night, and every word 
 he said was just ; a little too just — he can't ever have been 
 in love with her. Was he? 
 
 " To-night I let him come to the boy, and he had the 
 sense not to stay long. He brought the little order in its 
 case, and laid it in his hand. Antoine, after considering 
 and dangling the ribbon for a period, turned and tried it on 
 Reuss's coat. ' Ours,' he said, in his careful little utterance : 
 and the man said, ' Thine.' That was about all of their pri- 
 vate conversation I could follow. I tell you, I hate to hear 
 him talk to these people, taking all the trouble, when they 
 are fat and lazy and so-called educated. Besides, I can't 
 always translate the stufif." 
 
 There was a pause in the correspondence after this, and 
 a card or two to Lucien. The next long letter was entirely 
 devoted to the visit of an eminent psychologist, who came 
 from a town fifty miles away to call on Savigny ; and who 
 proved such stimulating company that the pair had to be 
 invited to lunch with the Lorheers, in order not to disturb 
 the patient by a discussion, parts of which were too inti- 
 mate, and all of which was too loud, for his ease of mind 
 and body. Savigny had the pleasure of making a vast im- 
 
222 SUCCESSION 
 
 pression, not only on this learned gentleman, but also on 
 Carlotta's husband, a triumph which had for him a peculiar 
 satisfaction. The doctors even made Lorbeer admit that 
 women were too fond of nursing on the least occasion, and 
 that the habit became demoralising in practice, though in 
 the abstract all that was suitable and charming. At about 
 this point in the discussion the two scientists clattered down 
 the stairs, roaring over a medical joke, and woke the pa- 
 tient out of an after-dinner nap under his nurse's wing. 
 Franz heard of that afterwards. 
 
 Savigny's psychological disquisition M. Lemaure an- 
 swered by a card of somewhat nervous inquiry; and his 
 friend had to reassure him when leisure served. 
 
 " I shall not come home without him, never fear. I 
 suggested to-day in the salon that he was fit to travel, and 
 then found I had made a brutal proposition. Three women 
 squeaked at once, and the little Lorbeer said, with burning 
 eyes — she hates me — that her brother had just made ar- 
 rangements for a week's massage. * Massage ? ' says L 
 ' We can't afford it.' I can't stand the assumptions of rich 
 people. Two of them gaped at me, and the other retorted, 
 ' It is our affair,' says she, ' to return Antoine to his guardian 
 in the state in which we received him.' 'Your affair?' 
 says I, * My brother's, ' said Madame coldly, ' The man is 
 highly certificated, and I have looked up his references. 
 He is coming to-morrow morning.' 
 
 " Well, there you are. Is that high-handed, or is it not? 
 Not that the project is a bad one, or that I suppose you 
 would object to Reuss's financing it; since money seems 
 literally nothing to him, especially lavished on the boy. But 
 it is an indication of the trend of affairs. It is clear to 
 me I am not at the end of the skirmishes yet. Their line 
 is absurd, for the boy is well ; only a little fidgetty about his 
 fingers, which will not do all he requires, as it seems ; though, 
 on my word, he makes noise enough. I notice one thing: 
 playing does not seem to excite him so much, now he is at 
 the top of the tree. It is a blessing, or I might have to dis- 
 
THE PENALTY 
 
 223 
 
 courage the proceeding, and then where would you be, 
 my fine people ? You might even say the instrument bores 
 him rather, but that is doubtless pose, before the admiring 
 household. I warn you he will be spoiled, Charles, unless 
 you order him home soon. That little woman you ad- 
 mire so is the most in fault, though she makes out to be 
 superior, and only addresses him from her altitude now 
 and then. . . . We spoke of you last night, and dif- 
 fered as usual. She said you were kind to her in the great- 
 est trouble of her life — before her marriage. Of course 
 with a woman that can only mean one thing. One of those 
 terrible long betrothals, I gather, and the fellow died — or 
 deserted her? Not the last, I imagine, since she speaks of 
 it clear-eyed to a stranger. Of course you were kind to her, 
 cela va sans dire. Under twenty I might have been myself. 
 . . . I alluded to your agreeable flexibility. 'Flexible?' 
 cries she. You are the severest person she ever met, intol- 
 erant by birth, for you are capable of only one point of 
 view. Well, I said you had always agreed with me; and 
 the little vixen laughed in my face. She seldom laughs, too, 
 and her children were evidently surprised at her. . . . 
 " The girl, who is her namesake, sat beside me for an 
 hour after dinner, an adorable little creature, composing 
 French phrases with her hands crossed. She told me of 
 her studies till I grew alarmed, and asked how her myrtle- 
 tree was growing. I misquoted some Lamartine in her 
 album, and she put her sweet little finger on the mistake. 
 Then I wrote my name in her birthday-book, and entreated 
 her to mention if I wrote it wrong; at which she smiled, 
 and looked at her mother. Hastening to think of any non- 
 sense to keep her by me, I asked why she had not got An- 
 toine's signature. Whereat she blushed to her forehead, and 
 I discovered she had not dared to ask. ... I had blun- 
 dered into that lovely toil, a Teutonic maiden's first romance. 
 Imagine my not having had the wit to guess that since she 
 had heard him play, and been allowed to cook for him in 
 illness, he had become divine. . . . I let her recover. 
 
224 SUCCESSION 
 
 and then lugged my young gentleman in by the arm, and 
 made him write it on the spot. No one more willing, of 
 course: blase indifference — the public favourite — I could 
 have cuffed him ! And then the great childish hand — 
 what's he doing being so young, anyhow ? It's always put- 
 ting me out, when I least expect it. . . ." 
 
 " I have quarrelled with Madame," wrote Savigny 
 finally. " I knew I should, before we got through. She 
 has her plan, cut out and ready, clean as you please, not an 
 allowance made anywhere for other people's ideas. The 
 way these females think their instinct rules the world. 
 Instinct? It is the cunning of the weak, developed by a few 
 centuries' experience on slightly better lines than Eve's was, 
 that is all. 
 
 " Well, she goes to the country with her oflfspring for a 
 month immediately, and she requires your grandson to ac- 
 company them. She talks of air, Charles, the ancient shib- 
 boleth. I told her I have always found the air of a big 
 town best for workers: why, I have personally only to go 
 to Meudon to lose driving power at once. As for sea air, 
 it leaves you as stupid as a dead dog. Mountain air, owing 
 to limitations of purse and otherwise, I have never experi- 
 mented upon ; but if Antoine wants to experiment, we could 
 always send him up the Eiffel Tower. . . . 
 
 " To make things all safe, though, I asked him ; and she 
 agreed to the appeal. In her presence, I put the case fairly : 
 my view, yours — and hers. I said, what is true, you were 
 unfit to move and wanted him ; and that since certain of the 
 admirable unknown had done him the service of writing 
 him up, Lucien had found it hard to fight off engagements, 
 even for the fortnight to come. His uncle had managed it, 
 and it was unfair to ask him to do more. Madame spoke 
 too — she is not a great hand at speaking, our Delilah. I 
 could myself have made for her a better case: in fact I 
 improved it a little. I said the wind of the Alps would prob- 
 ably blow away the remaining cobwebs, more especially 
 
THE PENALTY 225 
 
 those that had annoyed you in the spring ; that I was sure 
 he needed to clear up his ideas on many points ; and that 
 having rushed headlong into the musical career in his 
 fashion last autumn, he had been flagging already in May. 
 I made all allowances for his health, and intimated that his 
 kind friends desired to make more. I added that Madame 
 Lorbeer wanted his company, and Mademoiselle her daugh- 
 ter also. 
 
 " ' We want what is best for him only,' she put in at 
 this point. 
 
 " The boy was worried, as was evident, but he let her 
 know pretty brusquely what he meant to do. With the taste 
 of triumph still in his mouth, it could hardly have been 
 otherwise, as I should have warned her. And then, when 
 he had gone, she had the consummate impudence to imply 
 that I had used illicit means to manage him! Presumed to 
 believe I could dominate and suggest, in public conclave, 
 and for private ends! Why, from a man of my own age 
 and profession, I would not have borne such a charge. 
 
 " So we quarrelled, Charles ; as pretty a little sparring 
 match as I ever had. She fights very well, if she cannot 
 persuade; and I feel the better for the exercise to-night. 
 She said plenty of things about him that were true, and even 
 interesting, for she has used her chances of observation 
 well. I cannot assume, either, that she does not know the 
 demands of the professional life ; with her experience she 
 must know something, though she guards her retirement 
 like a nun — or a widow. She observed, indeed — what was 
 odd — that we were in the same position, since neither of us 
 had heard him in public, and judged him entirely on his 
 private merits. Private merits! — of that infant. The re- 
 mark amused me. T mentioned I knew him better for know- 
 ing you : and to that she had no direct reply. ' I know An- 
 loine's view of Monsieur Lemaure,' she said. ' I did not 
 suppose that could be left out of account.' I put your case : 
 that a break could have been made last year, when he would 
 not have it; but that he had made himself conspicuous and 
 
226 SUCCESSION 
 
 created a wide demand (illustrations from Lucien) and to 
 break at this point would be foolish and worse. She said 
 that the demand for good things would not cease for delay- 
 ing for a little time its satisfaction ; and I felicitated her on 
 such beautiful ignorance of the public, particularly ours. 
 She said, as a general remark, that he was living too quickly 
 and not tasting life. Well, for my own part I have not 
 found the flavour worth dwelling on; but in deference to 
 sentiment I left that, and gave her the truism instead that 
 eager livers must be encouraged to act and not to brood. 
 And if a month of this town has not brought home to Hen- 
 riette's son the full sweet rapture of the ruminating cow, 
 no further demonstration of hers is likely to do it. But that 
 remark I left as well. 
 
 '' Finally, I suggested she should write to you ; hinting 
 you were flexible to a lady's wishes, whatever she might 
 think. She said she would consider writing, but I do not 
 think now that she will. At least I have laid the case before 
 you fairly, for I admire the little Amazon in her way very 
 much. She has the sense too, I notice, not to turn her rela- 
 tions on to me. I have talked with her husband on the 
 general question already, and though a trifle heavy to deal 
 with, he takes a very sensible view on the whole. But 
 Reuss's great guns, at this stage, would be annoying; and 
 I believe — I am not certain — she has a considerable influ- 
 ence with Reuss." 
 
 To the son of the family Savigny wrote : 
 
 "My dear Lucien, — Go when you wish, do you hear? 
 We appear Sunday : and do not betray that I keep the boy 
 with me for one night first. If I get the young rested, and 
 you prepare the old for some slight change, we can avoid 
 all unnecessary shock. There is nothing further to fear, so 
 sacrifice yourself no longer. Take my blessing along with 
 you, and my most grateful homage to Cecile. Thank good- 
 ness I had you at call just then to guard him, and stave off 
 
THE PENALTY 227 
 
 some of the correspondence. This sudden popularity is 
 embarrassing — but thank the Lord it never lasts ; and it 
 has occupied and gratified your father, at least, during a 
 somewhat difficult time. Now I shall be close again to lend 
 a hand ; and Antoine himself is not incapable, and will save 
 him some slips of memory, if they occur. In spite of all the 
 trouncing I have of late received, I cannot but think that 
 extra wits are given you to use ; and if by their means you 
 can save fatigue to your nearest relations, you should thank 
 your gods. In short, if the gosse cannot ' manage ' him- 
 self for a few recitals — what is the good of having six 
 senses and three hands ? I quote from the article I enclose, 
 which for insight, sentimentality, and clownish wit, shows 
 the noble nation at its best." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LEMONSKI 
 
 Antoine heard his rival, Lemonski, play, the last day before 
 he left Munich. It happened in this wise. 
 
 "You do not mind?" he said pleasantly to Reuss, when 
 the subject came up at dessert. " I know the right omnibus 
 for that hall." 
 
 " Antoine, what nonsense ! " said everybody. 
 
 " I mind hopelessly," said Reuss. " The last afternoon, 
 too. Why the plague should you want to ? " 
 
 Antoine explained, tilting up his chair, and resting his 
 hands against the table-edge the while. They were thinner 
 and more supple than ever since his illness. It was the 
 Swedish masseur, apparently, who had spoken of Lemonski, 
 being engaged to attend that gentleman as soon as he arrived 
 in the town. The masseur, disappointingly taciturn in gen- 
 eral, had shown signs of expansion for the first time on this 
 subject, so Antoine had encouraged him with sympathy. 
 
 " I don't think he likes Rudolf much," he said reflectively. 
 
 " You don't say so ? " said Fritz, who loathed Lemonski. 
 " What did he say about him ? " 
 
 " Not much. He said old Lemonski knew his work bet- 
 ter than he did when he went there, and never left him 
 alone. I expect Rudolf was cross if his father was there, 
 and so Mr Nordberg did not like them." 
 
 " Have you seen Papa Lemonski, Antoine?" said Reuss, 
 stroking his beard. 
 
 " In Paris, I did." All unaware, his face changed. " He 
 was very polite to me," said Antoine, " and agreeable. But 
 228 
 
LEMONSKI 229 
 
 he listened at the door before he came in; and so Rudolf 
 told him so, and they called one another a lot of names ; 
 and so I came away. Mon Dieu ! " Antoine smoothed his 
 hair back, as though in remembered relief. " He is not his 
 real father," he concluded, " only he looks after him. He 
 paid for Rudolf when he went to Moricz." Then the nar- 
 rator relapsed into reverie, crumbling his bread. Fritz 
 would have attacked him again, but in reply to a sign from 
 his younger sister, who was dining with them, desisted. 
 Antoine appended to his own thoughts after an interval: 
 " That is why I want to go." 
 
 " What is why ? " snapped Savigny, who disliked illogical 
 discourse. 
 
 The boy blushed. " Pardon. You see, Mr Nordberg had 
 Rudolf's programme. And he plays the Polish dances, 
 which are Moricz's. And it begins at two, so that would 
 
 i come about four. It would not be long to go at four for 
 two short things." His eyes appealed to Savigny, who 
 seemed to take no interest, unless to disapprove as usual of 
 
 i his restlessness. He did not, however, refuse permission 
 
 j altogether. 
 
 I " Does your Swedish friend approve Lemonski's 
 
 i muscles ? " asked Clara lightly. 
 
 I " Approve? — I don't know. I think he likes to find things 
 
 i wrong with them, and I expect Rudolf's are very good. 
 
 ': His hand is good, because I have seen it in Paris." 
 " Like yours, liebchen? " 
 
 i " No, no. Bigger than mine, and different. It is the 
 
 ! other sort of hand, Moricz says : not better, but more use- 
 
 ; ful." 
 
 " More useful ? " his chorus cried. 
 
 " Yes." Antoine paused, as though in doubt if he had 
 got the word. " That was what he said. Pie said Rudolf 
 was useful altogether — the useful kind." 
 
 " Can you explain what Moricz meant?" said Bertha, in 
 the pause. 
 
 " I believe he meant he did not think much, he just did 
 
230 SUCCESSION 
 
 things. And he did not talk," said Antoine pensively. 
 " Moricz prefers that." 
 
 " Having got the thinking done years ago," Reuss sug- 
 gested, " he only troubles you boys to lend him the hands." 
 
 " Yes." Antoine regarded him fixedly a minute, picking 
 up his thoughts again. It was astonishing how easily they 
 scattered now, if he allowed himself a moment's absence. 
 But with Savigny staring, and ladies asking questions, the 
 effort must be made. *' I had not meant to speak of 
 Moricz ! " he exclaimed, with impatience. " It was Le- 
 monski " 
 
 " Oh, oh ! Go on ! " cried the audience, who had been 
 breathless with attention from the first appearance of the 
 name. The boy winced slightly from their exclamation. 
 
 " Monsieur Rudolf is useful," said the sweet-voiced 
 Clara. "Were you useless, my dear? " 
 
 " Yes, I was, in the way he meant." A pause, the flow 
 stationary again. " I cannot show you, because you do not 
 know the way he talks. He said I was not a violin-player 
 at all." 
 
 They broke into laughter. *' What should you play, 
 darling? The tambourine? " 
 
 " Oh no. He did not mind my playing it. Only — I wish 
 you would talk about Rudolf ! " He broke short, with 
 sudden and curious irritation. " I had meant to." 
 
 " Surely we have sat quite long enough ? " suggested Car- 
 lotta. Rising, she dismissed the boy in her sisters' wake 
 with a touch. He went at once, as though relieved to 
 escape. " You need not all follow immediately," she directed 
 Fritz under her breath. " He really cannot stand too many 
 at once. Why can you not talk with him one at a time ? " 
 
 " He interests us, my dear," said her brother meekly. " I 
 would give my head to hear his true idea of Moricz. To the 
 devil with Lemonski." 
 
 " You will never get a true idea of anyone," said Savigny, 
 " in the form of a connected account. He is worse than 
 ever now." 
 
L E M O N S K I 231 
 
 " Leave it then, surely," said Carlotta, and went to rejoin 
 her sisters in the drawing-room. Antoine had retired to the 
 balcony, and was leaning over the street. He was very con- 
 scious of having broken the canons both of society and 
 Savigny in his loss of temper, and was for the moment out 
 of spirits. However, finding himself pleasantly disregarded, 
 and nobody else offended seriously, he recovered his equa- 
 nimity by degrees; and by the time Fritz arrived to sit 
 beside him near the stove, he was prepared to shove his 
 bark into the tide of general conversation again. 
 
 " Have you really met the Lemonskis, Antoine, or were 
 you inventing?" said Fraulein Clara. 
 
 " Yes, I have," said the boy. " Perhaps," he added, " I 
 shall speak to them to-morrow at the hall." 
 
 " That you will not," said Reuss and Savigny together. 
 
 " Oh, mon Dieu ! " said Antoine, collapsing with a ges- 
 ture into his sofa corner. " Very well, I will not. I will 
 not go to the concert. I will go to bed, and drink some 
 tisane, and — and — listen to you all talking together about 
 interesting things." 
 
 He followed the latter part of this programme for three 
 minutes, shrugging at all questions directed to him, with 
 his arms folded. Then he forgot his resentment and his 
 dignity and everything else, because Dr Savigny, who had 
 his cigarette on the balcony, announced through the cur- 
 tains, without any warning, that he had been talking to 
 Lorbeer, and that he thought he must be present at the con- 
 cert next day, since everybody seemed to agree the little 
 fellow was good. 
 
 " No, you must not," said Antoine warmly, loosening his 
 arms and sitting erect. " No, no. You have never come 
 to one of mine, and thrown away all those nice tickets ; and 
 you shall not hear Rudolf play the Romance, because I can- 
 not bear it." 
 
 " When I have leisure, I go to any concert I choose," 
 began Savigny, but two ladies broke in : 
 
 " Antoine — you mean he is playing Lemaure ? " 
 
232 SUCCESSION 
 
 "Abominable impudence!" ejaculated Fritz. But An- 
 toine, his eyes levelled toward the balcony, heeded neither. 
 
 " 1 cannot bear it," he repeated. " It makes me feel 
 curious — especially my heart — to think of it at all. If you 
 go, you will come away with me, before the Romance at 
 the end." 
 
 " Very good," said the doctor. " Where thou goest, my 
 infant, I will go." 
 
 " Aha — that is it," said Antoine, reassured. " You come 
 to the hall to preserve me, hein? Well, perhaps Rudolf will 
 not mind if I do not visit him. Of course, I should only 
 say ' bonjour ' and ' bravo,' like the other people. And it 
 will be ' bravo ' if he does those dances of Moricz," he 
 added. 
 
 "Do you mean Moricz wrote the dances?" somebody 
 ventured soon, for once more he had relapsed into silence. 
 The name as used by him seemed to be magical, spun about 
 with a web of dreams. It only increased their curiosity ; 
 yet the fear of exciting him unduly was still so great that 
 they dared not press him too closely. 
 
 " Oh no, not his in that way. He taught them. They 
 are his things. They will be good, of course : the best. 
 That is why I should like a near place " — he appealed to 
 Reuss — " because you cannot always see in a big room,." 
 
 " Two places, then," said Fritz, with resignation, 
 
 " Unless you " 
 
 " Thank you, my love. I would go far to escape it." He 
 rose, ready as ever to serve, though pained by his obstinacy. 
 " I will see what can be done," he said, and went at once to 
 the telephone. 
 
 Late as it was, his royal influence served, and he got two 
 excellent seats for his guests without difficulty. They were 
 also conspicuously placed, rather to the side of the lower 
 balcony ; and Antoine's extremely late arrival in the last 
 interval of the programme and the picturesque tall doctor at 
 his side, were facts not likely to reduce the sensation he 
 
L E M O N S K I 233 
 
 made. The stir amused Savigny, who had never faced the 
 world with his young friend before, and he prepared to 
 enjoy the situation. But he was less amused when a stout 
 middle-class man in the adjacent box, with a creased yellow 
 neck, a Hebrew nose, and little pig's eyes to either side of 
 it, bowed elaborately to Antoine, in a manner of over-acted 
 reverence, with protruding elbows and clasped hands, An- 
 toine, blinking in the bright afternoon sunlight, gave him a 
 keen glance and a cool, slight recognition, before he subsided 
 into his seat. 
 
 " Zut ! Monsieur le pere," he muttered under his breath. 
 " He comes to hear Moricz too, it seems. Give me that 
 glass, please, and talk to me. I hate him very much." 
 
 Savigny, being farthest from the man, offered to change 
 sides. 
 
 " No, no," said Antoine. " Talk of a different thing. I 
 
 shall see better here. Bah ! the sun is a bother," He turned 
 
 his head, brows bent, eyes narrowed to the window, whence 
 
 an intruding dusty beam of autumn sunlight obstructed his 
 
 view of the stage. Lemonski senior, in the same line of 
 
 I vision, though totally overlooked, chose to wave a hand 
 
 i towards the window, and some person near it leant over, 
 
 I and drew a curtain across the beam. Antoine's face changed 
 
 I charmingly, in response to this timely courtesy, but Le- 
 
 '■ monski intercepted nothing of his acknowledgment, and 
 
 might not have been there, Savigny was amused by the 
 
 little incident, and by the haughtiness of the boy's face, as 
 
 he turned again in his direction. He had evidently become 
 
 aware of the general curiosity in the interval, and after that 
 
 i devoted himself to his glass and his escort, and looked 
 
 about him no more. 
 
 " What a long interval," he muttered. " I wish he would 
 come. Aha — there ! " 
 
 As he spoke, all inconvenient curiosity was diverted to 
 
 , the platform ; for Rudolf Lemonski walked on to it, amid 
 
 a perfect tumult of applause. Antoine and his neighbour in 
 
 the adjacent box were the only people unmoved by the ap- 
 
234 SUCCESSION 
 
 parition, Lemonski pcre folded his fat arms, and looked 
 about him, frowning with pursed lips. Here, said the atti- 
 tude, was his trump card: beat it who dared to try. An- 
 toine focussed his glass attentively meanwhile, not on the 
 violinist at all, but on the violin. 
 
 Dr Savigny followed the general example. Having ap- 
 plauded a little, he settled for a comfortable and leisurely 
 stare at the highly-rated Polish prodigy, most admirably 
 visible in every detail from where they sat. Young Le- 
 monski stood waiting the permission of his admirers to be- 
 gin, with a curious expression, impassive almost to grim- 
 ness. Except for the necessary acknowledgment, and a lit- 
 tle look to left and right, he hardly regarded his audience. 
 He knew exactly what he had to do, and was certain in ad- 
 vance of his success: so certain that he could afford to be 
 indifferent. His hands were certainly unlike Antoine's, thick 
 and square, as was his build. His head was well piled over 
 the eyes, but ran to nothing behind when he turned; only 
 while he played, he kept stiffly fronting the audience. He 
 was dressed to look like less than his age, which was an 
 error, for his face was old, and the dreary expression made 
 it older. He had that look of the east of Europe, that makes 
 even a child seem weary of life before it is born. Had it 
 not been for that rather pitiful weariness, it would have 
 been a dangerous face. As it was, brow and mouth prom- 
 ised temper, though he might have learnt on occasion to 
 control it. 
 
 Savigny, looking well, and listening not at all, took him 
 to pieces at leisure and pronounced him very interesting, 
 stored up a number of data for future use, and then dropped 
 his eyes for sheer relief upon the boy at his side. Antoine's 
 genuine youth was a consolation, as was every easy move- 
 ment. His "useless" pair of hands were very evident, 
 lifted to support and adjust the glass on either side. All 
 the psychologist's instincts loved them, and the character 
 that even in repose they expressed. For the first time in his 
 life Savigny had a real pang of curiosity as to Antoine's 
 
LEMONSKI 23s 
 
 fashion of performance. He had always vigorously dis- 
 claimed any interest in him on the technical side. In his 
 heart, like all who keenly felt Antoine's individuality, he 
 neither believed in his technical capacity very deeply, nor 
 thought it of great moment. He had told himself often, at 
 least, that a boy at the easy-going age, inheriting such a 
 degree of physical charm, would give himself no grain more 
 trouble than necessary, in scoring off the susceptible public. 
 If it were merely because of the bond between them, he was 
 inclined to depreciate his talents now, and exalt those of the 
 unattractive young alien before him. 
 
 The subject reminded him of another point he wished to 
 settle, and turning back to the violinist, he took stock of 
 the effort needed in the operation. Playing a small instru- 
 ment could not, from the physical point of view, be taken 
 seriously, he supposed, yet the thick-set boy on the stage 
 was certainly giving himself some trouble, in the latter sec- 
 tion of the dance. It was an exhibition of blunt force, con- 
 tained passion, and a kind of furious mechanical precision, 
 quite impressive in its way, even to a person who cared for 
 none of the sounds he made. It was a very good perform- 
 ance, the doctor supposed, to judge by Antoine's rapt inter- 
 est in it. Once the boy's nearer hand dropped from his 
 glass, and he struck the cushion of the balustrade with a 
 visible little thrill of laughter. His face was hardly serious 
 when the first dance finished in a perfect whirl of notes, 
 and he and Lemonski relaxed their strained attention 
 simultaneously. 
 
 " Well," said Savigny, elbows on knees, during the ap- 
 plause. " Was it instructive? " 
 
 " Good," he assented. " I am glad I came. They are his 
 genre — the other one still more. You do not mind waiting 
 for that?" 
 
 " As you will ; if they ever mean to let him begin." 
 
 " He is wonderful," Antoine murmured, his soft eyes 
 drowning Lemonski. 
 
236 SUCCESSION | 
 
 " His manner Is wonderfully disagreeable," the doctor 
 grunted. 
 
 " Manner?" said the boy. " But that is Rudolf." 
 
 " Did you not mean Rudolf was wonderful ? " 
 
 Antoine gave him a glance. 
 
 " Moricz," he said, almost soundlessly, for the applause 
 was at last dying out, though constantly revived by those 
 who desired a repeat. 
 
 Two men had joined old Lemonski in the next box, and 
 he was wiping his brow and thick lips with a silk handker- 
 chief, nodding to what they said with a slight smile. But 
 it made him look none the pleasanter; and when Rudolf 
 entered on the second solo, he was frowning restlessly about 
 him as before. 
 
 The second melody was most dreary and strange — Sa- 
 vigny's somewhat elementary taste found it hideous ; it was 
 harmonised almost completely on the strings, without the 
 aid of accompaniment, save for a flat chord laid in here 
 and there. It was, as Antoine recognised at least, supremely 
 difficult, and the strange boy played it marvellously. An- | 
 toine gazed with the same intent stillness as before through- ■ 
 out, and to the doctor, whose nervous system was affected, 
 it lasted too long. 
 
 When the boy took the glass away at the end, which 
 seemed no end, and for an instant deceived the audience 
 into thinking the player would continue, he got up and 
 withdrew so silently and suddenly that Savigny did not at 
 once discover his place was empty. He followed, leaving 
 the hall clamouring for an extra number, and young Le- 
 monski refusing on the platform, absolutely dogged and 
 unmoved. His " father " was engaged in a vigorous low- 
 voiced dispute with one of his former companions. 
 
 "What's wrong?" said the doctor sharply without; for 
 it was clear Antoine was controlling emotion with difficulty. 
 
 " Nothing," he stammered. " Wait here a moment." He , 
 did so, getting his breath. He was biting his lip, Savigny 
 saw, during the pause, while the applause within came to 
 
L E AI O N S K I 237 
 
 them, glancing furtively about in all directions, as though 
 in spirit he longed to escape the sound. It was new, and 
 exceedingly interesting material for the psychologist, and 
 Savigny, as a mere man, was even a little amused. Various 
 members of Antoine's family had been jealous, and he above 
 all had the hot quality by direct inheritance, for his brilliant 
 mother had never been able to let her rivals alone. 
 
 The boy, suddenly turning, interrupted his thoughts. 
 " That is over," he said brusquely. " Now, I must see 
 him." 
 
 " Nonsense," said Savigny. " You need not." 
 
 " Yes, I have to. See, let me go alone." He caught the 
 doctor's arm, in eager entreaty. " It is all right, with his 
 father here in front. You will watch here, for him not to 
 come." 
 
 " Either I come," said Savigny, " or you go straight 
 home. That is the sensible course." 
 
 " Sensible ! " the boy hissed in his face. " There is 
 nothing that is sensible in the world, but what is in your 
 head. . . . Bah ! Come then," he added, turning on his 
 heel, " and we will see this beautiful, wonderful Lemonski. 
 Come ! " 
 
 " Mad with jealousy," Savigny privately repeated, as he 
 followed. " Shade of Henriette ! It is clearly better that 
 I go." 
 
 Antoine had evidently chosen his moment well, as they 
 found when they arrived at the artist's room. Nobody tried 
 to stop him, Savigny observed, his own name or that of 
 Reuss being sufficient at each intervention. When the hall 
 superintendent introduced him into a spacious, curtained 
 room, except for the accompanist, smoking in a far corner, 
 Rudolf Lemonski was alone, his broad back turned to them 
 in a window-seat. He started round as the superintendent 
 spoke his name. 
 
 " It is this gentleman," he said, extending a card. His 
 manner to the solitary boy was not polite. 
 
238 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Not now," Lemonski growled, his sulky brows bent, 
 his eyes not even turning on the card. " I'll see them after- 
 wards, confound them." 
 
 The superintendent shrugged, half to the visitors. " It 
 is Monsieur Antoine Edgell," he announced. " Young pig," 
 he muttered. 
 
 Young Lemonski roused, but his frown did not clear. 
 He held out a listless hand to Antoine without rising, and 
 said, "Who's the other?" of Savigny. 
 
 " My friend," said Antoine. " M. Savigny." 
 
 " French, eh ? " The boy's compressed mouth widened 
 with temper. " You speak Russian ? " he said to Antoine. 
 
 " No — but Monsieur will go right away." The doctor 
 nodded to his look, and retreated to a corner where he could 
 watch the pair unremarked. 
 
 They sat together, and the curtains obscured them rather. 
 Antoine did all the talking at first, and the other listened, 
 supremely sulky in appearance, spying at the accompanist's 
 proceedings, though his queer little hght eyes shot to his 
 companion's face from time to time. Then quite suddenly, 
 as though secure by the other man's face of his uncom- 
 prehension, he began to talk in a flood himself. He ex- 
 pressed himself with vigour, volubility, and the queerest 
 accent, which prevented all but a scattered phrase or two 
 from reaching the distant doctor. There was no doubt from 
 that, however, that he was talking to an intimate. That he 
 was passionately accusing somebody, also, there was no 
 doubt. His face altered in an extraordinary and interesting 
 fashion. Antoine gazed at him wide-eyed, the little lines 
 dawning on his brow. He got to his feet too, very soon, 
 for the other seemed signing him to go. Indeed, Rudolf's 
 uncontrolled gestures were as though to drive him away. 
 At the last he rose too, and seizing him by both arms as 
 though to inflict his confidence on an unwilling recipient, 
 drew him behind the curtains, a trifle nearer to Savigny. 
 
 "Que veux-tu que j'y fasse?" he said again and again, 
 almost shaking the slighter boy in his grasp. " Crois-tu 
 
L E M O N S K I 239 
 
 que je m'amuse a ces " All the ensuing words were bad 
 
 ones. 
 
 " You hate our things," said Antoine, frowning still. 
 
 " And do you not hate what you cannot ever do ? They 
 are all mad. There is no sense in life, I say. And you the 
 cause of it — you ! " He hissed it in a kind of triumph, 
 gazing closely in his companion's eyes. " Well, go. You 
 shall not stay to see me do it — the ugly rubbish that you 
 write in France. I will not have you stay — you hear?" 
 
 '' I go then," Antoine nodded. " They want me to, so 
 that is right." Still in Rudolf's clutches, he glanced towards 
 Savigny under his lashes. 
 
 "Who is he?" said Lemonski. 
 
 " A doctor that I know." 
 
 " Aha ! " He seemed to remember something. " Say — 
 thou hast been ill ? " 
 
 " Yes, rather." 
 
 " They told me thou wast dying," said Lemonski. " I did 
 not believe it." 
 
 " It would have been better for you, hein ? '* said Antoine. 
 
 " To be sure it might. But " — one blunt paw gripped his 
 shoulder — " do not die, Antoine. They wish it too much, 
 my " The words he used, not suspecting himself over- 
 heard, were again abominable. Antoine did not wince. He 
 was evidently thinking too hard. 
 
 " And you wish — what? " he demanded. 
 
 " Nothing but peace, now. Peace, and the chance to re- 
 pay him. Only a year or two — yes, I live for it. Say " — he 
 gripped again — " you heard the last dance ? " 
 
 " Yes," the boy answered. " I cried." 
 
 " It is dull," said the young Pole grimly. " The other 
 sounds better — more brilliant — hey? That, then, for the 
 future. I shall not play this again." 
 
 " Oh, kill him! " flashed Antoine. " It is yours." 
 
 " Psst ! little pale one. Thou wouldst kill him for me, 
 perhaps. But there are better ways," said Rudolf. " Yes — 
 I wait." He looked, standing sphinx-like, as if he could 
 
240 SUCCESSION 
 
 have waited for centuries, with the one sombre desire in his 
 heart. 
 
 Savigny stirred impatiently, and Antoine said, " I must 
 go." 
 
 " Yes, go," said Lemonski stolidly. " You leave to-mor- 
 row ? — that is well. Better of course if you had never come. 
 We shall not meet again, you comprehend? " He cleft the 
 air downwards with his hand. " It was folly to come in 
 here — hare-brained folly, and like you." 
 
 " He will not know," the boy suggested. 
 
 "He does," said young Rudolf grimly. "The devil 
 knows all things, mon petit. Run fast, hey?— or he will 
 spike you. Adieu, thou happy one ! " 
 
 So concluding, he sought the other boy near in the win- 
 dow embrasure, and embraced him on both cheeks, pushing 
 him roughly out the instant after, and falling back into his 
 original sulky attitude. 
 
 Savigny was annoyed with Antoine without, for he 
 walked along with his eyebrows raised, saying nothing at 
 all. He had his haughtiest little air of independence, and 
 was simultaneously quite unaware where he was going. He 
 missed the curb-stones, and had to be pushed from under 
 the cabs. Vexed in addition by these proceedings, the doctor 
 desired to stamp on him, but, since he refused to speak, 
 had no chance. He was prepared for all things, as usual, 
 except such a mood ; and when the boy stopped short of a 
 sudden, and complained sharply that he was hungry, 
 Savigny made up his mind that he was acting. However, 
 since the exhaustion of his looks was certainly well done, 
 he laid a strong hand on his shoulder for safety's sake, 
 paused, and consulted his watch. 
 
 "What do you want?" he said, screwing his eye at all 
 the places of refreshment in sight, and in Munich there are 
 many. 
 
 " Some beer would be good," murmured Antoine, regard- 
 ing the sky. Now, the suggestion, as it chanced, fell happily, 
 for Savigny himself was fond of beer. Ten minutes later, 
 
L E :M O N S K I 241 
 
 when they were reposing in retirement and security on the 
 terrace of a restaurant, he took a survey of his charge, and 
 decided that the stamping process might begin, without risk 
 of his fainting by the way. Antoine had eaten and drunk, 
 though beer made no part of his collation ; and there was 
 a little more colour in his lips, and less wild diablerie in 
 his expression, in consequence. Savigny, toying with a long 
 glass, thought that it would do. 
 
 " You have no right to meet such canaille," he announced, 
 with authority. " It is useless and foolish both. Your 
 grandfather would be vexed to hear of it." 
 
 " Tell him," said Antoine carelessly. 
 
 " Flippancy is a form of pretence," said Savigny. 
 
 " I mean, if grandpapa is vexed, it does not matter." 
 
 "What's that?" said Savigny. 
 
 " He does not beat me," said Antoine, turning his eyes 
 aside, and snapping his fingers to a small dog that ap- 
 proached them. There was a pause. 
 
 "That cub's ill-treated, is he?" said Savigny, shifting 
 ground a trifle. 
 
 "Did I say it?" said Antoine, and laughed. "He is a 
 horrible boy. I myself am happy — you heard him perhaps 
 say that? " 
 
 " I heard," said the doctor, scratching his chin. It 
 seemed rather useless attempting to stamp on such mercurial 
 substance. 
 
 " You say it too, hein ? " said Antoine. " I am spoilt. 
 Everybody is kind — you, for instance." He caught at his 
 sleeve persuasively. 
 
 " Kindness itself," Savigny growled. " They come from 
 Paris when you are ill, and take you back whether you will 
 or no." 
 
 " Yes. Did you do that ? Only if one is really happy — • 
 it does not matter." 
 
 " You are an oddity," said Savigny, giving it up. " I'll 
 talk to you when you are sober." 
 
242 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Merci," said Antoine. " Chut, sois sage " — to the dog. 
 Sobriety descended on the company. 
 
 Presently, over the beer — which was excellent — Savigny 
 tried again. It struck him that the chance was good to get 
 some questions answered, without a curious and critical 
 audience of women. He had been storing up questions for 
 many days, and the afternoon's somewhat unusual expe- 
 rience had ripened some for the asking. Antoine had eaten 
 another piece of cake, and looked serener in consequence — 
 indeed almost normal. 
 
 *'Were*you happy with Moricz, Antoine?" he said. 
 
 " With whom ? " said Antoine, who was feeding the small 
 dog with cake. 
 
 " Come, you are not deaf. Perhaps I pronounced it 
 wrong." 
 
 " Yes, you did. I was — more happy with him than 
 Rudolf was. He gave me a — a very nice certificate." 
 
 " Thank you. That is what I wished to know." A pause, 
 the dog being absorbing. 
 
 " What are you," said Savigny, addressing the back of 
 his head, " if you are not a violin player? " 
 
 "Is that beer not nice?" said Antoine, turning. 
 
 " The best I ever tasted. I shall have some more. I know 
 I am an amateur, my child ; I might even be called an out- 
 sider, in art. But comparing you with that ugly boy to-day, 
 and never having heard you perform yourself, it was natural 
 to debate the point. You can play the violin, can't you ? " 
 
 " Yes, I can play the violin. And Rudolf is a violin player. 
 I suppose it is different, for Moricz." 
 
 " Did they make as much noise over you as they made 
 over him to-day ? " 
 
 " A pen pres," said Antoine. " Tiens, that is well caught " 
 — to the dog. 
 
 " Yet I suppose this Moricz meant you did not play so 
 well." 
 
 " I suppose so," assented Antoine. " My certificate was 
 longer than his. Grandpapa has got it." 
 
L E M O N S K I 243 
 
 " You admired this Moricz — found him wonderful, you 
 said. Well then, the opinion could not have been nonsense." 
 
 " No, no," said Antoine cordially. " Moricz was very 
 clever. For an extremely old man, the most you can imagine. 
 But very often he said curious things," he added lightly. 
 
 " Curious, eh ? You thought it odd ? Or silly ? " 
 
 " He was not silly that day," said Antoine, as though 
 recollecting with difficulty. 
 
 " Were you ofifended ? " 
 
 " No." In the lightest, dryest tone imaginable. He 
 turned impatient eyes to the beer-glass, which was but half 
 drained. 
 
 " Did he imply that you began too late ? " said Savigny, 
 drinking a little. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Antoine, struck with the idea. " I was 
 four when I began. You did not know me then." 
 
 " I saw you at two years old," said Savigny, actually 
 diverted by this happy attempt. 
 
 " Oh — perhaps it was someone else," said Antoine. 
 
 " Not likely. You were in your grandfather's study — ■ 
 and in your mother's arms. She handed you to me while 
 she put on her gloves. Anybody would have done," said 
 Savigny, " but I happened to be there." 
 
 *' Did I cry?" said the boy, scanning him, slightly inter- 
 ested. 
 
 " On the contrary. You appeared relieved at the ex- 
 change. The gloves were new, and you were comparatively 
 old, which I suppose was the reason." 
 
 A pause. " I don't remember it," said Antoine, relaxing 
 after the effort. " It was not our own study, in the Avenue, 
 or I should. Shall we go home now ? " 
 
 " When I have finished," said Savigny, tapping his glass. 
 " Listen. That fellow to-day hated Moricz, didn't he? " 
 
 " Yes. Rudolf hates everyone." 
 
 "Did you?" 
 
 "Hate Moricz? No." Deep melancholy dawned on his 
 
244 SUCCESSION 
 
 expressive face. " I shall only be very glad," said Antoine, 
 lower, " when I hear that he is dead." 
 
 " Bah ! " said Savigny, with impatience. " You are elud- 
 ing me again. That means, Antoine, you have something 
 to conceal, hey?" The boy had come to his side. 
 
 " Let us go home," he said gently. " That beer is quite 
 done." 
 
 " I might have another — and get it out of you. You know 
 I could if I wished, don't you?" 
 
 " You do not wish," said the boy breathlessly. Savigny 
 put an arm about him. 
 
 " Are you still happy ? " he asked. 
 
 " Are you ? " said Antoine, as with a last effort of his in- 
 tellect after a pause of great strain. 
 
 Savigny paid the bill, kicked away the dog, which seemed 
 strongly inclined to follow them, and they left the restau- 
 rant, no doubt by an oversight, without either of these 
 questions being answered. 
 
 " Tell us a story, Antoine," suggested Reuss that evening, 
 when certain guests had gone. Lorbeer had been enticed 
 from his work, and his family to meet them, and, assisted 
 rarely by the ladies, they had been discussing personalities 
 up and down in their fashion, with much smoking, copious 
 beer, and roars of Titanic laughter. Antoine had been 
 bored, and had hardly spoken during the evening. On the 
 eve of quitting the friendly household, depression was very 
 natural, and the Fraulein Reuss's had been very kind to him, 
 and not tried much to disturb what was probably a senti- 
 mental reverie, both creditable and flattering. 
 
 " Show us what you can do in German," Lorbeer 
 prompted. " A last exhibition." 
 
 " Oh, bah ! " said Antoine, who was thinking, curled up 
 in the shadow by the window. " I can't make things up 
 to-night." 
 
 " Antoine is feeling truthful," said Fritz. " Beware, oh 
 my friends." 
 
L E M O N S K I 245 
 
 " He is still out of temper," said the doctor drily. " It 
 was a little too good this afternoon." 
 
 " Aha ! We have it," Fritz cried. 
 
 " It is so, indeed," said Fraulein Clara. " You have not 
 told us the truth yet about Lemonski." 
 
 The boy roused at the voice. " He is the best artist I 
 ever heard," he said, in an odd, slow tone. " Though, of 
 course, I have not heard many concerts." 
 
 " Dear child," the serious sister intervened. " We really 
 want to know your opinion." 
 
 " Yes, I am trying to. Let me think what I have heard," 
 said Antoine. " He is better than Winthner, and Abel, and 
 Charretteur, and Laribe " 
 
 " And Lemaure," Reuss supplied, 
 
 " Perhaps," said Antoine, pausing. " I never heard him 
 play, when he was young. Well " — he jerked about at the 
 general derisive outcry — " do you want me to say what is 
 true? — ^because I am trying to. I had much rather not talk." 
 
 " Dearest, you shall not. Go to sleep. Your opinion on 
 the subject is worthless, evidently." 
 
 Antoine collapsed again and shut his eyes, and the doctor, 
 by request of the sisters, took up the tale. Character was 
 a high question to Savigny ; and he turned over his sheaf 
 of data, finger-tips meeting, before he spoke. 
 
 " He is not uninteresting to watch," he began, " though he 
 stands like a block. I should say the muscular machinery 
 is good, though his legs have lost their spring, and he walks 
 badly. The brain is well developed, though the balance, to 
 judge on sight, is defective. Mentally, he has few facets." 
 Savigny looked at Clara, who seemed able to translate him, 
 and was much impressed. Unable, however, to bear her 
 solemnity, he went off at a tangent. " Now, your artistic 
 people," he observed, " are nothing but facets. Surface 
 glitter, Madame. Consequently, Lemonski is not artistic." 
 Having produced a laugh, he proceeded. " Spiritually, the 
 fellow is harder to judge, for it is not an expressive mask, 
 and his pose is deliberately, I should say, that of a blank 
 
246 SUCCESSION 
 
 wall. Hard as nails," said Savigny. " Ambitious and self- 
 centred. His hands, set of mouth, and manner of speech 
 are alike perfectly vulgar. Well " — for Antoine in the 
 corned jerked anew — " if his expressions to you to-day were 
 not vulgar, what were they ? " 
 
 " The word seems silly to me," said the boy, with dis- 
 arming mildness. " Never mind." Whereat the critic 
 promptly turned on him. 
 
 " Personal criticism always makes Antoine wriggle," he 
 told the company. " All epithets that are the least dis- 
 criminating, applied to persons, are silly, according to him. 
 He has no objection to classing, but he will not define. 
 People for instance may be good or bad, may they not ? " 
 
 Reuss took up the tale. " Clever or the reverse," he sug- 
 gested, " beautiful or ugly. I presume Lemonski is beauti- 
 ful?" 
 
 " He is like a pig," said Antoine, bored. " I have said 
 that heaps of times." 
 
 " There might be beautiful pigs," said Savigny, " in your 
 world. To continue the list, people may be agreeable — 
 curious — horrible — and amusing. Am I correct ? " 
 
 " You are horrible," said Antoine succinctly. " I am tired 
 of this. You must talk about Lemonski again." 
 
 " Well, was I correct about Lemonski ? Come, lend me a 
 hand." 
 
 The boy laid a hand across his eyes before he spoke. 
 " Certainly Lemonski is vulgar," he said. " Moricz was 
 also a vulgar man. He said all those same ugly things. 
 Because he and Rudolf are not French, do you understand? 
 And so, especially when they are in a hurry, they say the 
 words they learn. Doctors like you," said Antoine, warm- 
 ing rapidly, " clever old French doctors — do not talk to 
 them in the evening, and show them beautiful words to use 
 about people, until the people all look quite different. Now 
 listen : it does not matter what Lemonski is really like, a ce 
 qu'il parait " 
 
LEMONSKI 247 
 
 " Do not be angry with us," said Fritz, comically ward- 
 ing as he stood suddenly erect. 
 
 " No," said Antoine. " So I will make up some funny 
 things about him, and ' raconter,' as you said. I can better 
 now." After standing a minute with a slight frown, he 
 came across to Reuss's side. Everyone in the room was 
 silent, surprised at the signs of emotion, evident in the full 
 light. They had all been teasing as usual, quite unconscious 
 that he was suffering, or even attending closely. 
 
 " Good," said Fritz, gathering him in, " he is drawn. 
 Talk to us, and we will tease you about the pig-faced boy 
 no longer." 
 
 " No, I must talk of him a little. But you ask," he added, 
 with his singular childishness, " because it makes it so long, 
 to talk alone." 
 
 " Between ourselves," said Fritz, making room for him, 
 " we are not really interested in the subject." 
 
 '* Yet he is interesting," said Antoine positively. 
 ' Voyons ! " He touched Fritz's cheek with an inviting 
 inger. " You are to ask." 
 
 " Where did your lordship meet him first?" said Reuss, 
 entering the game with a good grace, having made sure of 
 lis playmate. 
 
 " At a lady's house," said Antoine, settling contentedly. 
 ' We both hated the lady rather, so we began to talk." 
 
 "About her?" 
 
 " She was not listening," said Antoine. " She had long 
 hings in her ears. Besides, grandpapa was talking just 
 hen, so they were happy together." 
 
 " Eh, bien? " said Reuss, as he stopped short. 
 
 " Eh bien — when it was finished about Madame Ber- 
 rand," Antoine covered his mouth with his hand. His 
 ' story " was open to pitfalls. 
 
 " Did you agree on an epithet ? " inquired Savigny, be- 
 oming interested. 
 
 " No," said Antoine. " Only I laughed at the thing he 
 aid. Well, when it was done, Rudolf said that Russian 
 
248 SUCCESSION 
 
 sweets were very good, and if I came round to his hotel, he 
 would give me some. So of course I went. Only my uncle 
 went too, and there were heaps of people, and Monsieur le 
 Papa was polite to me, and Rudolf was rude to both of us, 
 and there were no sweets, and so it was ' rate ' completely." 
 A pause to get his breath, and prepare his grammar against 
 accidents. " So next day I was going past the hotel to meet 
 my uncle at the library, and copy some old things," he 
 recommenced fluently, "and what did I see?" He slid a 
 hand up to Fritz again. 
 
 " Invent it rapidly," said his friend. " We are in sus- 
 pense." 
 
 " I saw Monsieur le Papa going out in a taxi-auto. No 
 Rudolf, hein?" 
 
 " Ha ! So Lucien waited at the library in vain, and left 
 the old things uncopied, and came home raging. Is that 
 the end?" 
 
 " There is some before that," said Antoine, stopping him 
 hurriedly. " There is something you cannot guess. Rudolf 
 is a boy who climbs very well." 
 
 " Climbs? " queried Bertha. 
 
 "To be sure, my dear," said Reuss. "They are both 
 good climbers for their age." 
 
 "No, no," said Antoine. "Real climbing, like a ship. 
 Rudolf is clever to do it. We talked together first, for a 
 long time " 
 
 " About ladies ? " said Savigny. 
 
 " No, about Rudolf. He was angry that day — some 
 
 rather awful things " He lifted his sincere eyes to 
 
 Reuss's face. 
 
 " We do not ask for details," the friend said gently. " I 
 never doubted he had a hard time, liebchen. We are not 
 heartless." 
 
 " No. Only it was — worse. Of course, his words are 
 bad." He took a minute to swallow down the recollection 
 and proceeded. " You will make that up," he said, with a 
 gesture. " After it, he went out of the window — ^yes " — as 
 
L E M O N S K I 249 
 
 the ladies ejaculated — " and all over the balconies — it was 
 amusing to see, only I was frightened. But he is very 
 strong — muscular " — a withering droop of the head to Dr 
 Savigny — " and he went into the window of his father's 
 room." 
 
 " Antoine ! What next ? " — from Clara. 
 
 " Why not the ordinary way ? " inquired Fritz. " Just 
 to make a better story ? " 
 
 "Yes; for that. The door was locked, outside in the 
 passage. He had locked Rudolf's violin," said Antoine, 
 clinging to Fritz's coat, " because, if Rudolf had it, he be- 
 lieved he would run away. And he had locked the sweets 
 too, though they were given to Rudolf ; and all the money 
 always — because he is a careful man. Wasn't it awful ? " 
 
 " Terrific," said Reuss, unmoved. " The cunning little 
 criminal. And you abetted him in stealing, hey?" 
 
 " We ate the sweets," said Antoine slowly, and his 
 strained face relaxed. "He let me have quite a lot. And 
 he played his ' airs ' for me, some very beautiful ones. And 
 in between them he talked to me a good deal. And then 
 his father came — stealing in with his beautiful boots — and 
 it all finished horribly like I told you yesterday. He is an 
 awful man. He said my good grandfather had not warned 
 him that I should call." 
 
 " And oddly enough," said Reuss, " you had not warned 
 your good grandfather." 
 
 " Grandpapa said afterwards," observed Antoine, " that 
 it would have been easy to telephone to the library, if I had 
 wanted to be polite." 
 
 " What did you retort ? " said Savigny. 
 
 " Nothing," said Antoine. " You can't say anything, 
 when he talks like that. I don't think he had much wanted 
 me to see Rudolf." 
 
 " I told you so ! " said Savigny. There was a pause, the 
 company turning over the new evidence, as was clear in 
 their faces. 
 
250 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Does your Lemonski steal money, as well as sweets ? '* 
 said Fritz, crumpling his beard. 
 
 " Perhaps," said Antoine guardedly. " If he works for 
 his father, hein? And he does work, late into the night 
 sometimes. He told me this, Rudolf : that some day, when 
 he had got money enough, and was tired of the concerts, 
 he would steal the violin, and go back to Warsaw, and play 
 in the roads like he used to do when he was very little, 
 when his father found him. He says the people are kind 
 there, and he could play his airs for them. It would be 
 cold, but he is happier like that. Are you tired of this 
 story ? " 
 
 " It is illuminating," said Fritz. " He composes, Antoine? 
 Improvises, eh ? " 
 
 " Yes. Oh — anything he likes, when he has the violin. 
 Perhaps," said Antoine, pausing, " it was more wonderful 
 to me then, because he had been to Moricz, and I had not. 
 But n'importe: it was — the beautiful playing." 
 
 The company was silent. Perforce, by his clenched 
 hands, bitten lip, and calm brow as he gazed before him, 
 they believed. 
 
 " He did some horrible little things in grandpapa's pas- 
 sages," Antoine resumed of a sudden, " but that was to 
 make me angry. He laughed when I minded. He is me- 
 chant, Rudolf, with his little eyes." 
 
 Profound silence again. 
 
 " I think, altogether " — he summed up his reflections — 
 " he is the best I have heard. I am sure Moricz thought so 
 too." 
 
 " What did Moricz say of Lemonski ? " said Reuss 
 brusquely. 
 
 " He said, for a performing beast, he was clever. You 
 see," Antoine hastened to explain, as his audience laughed, 
 " Moricz likes to hurt people when he talks. And Rudolf 
 standing there with his face stiff, and his feet like — like a 
 bear dancing, would annoy him certainly. When Rudolf 
 got home he cried, but he did not tell Moricz that." 
 
L E M O N S K I 251 
 
 "How often did Moricz make thee cry?" said Reuss, 
 putting a large paw under his chin. 
 
 " He was different, with me," said Antoine, frowning, 
 " Tenez ! " He took a sudden and mighty resolution. " I 
 will tell you the worst about Moricz, since I think you are 
 curious to know." Looking about his circle, he gathered 
 himself for an effort. Breathless expectation on the part 
 of the Reuss family, sly triumph on that of Savigny. He 
 thought he had his finger on the central miscreant at last. 
 
 " Moricz," said Antoine slowly, " is a man with dreadful 
 ideas. This is one. When he has quite finished a pupil he 
 takes hold of them so, pinching with his fingers, and says 
 
 this: 'You have been with me ' a gesture of hand for 
 
 the period. * You cannot go further, because there is no 
 further to go. I am Moricz, and I have finished you. Now,' 
 he says, ' look ahead, my most accomplished. What do you 
 see there, on the road? You are ,' a slight shrug sug- 
 gested the pupil's age — " Rudolph himself was twelve, I 
 think — or eleven." 
 
 " Pauvre petit," Fritz muttered. His broad hand was 
 across his face, his elbow on the couch-back now. 
 
 " You see," said Antoine, glancing at him with a nod. 
 " Moricz says, look ahead at all those years — what is the 
 good of all your trouble? A qiioi bonf — he said. And 
 Rudolf said the same to me that day when he had finished 
 playing. A quoi bon, tout cela? " 
 
 " I doubt if our friend had to be taught that," said 
 Savigny, "even at eleven years old." 
 
 " But it makes it worse! " cried Antoine. 
 
 " It does," said Fritz. " The cunning old tormentor." 
 He turned it over a little, his good face rather grave, for 
 this was a question of a child. It had not struck him before 
 in that light. 
 
 Antoine nodded, satisfied. His " story," though a longer 
 method of demonstration than Savigny's, seemed to have 
 the effect he desired. Every one in the room was thinking 
 in the right way now about Rudolf. This was an artistic 
 
252 SUCCESSION 
 
 satisfaction, though such an effect was nearly as exhausting 
 as a long concert to produce. 
 
 "And what didst thou do," said Reuss, dropping the 
 hand from his brow and taking Antoine's wrists, " when 
 the fiend said those pretty things? You have made Le- 
 monski's case out very completely, for our benefit. Make 
 us now your own." 
 
 " I told you," said Antoine, somewhat annoyed. " He did 
 not say those things to me. You understand, I have been 
 telling you about Lemonski, who is an artist — upon the 
 violin." 
 
 "We understand too well both his artistry and thy 
 obstinacy," said Fritz. " But we here are not of his faction, 
 as it happens. We are thy friends. When he addressed to 
 thee his parting blessing, his charming ' a quoi bon ' — what 
 didst thou say? Something notable, we are sure." 
 f " I could not answer," said the boy, " because he did not 
 say it." He put a hand to his head, a common gesture since 
 his illness. " It is you who are obstinate, I think." 
 
 " His own wit is not worth noting," said Lorbeer, smoking 
 solemnly. 
 
 " I remember it all very well," said Antoine proudly. 
 
 " You were crying too much to hear the question," mur- 
 mured Reuss. 
 
 " No, not the last day." He bit his lip consciously as 
 they smiled. " It was just," he repeated, " that he did not 
 say it." 
 
 "Why did he not?" 
 
 " What I asked, Reuss," Savigny mentioned. " Why were 
 you not worth it, Antoine? What's the difference?" 
 
 " Mon Dieu, you are curious people," said Antoine hope- 
 lessly, in his own tongue. " Oh well, listen, here is a thing 
 I have just made. Moricz was older with me — a fearfully 
 old man — and so I expect that he forgot." 
 
 It speaks oddly for a company of whom two were dis- 
 tinguished musicians, and all the rest but one distinguished 
 
L E M O N S K I 253 
 
 amateurs, that it was the one, the inartistic doctor, who 
 came nearest on that occasion to reaching the opinion that 
 he avoided reporting so obviously, and so childishly ex- 
 plained. Even Savigny did not get all the way, until cir- 
 cumstances drove him to do so ; though he stored up some 
 useful impressions, and two undoubted facts. There had 
 been an understanding between the aged expert and his 
 latest pupil, that no abuse or mockery had subsequently been 
 able to shake ; and further — some other agency than that 
 of Moricz had been needed to produce this last and most 
 serious convulsion to his health and happiness. 
 
PART II 
 THE SECOND CAMPAIGN 
 
I 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BAD SUBJECT 
 
 " By the way, Louis," said Savigny, " did that young devil 
 give trouble before he left?" 
 
 Savigny was in his glory, and his own clinique. His 
 hair was on end, likewise his coat lay on the floor, and a 
 quill-pen was stuck behind his right ear. This was his 
 working costume, when not besieged by unwelcome clients 
 and the fashionable world. The hour was eleven-thirty, 
 or a little after; for he and his fidus Achates, Dr Bronne, 
 were having a midnight sitting over the notes of some un- 
 usually interesting cases of the year, carefully picked, 
 which were undergoing sorting and minute correction, be- 
 fore taking their final place in the quarterly journal of the 
 research society. Savigny and Bronne were both good 
 workers in their different ways, the one swift and vigorous 
 in method, the other patient and minutely conscientious. 
 Nor did they quarrel ever, for Bronne did that which 
 Savigny desired, and frequently took the blame in addition, 
 when the course was ill advised. 
 
 The doctor in chief had been back for nearly a month 
 and was only now beginning to get abreast with the work 
 postponed during his absence and piled up for him. Least 
 of all, owing to the pressing claims of out-patients, and 
 the inanities of fine ladies who insisted on believing in him, 
 in spite of careful discouragement, had he been able to 
 bring himself up to date with the " internat," the hospital 
 department under Bronne's charge, which he organised, 
 interfered wifh, and subjected to criticism at intervals. 
 
 257 
 
258 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Charretteur, you mean ? Trouble is not the word," said 
 Bronne, in his slow, fine accent. " I think the staff up there 
 were pleased to see the last of him. I have heard on the 
 authority of two of them that he drank a glass of brandy to 
 your health before he left. I imagine, in fact, that he 
 threatened to do so, as soon as he got outside." 
 
 " Well, I imagine he will not," said Savigny grimly. " I 
 got my knife far enough in to last for a bit at least. The 
 thing's a bother altogether. We've missed fire, which I 
 hate. You couldn't manage him, eh?" He looked at his 
 young friend, whose gentle and rather finicking appearance 
 belied his strength, both physical and moral. 
 
 " I knocked him down," said Dr Bronne apologetically, 
 leaning back. " That is, once. There was nobody to see, I 
 made sure of that." 
 
 " Ha ! " Savigny got up, awakened and amused. " A 
 fight, under a hospital roof? Look here, do you suppose 
 that's medicine?" 
 
 " He had finished insulting me," said Dr Bronne, exam- 
 ining the point of his pen, which was unsatisfactory, " and 
 begun upon the system. He said things I knew you would 
 not have borne, had you been there. So I waited for the 
 right point, and gave him the lie." 
 
 "Quietly?" 
 
 " As I am speaking now." 
 
 " And then he struck you, hey ? " 
 
 " On the spot," said Bronne. " I liked the way he 
 did it: prompt muscle-action, and plenty of self-control. 
 I said to myself, ' You are a cure after all, say what you 
 like ' " 
 
 " And hit him back again ! Well, on my honour," said 
 Savigny, " I have a mind to court-martial you. What had 
 you been drinking, Louis ? " 
 
 " I had over-worked a trifle," said Bronne, " I am not 
 naturally irritable, I believe. But he is an aggravating fel- 
 low, on my word. He said he was ruined, among other 
 things: professionally ruined, which cannot really be 
 true." 
 
THE BAD SUBJECT 259 
 
 " Did he pay his board ? " said Savigny sharply. 
 
 " He has sent it since." 
 
 " Confound him ! Send it back." 
 
 " I do not know his address," said Bronne. 
 
 " Pish ! go and ask. They can tell you at the places where 
 he plays." 
 
 " JVIy messenger tried, sir, but nobody has heard of him, 
 nor wanted to, one would say. I thought he was popular." 
 
 "So he was." Savigny paused, scowling: he was per- 
 ambulating the room. " Antoine will never forgive me," 
 he said. " There's just a chance he may have communi- 
 cated. Why hadn't you the sense to ask the fellow himself 
 before he left?" 
 
 " He left in a hurry," said Dr Bronne, in leisurely utter- 
 ance. " By a back window, so they say." 
 
 " They say ! " growled Savigny. " Pretty doings, by 
 heaven ! What are you superintendent for ? " 
 
 Dr Bronne did not say that he had been acting superin- 
 tendent, consulting physician, and sub-editor as well, dur- 
 ing the weeks in question, which covered the period of 
 Savigny's foreign travel, for he knew Savigny knew these 
 facts as well as he did. Savigny had abused his looks on 
 arrival, and told him he was evidently taking life too hard, 
 and his own importance too seriously, and Bronne had had 
 nothing to say. He was devoting attention now to his 
 pen, which still displeased him, and accepted his reproof 
 with gravity. 
 
 " I will apologise to Antoine," he said. " I am really 
 very sorry. He was an interesting personality, Charretteur, 
 though eccentric in his morals." 
 
 " He was not unmoral," said Savigny. 
 
 " Nor immoral," said Bronne. " He was perverse and 
 crooked. He made one of the younger girls smuggle in 
 spirits for him, and when I asked if he had bribed her, he 
 said no, he had only resorted to your method." 
 
 " What's that ? " said Savigny indignantly. 
 
 " Used his eyes." Bronne glanced round. " He said he 
 
26o SUCCESSION 
 
 had suspected from the first there was money in your line 
 of business, and now he was sure of it." 
 
 " What did you say? " said the doctor, after a pause. 
 
 " I laughed," said Dr Bronne. 
 
 " Hey ? That was not what you hit him for, then ? " 
 
 " Not that, no." 
 
 " He called me a charlatan, did he? " said Savigny, jerk- 
 ing about. " A knave, perhaps." 
 
 " A lot of injurious jargon," said his assistant. " It 
 amounted to that. After all," he added slowly, " it's not 
 the first time: though the charge is rather old history." 
 With another attentive inspection of his pen, he shook it 
 and resumed his writing. Bronne blew the little flame of 
 Savigny's slow-growing renown with almost feminine devo- 
 tion, and laid the whole of his own careful work down daily 
 as fuel in the cause. He was in many ways the consolation 
 to the solitary, much-tried doctor that in happier circum- 
 stances a wife might have been; and he certainly claimed 
 far less for himself than would have done the wife of 
 Savigny's first choosing, had fate granted her to his arms. 
 That bride would not at least have encouraged him in self- 
 ishness, as Bronne's continual attention inclined to do. 
 
 As for Savigny's side, he afforded his slave little atten- 
 tion, to all appearance, and no consideration at all. Bronne's 
 own warm little party said he trampled ; yet to be trampled 
 is the fate of those who lie down. In private Savigny sel- 
 dom mentioned him, he who riddled all the world with 
 criticism. Only when others criticised his slave could he 
 aflford a rare retort. M. Lemaure, mocking mildly at the 
 perfection of Bronne's appearance, had called him " the 
 young god." 
 
 " You are not quite on it all the same," snapped Savigny, 
 " for Louis has enthusiasm, and the gods you mean are 
 cold." Whereat M. Lemaure smiled, and satirised no more. 
 
 Savigny now went to work again ; but his mind was evi- 
 dently disturbed. He jerked himself constantly, not to men- 
 
THEBADSUBJECT 261 
 
 tion the table, maltreated his utensils, and snorted at faults 
 in the proof. 
 
 " I am sick of this," he said suddenly. " Midnight, Louis, 
 sleeping-time. I shall go to bed." 
 
 " I shall finish this page," said Bronne. 
 
 " Bad habit in youth," said Savigny. " If your eyes get 
 any deeper in your head, they'll come out the other side." 
 But having tapped him on the head as patron, and looked 
 at his notes over his shoulder for a minute, he rattled down 
 the keys at his side, and went through to the private house, 
 leaving his assistant to finish and lock up. 
 
 The younger man had not written in peace and solitude 
 for ten minutes when the telephone bell rang sharply twice. 
 
 " Oh, curse them," said Bronne gently. " That will 
 reach his room." 
 
 Part of his self-imposed mission was to guard Savigny's 
 resting-time, such time as he got in these days. He threw 
 down his pen, and went to the little office. 
 
 " Hallo ! " he said, in the clear, soft tone that carried well. 
 " No, he is in bed. Who is it? What? Aha! Yes, im- 
 mediately." He hung up the receiver, and then again un- 
 hooked it. "Antoine! Is the woman there? Good, go 
 back to bed." 
 
 "What's that?" said Bronne's chief, coming cat-like 
 behind him just as he was putting on his coat. His fine ear 
 had caught the jangle from afar. 
 
 " Let me go," said Bronne, though doubtfully, when he 
 had informed him. 
 
 " Sit there and do your notes," said Savigny, " and know 
 your place, I might have to send for something, but I 
 doubt it — the child is easy scared. Wait for me an hour, 
 do you hear? — and then shut up." 
 
 He went, with the agility of youth. Every sign of natural 
 exhaustion had disappeared from the first mention of his 
 friend's name. Bronne, who knew all the history, and was 
 used to the intrusions of Lemaure on the impersonal realms 
 of science, smiled slightly, shrugged, and returned to his 
 
262 SUCCESSION 
 
 occupations. Nothing happened for half-an-hour, when 
 there was a ring, at the door this time; and going to the 
 small entrance in the side street, he admitted Antoine. 
 
 " You ? " said Dr Bronne, with composure. " Is anything 
 wanted? " 
 
 " No. Savigny says it is all right, but they are talking, 
 and don't want me there. He is not coming back. I am 
 to stay here — t-till the morning. Do you mind ? " 
 
 " No," said Bronne. " I half expected it, your place is 
 so small. Come in to the fire, won't you? You are cold." 
 
 " No," the boy said. " It is not at all cold outside." But 
 his teeth were chattering none the less, and his utterance was 
 irregular, and sharp in tone. Bronne saw the signs of shock 
 very well. He put him into Savigny's own deep chair, made 
 up a generous fire, and then left him in peace to recover, 
 looking through his now finished notes with his most im- 
 perturbable air. 
 
 " It is funny to be here without him," soliloquised An- 
 toine, suddenly throwing himself back. " It is rather amus- 
 ing, I think." He looked doubtfully at his companion. 
 
 " You shall sleep in his bed, if you like," said Louis 
 Bronne. 
 
 " No, no," said the boy. " I shall sleep here, in this 
 chair. It is a nice long one." He wriggled himself into 
 comfort. " He said I was a donkey to ring him up for 
 nothing — I was s-so glad to be one. What are you 
 writing? " 
 
 Bronne passed him calmly the notes of Charretteur's 
 case, an incredible proceeding under any roof but that. 
 Antoine did not read them at once, though he fingered the 
 sheets absently and commented on the writing. He had had 
 a fright, and his mind could not settle immediately. How- 
 ever, things in the Avenue were now in powerful hands, 
 and likely to be well. There was a charm also in the con- 
 sulting-room — without its despot's presence — a new and 
 delicate attraction. As for Dr Bronne, Antoine had always 
 thought him " beautiful," making with his own brother a 
 
THE BAD SUBJECT 263 
 
 twin solace in the barren waste that was Parisian society, 
 when taken strictly from this point of view. At really bad 
 moments of life, he went out of his way to look at either. 
 
 "Had you been to sleep?" said Louis. The kettle had 
 boiled, and he was concocting hot drinks in an accustomed 
 manner, for a night call had its ceremonies. 
 
 " No, not quite. He came to my room and called me. 
 He has never done that, even when the pain was very bad. 
 I did not know his voice at first, and then I went. I 
 wanted to fetch Margot — she sleeps now au sixieme — but 
 he would not let me for a long time. One hand is still 
 very strong." He caressed his own wrist unconsciously. 
 *' These days, he is different." 
 
 The last quick confession would not have been offered 
 to Savigny. Bronne had the feminine gift of winning con- 
 fidence, without effort or force ; for which reason he had 
 been abundantly useful in the early or confessional stage 
 through which so many sensitive sufferers had passed in 
 this very room. 
 
 " Since you came home," he said, " has he not seemed 
 well?" 
 
 " He seems well, but he is different." 
 
 " He grows older," said Bronne simply. " You do too, 
 fortunately; so you can realise and be ready for the 
 changes, can you not ? " 
 
 " I have been ready, I think," said the boy frowning. " I 
 have to read to him, and talk a good deal about the con- 
 certs. He likes that." 
 
 " And be with him pretty constantly, probably. You 
 have little time to yourself." 
 
 Antoine shrugged simply. " Have you any more concerts 
 here? " said Bronne. 
 
 " To-morrow night, the recital of Duchatel. I am try- 
 ing to practise for it." 
 
 ** Trying? " 
 
 " Grandpapa does not like the music much." Both brows 
 lifted, and he gazed at Bronne. " The next day — no, the 
 
264 SUCCESSION 
 
 day after — I go to England. Philippe will come to him 
 then." 
 
 "Does Monsieur Lemaure not want you to go?" said 
 Bronne, with a glance at his restless attitude. 
 
 " When I talk about the programmes, yes. When he for- 
 gets them, he is vexed." 
 
 " With you ? " 
 
 " Generally with my uncle. He does not see why I should 
 not be here, like I used to be when I was ten. If this re- 
 cital is a good one," said Antoine, clearing his throat, for 
 he was hoarse, " and I give him things to read about it, 
 and Duchatel comes to talk, he will not mind me going to 
 London, I think." 
 
 " You rehearse to-morrow, I suppose," said Louis, hand- 
 ing him his share of the cookery. " Here, this will be good 
 for your cold." 
 
 " I have not got a cold," said Antoine. 
 
 " Excuse me," said the doctor gravely. " It is hot, take 
 care. When do you rehearse?" 
 
 " Most of the day," said Antoine, grimacing. " It is 
 awful to play, the new sonata. Too awful. I told Duchatel 
 I shall change some things. He will be angry if I do." He 
 gazed at the steaming glass absently. " This smells nice," 
 he said suddenly. " I am so hungry. May I have some 
 bread? " 
 
 Bronne supplied him with some substantial crusts, which 
 he fished out of a tin box. " I apologise," he said, " for our 
 restricted hospitality. We keep nothing appetising over 
 here." He glanced at a shelf of blue bottles, and the boy 
 laughed gently. To sup after midnight, in Savigny's 
 domain, had a relish he did not disguise. He thought 
 Bronne also had a sly air of being out of school ; at least 
 his dark face was very pleasant. Antoine, while he dipped 
 his crusts in the glass, and gnawed at them contentedly, 
 divided his attention between him, and the notes on his knee. 
 
 " There ! " he ejaculated, hitting the chair suddenly, and 
 
THE BAD SUBJECT 265 
 
 nearly upsetting the glass. " Of course you can tell me. 
 Savigny would not." 
 
 " But I cannot answer, if Savigny will not," Bronne ob- 
 jected. 
 
 " Bah, you can when you smile," said Antoine. " You 
 know what it is, too." 
 
 " About Charretteur," said Bronne, with resignation. 
 
 " Yes, about him. He is well ? " 
 
 " Practically. I hope by now, entirely." 
 
 " You hope ? " cried the boy. 
 
 " He has left us. He ran away in early September." 
 
 " Is he in Paris ? " said Antoine, after a pause with more 
 gnawing, most severe in its effect. 
 
 " I cannot say, worse luck. He left no address, so we 
 have lost him. I am really very sorry, Antoine." 
 
 " So am I," said the boy drily. " It is ennuyeux, ex- 
 tremely. I want to send him a ticket, do you see?" 
 
 " Savigny hoped you might know his whereabouts," said 
 Bronne. 
 
 Antoine shrugged. " Perhaps, to-morrow night. But 
 that will be too late, for the ticket." 
 
 " Aha ! " said Bronne. " You expect him to attend the 
 recital. You are not sure?" 
 
 " How can I be sure ? He ought to come, for the new 
 sonata. I zvish him to come. But perhaps he has gone 
 right away, to work. He did not practise, hein? — while 
 he was here." 
 
 " No," said Bronne. " He assured us more than once he 
 hated music, and especially the violin. Perhaps that was 
 put on — what do you say ? " 
 
 Antoine stared at him fixedly, over the crust he was nib- 
 bling. " Oh no," he said, after the interval. " He was like 
 that already — and I expect Savigny made it worse. He 
 can." ]Memories assailed Antoine, almost invisibly ; then he 
 shook them off with a jerk. " But Jacques must practise, 
 do you see? " he said. " For him, it is necessary now." 
 
 " I see we are in fault," said Louis, smiling. " Shall I 
 
266 SUCCESSION 
 
 apologise again? Do you think we ought not to undertake 
 musicians ? " 
 
 Antoine considered the question. " I believe," he said 
 then, " that you were kind to Jacques." 
 
 " Kindness," said Louis, thinking of Charretteur's fists, 
 " is not exactly our aim. Curing is our aim." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Antoine. " I think Savigny could always 
 be more kind to people. You do not ? Bon ! " He paused 
 and cleared his throat. " There is another thing," he ad- 
 mitted, " to make Jacques hate music a little — that is the 
 violin. His violin is not good — he knows that. He was 
 saving some money to get another, and a lady was to 
 help him. He told you that? " 
 
 " No," said Bronne. He wanted to go to bed, but the 
 boy amused him sufficiently. He was graphic to watch, for 
 a tired man. 
 
 " If that lady has not forgotten " Three expres- 
 sions at least crossed Antoine's face, as he reflected on 
 ladies and their ways. " Here is another thing," he said, 
 carelessly illustrating fate. " There is the Stradivarius, in 
 grandpapa's room. While I waited with him lately, I was 
 looking at it, on the shelf. It is high up, and dusty on the 
 top. Margot may never touch it. . . . It seems stupid, 
 doesn't it ? " 
 
 "You will play the Stradivarius, some day," suggested 
 Bronne. 
 
 " No, I shall not," said Antoine, not rudely, but with an 
 air of business. " See, shall I tell you about that? " 
 
 " As you will," said Bronne. 
 
 " Yesterday I was practising — some things I learnt this 
 summer. Tricks, grandpapa said; but he was curious to 
 see, so I came close to show him. Then he got impatient 
 with only looking, and took the violin. I liked to see him 
 hold it very much. He says, the tone has improved since he 
 bought it, that is when maman was twelve " — he calculated 
 — " twenty-six years ago. So I told him Moricz — my mas- 
 ter—said if I gave it up for any other, I should be a fool. 
 
THEBAD3UBJECT 267 
 
 And then grandpapa said, for him too, he should be sorry 
 to see another in my hands. Voila ! " He swept his hands 
 out, and fell back in his chair. 
 
 " Come to bed," said Dr Bronne, standing over him with 
 kindly eyes. " In any case, there is no harm in having two. 
 Yours might have an accident, who knows ? " 
 
 " Bah ! " said Antoine instantly. " I might have an acci- 
 dent, who knows? And then there would be two beautiful 
 violins, and nobody for them. And — listen — Jacques might 
 have an accident, because he is poor, and tired of stupid 
 people. Have you thouglit of that, vous autres ? " 
 
 " I have told you three times," said Dr Bronne, " that we 
 were in fault to lose sight of him. That is enough." 
 
 " It is not you," returned Antoine, looking up, his eyes 
 gleaming wickedly in his pale face. " I- talk about Monsieur 
 Raymond to-night, because he is not there. I expect 
 Jacques ' s'en fichait ' — and so he hates Jacques." 
 
 " He does not hate him." Bronne stirred seriously in 
 his chief's defence. " You are ungrateful, really. Both 
 you and Charretteur owe him a great deal, more than you 
 are the least aware. You even, for all you know, owe him 
 the fact that you are strong enough to rebel." 
 
 " Pfui ! " said Antoine. He looked far from persuaded. 
 " I shall ask Jacques about it, wdien I see him." 
 
 " I think," Louis said slowly, " that you had better not." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because " — he paused, but the rule of the house ex- 
 acted a frank answer to an emancipated patient — " he ex- 
 ercises an attraction, which might do you harm. I felt it 
 myself," he added. 
 
 The boy studied him with such clear admiration and re- 
 spect that Louis felt shy. " You think he is bad ? " he 
 said soon, 
 
 " Not yet. I think he is vain, and sensitive, and rather 
 reckless, tocv> A reverse of fortune might be dangerous, to 
 such a desperado. That is all. Come along," he added 
 gently. 
 
268 SUCCESSION 
 
 Antoine, thinking still of Charretteur, took as long as 
 possible to obey. Dr Bronne's manner of good-humoured 
 tolerance, in that place of strict command and cringing 
 obedience, was really fascinating — and the chair was com- 
 fort itself. " I have been to bed once," he explained. " Let 
 me stay here — it is a nice warm place." 
 
 But he was persuaded by Louis's gentle methods; and 
 was rolled up in rugs on a low couch in his room. It should 
 be mentioned, for such as think that Savigny's assistant 
 was inclined to time-wasting and frivolity after midnight, 
 that he took a note on that conversation, before he went to 
 sleep himself. He considered the boy had a marked power 
 of prevision, though it might be exercised unconsciously. 
 It was a point of difference with Savigny, who declared 
 that Antoine's species lived for the day alone, with never 
 a thought beyond unless compelled. 
 
 Antoine had to give his mind to Victor the next day, and 
 had little time to think of Jacques. Duchatel, who had been 
 invaluable at first in replacing Lucien, and in the diplomatic 
 aid he offered to the boy, had shown himself over the lat- 
 ter concerts, where his own works held the foremost place, 
 at his most high-strung and exacting, claiming most of An- 
 toine's leisure, and more than all his attention, up to the 
 very moment of performance. 
 
 Nor was his the only claim. Since his German tour the 
 boy's engagements were multiplied, both abroad and at 
 home. He had already had to put off his English visit once, 
 owing to the amiable Bertrand's pressing suggestion. His 
 uncle's letters bombarded him from day to day, full of 
 precept as to what he should, or should not, accept, cal- 
 culated always to spare his father, but clashing constantly 
 with M. Lemaure's private advice. The old man himself, 
 as Antoine had hinted to Bronne, though full of pride, was 
 shaken and irritable with conscious weakness, and inclined 
 to be jealous of his society. 
 
 M. Lemaure could be diverted, however, in his retire- 
 
THE BAD SUBJECT 269 
 
 ment, by stories of his grandson's social success, that came 
 round to him through Duchatel. As a fact, Lucien's strict 
 surveillance had hampered the boy, who needed to be at 
 ease to show his best. Personages of note, colleagues of 
 his uncle's in the professorial world, friends of his grand- 
 father in the professional, sought Antoine for himself, not 
 only for the family whose standard he bore, and made no 
 secret of their opinion. M. Lemaure, who had let society 
 drop with regret, delighted to see him gathering up the 
 threads again. Philip scoffed, but was ever more impressed 
 by the free display of a gift he had never really doubted. 
 It was the royal gift, passed to the boy by direct inherit- 
 ance : proved by the fact that the bigger the stage offered 
 him, the more unwaveringly he took the central place. 
 
 The flatterers both Antoine and his grandfather found 
 more tiresome. They w^ere largely women, and consisted 
 principally of the wealthy semi-foreign colony, the same 
 exactly who had made much of Charretteur in the spring. 
 They belonged to the objectless little world, needing to 
 spend, always on the watch for a sensation, and eager to 
 be first in the field. Antoine could not ignore the group — 
 scornfully named by Lucien the " etceteras " — but their at- 
 tentions bored him, and in petting him they did not dis- 
 guise an ulterior motive. He did well enough pour passer 
 le temps, but he was actually too young to interest them 
 deeply, and they looked beyond him to Victor Duchatel. 
 
 Antoine was a link with that interesting person, whose 
 star was at last in the ascendant, and who made himself, 
 at least to the etcetera band, as hard as any star could be 
 to attain. Victor's long neglect had left him " savage," 
 to use M. Lemaure's expressive term. He looked the very 
 contrary, which made him the more attractive. He was 
 generally known by sight, went everywhere equally, but his 
 manner was of glass, and society sirens spread their nets 
 in vain. His friends — it was bitter — were male without 
 exception: included old men and the boy Antoine, and 
 excluded — it was the one consolation the etceteras had — his 
 
2^o SUCCESSION 
 
 own mother. The only chance for the ladies was to come 
 to Antoine's concerts, and even then they usually missed 
 the composer. 
 
 As for Victor's view of them, he kept it commonly to him- 
 self ; but a few words he dropped in conversation sufficed 
 to hint at it. On the day of the concert he was in a " mood," 
 and during the fleeting visit he paid M. Lemaure after the 
 rehearsal, he made it evident. It was a mood new to An- 
 toine, but to his grandfather familiar enough. M. Lemaure i 
 knew most of the moods of gifted youth : indeed, Antoine 
 was the only one of his children who had not made him 
 suffer them frequently ; and even Antoine spared him 
 chiefly through having moods that resembled his own. 
 
 Margot was used to M. Duchatel by now, and let him in 
 at all hours without remark. He was haughty to her over- 
 tures, and she did not like him much, but she respected 
 Antoine's judgment as to his worth, and she saw the vis- 
 itor amused her master. Indeed, Victor's incursion was apt 
 to be regarded everywhere as entertainment simply. To- 
 night he came formally on his mother's part to inquire, and 
 had declared to Antoine that he should not stay. 
 
 "Alone, Victor?" said the master of the house when 
 he entered, holding out the hand of welcome. Duchatel 
 took it languidly. His state of nervous tension was not 
 apparent till he spoke, for the perfection of his exterior 
 was deceptive. 
 
 " Monsieur Edgell is there," he said, " but he has gone to 
 his room. Had enough of me, I should not wonder." 
 
 "You are such a hard taskmaster?" 
 
 " I worked him and the unfortunate pianist to death, and 
 did not thank them at the end. Oh," said Victor, spying 
 at the papers on the mantelshelf through his eyeglass, " I 
 have been insufferable — you have but to ask him. I could 
 not even enjoy my own company as much as usual; and 
 I have deferred deliberately inflicting it on my mother — 
 by coming here." 
 
 M. Lemaure raised his eyebrows. " You stay to dinner? " 
 
THE BAD SUBJECT 271 
 
 '' No, no ; I go to her." 
 
 "Exemplary as always. Is she to hear your work to- 
 night ? " 
 
 " So Antoine says," said Victor. " He promises her I 
 shall not be siffle. It is his responsibility." 
 
 "Does she not wish to go?" said M. Lemaure. 
 
 " She has borne it once, and nearly died of fury." 
 
 " With the siffleurs ? " 
 
 "With me for provoking them," said Victor, and cast 
 him a glance. " Perhaps I am safe to-night," he added. 
 "Your grandson is protecting me, hein? I am in powerful 
 hands." 
 
 M. Lemaure looked at him thoughtfully: he knew the 
 symptoms. Vanity and shyness were fighting their battle 
 out, on the verge of the production of this newest and dear- 
 est work. He had hardly borne to let it out of his hands, 
 and having done so, he regretted it; and to console him- 
 self, had doubtless been rending the performers. " I had in- 
 tended," he said quietly, "to request you to protect An- 
 toine." 
 
 " Ah — well, I will go in at the end, since you desire it." 
 
 " Coward ! " said the old man, still quietly. " What of 
 all those who go for you alone ? " 
 
 " There are none that I value," said Victor. " Women ! 
 What is it, sir, that makes all women think I welcome them, 
 whatever I may say or do? They are quite wrong." 
 
 Critical as he was, the auditor had to laugh. The manner, 
 beautifully balanced between innocence and fatuity, was 
 irresistible. " Your mode of speech," he suggested. " You 
 are too polished, and too ingenious. Wits and courtiers 
 are never believed." 
 
 " I am plain-spoken to a fault," cried Duchatel. " Ask 
 Antoine, whom I alarmed to-day. He could not be so 
 uncivil if he tried. The fair Bertrand brought a little 
 crowd to rehearsal, according to her custom — uninvited. 
 They talked, of course, and drove the child frantic. He 
 could not hear himself play for the hiss of admiration. 
 
Y 
 
 272 SUCCESSION 
 
 What it is to be fashionable, here ! . . . I said to their 
 faces that we did not require them ; that they were evidently 
 not concerned, since we had work to do ; that they could 
 wait, in short, and pay for their seats. And they laughed, 
 I assure you, as at a jeu d'esprit. It is like a bad dream to 
 be treated so." 
 
 "The prophet teased by butterflies." M. Lemaure 
 laughed at him, though still with an attentive eye. " You 
 dress too well, mon petit," he said. " That in itself is flat- 
 tery." 
 
 " And if I assured you I dress to avoid attention ? " cried 
 Duchatel. 
 
 " I should believe you," said his host, laying a hand on 
 his arm, as he came near. " Sit down, my dear boy. You 
 are tired. It strikes me often that you divert others more 
 than yourself." 
 
 " I never divert myself," said Victor. He resisted the 
 hand. " I go now to divert mamma, who is waiting for 
 me." 
 
 "Stay a little for Antoine, will you not?" 
 
 " Spare him," said Duchatel. " Perhaps when it is over 
 ' — ^you see, do you not, I am diseased ? " 
 
 " I see you are excited," said M. Lemaure. " Tell me, 
 Victor: did the child see Bertrand about young Charret- 
 teur? He intended to." 
 
 " He talked of little else," drawled Duchatel. " He seems 
 rather excitable on that subject, though it is waste of time 
 to pursue. What the fellow has done with himself, heaven 
 knows. But he has slain his chances." 
 
 "You are sure of that?" 
 
 " They rested always on the female vote." 
 
 " Ah — which you have now? — or is it Bebe? " 
 
 " I will tell you which of us to-morrow," said Duchatel. 
 He laughed slightly, as though at himself, ran his eyeglass 
 into place, and prepared to go ; but he stopped again at M. 
 Lemaure's side. " The woman who was Jacques' patroness- 
 in-chief," he said crisply, " was hanging over Antoine to- 
 
THE BAD SUBJECT 273 
 
 night. Vincent, the same who wrote Lucien those letters. 
 The child got her on the subject of the truant — against her 
 will. He is tactless, Ic petit — he might have seen." 
 
 " Seen what ? " 
 
 " She is the sort of woman who makes proteges," said 
 Duchatel, " and gives presents. She has a priceless violin, 
 acquired the unjust heaven knows how, which I hear in 
 private she means to bestow upon him." 
 
 " Whom do you mean ? " The old man roused. 
 
 " Your grandson. Unless indeed he has already refused 
 it" 
 
 " Why should she do so ? " said M. Lemaure. " We are 
 not destitute." 
 
 Unconsciously he glanced at the high shelf, where his 
 own treasure was lying. Duchatel glanced also, and 
 shrugged. 
 
 " You imagine," said he, " it is the destitute who receive? 
 I was present when the wind changed. It was the same 
 day the King's honour to your grandson figured in the pa- 
 pers. To them that have favour shall be given — by flat- 
 terers. You must know that." 
 
 " I am disturbed," said M. Lemaure, after a pause. 
 
 " I was amused," said Victor languidly. " I have seen the 
 violin. Charretteur was to have had it in May." 
 
 " I am the more disturbed. H Bebe knows that he will 
 certainly be rude to her. He is easily excited on the sub- 
 ject, as you say." 
 
 " It is a beautiful instrument," said Victor. " I heard 
 Jacques try it once." 
 
 "Psst! No, it is unjust," said M. Lemaure. Only he 
 became pensive and remained so after Victor left him, for 
 he loved beautiful instruments with a collector's love ; and 
 he was inclined to hoard his own. 
 
 With the evanescent memory of age for recent things, he 
 had almost forgotten Charretteur, but Antoine and Savigny 
 had combined to remind him. Savigny's opinions on the 
 truant had been unvarnished: one might almost have sus- 
 
274 ^ SUCCESSION 
 
 pected a prejudice, if such a high mind could be allowed 
 one; Antoine struck him as genuinely anxious; and now 
 Duchatel had stirred his mind on the subject again, both by 
 his careless words, and the unconsciously complete contrast 
 he himself presented. M. Lemaure recalled Jacques' rough 
 manner and powerful presence, his harsh and hasty utter- 
 ance, and faced him in fancy with Victor as he had lately 
 stood before him. Both youths were familiar incarnations 
 for art to choose, and they were strong types each of his 
 kind. He had little doubt that below the surface they were 
 equally untamed, though in which the flame burnt stronger 
 he could not judge. It was probable that his grandson's 
 instinct in the matter could help him there; but when the 
 boy came in, and stood silent before the fire, he found he 
 did not want to tease him much. Antoine had not had an 
 easy day, and still had a hard task before him. He seemed 
 absent and less inclined to talk than usual, whether owing 
 to Victor or his female chorus. 
 
 " Duchatel is gone? " he queried shortly. His voice was 
 hardly his own, and he looked a little feverish. His cold, 
 rushing to a climax, like all things undertaken by Antoine, 
 was a natural impediment to free speech, and vexed him in 
 addition. Antoine was not one to enjoy the mute's role, or 
 to take the deprivation of the means of expression lightly. 
 
 Margot, who was preparing their simple meal, glanced 
 round at him sharply when he spoke. Margot disapproved 
 of Antoine's professional engagements from several points 
 of view, but more especially that they left Monsieur alone. 
 To-night she considered the boy should be in bed, and only 
 refrained from saying so out of deference to the prejudices 
 of the household. 
 
 " He had to go," M. Lemaure answered, and signed his 
 grandson to approach. 
 
 Antoine came to his side by old habit to be set right, for 
 no one in the house ever believed he could dress himself. 
 M. Lemaure, however, found little to correct, and only ex- 
 amined very closely. 
 
THE BAD SUBJECT 275 
 
 " Thou bearest no honours, our pupil," he observed, 
 passing a hand up to grasp a button-hole as he stood facing 
 him. 
 
 " I have none." The boy's brilliant eyes were on his 
 face. He was seldom more charming to M. Lemaure than 
 in these moods of absent dignity. 
 
 " But surely ! Is this not a worldly occasion ? " 
 
 " I told Monsieur he should wear his little eagle," cried 
 Margot, ceasing operations to attend. " It would amuse 
 ces dames, hein ? — who have never seen it." 
 
 The boy made a movement of impatience and set his lips. 
 Ces dames had spoilt his rehearsal, and he had not loved 
 them, for he was nervous about the new composition. 
 
 " On est maussade ce soir," said Margot. She had been 
 trying in vain to draw details from him of the haut monde, 
 whose prodigal attentions delighted her. Ladies in silk 
 represented fame to Margot well enough, and their con- 
 sideration was surely proved by the flowers they sent, and 
 the motor cars that flitted so constantly to the door to fetch 
 him or bring him home. 
 
 "Thy Jacques has many, has he not?" M. Lemaure 
 pursued, disregarding her. 
 
 " Many medals ? Yes — but I think he has sold them." 
 
 "Ah, le miserable! Is he to be there to-night? " 
 
 The boy nodded. " He has written to me," he said, put- 
 ting a hand to his pocket. 
 
 "Ah, then you have his address. Raymond was in- 
 quiring." 
 
 " No ; he does not say it." Antoine tried to detach the 
 grasp on him, but did not succeed in disturbing it. 
 
 " Raymond wishes to see him," said M. Lemaure. " Re- 
 member to tell him so. He has to restore some money." 
 
 " He will not see him, or take it." His voice choked. 
 
 " My dear, you cannot be sure. He may be in need of 
 money." No response. " Deliver the message, at least." 
 
 Still the boy said nothing; but he looked harassed and 
 miserable rather. His grandfather, having waited a little, 
 
276 SUCCESSION 
 
 released him. Jacques' communication, whatever it was, 
 had evidently not been reassuring. The old man wondered 
 if Savigny was right, and if he ought to sever the connec- 
 tion. For the moment at least he pressed no further on the 
 point. Later he tried again. 
 
 " Does Charretteur know this work you play? " he queried 
 over the meal. 
 
 " He has seen it," said Antoine. " He says it is for him, 
 not me." 
 
 " Do you agree with him ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Antoine, having paused. " Perhaps it is. 
 But Duchatel has given it to me, do you see ? Anyhow," he 
 finished, thinking aloud, '' to-night I must play it." 
 
 " You do not love it, in your heart," said M. Lemaure, 
 also thinking aloud, since they were tctc-a-tcte. He longed 
 to twist the boy to his opinion, and could hardly believe he 
 did not hold it secretly. 
 
 " I do," said Antoine, after a pause. " It is a quite beauti- 
 ful thing." He did not raise his eyes for some time, and 
 when he did glance across, refused to smile. 
 
 " Thou art maussade, as Margot says," said M. Lemaure. 
 
 " M. Bronne liked him," volunteered Antoine presently. 
 
 " Whom ? " said his grandfather, who kept on forgetting 
 Charretteur. 
 
 " Jacques. He said he was attractive. Do you think 
 so?" 
 
 "The most attractive young man I know: if you mean 
 M. Bronne." 
 
 " Bah ! you are annoying," said Antoine. " I can't talk 
 much to-night, and you will not listen when I do." 
 
 " I think thou hadst best not talk at all," said M. Le- 
 maure. 
 
 " No, I will not." He paused and looked depressed. " Of 
 course," he proceeded, " when you are beautiful you are 
 attractive. Jacques is not. He says he is ugly — poor and 
 ugly — and so it is wrong for him now. Only it is not wrong 
 because of that," said Antoine, playing with the food on 
 
THE BAD SUBJECT 277 
 
 his plate, " because he was always an ugly man. I expect — 
 it is Savigny's fault." 
 
 " Nonsense," said j\I. Lemaure, not severely, but just as 
 one said it to Antoine. 
 
 " Or Madame Bertrand," the boy added. " Or that other 
 one. Perhaps her." He pushed his plate aside, as though 
 dismissing it. He never alluded to the admiring Madame 
 Vincent by name, his grandfather noticed; and he classed 
 her invariably with Bertrand's wife, whom he detested. It 
 was by such little indications that Antoine's personal opin- 
 ions became evident. The old man, somewhat entertained, 
 since he felt himself behind the scenes, pushed him a little 
 as to his social triumphs. But he desisted soon, for the boy 
 seemed sensitive to the mockery. After a silence Antoine 
 rose, and came round the table." 
 
 *' They do not matter, those people," he ventured to sug- 
 gest, in confidence. 
 
 " Well, I would not exaggerate their importance," said 
 ]\r. Lemaure. " Technically, they do not matter — only a 
 little to our purse." As the boy sat frowning on his chair, 
 he added : " My dear, you have eaten nothing." 
 
 " It hurts to eat. Tell me what you really think about 
 Charretteur." 
 
 " He should go abroad." The advice when it came was 
 almost absently given, but the boy caught it up at once. 
 
 " He was to have gone abroad this winter, with the trio 
 of Ribiera. He told me that in May." 
 
 " Hey? " M. Lemaure roused, for the name he used was 
 a considerable one. " That should secure his fortune. 
 Ribiera swims in gold." 
 
 " Victor said that," agreed Antoine. " But I think they 
 have quarrelled. Jacques quarrels with everyone." 
 
 " Well," said his grandfather rather drily. " We here 
 cannot make up artists' quarrels. That is a thing, in my 
 career, I never tried to do. It means their temperaments 
 do not agree — et voila." 
 
278 SUCCESSION 
 
 "Jacques should not play with anybody," the boy as- 
 sented. " He makes faces all the time he does." 
 
 "Which proves him a soloist born, eh?" M. Lemaure 
 smiled and straightened the hair which he had already dis- 
 ordered in an unseemly manner. " Well, well, there must 
 be some." 
 
 " That was the telephone," said Antoine, after a pause, 
 his eyes tight shut. " I expect she is down there for me. 
 I go." 
 
 " Do not go," said M. Lemaure. " Stay with me here 
 to-night." 
 
 The boy opened his dark eyes, and they looked straight 
 at one another a moment. " You do not wish that," he 
 said. 
 
 " Perhaps I do not," said the old artist, with a sigh. " Go 
 then to the work, my beloved. We must not make this 
 unknown lady wait." 
 
 " I will bring you some flowers," said Antoine lightly. 
 " There are always plenty there." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 
 
 Antoine looked his public over thoughtfully, in the little 
 1 interval before the recital began, when, entering into pos- 
 session of the only open space in the room, he and the 
 pianist took their places for the first sonata. The new hall 
 in which he played was rather far west, and the " etceteras," 
 beautifully arrayed, were in their glory. Every seat was 
 full, and the room had the appearance from the platform 
 of being heaped against the walls, so urgent was the throng 
 that lined it, blocking even the standing-room to the very 
 doors. Had Antoine not been distracted by his responsibil- 
 ity in regard to Victor, it would have been purely amusing 
 to behold. He had good eyes, and, running them along the 
 row of boxes, he found plenty of his acquaintance. Twice 
 he smiled deliberately, catching a friendly eye. He could 
 not discover Jacques, nor Philip; but Dr Bronne, who 
 seemed to have stolen leave to amuse himself, had a gleam 
 in passing. Near Antoine, to the right, Victor's mother, a 
 solitary and awful figure, wielded her tortoise-shell eye- 
 glass, and guarded an empty seat beside her. Equally evi- 
 dent to the left, M. Fauchard with his wife and a critic oc- 
 cupied the corner of the Bertrands' box. But though An- 
 toine's eyes fixed them an instant, and though he bowed 
 slightly to Madame Duchatel, his remaining smile was saved 
 for a shabby art student with a beard, who had pushed by 
 means of his sharp elbows to the front of the standing- 
 places at two francs. 
 
 " Sst ! he's all right," said this object to a tall friend in 
 279 
 
28o SUCCESSION 
 
 the crowd behind. " Lot of rot those fellows talk. Let's 
 be off, Paul. Where is the fat Andre ? " 
 
 The bystanders gaped, though with a keen eye to the 
 place he might vacate. 
 
 Andre, however, invisible, a voice crying in the wilder- 
 ness, replied that he would go after the Duchatel, and only 
 then if he was dug out alive. 
 
 " You overeat," said Ostrowski gravely. " Jespersen, 
 where's Phil? " 
 
 " Late," said Jespersen, with a wink. " I heard him at 
 the door, frantically proving his identity. He won't get 
 through." 
 
 " Serve him right," moaned the invisible. " Alas, if I 
 were he ! " 
 
 " He is thinner, our relative," mused the artist, gazing 
 towards the stage. " That transverse shadow — or is it the 
 light? He is older, Paul." 
 
 " The sausage-sellers have been making him cry," said 
 the invisible voice, as Ostrowski did not speak. " The 
 
 beer-swillers have Friends, I am dying. Ouch, I 
 
 agonise. Pray for me ! " 
 
 But nobody prayed for Andre, and all commentary was 
 silenced, since Antoine lifted his bow. He played Mozart 
 first, with the fine attention he invariably gave to his grand- 
 father's favourite composer, and the etceteras tolerated the 
 thing kindly, though it lasted far too long. A few old- 
 fashioned people enjoyed themselves, including M. Bronne, 
 his chin resting on his hand, the lines in his brow relaxing; 
 and Madame Duchatel, who had the leisure to be surprised, 
 though her son's behaviour disturbed her so bitterly, that 
 she would barely let herself be soothed, even in the infinite 
 leisure of a classical slow movement. 
 
 She had taken Victor's seat, and kept it heedfully with 
 her shawl. His manner at dinner had baffled her com- 
 pletely, though she had held her own and crushed him to 
 the best of her ability. Victor had walked with her to the 
 door — the Duchatels lived in the next street — and had then 
 
VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 281 
 
 vanished, begging his mother at parting to amuse herself 
 well. As though — Madame would fain have told him — she 
 abandoned her parrot and her patience cards for a whole 
 evening, for her amusement's sake 1 She was there, as a 
 fact, in direct response to Antoine's invitation, which she 
 had condemned aloud as impertinent. She had no need, 
 she informed Victor with a shaking head, to be invited by 
 young M. Edgell to hear his music, she would naturally go 
 where duty required her without that. Yet, as Victor knew 
 very well, on learning the message, she had given up a visit 
 for which the carriage was already ordered, and consented 
 to sit the evening out in a concert hall, a thing she had not 
 done for ten years. 
 
 Now she could not believe in his deliberate desertion, and 
 looked for him from moment to moment as the programme 
 advanced. Did he really expect her to listen to his work 
 without the aid of his commentary? He should have been 
 at her side, of course, to spell out his meaning to her, and 
 receive blunt criticism ; for the little old lady was no mean 
 connoisseur, and had been, long since, a fine pianiste, and 
 the friend of many artists of the old school. It was in a 
 kind of loyalty to them and her youth, that she punished her 
 son's persistent heresies now, driving him to ironic retort, 
 or to shrinking silence, which vexed her more than any 
 sharp reply. He was her youngest, and she loved him pas- 
 sionately ; but according to her long-passed school, the love 
 showed itself in severity, and a desperate attempt to restrain 
 and direct the man of thirty as she had done the child. 
 
 She held her conspicuous post with dignity, and none 
 could have guessed her inner disturbance and uncertainty. 
 Pursing up her lips, she stared about her at the groups of 
 tnondaines, on many of whom she could have expressed a 
 vigorous opinion, had any been beside her to listen to it. 
 Alas, it was the contrary. She had herself to bear the truth 
 in silence, instead of applying it to others, as was her habit. 
 She had borne, with burning eyes and twitching lips, some 
 very frank comment and comparison from a well-instructed 
 
282 SUCCESSION 
 
 couple beside her, who used both her son's name and An- 
 toine's freely, before the recital began. Unwillingly she 
 awoke to the fact that people came deliberately to scoff, 
 when his works were performed. Her Victor, delicate, 
 sensitive, exquisite, trained by her in the finest tenets of 
 classical art, put himself into hands of snobs such as these, 
 to patronise at will. Others too, she observed, listened to 
 the wise couple's opinions with interest and respect, and 
 common tattle was silenced about her. Remarks about 
 Antoine ceased suddenly when his head bent in her direc- 
 tion, and though she barely moved in response, even her 
 neighbours lent her some curious glances. Madame Du- 
 chatel, glaring rock-like at her programme, felt inclined to 
 tell them to say what they liked. She had a great regard 
 for Antoine's grandfather, whom she had known intimately 
 of old; and in right of the family he represented, she had 
 a certain curiosity about him ; but she greatly resented the 
 position he, a mere boy, held of patron to her son ; and she 
 resented it now the more that the common herd clearly 
 held the patronage as a point in Victor's favour. 
 
 She let her resentment slide for a time during the classical 
 sonata and the solos ; but it returned in full force when, 
 discarding written music, and the paraphernalia of desk or 
 chair, he advanced to the front for the last and more au- 
 dacious section of the programme. He was easier thus to 
 see, at least for the old woman's fading sight, and, taking 
 a general view of him through her glass, she thought he 
 looked uncommonly obstinate, and rather ill. The critical 
 couple had begun to discuss him again, in a tone they in- 
 tended to be cautious. They admitted he was an " effective " 
 player — that very safe word — called him a thin little creat- 
 ure ; had heard he was consumptive, like so many of those 
 people ; and glanced invitation at Madame Duchatel. But 
 the old lady remained impervious and unsociable. She did 
 not intend to converse with such common tattlers about art, 
 and certainly not about Charles' family. In the period suc- 
 ceeding M. Lemaure's wife's death, she had always lent 
 
VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 283 
 
 him her opinion on his children's education, and on their 
 aihnents, when it was worth the trouble. About this boy's 
 recent breakdown she had been sharply curious at the time, 
 and had even written to Lucien on the subject. She judged 
 the greater part of it a matter of pose and self-deception, 
 and had schemed for some weeks to have Antoine to her 
 house and prove the theory. 
 
 She pursued a preliminary investigation at leisure, purs- 
 ing her lips at the couple's ignorant surmises. She had not 
 admitted the likeness to Charles before; but now, as he 
 narrowed his eyes and wrinkled his brow at the dazzle of 
 the lights he faced, it struck her forcibly. Then, as the 
 enthtisiasm mounted round him, the strained look melted in 
 a smile, generous and mirthful as Charles' was, and curi- 
 ously appealing. Madame thought of Henriette, the mis- 
 chievous girl student, who made open mockery of the old 
 and experienced who endeavoured to guide her for her 
 good, and who could, by such a smile, or a mere movement 
 of her charming eyebrows, bring any man in her vicinity 
 to her feet. Madame had intensely disapproved of Hen- 
 riette and her education; and was not the better pleased 
 with her in memory, that her predictions anent her failed 
 of realisation. She had made no scandal, nor had she mar- 
 ried imprudently. She had been a happy wife, had died the 
 exemplary death for such, and her children — there seemed 
 to be no doubt of it — might be classed as successful. This, 
 her youngest boy, was more successful than Madame Du- 
 chatel's. This roomful of mixed people admired him — 
 waited with tame smiles, from the critics downward, for 
 any reading he might give them — a gamin of fifteen! 
 Madame's bony finger-tips tapped her bony black fan, as 
 the applause spread and persisted. This was all for him — 
 she was too sure of it — and none for Victor, not a crumb. 
 And he, her son, was aware of it and hid himself. Out of 
 mere pique and loneliness, the old mother could have cried. 
 Then Henriette's boy shook the applause off him, lifted 
 
284 SUCCESSION 
 
 his chin, gathered the violin under it, and with a half-turn 
 to the " other young man " at the piano, began to play. 
 
 Madame Duchatel began to listen half-heartedly, uncom- 
 fortably, longing to be far from this staring public room 
 and puzzling music, safe by her own hearth with Victor 
 and her bird. Had she been less blind and less indifferent, 
 she might have been well amused by watching the room. 
 The majority plainly, like Madame herself, thought that 
 the young man at the piano was making mistakes. Such 
 insolent assaults on harmony could not be intended, even by 
 a free-lance like Duchatel. Meanwhile the critic in Ber- 
 trand's box smiled superior, and folded his arms, a few 
 young disciples of the new school shut their eyes with rapt 
 faces, and M. Jacques Charretteur, from the corner where 
 he had been lurking, showed for the first time a spark of 
 interest, and began to watch the performer keenly, the 
 fingers of his left hand snapping unconsciously, as it dangled 
 over the side of his box. 
 
 Nearer at hand, the old lady could be less indiflferent to 
 the critical sounds and satirical whispers that passed, or to 
 the fact that the clever couple of amateurs were laughing 
 as at a farce. Waking a little from her torpor, she turned 
 a nervous eye on Antoine. As though answering sensitively 
 to the feeling in the room he could give himself no moment's 
 leisure to observe, he roused to battle almost visibly. He 
 had all he could do, but he put more of his inner heat into 
 it moment by moment, dragging the pianist after him by 
 the way, and finishing the last two pages in a kind of dis- 
 dainful fury. It was just about the last page that half the 
 audience suddenly discovered that what they were attending 
 to had a reason and a beauty of its own ; and it was not till 
 the final passages that Charretteur rose to his feet as though 
 he could be seated in excitement no longer, and it occurred 
 simultaneously to the remainder of the room that the child 
 thus ordering and interpreting incredible chaos for them 
 was a musician of parts— one of the brains given to art 
 
VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 285 
 
 once in a generation, and very rarely indeed coupled with a 
 performer's hands. 
 
 Madame Duchatel, with her dimmed senses, could only 
 perceive the change from her corner in a small way. She 
 noticed the slight hisses and hints about her sink to silence, 
 the clever couple sit wiih their mouths half open and their 
 eyes upon the player, and then the equally slight signs of 
 the turn of tide, heralded by Jacques' conspicuous move- 
 ment below. The applause on the last bar, even before the 
 boy had drawn out his note, was like a crack of thunder, 
 and as startling. Madame Duchatel started at it, and 
 shrank, as though fearing to be discovered, recognised, and 
 rent where she sat. 
 
 But not even she could long doubt the nature of the ova- 
 tion. 
 
 " Bravo, Antoine ! " shouted the shabby students in the 
 cheap places, who had enjoyed the whole immensely, and 
 the discordance not least. " Epatant — recommencez — bis, 
 bis!" 
 
 " Duchatel has struck a new vein, past any doubt," the 
 couple near Madame muttered to one another. . " That was 
 quite interesting; one would not say the boy had the 
 strength." 
 
 " You've done it, my lad," gasped the English accom- 
 panist, furtively wiping his brow, for he also had suffered a 
 nervous strain, " Sit down, for Lord's sake, and let them 
 bellow. There's loads of time." 
 
 Antoine regarded him so far as to retreat to the piano, 
 and stood leaning an elbow upon it for support, while he 
 relaxed his muscles and regained his breath. He smiled 
 once at Jacques, whose voice had been the first to reach him ; 
 and looked next towards Madame Duchatel ; but the seat 
 at her side was vacant always, and she was leaning across 
 it, speaking, it appeared, to her pair of neighbours. Antoine 
 felt relieved that she had found friends, since she was his 
 own invitee, and Victor had deserted her. She would like 
 the next part, he believed. He counted on her approval of 
 
286 SUCCESSION 
 
 the whole, if she would but regard it fairly, and sit it out. 
 It was not all so " awful " as the section just disposed of, 
 he was glad to think ; and she had evidently lived through 
 that, which his own grandfather could never have done. 
 The accompanist had little to do in the next section, and 
 Antoine intended to improve it a trifle, since Victor was 
 not there. The music was so carelessly truculent, it had 
 made him rebellious. There were some little changes, of 
 management and mechanism chiefly, for which he had been 
 pulled up sharply every time, when he had attempted them 
 in rehearsal. Duchatel made no allowance for human 
 machinery, in writing for the violin ; both he and the pianist 
 had been set impossibilities, and the latter, being Victor's 
 age, had protested. Antoine planned at ease to restate these 
 alterations, while he waited his audience's pleasure to let 
 him begin. No one else would notice, unless the cunning 
 Jacques ; and Victor's own mother, listening there in her 
 loge, would certainly like it better. He would have to go 
 to the Duchatel house when it was over; that was a mere 
 necessary formality. Antoine's social instinct told him that 
 things would be easier between the three of them, if she 
 were already pleased; if she could be by any means con- 
 vinced of the music's value, in which he believed so deeply. 
 
 It was towards the end of the finale that a harassed ghost 
 from the night peered into the artist's room behind the 
 stage, and found M. Charretteur there in occupation. He 
 was in a highly ungraceful attitude, his long legs stretched 
 out, and his hands in his pockets. Another man was there 
 as well, a harmless-looking person of a dark complexion, 
 who stood holding his watch in one hand, the other on the 
 chimney-piece. Jacques had his back to this gentleman, 
 and was ignoring him carefully ; but he seemed neverthe- 
 less relieved at the new-comer's appearance. 
 
 " Hullo, you look sick," he grinned. " Lost your way 
 here, I suppose. You arrive a bit late for the fun." 
 
 Victor stopped short. " You mean he's still at it ? " 
 
VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 287 
 
 " He repeated the Allegro," said Jacques, " and they kept 
 him close on fifteen minutes after the first movement." 
 
 " Liked it ? " said Victor wildly. 
 
 " Liked it, or him." Jacques held out two fingers in lazy 
 congratulation, " I'd like to try the thing myself," he said. 
 " It's tremendous." 
 
 " You mean it ? " 
 
 " Rather. Tremendously ugly, like me. To see the gosse 
 struggling, with his thin little hands— I had a mind to snatch 
 the fiddle from him," said Jacques. " Couldn't bear looking 
 at the end, so I came in here." 
 
 Duchatel advanced slowly, gathering his manner of every- 
 day. "And where have you hidden since the spring?" he 
 drawled. 
 
 . Jacques showed by one dark glance that he saw through 
 the w^ell-acted interest. It was quite impossible Duchatel 
 should be thinking of anything but his composition. " I 
 went to the devil for a time," he said carelessly. " Then I 
 kicked over the devil's traces, about a month back, and took 
 to work." 
 
 " Savigny ? " said Duchatel, having glared through the 
 eyeglass a minute. 
 
 " That's one of his names," said Jacques. 
 
 Bronne, in the background, glancing his trained eye from 
 one to the other, decided that his patient was the better 
 man. 
 
 " You're all right then," said Duchatel. 
 
 " I'd cured myself before his precious cure began to 
 
 work," said Jacques. " He's nothing but a " Behind 
 
 him a watch snapped suddenly, and he started. 
 
 " Time's up," said Dr Bronne, in his leisurely, soft voice. 
 " Will you explain to Antoine that I could not stop? I am 
 sorry not to say good-night to him." 
 
 " Don't mention it," said Jacques, without turning. 
 
 " Will you look us up some time, Charretteur? " 
 
 " Not probable," said Jacques. 
 
 " May one come to see you, then ? " 
 
288 SUCCESSION 
 
 " One may not," said Jacques, more sulky than before. 
 
 "May I?" said Louis, just before he left the room. 
 There was no response, but, glancing back, he saw a one- 
 shouldered shrug, which made M. Charretteur more than 
 ever like a rather surly schoolboy, conscious of his master's 
 eye. Dr Bronne left, apparently contented. 
 
 "Who's that?" said Duchatel. 
 
 " The devil's little dog," said Jacques. " Pity he's gone 
 to the bad so early, isn't it? He can't be older than you. 
 There." he added, "that's finishing." He rose as though 
 relieved. Having observed Victor's back a moment, he had 
 an idea. " I say," he said suddenly, " You shouldn't have 
 missed the second movement. Rash to leave the nursery 
 alone." 
 
 " How?" said Duchatel, half turning. 
 
 " He forgot, I expect," grinned Jacques. " He's playing 
 without the notes to-night. A good dodge, that, in some 
 cases. If I wasn't so ugly myself, I might adopt it." 
 
 " What do you mean? " said the composer, and his voice 
 was icy. 
 
 " Only he is using his charms for all they're worth. The 
 place is thick with women. You'll be popular yet, mon 
 vieux." This, on Jacques' part, was not deliberate, but 
 rather reckless mischief. The sight of Duchatel's perfection 
 commonly stirred him to such remarks, and Victor was 
 generally well able to bear them. But to-night the state of 
 his nerves was such that he could bear nothing at all, and 
 to Jacques' surprise the jest closed the conversation. 
 
 When the boy came in, Jacques was easily the first to 
 meet him. He took him by the upper arms in a powerful 
 grasp, and leaning down, spoke low. Twenty seconds would 
 literally have covered all the time he took, for he was rapid 
 as he was, apparently, incisive. Antoine bent his brows to 
 attention, but did not answer ; and when Jacques let go and 
 departed incontinently, looked after him as though a little 
 dazed. But he had no time to debate Jacques' mysteries; 
 he was recalled again and again by his elegant public, piti- 
 
VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 289 
 
 less as such publics are when a sensation is all they need. 
 "Go!" he entreated Victor once, but entreaty was useless. 
 Duchatel refused utterly to show himself, and slipped out 
 adroitly just as the press of curiosity and congratulation 
 broke in by the other door. 
 
 Meanwhile, Madame sat rock-like in her place, waiting 
 for her son, whom she expected at least to escort her home. 
 Ten minutes elapsed, and she froze through her lorgnette 
 the officials who would have dislodged her. After fifteen 
 minutes, to their relief, the alarming old lady arose, and 
 stalked round to the door of the artist's room, within which 
 she still heard the clatter of many voices, though the hall 
 behind was empty. 
 
 " Is the young Edgell here ? " she demanded severely. As 
 the group in the centre parted in surprise, she discovered 
 him, half-seated on the table, which was strewn with his 
 flowers, and blinking patiently under the remarks of a lady 
 in black velvet. 
 
 " Ah, chere Madame," cried this lady, wheeling about. 
 " A thousand felicitations on your son. He was seen for a 
 little moment, smiled and vanished. Is he not too torment- 
 ing?" 
 
 " I had come to that conclusion," said Madame drily, for 
 she was barely acquainted with Madame Vincent. " Per- 
 sonally, I have been tormented sufficiently — for others I 
 cannot speak, Monsieur Edgell " — she fixed him — " per- 
 haps you did not have my message." 
 
 The boy made a slight gesture, his brows suggesting 
 comedy. He was nearly at the end of his voice and his 
 social resources, and this aid, though rough, was timely. 
 
 "Victor did not give it, hey?" said Madame. "Good. 
 We will disregard him, for he deserves no better. Come 
 along." 
 
 There v;as general amusement, and some outcry. The 
 intruder was rather a comical little figure ; and Madame 
 Vincent, counting on her pearls and fashionable panoply, 
 planted a few languid observations. But she got far better 
 
290 SUCCESSION 
 
 than she gave, for the mother of Duchatel was no fool, and 
 had been storing up acerbity. 
 
 *' And his flowers?" the black lady cried tenderly, as 
 though the boy had been an infant. *' Are they, chere Ma- 
 dame, to be withered like us? " 
 
 " Leave them," said Madame shortly. " I will send my 
 servant." 
 
 Antoine picked up one bunch of violets from the little 
 heap on the table, and prepared to follow her. He apol- 
 ogised slightly to those near him, and gave Madame Vincent 
 his hand. 
 
 " Foresight, dear child," she murmured, glancing at the 
 little bunch. " That is all you hope to save." 
 
 " For grandpapa," he said, flushing at the impertinence, 
 for the older woman must have heard. However, Madame 
 Duchatel, as conquerer, merely smiled and pursed her lips. 
 In the carriage she addressed him in a snap. 
 
 " The flowers are to be mine, then, are they ? " she said. 
 
 " If you like them," he answered. " These violets are 
 nearly dead." He smelt what he was holding. 
 
 *' And so you present them to your grandfather, eh ? Will 
 he not credit your success without ? " 
 
 Antoine failed to answer. 
 
 "You have a bad cold," she said, pouncing so that he 
 winced. 
 
 " Yes, a little," he admitted. 
 
 " I said a bad one," said Madame. " What do you take 
 for it?" 
 
 " I expect," said Antoine, having thought a little, " the 
 bonne will give me some tisane." 
 
 " Nonsensical trash," replied his alarming companion, 
 and spoke no more, for the way was short to her door. 
 
 " Sit there, and don't talk at all," were her orders, on 
 their arrival in the exquisite comfort of Victor's little 
 sanctum. " Food is the first thing, and then I will find 
 something for your throat. Here is my son, who can under- 
 take the talking, doubtless. He has probably to express his 
 thanks." 
 
VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 291 
 
 Silence ensued on her departure. Duchatel was certainly 
 present in the room, a faultless appearance; but in spirit, 
 at least to Antoine's sensitive faculties, non-existent. He 
 had never before had to suffer that little manner of ice, 
 though he had frequently seen it applied to others. 
 
 " Jacques wants to learn the sonata," he said at last, lean- 
 ing to the fire. " Will you give him a copy ? " 
 
 " I will give you one, if you like," said Duchatel. 
 
 A pause. "Don't you like Jacques?" said Antoine. 
 
 " Comme ga. I ha^'e no wish to attach him to my serv- 
 ice. One," said Victor, " is quite enough." His voice was 
 not encouraging, and there was another interval. 
 
 " Why did you go away?" said Antoine, with an effort. 
 " W^ere you afraid that I should do it wrong? " 
 
 " Dear me, no," said Victor. " Do not be absurd," 
 
 " I did," said the boy, rather low. 
 
 " Well," said Duchatel, after a pause. " You know best, 
 evidently. You keep your finger, as they say, on the public 
 pulse. That is the full meaning of an interpretation.' 
 
 Antoine made no effort to understand this subtlety, but 
 he felt the tone. Madame came back before he found 
 another remark, and for once her son saw her entrance 
 with relief. He had no immediate wish to hurt the boy, 
 but he was hardly sure of himself at the latter end of a day 
 of deliberate self-torment. Victor's " temperament " was 
 a thing of interest to himself, and he spent much study on 
 the mettlesome creature ; but when he had given it rein for 
 a certain period, it had a habit of rearing suddenly, taking 
 even its rider by surprise. At such times, he could only 
 warn his best friends to beware of kicks, pathetically. 
 
 "Have you been talking?" demanded Madame of her 
 guest, and he admitted it. " Humph ! " she said. " Well, 
 you can fill your mouth, if that's the only way." 
 
 The method failed, for he refused food politely and 
 steadily. It vexed Madame, as did his entire appearance; 
 for at these close quarters, and under a good light, even her 
 
292 SUCCESSION 
 
 eyes could tell that things were not as they should be. He 
 had worked, and should be hungry, and so she told him. 
 
 " I expect I shall be soon again," said Antoine. " Is your 
 parrot well ? " ' 
 
 But Madame, with Charles' boy's education in hand, did 
 not intend to talk about her parrot. She fussed about, dart- 
 ing her tongue at him at intervals. He replied invariably, 
 planting his rapid remarks in every pause, in spite of her 
 reiterated injunction to him to keep silence, and spare his 
 voice. Victor was not of the least assistance, but remained 
 a slightly satirical spectator of the scene. 
 
 Antoine roused himself at last, and dropped the hands he 
 had locked across his brow. It was as though he had sud- 
 denly decided he could make nothing of the interview. 
 
 " It is very late," he said, having cleared his husky tone. 
 " I must go home. Good-night." 
 
 " Humph ! " said Madame. " Well, perhaps you would 
 be best in bed. The carriage is still there." Having glanced 
 at her silent son, she added grimly: "As Victor is in a 
 temper, I will escort you." 
 
 "If I am alone," suggested Antoine, " I shall not talk." 
 
 " Nor would you if I were there," she retorted. " Well, 
 sir, I was taught manners at least. I have enjoyed a most 
 agreeable evening." 
 
 " And I," he echoed, looking over her head, 
 
 " Hold your tongue," she ejaculated. Then, as his eyes 
 came to hers : " I mean, my observation required no an- 
 swer. All observations do not. Victor — have you nothing 
 to say ? " 
 
 " It is no fault of his," said Victor, " that I cannot echo 
 you — ^both." 
 
 " Are you not grateful? " 
 
 Her son roused. " To be sure. Miserably grateful— and 
 furious." 
 
 " Furious ? " 
 
 " He made my most intimate work the occasion of a per- 
 sonal triumph." 
 
VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 293 
 
 His mother gazed blankly at him. " Good heavens, you 
 insult him," she cried, and turned almost helplessly to An- 
 toine. The boy looked genuinely shocked for the moment. 
 He had already risen, but he grasped the chair again, as 
 though for support. Then he turned to go. 
 
 But the old Madame, stiff as she was, was before him. 
 " Stay, my dear,'' she said, putting a shaking hand upon him. 
 " This is not how we treat our guests. You can barely stand, 
 still less defend yourself. Sit down." Having replaced 
 him, she swung about, quite imposing in her royal anger. 
 " Victor," she said, " this child has exhausted himself in 
 your service.' You will be so kind as to tell the servants to 
 wait for half-an-hour — and to leave us alone." 
 
 " You are considerate, ma mere ; I thank you," said 
 Duchatel, who, having allowed his high spirit the indul- 
 gence, was now overcome with fury at the self-betrayal. 
 But he preserved his languid grace, and left them slowly. 
 
 His mother, whose rigid ideas of decorum had had a 
 shock, was silent for quite a period. She meant to get a 
 few facts out of Antoine, but she gave him time. Victor 
 was of course unpardonable ; but even under insult a boy 
 of his age had no right to turn white and dizzy at a mo- 
 ment's notice. Lacking the science of the great Savigny, 
 Madame went by rule of thumb — a rule corrected by ob- 
 servation of her son and others. Nerves, she would have 
 said, avenged themselves in advance, not after an unqual- 
 ified triumph. Relief was a healing thing, a beneficent 
 angel, not often translating itself into weakness. The boy 
 had a violent cold, of course, and might have been out of 
 sorts beforehand. She watched his changes of colour with 
 her sharp old eyes, and made no comment until she had 
 coaxed him to eat, and restored what she supposed was his 
 natural tint with warmth and good wine. 
 
 Then she began to question and to lecture, heedfully at 
 first, but with growing assurance as he resisted. Her son, 
 to her annoyance, came back to announce the carriage be- 
 fore she had got any details of real value; for Henrielte's 
 
294 SUCCESSION 
 
 boy was an odd, evasive little creature, and did not by any 
 means let her have the discourse all her own way. Withal, 
 he was amazingly frank when she least expected it, and she 
 had some ado not to let her son see her discomfiture. 
 
 " The auto is ready, mother," Duchatel observed blandly 
 at one point. 
 
 " I thank you," said Madame, with dignity, " It is about 
 the hour I said. This boy is now more fit to move." 
 
 " I am very well," murmured Antoine. He lay full length, 
 watching her back as she retreated, for she was pacing to 
 and fro, darting at him anew every time she turned. His 
 eyebrows were most expressive of the situation, but he did 
 not look at Victor. 
 
 " You have been rather ill," said Madame, with emphasis, 
 as though quoting, " twice this year. Do I understand cor- 
 rectly? In each case after a difficult concert." 
 
 " The Miinchen one was easy," said Antoine, " with Fritz j 
 Reuss." j 
 
 " Don't prevaricate," said Madame. " After a public per- 1 
 formance, is what I mean." j 
 
 "It was very public," he admitted, looking at thai 
 ceiling. ^ 
 
 " Well ! " said Madame, pouncing, " then it is quite clear,! 
 is it not, that you should stop performing?" ! 
 
 " Mother! " Victor was stirred to protest. Madame, with 
 an eye of triumph, and her fingers locked, awaited the 
 victim's reply. It was other than she expected. 
 
 " Yes," the boy said. " That is quite clear." 
 
 " To yourself ? " said Madame grimly. 
 
 " To everybody, I believe, except Raymond Savigny and 
 grandpapa." 
 
 " In short," said Madame, seeing her chance, " with thd 
 exception of the only people who matter," 
 
 " Grandpapa matters, yes." 
 
 " Are you not accustomed to regard the doctor's opin-j 
 
VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 295 
 
 " I imagine I know when I feel sick without him," said 
 Antoine, with a smile, 
 
 " Well, of all " His hostess stopped and glared. 
 
 " What other doctor have you seen ? " He mentioned care- 
 lessly a well-known name. " Weber ? " snapped Madame. 
 " But he is heart." 
 
 " It was for the heart I saw him," said Antoine, " when 
 Savigny was not sure." 
 
 " Not sure ! I like the child's language." She paced for 
 some seconds, and curiosity overcame her. " What did 
 Weber say ? " 
 
 Again her son protested behind, but he was disregarded. 
 
 " Oh, just what Savigny told me he would," said Antoine. 
 
 "Told yoii?" 
 
 " Yes ; in the omnibus, going to Neuilly. I expect," 
 added Antoine to himself, " Savigny made him say it. He 
 can." 
 
 " Perhaps I had better mention," said Madame, with 
 dignity, "that I know M. Weber. He is an acquaintance; 
 and I regard him as a remarkable man." 
 
 "Yes?" said Antoine politely. " He is kind. He has a 
 beautiful dog. He asked me some things about the pro- 
 grammes, when Savigny had gone: about the order, do you 
 see? That does make a difference, of course." 
 
 " Does your doctor not reckon for that ? " said Madame. 
 
 " They are not his things," said Antoine. 
 
 "How long have you had this idea, may I ask?" said 
 Madame, after having walked quite to the end of the study, 
 and returned. Her methods had extorted rather more con- 
 fidence than she had bargained for, and she scarce knew 
 what to do with it. But her natural obstinacy would not 
 let her desist, or spare the victim the fruits of his rashness. 
 He would have to bear it, and the carriage must wait. 
 
 "I?" said Antoine. "Since the spring. Do not tell 
 Savigny," he added of a sudden. " He would be rather 
 angry to know I think it after all." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
296 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Because, you see, when I imagine to feel horrible, and 
 then it comes, that is my fault. . . . And also because 
 of grandpapa," he appended rapidly. " Of course he thinks 
 of him." 
 
 " Has this person argued it with you ? " said Madame 
 rather helplessly. 
 
 " Savigny argues alone," said the boy, with another glint 
 of humour. " In Miinchen, he did. Pour moi — je laissais 
 faire." 
 
 " I understand," said his hostess. " You have engage- 
 ments for the whole winter." 
 
 " Oh yes," he assented. " For this season, I am to play." 
 " You are obliged, eh? " 
 
 " We have arranged it," he said, but his fingers on the 
 
 chair were snapping restlessly. ■ 
 
 " Leave it, mother," Victor murmured. j 
 
 "He need not answer," she retorted grimly. "How,"i 
 
 she said, with concentrated irony, having looked Antoinej 
 
 over, " would you propose, at this point, to withdraw from; 
 
 your career ? " ; 
 
 "I do not propose it." He roused, and frowned. "II 
 
 should tell my father," he said. " He is very angry already,! 
 
 and I could make him more, if I talked." 
 
 " Do you not talk to your father ? " : 
 
 " I have not seen him since I came home. He has somej 
 work for his company at Amiens. I have been here — oc-^ 
 cupied." I 
 
 " Ah ! How do you know he is angry, then ? " j 
 
 For the first time Antoine paused himself ; till this point 
 his answers had all been equally rapid and prompt. " You 
 wish to hear? " he said. " There was a lot of money Reuss 
 gave me for the German concert. I was amused, because 
 with him, I had not thought of it. So I sent the notes tc 
 my papa — ' pour rire,' you understand. But he was an- 
 noyed, and he sent them back. He said I could tell my 
 uncle that money would do for the next doctor; and a1 
 least he was not going to be paid to stand aside. He had 
 
VICTOR IS DIFFICULT 297 
 
 quarrelled with my uncle, I expect, before I came. They 
 often do,'' said Antoine, in appendix. 
 
 "Ha!" said Madame. "Apropos, what of Lucien? I 
 mean, what does he think about it ? " 
 
 " He thinks a great deal," said Antoine, " about grand- 
 papa — who is his papa, do you see? Grandpapa likes so 
 much to hear about the concerts." He fingered the little 
 bouquet of dead violets at his side, and then, on an impulse, 
 threw out the other hand to her. " Please do not ask me 
 any more," he said, with his sudden brilliant smile. 
 
 Madame, who was pacing severely to and fro, wavered 
 and stopped at his side. " You expect me to be silent, do 
 you? " she said, \\ 
 she took the hand. 
 
 " Of course you will be silent. Grandpapa is not well 
 now." At the slight stammer in the last words, Victor 
 moved restlessly. Exhausted by his own conflict as he was, 
 he had not spoken in the victim's defence, but he winced 
 for him, even with exaggeration. 
 
 " Did you know this ? " His mother faced round on him 
 without w^arning. 
 
 " I guessed about the half," he said. " I never should 
 have thought of asking." 
 
 " Affectation," she retorted sharply. " It is kinder to ask 
 questions direct, than to stab sidelong as you did lately. Is 
 it not ? " She turned on the boy. 
 
 " Much kinder," he said proudly. " You are kind. No- 
 body has asked me." 
 
 "You mean you enjoy the question, mon petit?" said 
 Duchatel. 
 
 " Not enjoy." He hesitated. " I had not expected one 
 to ask. Perhaps " — he hesitated anew — " I was stupid to 
 say some of it. I cannot think properly to-night." 
 
 Madame Duchatel, standing stiffly at his side, looked at 
 the long fingers grasping hers, and laid the other little bony 
 hand upon them. 
 
 " It is the habit of your family," she said, in her grim- 
 
298 SUCCESSION 
 
 mest tone, " to say things first, and to regret them after- 
 wards. Without approving the disposition, I am pleased 
 to find you doing the same as your mother and your uncles 
 before you. It is possible, as my son took the trouble to 
 point out, that I have profited by the family faiblesse to- 
 night; but you may believe that I really v^ished as an old 
 friend to know how you stood. Thanks to you " — she 
 actually broke into a laugh — " I know pretty completely. 
 I think among all Lemaures I have encountered, my dear, 
 for sheer ease of tongue, I give you the prize. Now," as 
 he swung to his feet and faced her, " what have you to 
 say?" 
 
 " I am sorry I have talked so much," he said, lifting his 
 great eyes to hers, and put a hand up to his throat. 
 
 She stiffened, taken aback ; in her increasing interest and 
 curiosity, she had completely overlooked the fact that she 
 might be hurting him. j 
 
 " Hold your tongue, Victor," she snapped across her 
 shoulder ; but it was impossible, after the schoolboy " score," 
 to get Henriette's annoying son to attend to her seriously.) 
 Her prescription, pronounced with great incisiveness, in-' 
 eluded solitary confinement till midday, warmth, proper' 
 nourishment, certain drugs, and silence above all. He stood 
 in front of her, looking intelligent, and thanked her with 
 charm ; and it was not till he had disappeared that Madame 
 realised that, beyond his engaging promises, she had no 
 means whatever of certifying his attention to her counsel. 
 
I 
 
 » 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 JACQUES IN DIFFICULTIES 
 
 Margot, as it emerged, was of Madame Duchatel's opmion ; 
 and Antoine, though he did his best to keep his cold out of 
 sight, or rather out of hearing, was detained severely in- 
 doors the following day. He was much annoyed, as he had 
 laid it out already in mind, in his purpose to solve the prob- 
 lem of Charretteur. He had thought at intervals during the 
 night of that young man, and had arrived at some new and 
 disturbing impressions concerning him. That these im- 
 pressions might in any way be connected with his own fever- 
 ish condition, did not naturally occur to him. The reason- 
 able explanation very seldom did. He was in consequence 
 manssade with the cook, who constituted herself his gaoler, 
 and impatient with all his surroundings. A remarkable 
 event in the late forenoon did not at all improve matters. 
 This was the arrival of Madame Vincent's beautiful violin, 
 brought by a messenger in livery, with a letter of most 
 delicate flattery, directed to M. Lemaure. 
 
 Margot, bringing the offering in to them in triumph, her 
 brown face beaming with excitement, found its reception 
 from the gentleman honoured quite other than she expected. 
 
 " I do not want it," he explained rapidly to M. Lemaure, 
 who was almost as excited as Margot, and far more pleased 
 than he. " May I not tell her? Will you write? " 
 
 " I do not think you can refuse, my love," said the old 
 
 artist. " It is the case of a lady, to begin with. Then she 
 
 has had your name engraved, you observe " — he touched 
 
 the beautiful case with his hand — " and many people must 
 
 299 
 
300 SUCCESSION 
 
 already know of it. To refuse would be unnecessarily 
 churlish, when matters have gone so far." He smiled at 
 the boy's expression. " One has frequently to bear these 
 things, from the rich," he said, with a touch of kindly 
 satire. 
 
 " But when I do not like her," Antoine cried, holding 
 back the wrist his grandfather had laid over the bow. " I 
 do not want that. I have my own." He looked at the 
 stranger in the fine case with almost violent distaste. 
 
 " Had she not warned you ? Victor seemed to know." 
 
 " I do not know," he said, his colour rising. " I did not 
 understand. She has a stupid way of talking. And last 
 night so many people talked to me." 
 
 " You accepted unaware, hey ? " The old man laughed 
 at him. 
 
 " I did not accept," he cried. " She knows I have my 
 own — that I like it best." 
 
 " Try it," said M. Lemaure, extending the stranger. " It 
 may be better than thine." 
 
 " No — I will not ! " He was very nearly in tears as he 
 repulsed the bow. 
 
 His grandfather observed him with surprise. " You are 
 not yourself to-day, my child," he said more gravely. " You 
 are not required to cast your own away. Nor is it unheard 
 of to have two, for an artist of any standing. An alter- ; 
 native can be useful, as you must know. Come, master'- 
 yourself," he added, after a pause. " I should like to hear 
 the tone. I wish to, Antoine." 
 
 It was useless : Antoine would not ; and the old musician, 
 his curiosity all awake, and one hand incapable, grew im- 
 patient with his obstinacy. It was no satisfaction to M. 
 Lemaure to caress the beautiful thing, to examine it inside 
 and out, to prove it genuine, unique, and perfect in condi-^ 
 tion, when he had no means of coaxing out the voice it 
 held. That was the first impulse, not the last, to one who' 
 had discoursed on strings for half his life. The utmost he 
 could do, however, by the exercise of all his authority, was 
 
JACQUES IN DIFFICULTIES 301 
 
 to make the boy write a letter, at his command and almost 
 at his dictation ; and even so, the thanks read coldly. 
 
 " He is not well," M. Lemaure said shortly to Margot, 
 who was amazed and distressed to find the pair at issue on 
 this last day, and on such an occasion above all. " It is 
 troublesome just now, but we must be gentle with him. 
 There seems no doubt he must travel to-morrow night at 
 latest, well or not." He picked up a letter from his son, 
 that lay upon the table, and Margot heard him sigh. The 
 problem of the boy perplexed him occasionally, for all the 
 careful reassurance dealt out to him by his surroundings, 
 the paeans in the papers, and the periods of forgetfulness 
 his tired brain permitted him. It surely must be wrong, for 
 instance, that so-called happy youth, on the morrow of a 
 success, should look as Antoine did to-day. 
 
 M. Lemaure began a letter to Lucien, wistful, urging him 
 to close attention, to patience above all; full of the most 
 delicate hints and enlightening memories — for his earliest 
 years grew clearer as the rest grew dim : invaluable to any 
 teacher, beyond a doubt, and a relic of value for his son — 
 had it ever been sent. But he left it in the middle, over- 
 looked it owing to some household interruption, and it was 
 tossed away among his papers. Nor was he reminded of the 
 subject at once, for the boy came to him in the evening in 
 a much happier mood, agreed placably to visit Madame Vin- 
 cent on the morrow before his train, and heard out his 
 grandfather's serious exhortations as to his behaviour there 
 with clasped hands and lowered eyes. 
 
 "I will take them both to England, hein?" volunteered 
 Antoine, glancing from the new case to the old. " That 
 will be curious to have two. Imagine that ' douanier ' when 
 he sees them. I shall say to him — this is mine, and that I 
 am looking after — for a lady." He giggled at the idea. 
 " Because it is prettier to look at, do you see, with all that 
 gold." 
 
 " I was thinking you had best not take that case," said his 
 guardian. " It might be stolen. I have an old one that will 
 serve." 
 
302 SUCCESSION 
 
 " It was stupid for her to have it anyhow ? " said Antoine, 
 pursuing his thoughts. " I expect it would not Hke it, in 
 her house. I think it was cold a little." He touched the 
 new arrival, with the tip of a delicate finger. 
 
 " Play it to me," said M. Lemaure, in gentle encourage- 
 ment. He could not but be amused at the stages of unwill- 
 ing adoption, for all his impatience to hear the stranger's 
 voice. 
 
 " No, I will not," said Antoine, but without resentment. 
 -" I mean, not yet. Papa will be surprised to see it, hein ? " 
 
 " Will you see your father? " M. Lemaure spoke quickly, 
 for the boy had turned to him. 
 
 " He comes to the train at Amiens." A pause. " He gets 
 into the train," said Antoine, with increasing swiftness. 
 ** He comes to England with me." 
 
 " Aha ! " M. Lemaure was enlightened. " That is the 
 origin of this change of temper, is it? When didst thou 
 hear?" 
 
 " To-day — to-night. I have the post card to say it." M. 
 Lemaure, glancing down at what he was caressing, saw 
 his son-in-law's clear hand. " He says why he is going, 
 too," proceeded Antoine. " No, do not look. Guess why." 
 
 " Something important? " A giggle was the only answer. 
 His grandson seemed profoundly amused by the English 
 card's contents. 
 
 " V-very important," he agreed. " Oh, you will never 
 guess. Papa is too silly in his ideas, for you to think about. 
 I will tell you, hein? " 
 
 " Tell me," said M. Lemaure, to spare excitement. 
 
 *' He comes — to take me. To conduct me, do you see ? 
 Just to London, and back by the first train, and the office at 
 Amiens the next day. He is coming for me ! Look, if he 
 does not mean that." 
 
 Taking the card from his eager hands, the old man read 
 it through. Jem Edgell's post card style was peculiar: he 
 had a special language for that medium, with his children 1 
 especially. It seemed dry to the Frenchman, but it was not i 
 
JACQUES IN DIFFICULTIES 303 
 
 without its significance. He suspected more behind the 
 short sentences than met the eye. 
 
 "Can you read it?" said Antoine, as his grandfather 
 lingered over the English longer than seemed necessary. 
 
 " Yes, darling. It is clearly written, as always. Tell me 
 — my memory is so bad. Has he not seen you since your 
 return ? " 
 
 " No, no. He had only Sundays, and I could not go." 
 
 " Since you are eyes and hands to an aged relation, eh? 
 I fear I am often a selfish person, Bebe. Have I been a 
 burden ? " He laid his capable hand beneath the boy's chin, 
 as he crouched low at his side. 
 
 " No," he ejaculated. " Papa is not angry for that. He 
 understood." 
 
 " You expect his anger? Tell me why he is vexed?" 
 
 " He is not vexed," Antoine assured him. " It is just 
 how English people write." He studied the card again in- 
 tently. " Papa will travel without any ticket to Calais," 
 he murmured. " That is because he has worked for the 
 Nord. It is very convenient. I am glad he comes with me." 
 
 Even when closely pressed he would not explain all the 
 relief that was clear in expression and tone. His grand- 
 father was left to ask himself whether, after all his assur- 
 ances, he dreaded the long journey ; or whether James, in 
 intimate correspondence, had been hinting at his general 
 discontent, and adding that to his son's various anxieties. 
 There was no question, at least, but that this valuable post 
 card had cleared up much. 
 
 Antoine's last day in France proved most interesting, and 
 finished, without any warning, in one of the most thrilling 
 experiences of his life. 
 
 He paid Madame Vincent a morning call, found the 
 lady most afifable, and said, as he assured his grandfather, 
 some beautiful things. Their beauty, for M. Lemaure, 
 could not be doubted, from his exalted expression. Be- 
 sides, once face to face in company, and not vexed by the 
 
304 SUCCESSION 
 
 intrusion of pen and paper, Antoine's sense of dramatic 
 fitness could be trusted. He had proved it too often to 
 doubt. 
 
 The new violin accompanied him, and he played to a 
 select circle of his hostess's acquaintance a movement of 
 Tartini, in the course of which he became himself quite 
 overcome by the instrument's resources. At the end, he 
 informed the company, to their vast amusement, that it 
 was very good indeed, and proposed instantly to repeat the 
 whole. His benefactress granted him leave, herself almost 
 helpless with laughter. Antoine's surprised respect for his 
 own performance was, in her opinion, too original ; and the 
 "' etceteras " had a strong taste for originality, even if they 
 had no ears. 
 
 At midday the boy went home to report himself to Mar- 
 got, who still kept an anxious eye upon him; and having 
 packed the instruments, and promised her to be back in good 
 time before his train, he passed to the other extreme of 
 society with infinite relief, and tracked down Jacques Char- 
 retteur to his distant lair in the wilds of Montmartre. It 
 took some pains to do this, for Jacques had obliterated him- 
 self most completely, but Antoine had his address, and was 
 not to be baffled by the toils of ancient crooked streets. He 
 traversed unawares some quarters of noted ill-fame, grip- 
 ping the score of Duchatel up to his side, and touching at 
 intervals with the fingers of the other hand a pocket which 
 crackled faintly. The face he lifted to the passers-by was 
 serious and innocent extremely, for he was reflecting on 
 deep subjects. He was addressed chafiingly once or twice, 
 but not molested; and he eventually found Jacques, in 
 truly wretched quarters at the top of an ancient house, but 
 lord of himself and his life once more, master of a par- 
 ticularly fine outlook over Paris— and evidently not dis- 
 pleased to see Antoine. 
 
 Antoine was equally elated to discover him. M. Charret- 
 teur had been practising, in an undress which he no doubt 
 considered appropriate to the performance; but at the 
 
JACQUES IN DIFFICULTIES 305 
 
 moment when his visitor entered he was eating, seated on 
 the table, which was his most solid .piece of furniture, one 
 hand in his pocket. He motioned Antoine to the solitary 
 chair with a nod, but the boy leapt upon the table at his 
 side. Whereupon Jacques seized him by the shoulders, and 
 planted him back in the chair by easy force. 
 
 " Know what's due to a guest," said he. His behaviour, 
 though rough, was so natural that Antoine was at ease 
 too, and chattered to him freely of his adventures by the 
 way. Charretteur continued, while- he talked, to devour 
 his bread, tearing it up Vv'ith splendid teeth and without em- 
 barrassment, while he gave ear sardonically, and cast the boy 
 one of his sliding glances from time to time. He looked 
 more than ever like a lean wolf since his illness, hollow- 
 eyed and lank, and uglier than before ; only it was an ugli- 
 ness that pleased Antoine, and his manners were, if any- 
 thing, improved by the change of fortune. He was more 
 easy, at least, here in his own quarters, than he had been in 
 Mrs Adler's glorious apartments. Presently, passing to 
 a corner to get a drink of water, he touched the boy's cheek. 
 
 "Dirty?" Antoine queried. 
 
 " No. You look as clean — and as white — as usual." 
 
 " I am pretty clean." 
 
 " I am not," said Charretteur. " I've been up all night : 
 out, most of the time since I saw you." 
 
 "Oh— but why?" 
 
 " Cursing myself for a fool. It's no matter — I often do." 
 
 "Why are you a fool?" said Antoine, catching him. 
 " You are not. Listen, it is all right." He hesitated there. 
 Jacques' pride was of a more fundamental kind than Vic- 
 tor's, and his situation called for respect. That his diffi- 
 culties were real and grim, no whit imaginary, the boy facing 
 him knew by instinct. But he had gained, whether by 
 Savigny's stringent regime or more private penances, a 
 power of silence since his imprisonment, and had lost in the 
 same process some degree of his personal attraction. Oddly 
 enough, he looked younger, not older, for the change. He 
 
3o6 SUCCESSION 
 
 was still young, some dozen years younger than the charm- 
 ing Duchatel; but the marks of fatigue and strain, not 
 these of ennui and self-torment, were engraved about eyes 
 and brow and mouth. 
 
 " If it was all wrong," he said, flicking over the music 
 of the sonata he had picked up, " it would not spoil my 
 sleep. Unless I choose not, as last night, I can always sleep 
 like a dead dog — so there. Who has been scribbling on this 
 copy, eh?" He had closed the score, and found his own 
 name traced in Duchatel's studied scrawl. 
 
 " I told him to," said Antoine. " He has lots down there." 
 
 " He puts on the price." Charretteur lifted it close to his 
 near-sighted eyes. " You've saved me eight-fifty, if I read 
 the figures right. I say — is this the corrected edition?" 
 
 "How corrected?" said Antoine, with dignity. "It is 
 very hard. I can play it. I would show you with that vio- 
 lin, if I had time." 
 
 " Pish ! " said Jacques. " I saw through your little games 
 last night. Here, let's try." Having glanced the music 
 through, he balanced the open book on his legs, against 
 his own long foot, which rested on the chair ; and, with this 
 improvised music-desk, began to play — superbly. The boy 
 watched and criticised from time to time, getting a cuff 
 or two in the process. But he was generally silent, and a 
 little absent, a manner which was in itself a tribute to the 
 performance. He was watching the man rather than the 
 music, a fact of which Jacques was quite aware. As before, 
 Jacques took the gosse's admiration for granted, and in- 
 tended to provoke it further by playing. He was " show- 
 ing off " quite deliberately, as Philip might have done. 
 
 " Beautiful, hey ? " he said once. " What are you making 
 great eyes at ? " 
 
 " Stop playing," said the spectator, catching the bow's 
 tip, " and talk to me." 
 
 " Sha'n't," said Jacques, twitching it away. " Isn't it 
 good enough ? " 
 
JACQUES IN DIFFICULTIES 307 
 
 " Yes," said Antoine. " You are strong. Moricz would 
 have liked your hands." 
 
 " I might have cut and gone to him in May," said Jacques, 
 " if I could have borrowed the money. But my credit 
 wouldn't have stood it, even then." 
 
 " You could have asked me," said Antoine. 
 
 " You've got no money," said Jacques. " Infants under 
 age " 
 
 " Pardon." Antoine produced a roll of notes, which he 
 tidied cahnly out flat with his supple fingers. Charretteur's 
 mouth opened. His eyes seemed to flash. 
 
 '* Are those genuine ? Give them here." 
 
 The boy laid them in his hand. After staring at them 
 greedily, and turning them over one by one, the violinist 
 passed them back, and took up the violin again. " I've been 
 pretty near to crime before now," he said, in his harsh tone. 
 " I'm short of money as I told you in that note. It was 
 badly done to bring them here." 
 
 " Why ? " said Antoine sharply. " They are my own." 
 
 '' They can't be — ^you're a minor," growled Charretteur, 
 but his brow cleared. " They've no right to trust you with 
 money anyhow," he argued, " carrying it in an outside 
 pocket through this quarter of the town. I shall s-steal it." 
 
 He stammered for the first time, for his speech — it was 
 one of Savigny's first cares — had gained marvellously in 
 crispness and decision. It was of a piece somehow with 
 his altered looks. He continued to play for some minutes, 
 refusing to hear explanation or argument, regarding nothing 
 but the music, and tossing off, like a big surly dog, Antoine's 
 vigorous attempts to seize the bow ; but throughout the 
 struggle a singular light, as of distant amusement, was 
 dawning on his face. 
 
 " You are making mistakes," said Antoine, with sudden 
 and extreme bitterness. " That passage is not the least like 
 that. Jacques, voyons — stop! Yes, because I want to see 
 your eyes." 
 
3o8 SUCCESSION 
 
 He saw them ; and three minutes later the thing was ar- 
 ranged between the pair. 
 
 "How much is it?" said Jacques, looking through the 
 notes rather sheepishly, but with evident delight. His dark 
 cheek was warmed by a glow, as was the boy's pale one; 
 but in both cases it was the glow of effort passed, and 
 neither was shy in the subsequent negotiations. 
 
 " Oh, mon Dieu," said Antoine, flinging himself back. 
 " I am glad you are not Victor ! I forget how many there 
 are. It is a great deal, because Reuss is very rich. He 
 gave it me for my concert, la-bas. I am glad I took it, 
 now." 
 
 He looked at the notes and Jacques with satisfaction. 
 It had been a real effort to think so far ahead as to imagine 
 a need for them, but it had clearly been an excellent idea. 
 
 " It's people like you," said Charretteur severely, " who 
 spoil the c-criminal classes. You have no sense of prop- 
 erty — so what do you expect of us ? " 
 
 "Are you an Apache?" asked Antoine, still considering 
 his appearance. Jacques certainly looked the part, as he 
 sat there hunched on his table, counting his stolen goods. 
 
 " I sh-shall be now," he replied. " What's the matter, 
 baby ? " The boy had leant his head on his hands. 
 
 " I suppose I was frightened a little," he admitted, with 
 a shaken laugh. 
 
 " I wish to heaven you were stronger," muttered Char- 
 retteur. " You needn't be frightened," he added, after wait- 
 ing a minute. " When I've money enough to see my way, 
 I can be as pleasant as other people. It's doubt that is the 
 deuce — and planning. I'm not born for it. I don't want to 
 think. I c-can't drink and forget it either, like I used." 
 
 " You have tried ? " said the boy, dropping his hands. He 
 had known he would have to hear of Savigny. 
 
 " I've tried, to get that doctor fellow's eyes off me. I 
 c-can't.do it : it's no use. I say — did he use the same cursed 
 tricks on you ? " 
 
 " I expect it was the same. I remember pretty well." 
 
JACQUES IN DIFFICULTIES 309 
 
 " I can't even remember," cried Jacques. " On my hon- 
 our, I thought I had a will; but he took my senses away. 
 Not once, cither, but a dozen times — p-playing with me!" 
 
 " I know he does," said Antoinc. " But it will be all right, 
 now you are well." 
 
 " All very well for you," said Jacques. " You went under 
 it easy — good little gosse. What he bothered with you for, 
 I can't imagine." He considered the boy a moment. " But 
 I stuck out — dared him to come near — and still he did the 
 job, in spite of me. What's the result? I tell you it turns 
 me sick if I try to drink with a friend! And that's what 
 he calls the treatment for a man," cried Jacques, his brow 
 black with baffled pride, as he paced about his empty room, 
 for he could not remain seated. 
 
 " The violin," murmured Antoine, " You will break it." 
 His bright eyes were regarding Jacques with curious under- 
 standing. He knew the effect of Savigny so well. 
 
 " I may as well break it," said Charretteur. " He's done 
 me out of that, and everything — and I n-never told him so. 
 I called him names in his absence, and that mild mission- 
 ary Bronne sent me head-over-heels for my pains. So after 
 that I got a window open — and here I am." 
 
 His excitement cooled after a time, and he subsided again 
 on the table, and talked more soberly, though still bitterly 
 enough, of the life he had made, or thought to make. It 
 was, as he said, a recommencer — he was again half-way 
 down the toilsome ladder of a poor artist's life. He did 
 not boast, though he might well have done so, talking to 
 a boy ; nor did he hint once at any rivalry — his pride was 
 far too real for that. He simply illustrated his fate, the fate 
 that had hammered and tantalised him by turns, talking 
 in irregular outbursts, and using the most careless style. No 
 effect that he produced was studied at all, but on Antoine 
 it made the deeper impression. The boy got up after a 
 period, and sat by him on the table ; and Jacques' confidence 
 became quieter and more rational when he did so, instantly. 
 
 " Here's a bit of news for you," he said. " Where do 
 
310 SUCCESSION 
 
 you suppose I pass my evenings, when I haven't a kid's 
 recital to amuse me ? " 
 
 The boy had no idea. 
 
 " Did you see a cafe at the second corner, coming from 
 the square? Smart place vi^ith posters, opposite a theatre? 
 There's a concert there every night from seven to twelve, a 
 rotten bad quartet. A fellow leads it — name Gerard — a 
 friend of mine." 
 
 Charretteur paused. He was not looking towards his 
 visitor, but out of the window, where the daylight was get- 
 ting dim. 
 
 " Wonderful, out there, isn't it?" he observed. " This is 
 a wonderful town." 
 
 " You used to live here, didn't you ? " said Antoine. " Did 
 you know Gerard then ? " 
 
 " No. I've only known him lately, poor devil ; since 
 September." 
 
 " Jacques ! " The boy caught his arm. 
 
 " Just so," said Jacques. " He was invented then. Sharp 
 little kid you are, to see so quick. Gerard's my second 
 name: as much mine as the other." 
 
 " You lead a cafe quartet ? " 
 
 " I do — as badly as I can. . . . Cheek," said Char- 
 retteur, " of course ; but cheek's the only safety. I learnt 
 that long since, one of my first lessons. I'm as far from 
 Auteuil here as from Toulouse, and that's a fact." 
 
 " But," the boy interposed, " is not as badly as you can, 
 too good ? " 
 
 " It is." Jacques gave him a cat-like smile. " I'm mak- 
 ing a name in the quarter, unluckily. When it's made, 
 Gerard will have to vanish. One can make a dinner under 
 other names. It would hardly do, would it, if the Ber- 
 trands heard?" Having waited a little, for comment ap- i 
 parently, he said crossly : " Out with it, Antoine. Where's ' 
 your tongue ? " 
 
 " It must be rather fun," said Antoine, in a hurry. 
 
 " Fun," agreed Jacques. " That's the idea. Jolly little 
 
JACQUES IN DIFFICULTIES 311 
 
 place it is. I stood a cursing to-day from the manager, 
 and that was fun as well. I could have knocked him down 
 with pleasure. I cut him, do you see, last night, and I 
 was missed. Touching, isn't it, when you think ? " 
 
 " For my concert? " the boy gasped, catching a clenched 
 hand to his side. 
 
 Jacques nodded grimly. " And then walked the streets 
 all night, cursing my rashness. I thought I had lost my 
 two-franc pieces for good." 
 
 " Forty sous a night ? " The expressive hand clutched 
 tighter. 
 
 " Fourpence an hour," said Jacques, " if you reckon it 
 out. Oh, that's good business as times go. Sure, you see, 
 except on Thursday. That's my night off. Lucky, as I 
 have a fortnightly engagement to the Salle Doree — my 
 other trio." 
 
 "With Manuel Ribiera, hein?" 
 
 " With Ribiera, who is a queen's favourite, and a Euro- 
 pean celebrity, and a millionaire." He swung forward. 
 " On my honour, Antoine, this fellow pays me better than 
 that dirty Jew. On my honour, I was forced to it. It's 
 been worse, these last months, than you think." 
 
 " You have done well," said Antoine sharply, twitching 
 away the wrist at which he grasped. " Perhaps these people 
 listen more than some queens Ribiera plays to. It is only 
 — if you had told me ! " He swallowed something, and his 
 dark eyes turned to Jacques, a world of tragedy in them. 
 " Did you think I should mind? " he said. 
 
 '' I knew you would, and do. In any case your people 
 would mind for you. You've no right to be here — it's no 
 place for you." 
 
 " Blague," returned the boy. " Besides grandpapa would 
 not think it bad. I expect — long ago — grandpapa has 
 played in places like that." 
 
 Charretteur laughed, a boy's laugh, loud and natural. 
 " Took a bit of effort, baby, to imagine that. Shows you 
 haven't seen it. Get on — search away. It's so odd to be 
 defended." 
 
312 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I can't think of anything, if you talk like that. Jacques ! 
 — ^you have minded yourself ? " 
 
 " It's a joke," said Charretteur. A pause. " 1 turned my 
 back on them the first night ; but even so, it nearly drove 
 me mad. They talked, you know, and one couldn't curse 
 them. It was hell, a new sort I hadn't tried." He paused 
 again. " The fellows are decent enough, I'll say that. I 
 pass over the stuff we play. Generally, I try not to hear 
 the noise we make. Now and then, though, I get a devil's 
 fit on me, and play to make them stare. I overdid it, one 
 night. Saw a fellow talking to a girl, and couldn't stand 
 their silly grinning — I vowed I'd make them drop it — and 
 before the end, you should have seen their fishes' eyes." 
 
 " I wish I had heard," said Antoine. 
 
 " That's the worst of it. I'm in better form than I've ever 
 been, and none the wiser but myself. If anyone had told 
 me, I'd have said the thing couldn't happen. It's a very odd 
 world," said Jacques. He arose, kicked the chair aside, and 
 went to the window. " That's all the story," he said. " It's 
 nothing out of the way — only going back a bit in life. It's 
 a good joke, properly regarded." 
 
 " Yes," said the boy. " I am amused. But I shall not 
 tell this joke to anybody, all the same." 
 
 " Right as usual," said Jacques. " There are some jokes 
 only a few can share — two by choice. It makes a difference 
 when you're two. There's a fellow I used to know, down 
 at Amiens." He considered, gazing out at the ranks of 
 houses, purpling in the November haze. Friendship even 
 had failed him, in the pretty world he watched. As to the 
 common acquaintance, it was as M. Lemaure had said — 
 they would not stick to a man who refused a friendly glass. 
 Everyone had dropped away. 
 
 " It is late," Antoine said, as though the dusk reminded 
 him. " I must go." 
 
 "Why?" said his host, turning a somewhat black look 
 and gripping him closely. " I can talk to you : kids don 
 
 i! 
 
JACQUES IN DIFFICULTIES 313 
 
 count. I'll amuse you some more too, if you wait. Ribiera, 
 as a farceur, beats all." 
 
 " Don't be angry," said Antoine, frowning at the grasp 
 on him. " I can't stay. I go to England to-night." 
 
 Jacques stood silent. " When do you come back ? " he 
 said. 
 
 " Dieu sait — for Christmas, I think." Antoine said noth- 
 ing of the engagements, but they were understood. 
 
 " L-leave me the violin," said Jacques. 
 
 " I can't. I am to play it. Jacques — don't be silly." 
 
 Jacques was not being silly : he was merely gazing from 
 the high windows down upon the stony street. 
 
 " I think it will be better," argued Antoine subtly. " I 
 remember feeling like it, in Savoie. You will soon like 
 playing again." 
 
 " I like playing already," laughed Jacques, " That's not 
 the trouble, mon gosse." 
 
 " I do not," said the boy, his brows lifted and fixed. 
 " Bah — no, it is stupid," he decided. " Go for me to Eng- 
 land, hein? You would do it all so well." He recited a 
 programme or two, and Jacques nodded at the items, and 
 both laughed. 
 
 "What time do you start?" said Charretteur, after a 
 certain pause. 
 
 " From the Nord." He gave the hour of his train. 
 " Oh, come ! " he cried. " Since it is Thursday, and not 
 Ribiera, you can." 
 
 Jacques considered the thing at leisure. " I've a mind 
 to run down to Amiens," he said, feeling the pocket with 
 the money unconsciously. " The fellow I mentioned is 
 there, and it would be a change." 
 
 He looked sidelong at the boy, whose face glowed. The 
 innocent gratification his society afforded amused Jacques 
 anew every time to witness. 
 
 " By the way," he added, as they were separating. " How 
 do you propose to get to England ? " 
 
 " How ? " said the boy, surprised. 
 
314 SUCCESSION 
 
 " You've got no money." 
 
 There ensued an interval. Antoine explored all his 
 pockets carefully. He produced all kinds of things, includ- 
 ing Jacques' own pencil, which he had borrowed to mark 
 the music, a fifty-centime piece, and a half-a-handful of 
 sous. He extended these with a pathetic face, then flung 
 them up, caught them in a dexterous snatch, and went off 
 into a fit of giggling at himself. 
 
 " You will lend me some," he said, when he had the 
 breath. " Since you are coming to the station, hein ? " 
 
 " Happily for you," said Jacques. " They really oughtn't 
 to let you go about the town alone. I'll lend you enough for 
 the journey ; only look here — I shall require a note of hand." 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 TRAGEDY BEGINS 
 
 The parting that night to Antoine was dreadful, for no 
 cause he could have explained. All experience seemed full 
 of partings now, all life turned treacherous, untrustworthy. 
 He had been back and forth from London to Paris a score 
 of times, but the breach made by his going had never seemed 
 like this. 
 
 The old man might or might not have shared his feel- 
 ings, but in the words he treated it lightly. " It is like 
 old times when you went to school," he said. " You go to 
 our school in turn, eh? The upper classes." 
 
 The boy did not offer him mutinous phrases in response, 
 as he had often done, both in the new school and the old. 
 Nor did he jest at all, for no friendly excitement had come 
 to aid him, and it was not in his nature to force jesting, 
 or to talk brightly for conscience's sake. Antoine talked 
 brightly when he was happy, and jested when he was 
 amused, but to-night he was neither thing. He took leave 
 with gravity, his wide eyes full of absent foreboding. As 
 the courier of the family he received instructions and mes- 
 sages ; as its representative he suffered with forbearance a 
 few rather nervous warnings. Only once he smiled, when 
 his grandfather charged him with being sleepy. 
 
 " Imagine papa," he remarked, '' if I was asleep through 
 Amiens." 
 
 " Do not neglect the new possession," M. Lemaure pro- 
 ceeded. " Since I have heard it speak, I feel more anxious. 
 And I suspect you, the owner, of prejudice in the matter." 
 315 
 
3i6 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I like it very well," said Antoine. " Perhaps I shall 
 play it for them once or twice — we shall see." He gath- 
 ered his own treasure to his side, toying with a strap or two 
 to see that all was safe. Then he exchanged a few remarks 
 with Philip, who had come to take charge of the post he 
 abandoned, embraced his grandfather with attention and 
 the cook with violence, looked once all round the little study, 
 and departed in solitary state. 
 
 " I suppose," Philip observed, on his disappearance, " he 
 has two or three thousand pounds' worth in those two cases, 
 hasn't he? " 
 
 " Apropos," said M. Lemaure, awakening from a reverie, 
 " I wonder if the child has any money. I had not thought 
 of it." 
 
 " You are just like him," said Philip. " He had exactly 
 ninepence-half penny until ten minutes ago. I lent him a 
 couple of fifties which will see him through. If he loses 
 them he will borrow from a porter at the Nord — and papa 
 will snap his head off, very properly, when he hears." 
 
 Mr Edgell junior proceeded to inaugurate his dictator- 
 ship by making a few propositions, which included taking 
 charge of M. Lemaure's purse, bank-book, and general lia- 
 bilities ; and his grandfather, who had never permitted his 
 own son to touch them, acceded to all very tamely. The 
 slight anxiety that had haunted him grew dim at Antoine's 
 departure; he was tired with the stir and movement that, 
 do what he would, the boy's recent popularity had brought 
 to the house ; and he was delighted — it was consolation for 
 all the frets of age — to have the spoiled Philip at his side 
 again. 
 
 Antoine did seem sleepy going down to Amiens, and 
 Jacques, once they were in the train, did not disturb him 
 much. There were two other travellers in the carriage, 
 which in any case destroyed the chance of confidences. It 
 may also be that Jacques, realising more clearly the con- 
 trast between them as the boy sat opposite under the lights, 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 317 
 
 blinking with natural drowsiness at nine o'clock, had an 
 attack of pride, and forbore deliberately to air his fur- 
 ther grievances. Antoine was within the pale of the pro- 
 fession, truly; but he had, to Jacques' knowledge, escaped 
 by some miracle of fate its bitterer and more commercial 
 side. He had shot like a well-flung rocket through that 
 murkiness of the market, so familiar to Charretteur's whole 
 childhood, and now took his ease in the clearer air above. 
 Luck, the wilful little god, had smiled on him as luck 
 smiles on those who are young, indifferent and in easy 
 circumstances. Jacques observed him at intervals, not 
 jealously, but with a kind of curiosity, as though watching 
 for the secret he had missed; and afforded very little at- 
 tention to the woman in the farther corner, who was, as 
 M. Charretteur was equally aware, most willing to catch 
 his eye. 
 
 With this lady's squire, a sulky man in a fur coat, Jacques 
 had had a heated dispute as to the bestowal of their re- 
 spective properties in the racks, and she had had to inter- 
 vene to make peace between the pair. It was during this 
 altercation that she had sought Jacques' sympathy first. 
 But he overlooked her, with his finest young bandit's air, 
 and when the quarrel had grumbled itself out, he said a 
 word to Antoine and went wandering down the train to 
 look for a compartment where they might be private. 
 However, as the boat train happened to be fairly full, his 
 skulking expedition bore no fruit, and he returned and 
 sank into his seat again, extending his gaunt legs so as to 
 take up as much room as possible. Antoine had accepted 
 the olive branch in the interval, he gathered. Indeed the 
 woman, who was a degree more vulgar than the man, 
 called him mon chou in Jacques' hearing, and seemed vastly 
 amused by his friendliness. 
 
 As the train ran into Amiens, the boy leant from the cor- 
 ridor w^indow, spying for his father's w^ell-known form 
 among the crowd. Only, when he discovered Jem, and 
 glanced round, Jacques had disappeared. This was odd of 
 
3i8 SUCCESSION 
 
 him, for Antoine had proposed a presentation, and Jacques 
 had seemed not unwilling. The " real father " had even 
 seemed to be rather an object of curiosity to his rambling 
 mind; and Antoine was naturally sure that Jem would be 
 enchanted to meet Jacques. A travelling companion of 
 such note — though it was true Jacques' distinction was a 
 little in abeyance from the worldly point of view — would 
 at least merit his father's honourable attention. 
 
 His kind schemes failed, however. Jacques saw a friend 
 presumably, or else had a shy fit and melted in the crowd ; 
 and as for Edgell, he seemed more interested in Antoine 
 than in any other casual celebrity who might be travelling 
 by the train. 
 
 " Good," was his brief greeting, when he picked the boy 
 out by one sweeping glance and came up to the window. 
 " Have you got room there, and is it a smoker ? " 
 
 " No," said Antoine ; " but they have all gone out, I think. 
 There is a lot of room." 
 
 " Donkey," said Jem, who was pipe in mouth. " Change 
 your traps to the next that side. Smart, before it's taken, 
 do you hear ? " 
 
 " There are so many traps," objected Antoine. " Grand- 
 papa made me bring a lot of things — and the violins are 
 very well up there." 
 
 " Hey ? " said Edgell, screwing his eyes into the com- 
 partment. " How many violins do you carry round, this 
 little trip?" 
 
 Antoine, hanging on the window, since he would not 
 come in, gave his version of the story, his tongue tripping 
 in English now and again, as though unaccustomed. His 
 father looked him over, took observations of the train, the 
 station clock, and the officials' proceedings, and listened 
 more or less. What comments he made were off the point. 
 " Had a cold? " he interrupted once; a little later he uttered 
 an imprecation on somebody unknown for delaying the 
 express. 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 319 
 
 " Are you not coming, papa ? " said the boy at last, grow- 
 ing anxious as to his intentions, he seemed so leisurely. 
 
 " Not finished," said Jem, puffing away. " Your fault 
 if I'm left." 
 
 " The guard will not mind you to smoke here," suggested 
 Antoine. " I mean — if you tell him." His father's calm 
 ways with the railway world caused Antoine much the 
 same breathless entertainment to witness, that they had as 
 a baby in Brittany. 
 
 " Tell him what ? " Jem inquired. " I like your airs." 
 However, he swung on board just before the door was 
 shut, and in time to claim his seat from two other late 
 passengers who were also seeking corners. 
 
 "Way up now, aren't we?" he proceeded, laying the 
 pipe aside at last, and inviting a hug. Reckless of audience, 
 he planted his rugs in Antoine's seat, and took the boy 
 across his long knees in their place. " Might have wired a 
 special, if we had thought of it in time. Now hold on : just 
 tell me how soon you are on duty at the other end." 
 
 This was characteristic of James. He liked to see his 
 way right to the terminus of any given undertaking, before 
 he really enjoyed the thing he had. His present enterprise 
 had been planned in part for the diversion he found in dove- 
 tailing duty and pleasure together, so as to get the utmost 
 out of the time at his disposal, 
 
 " To-morrow night," the boy said, in confidence. " But 
 only one concerto with Wurst — it is not important." He 
 laughed slightly at Jem's face. *' You must go back in the 
 afternoon, papa? " 
 
 " At latest," said Jem, with emphasis. 
 
 " The Tschedin is a beautiful thing," said Antoine. 
 
 "Really?" 
 
 " Yes. And that orchestra is good — good enough." 
 
 " Good enough for me ? " said Jem. 
 
 " Rather good," Antoine corrected himself. " I have 
 forgotten some of those words. It is asscz bien." He 
 
320 SUCCESSION 
 
 paused, frowned, and added rapidly. " I have perhaps be- 
 come rather difficuU, with orchestras." 
 
 " Say that all again," James advised him kindly. 
 
 " Don't you understand it ? " said Antoine. " You see, 
 there has been German, too, lately to mix me up. There 
 are too many languages altogether. While we are still in 
 France, we talk French, hein ? " 
 
 " If we do, we get our ears boxed," said Jem. His eye 
 was on the audience, who were Parisians unmistakably. 
 Edgell intended to be as confidential " this trip " as could 
 be compassed. He seldom in these days saw Antoine with- 
 out intruders, but if any intruded, they had better be 
 strange to the language used. As the train started he 
 glanced at the watch he still held in his hand, clipped it to, 
 and stowed it away with a slight sound of disapproval. 
 " Nearly midnight," he answered Antoine's inquiry. " High 
 time kids were asleep." 
 
 "There is not enough time before Calais," insinuated 
 Antoine, who preferred conversation. " Why did you think 
 to come, papa?" 
 
 " Oh, I just wanted to pass the time of day, or night," 
 said Edgell. "Understand that expression?" 
 
 " Of course," said the boy, blinking. " It passes the 
 night very well, when you are there." 
 
 James smiled, glancing again towards the audience; he 
 began to think it a pity they could not appreciate his 
 infant, after all. " Better be careful what you say," he 
 counselled lower. " Your continental English might be 
 understood beyond." 
 
 " I will talk it fast," said Antoine. They conversed, if 
 not fast, low and contentedly, the little gurgle of the boy's 
 laughter audible from time to time, though the man was 
 entirely grave. Whenever the sound occurred the lady 
 passenger looked round with half-a-smile, as though the 
 sense of that was conveyed to her at least. She thought 
 the pair were touchant, and her lifted brows signalled as 
 much to her companion. She had decided privately that the 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 321 
 
 boy must have been for a long period at school in France, 
 and had had to be fetched home to recruit after a serious ill- 
 ness. She would have claimed Antoine as a compatriot on 
 sight, had not the bond between him and the tall foreigner 
 been so evident. As it was, the other theory would just 
 fit the case. 
 
 "How's your grandfather?" said Jem presently, grow- 
 ing serious. 
 
 Antoine told him, playing with the window-sash, his 
 eyes on the flying country seen by flashes as the lights swept 
 past. He did not speak copiously on the subject; yet Jem 
 got more clear information from his lame little sentences 
 than from all his elder son's well-studied letters during the 
 autumn. 
 
 " Why did you never come down to see me as I said ? " 
 he pursued, when he had learnt what he wanted, and de- 
 termined privately to go to Paris, at the next opportunity. 
 
 " I couldn't very well. You see, I have to read to him at 
 five." 
 
 "Not Sundays." 
 
 The boy blushed slightly. " Sundays seem like other 
 days," he said, " when one cannot go out." 
 
 "That's so," said Jem. He saw the blush and inter- 
 preted it right, as a signal of past effort and present appeal. 
 Suddenly he grasped him. " And how have you been, my 
 duck? " he said, in a different tone. " None the stouter for 
 inflation, hey ? What did they do to you out there ? " 
 
 " I am very well," was all he said ; but he flashed an 
 answer, electrically as it were, to the current of emotion he 
 felt. 
 
 " And how well's that? Get on." 
 
 " I mean " — he paused — " I have not — always — been 
 very well, but I am now. You understand? " 
 
 " Here and now you are, which is all that matters, eh? " 
 said Jem. " Do you eat properly ? " A nod. " And talk too 
 much, and sleep too little? Same as ever?" 
 
322 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Yesterday," said Antoine, " I did not talk much, be- 
 cause my throat was curious." 
 
 " So your friends got a chance, for once. What makes 
 you catch cold? — you never used to." 
 
 Antoine shrugged. " I coughed quietly," he explained, 
 " when Savigny was there ; and Monsieur Bronne is so 
 agreeable, he did not mind." At this point, as the train 
 shook violently, he swung himself half up, frowning. 
 
 " Make you giddy ? " his father asked. 
 
 " No. I think of the strings up there." 
 
 " Let them break, what's the odds ? " said the engineer, 
 catching him back again. " See here, where do you prac- 
 tise when you are at home?" 
 
 " Where ? " Antoine was surprised. " In the mansarde, 
 au sixieme." 
 
 "With a fire, eh?" 
 
 " Oh no, there is no chimney." A pause. " It is a little 
 cold in the morning for the violin," he said hastily. " I 
 thought of that once." 
 
 " Once," his father echoed with expression. " Say, Tony, 
 what was its temperature two nights since ? " 
 
 "The violin's?" The boy looked up, his colour height- 
 ened, his eyes rather defiant. " I had to, for the Duchatel," 
 he contended. " I do not want to make those awful noises. 
 And then, at the end, he did not like it." 
 
 "Your grandfather didn't?" 
 
 " Duchatel. The recital was rate, for him. Only if the 
 people will not read it — one must play. You see ? " 
 
 James did not, the least; nor did Antoine really hope he 
 would. His point of view was generally as unexpected, 
 in artistic matters, as it was refreshing. " I guess you're 
 undertaking more than you can manage," he said. " No " 
 — as the boy's mouth opened — " you needn't answer. I 
 have no doubt you made a good show with it, whatever it 
 was. Phil told me as much. But I left you under con- 
 tract to your grandfather, not this Duchatel. He's the 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 3^3 
 
 only person capable of advising you ; and if you run against 
 his prejudices, at least at present, you're wrong." 
 
 Antoine opened his mouth again ; and then, on considera- 
 tion, shut it. When his father adopted a certain finality 
 of tone, it was safer not to risk a reply, however brilliant. 
 So he reflected instead, blinking and enjoying the sheer 
 restfulness of Jem's neighborhood in the general whirl of 
 things, the train included. In this unusual state of virtu- 
 ous inaction, the idea of sleep grew less incredible. Pres- 
 ently he yawned, then laughed, and swung himself free of 
 the compelling arm. He fell into his own place, throwing 
 the rug back to his father, all his actions prompt, clean, 
 decisive as they had ever been. He was never so easy and 
 sure, so much himself as in this company. Their minds 
 were doubtless different, but it was a healthy difference, 
 each bracing the other; and the essentials both required 
 were the same. 
 
 " Keep it if you're cold," Edgell said of the rug, for he 
 had found him rather chilly to the touch. 
 
 " I have one too," Antoine informed him, as he gathered 
 it up, " but it is round the violins." 
 
 " What's that for? " his father demanded. 
 
 " This train jumps such a lot. I do that sometimes, en 
 voyage." 
 
 " What rot," Jem returned in a familiar phrase. Rising, 
 he proceeded to reach up and disentangle the rug from what 
 it was enveloping. He dislodged a stick in the process, 
 which fell and was caught by the boy. 
 
 *' This is yours," he said. " Phil told me to bring it." 
 
 Edgell did not acknowledge it, or turn. Standing square 
 with his back to his son, he was looking sharply about him. 
 " Where's the other ? " he asked. 
 
 " The other ? " said Antoine. " There was only " 
 
 His father, swinging suddenly about, as though catching 
 the tremor on the last words, saw him gazing at the rack 
 above him, the hand that had been grasping the rug falling 
 idle at his side, the colour vanishing rapidly from his face. 
 
324 SUCCESSION 
 
 " II est malade, le petit," said the lady in the farther 
 corner, throwing her own wraps off at the same moment. 
 " Tenez, monsieur — ouvrez. Cela passera tout de suite." 
 She caught Antoine with one arm adroitly, while Jem, swift 
 and silent, threw the window open. 
 
 " Near shave that," he said, after a minute or two, in 
 excellent French to the woman. " It was a fright, of 
 course, confound it." 
 
 " He has been ill ? " she suggested low. 
 
 " He can't ever stand much," said Jem, " and the violin's 
 his charge. All right, my dear. We'll get it back, never 
 fear. Which is it they have taken? Tell me that before I 
 see the guard." 
 
 The tone was clear, cordial, and he was smiling almost; 
 everything Antoine could least conceive of him, on such 
 damning evidence of his own incompetence ; of that care- 
 lessness his father had made mock of in childhood, and 
 condemned all his later years as a fault his wit should be 
 able to correct. Amid all the mass of censure the loss of 
 the instrument must entail, that condemnation, he thought, 
 would be the surest. 
 
 As for Edgell, during that pause while he saw the life 
 sink out of his son's face and struggle back, bringing with it 
 the painful necessity of thought, he realised in full the 
 thing of which his father-in-law and Philip had been dimly 
 conscious ; the extraordinary and criminal responsibility 
 which, for sheer want of attention, they had laid on this 
 young boy, confiding and absent by nature, perplexed at 
 home by a constant clash of duties, burdened abroad by 
 the credit of his family and the honour of his art, and not 
 even recovered, as was clear enough now, from an illness 
 which two months since had taken him within arm's length 
 of death. 
 
 Angry with immediate anxiety as he was, Jem took the 
 first blame to himself. He had simply scamped, his duty, 
 it was perfectly plain to his mind, in not taking him 
 Straight from his grandfather's hands, guiding and guard- j 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 325 
 
 ing him as a thing of such proved importance had the right 
 to be guarded, even if he had not had objects of greater 
 material vakie in charge. Most clearly of all the injus- 
 tice smote him. Had the boy failed his side of the bar- 
 gain at one point, since he came before the public, that his 
 family should fail in theirs so signally? He had done all 
 and more than their highest ambition claimed, and at an 
 expense they had been allowed little opportunity to doubt. 
 They had done nothing for him but look on, applaud a 
 trifle, tease a trifle more as the occasion arose, and expect 
 ever more of him simply because he did not disappoint 
 them. It was not fair play, regarded by the commonest 
 standards of Jem's tradition. And only Jem knew how 
 much more, in the unfailing simplicity of his affection, this 
 boy claimed of him than that. 
 
 " Thank you," said Antoine to the strange gentleman 
 who offered his flask. " I do not want brandy. It is 
 
 only " He turned to his father and steadied his shaken 
 
 tone. " It is my own that has gone. They could not know 
 which was the best, of course. I believe the other is bet- 
 ter — more expensive. I wish they had taken that." 
 
 It was all he said, and he remained resting his brow upon 
 his clenched hand, until the guard came down the train. 
 That he was fighting his weakness, and summoning all his 
 wits to his aid, was clear, and till authority arrived upon 
 the scene, nobody disturbed him ; and even then there were 
 certain preliminaries he had to leave in his father's hands. 
 
 Jem Edgell was an unexpansive man, but he was not one 
 to allow his personal claims to be neglected ; and he made 
 jin that night express, hurrying its sleeping passengers to 
 I the coast, a most consummate stir. The French couple in 
 :his compartment began to marvel whether the big grizzled 
 man was British royalty in disguise, and how many of the 
 Crown jewels had disappeared owing to the criminal ovcr- 
 ;sight of the company of the Nord. The guard, a person 
 of almost military splendour and severity, came to sit in 
 their carriage for the rest of the journey, informing him- 
 
326 SUCCESSION 
 
 self, reassuring messieurs, and taking notes. He glanced 
 at Edgell's papers, and nodded at Antoine's name, with a 
 polite appearance of having heard of them both for years. 
 
 " Monsieur knows his violin, perhaps," he suggested 
 paternally. 
 
 " If I know it ! " the boy jerked, with a short, pained 
 laugh. He gave forthwith its title, parentage and origin, 
 hinted its history, and described it with loving care in 
 every part. As he proceeded, the passive fingers in Jem's 
 gripped closer, for recovering from his private shock, he 
 remembered what his father must be feeling too, in the loss 
 of this old member of the family, sanctified before his own 
 birth by his mother's hands. When required to give its 
 value he hesitated, and then offered M. Lemaure's expert 
 surmise. They all knew by this time that the instrument 
 had been purchased far below its worth, for all the modest 
 signature it bore. It was one of the little adventurers in 
 the realm of great violins — a happy find, bought on a lucky 
 day, proving itself subsequently and secretly to its hosts as 
 a visitor of the noblest blood. Stories innumerable were 
 grouped about it, and members of the Lemaure family in- 
 quired at intervals after its health, in jest at first, but with 
 growing respect as its name and Antoine's grew together. 
 Even M. Lemaure's Stradivarius, up to then the pride of 
 their circle, had had to adopt since its advent the position 
 of a distinguished bore. 
 
 Both Antoine and his father were skimming In mind this 
 history, as they sat facing the official side by side, though 
 only the more useful facts were presented to him. Jem 
 left the descriptive departm.ent entirely to his son, but 
 joined keenly in the subsequent discussion as to the con- 
 ditions of the instrument's disappearance and the probable 
 culprit. His suggestions and method of question were so 
 far superior to those of the guard that that personage, 
 decidedly impressed, was ready to retire in his favour. He 
 had already gathered that the younger gentleman was not 
 to be overtaxed ; a parent, in such cases, is the best, he 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 327 
 
 reflected, as he watched their quick exchange, and tapped 
 gently with his pencil on the open book ; granted two such 
 intelhgent people, and the time at his disposal, he could not 
 fail to gather all the facts he wanted. 
 
 " A couple of men in the carriage, eh? " said Jem. 
 
 " It was a man and a woman," said Antoine, 
 
 " Did they know the instruments were there? " 
 
 " He did, because he pushed our things about, when 
 he put up his bag. The man with me was rather angry, 
 because we had arranged them already before he came." 
 
 " Aha ! " said the guard. " Another gentleman. Mon- 
 sieur's friend? " 
 
 " I know him, yes." 
 
 " Monsieur had been confided to his care ? " 
 
 '' No, no," the boy said. " He is not old." His eyes had 
 grown troubled. 
 
 " Just tell about him," Jem prompted. " It's better to 
 have all the facts." 
 
 Antoine told about Jacques, and as he did so his quick 
 mind faced the possibility that Jacques could be suspected. 
 Being Antoine, the moment he had the idea, he conveyed 
 it unconsciously to those who regarded him. He looked 
 from one to the other keenly, with a painful frown, as 
 he presented the suspicious facts simply in order. Jacques 
 knew the value of the violins, certainly. He was an artist 
 himself, of a certain prominence — yes, poor. He had sud- 
 denly determined to travel down to Amiens — to see a friend. 
 Antoine did not think he had previously heard of the 
 friend's existence. Jacques had disappeared soundlessly 
 at the station, and without farewell. Yes, he had known 
 Antoine's father would be there. He had consented to meet 
 him, just previously. 
 
 "Monsieur must not imagine that we suspect this gentle- 
 man," observed the guard cheerfully at this point, " merely 
 because we inform ourselves. He serves as a witness, eh ? — 
 in all cases. What is his address?" 
 
 " I would rather not tell you," said Antoine, drawing 
 
328 SUCCESSION 
 
 back. " He does not want it to be known. He has to be 
 quiet, just now, for his studies. I mean — it is not easy for 
 him." His voice failed, and he Hfted a hand to his throat. 
 The other two were silent, the guard looking kindly over 
 his gold-rimmed spectacles. " May I tell you his hotel at 
 Amiens ? " said the boy at last. " He did say he would go 
 there." 
 
 " Why not to his friend, if he had one? " said Jem. 
 
 " He was not sure if that friend wanted him," said An- 
 toine. " It was long they had not met, you see, and th-this 
 man had got poor." He avoided Charretteur's name with 
 an effort every time. He recalled some of the discreditable 
 tales attached to it, and he thought with horror of the new 
 and nasty little scandal there must be, if any part of the 
 adventure became known in his old circles. Even during 
 his short career, Antoine had learnt to dread the journalist's 
 pen. The occurrence was, for Jacques, a deadly mischance, 
 unless all mention of his connection with it could be avoided, 
 " Please," he said to the guard, with recovered energy, " I 
 am sure it is not him. I cannot show you all the reasons 
 why I am sure, but here is one. That " — he indicated the 
 case left in the rack — " is my new violin, and I told him 
 he could have it. We were joking about them, do you see? 
 He knows I do not want it, and how I think of the other, 
 very well. He is — he is a person who knows, altogether. 
 He could — not — have taken it away." His steady, full 
 look was certainly persuasive. 
 
 " Couldn't he have meant to take that for a lark," said 
 Jem, " and laid hands on the wrong one ? " 
 
 " No," said the boy, setting his lips. " That would be a 
 stupid mistake, and he is a clever man." 
 
 Edgell's eyes and the guard's met, and the latter con- 
 tented himself with noting the name of Jacques' hotel. 
 
 " Now," said the boy, when this futile business was con- 
 cluded, "will you think about the others? They may be 
 down there, in the train." 
 
 " Not likely," said Jem. " However, give us a descrip- 
 tion." 
 
TRAGEDYBEGINS 329 
 
 Unfortunately, no one in the world was a worse hand at 
 description than Antoine. He did his best, tormenting his 
 memory, that excellent machine, to extract details his ob- 
 servation had never put there; confusing himself rapidly in 
 the process, as imagination sprang to his aid. Antoine re- 
 jected its advances, and said firmly to the guard's insinuat- 
 ing questions that he did not know. " Jacques would re- 
 member, perhaps," he assented wearily, " I did not look 
 at them much. The man had a coat turned up round here. 
 He had stupid eyes, and his voice was ugly — hoarse. The 
 lady was pretty — I think." 
 
 "Monsieur thinks?" echoed the guard. He wanted, 
 both as a man and an official, more about the lady. 
 
 " Monsieur is thinking too much," Edgell struck in. 
 " See now, answers are simplest. She was veiled ? No. 
 Dressed in black? Yes. A fair lady, rather stout. Did 
 you see her hands?" 
 
 To be sure : Antoine always looked at hands. She took 
 off white gloves, as if she had been to the theatre, her 
 hands were large and pink, and she had four rings. One 
 hurt her, and she complained of it, took it off, and gave it 
 to the man, w^ho put it in a breast-pocket. 
 
 " Admirable," the guard murmured. " Proceed, Mon- 
 sieur." 
 
 She was not wearing a wrap or cloak, but had one over 
 her knees. She seemed hot and fanned herself. She called 
 the man Henri and used the tu, and he never looked at her. 
 
 So much Jem got with no trouble. His easy, almost 
 nonchalant manner of questioning seemed to inspire the 
 boy, and his eyes hung on his father as though the only 
 assistance lay there. Indeed, a far keener critic than An- 
 toine would have failed to discover by Edgell's appearance 
 that he had no hope whatever left of recovering the instru- 
 ment. 
 
 While the guard, notebook in hand, went on a voyage 
 of inspection along the train, Jem filled in his own impres- 
 sions with a few more details, extracted in leisurely Eng- 
 
330 SUCCESSION 
 
 lish confidence. The boy, utterly weary, endeavoured to 
 content him, though piecing his EngHsh words together with 
 increasingly obvious efifort. Jem mustered his evidence, 
 wondering secretly if Antoine in supplying it realised its 
 full significance, and then said quietly : " You like him, 
 eh?" 
 
 " Yes," the boy said, twisting his lip. " I wish he had 
 not run away — you might have seen him then. I had al- 
 ready thought — it was a pity." 
 
 " Don't worry," said Jem, and, dropping a hand on his 
 wrist, leant back to frown over the chances. He had 
 adopted his son's idea of this Charretteur, with reservations 
 to his own common-sense, and balanced the two views at 
 leisure. If, on the one hand, the man had muckered his 
 career and involved himself in money difficulties, as the boy 
 hinted, the opportunity of repairing his fortunes had been 
 an obvious one, even for the unskilled hand. Given two 
 human beings and two violins in a compartment, no by- 
 stander would be surprised to see one of the pair lift' 
 a violin from the rack. Behind the owner's back he could 
 have done it and absconded quite at leisure. In the alter- 
 native case, a thief from without would have had to avoid 
 this " clever " young man's own sharp eye. There had been 
 no commotion evidently, no alarm called. All the actors ! 
 had simply vanished, and the violin as well. It was impos- 
 sible to avoid suspicion falling on a man already in the 
 musical career, with knowledge of the object he stole, and 
 means at hand, as was probable, for disposing of his booty. 
 Thus presented, the case stood strong against Jacques. 
 
 But, on the other side, Jem had picked out for the de- 
 fence two admissions: firstly, this unknown fellow liked 
 the violin ; and secondly, that he had accepted a sum of 
 money quite recently from its owner. The first statement 
 oflfered quite a different motive for the theft, and the lat- 
 ter made theft of any sort unlikely. It takes a very low 
 character, thought Jem, to rob a boy, more especially a bene- 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 331 
 
 factor; and Antoine himself called the low character his 
 friend. 
 
 That was the final consideration in the case : that " the 
 kid " cared for him. None knew better than his father, 
 naturally, the naive credulity and confidence of which An- 
 toine was capable, when his heart was engaged. It was 
 just those qualities that had made him at all times so easy 
 to mislead and torment, by such of his circle as enjoyed the 
 sport. Yet, apart from that simplicity, Jem admitted An- 
 toine's instinct, even a penetration, fine and sure, that had 
 often exceeded theirs. He had rarely, with those whose 
 society he deliberately chose, gone badly wrong. His very 
 expansiveness was a safeguard, his agile tongue provoking 
 retort, besieging the stronghold of confidence. In a sense 
 he was exacting too, for he claimed the fair exchange ; and 
 the fact that he believed so strongly in this Charretteur 
 suggested at least that Charretteur was well disposed to him. 
 
 Antoine was exceedingly silent and languid till the guard's 
 return, which occurred when they were close on Calais. 
 He woke with a start out of half-a-doze as that official 
 bustled in. No news, he assured them. No one in the 
 neighbouring carriages had noticed the pair of persons, or 
 recognised their description. They had got down, without 
 doubt, at Amiens. 
 
 " Monsieur had better telegraph there," he said, " and 
 to Paris, which is the better chance. They would have 
 separated, and one, probably the woman, taken the first 
 train back, the instrument — granted it were with them — ■ 
 enveloped in the shawl Monsieur had mentioned." He 
 gave these speculations complacently, as one having experi- 
 ence ; but the picture presented went to Antoine's heart. 
 
 " Oh, I cannot bear it," he muttered just audibly. His 
 nerves broke loose. " You must get it, please — it is mine. 
 I must have it. Will you try?" 
 
 " Pauvre petit," the lady murmured, at his tears. " He 
 was tired already, and has had no sleep." She glanced, as 
 though almost in apology for the more sensitive race, at the 
 
332 SUCCESSION 
 
 Englishman. She saw the lines in his forehead grow 
 deeper, but his actions were still easy and controlled. He 
 pushed the boy back into his own corner, and stood in the 
 way, half kneeling on the seat, and bending his tall head, 
 as though to screen him from the public eye. He dis- 
 couraged very bluntly any further imaginative forecast on 
 the part of the guard. 
 
 " Monsieur can break the journey here," that worthy 
 suggested. " It would be of assistance, with the necessity 
 of telegraphy in view." 
 
 Edgell shook his head. " I wish I could," he said under 
 his breath. " I have to take him through." 
 
 " Stay, papa," gasped Antoine, moving. " That will be 
 better. I will go on." 
 
 At the same instant the French lady offered her escort, 
 with a kindness and interest unmistakable. 
 
 Jem thanked her, and did not argue the point; but it 
 became clear that he did not intend to let his son out of his 
 sight for the next twelve hours. 
 
 " Good ! " said the company of the Nord, resigned, and 
 turned a page of the notebook, " Londres — Continental — 
 till this evening. After that the head office at Amiens? 
 Aha, convenience itself. Monsieur will answer, I trust, for 
 our anxiety to serve him." He bowed himself out. 
 
 James, having done all that conscience demanded and 
 time permitted at Calais, and impressed himself on the at- 
 tention of all officials in reach in a manner only possible to 
 a British subject with a grievance, authority at his back, 
 and two languages at command, came on board the boat 
 in a state of righteous satisfaction, ready to put off further 
 thinking till daylight, and recruit his powers with sleep 
 in a deck-chair at Antoine's side. But it was harder to do 
 so when at every half-open glance in the boy's direction he 
 saw his brilliant, restless eyes following the white wash of 
 the waves. He lay languidly in his chair, his head back 
 and his wrists crossed behind his head. At his feet lay the 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 333 
 
 exquisite stranger, as closely muffled as he from the damp 
 night air, and his right foot rested carelessly on the case, 
 almost as though spurning while he guarded. It was an 
 expressive pose as usual, even to the detail of his half- 
 dropped lashes, and the thumb and finger meeting on the 
 careless hand, as though prepared for his customary im- 
 patient gesture. Occasionally his brows lifted, as a more 
 than usually weighty thought crossed his brain, just as a 
 more considerable crested wave would well up under his 
 vision. On one of these thoughts his glance shifted, and 
 he caught his father's eye. 
 
 " You told grandpapa? " he said, in his light, weary voice, 
 more childish than his appearance. 
 
 " I wired to Phil," said James. " He can use his discre- 
 tion." The boy still watched him a minute. 
 
 " Yes — thank you," he said. 
 
 " Not sick, are you ? " said his father, for the seething sea 
 they looked upon was far from calm. 
 
 " Oh, no, no," he said, " I have not time." He laughed 
 just audibly, as he settled to reflection again. The men- 
 tion of his grandfather's name suggested the tenor of those 
 reflections, and Edgell, drowsy as he was, saw the thing 
 through his eyes for a moment. 
 
 " I wouldn't be he," he thought, with real awe and uncon- 
 scious respect. " Chief sufferer and chief sinner too in 
 such an affair — and with those people to deal with." He 
 considered his wife's family for a space, as he had often 
 considered them, with the ease of a comparative outsider. 
 " Well, Lucien sha'n't rag him anyway," was the result of 
 his pondering. " I'll see to that." 
 
 As it happened, his protection was not necessary, for 
 
 Lucien at Victoria took the news with more self-control 
 
 than he had expected. He was a little disconcerted to begin 
 
 with., for he had arrived unprepared to see James. It is 
 
 i probable he would not have put himself about to rise before 
 
 i six, had he known his nephew already provided with such 
 
 1 a guardian. As it was, he stood on the platform looking as 
 
334 SUCCESSION 
 
 usual, well dressed and trim amid his somewhat drab sur- 
 roundings, and welcomed them with a wave of the hand, 
 as the train slackened. He heard out his brother-in-law's 
 summary of the adventure in silence. 
 
 " Psst ! " said Lucien. " How like him." He frowned 
 once and planted his foot in a stamp on the station plat- 
 form. " Well, and the affair to-night — ^the concerto. 
 What is he to play ? " 
 
 " There's another fiddle come along," his inexpert 
 brother-in-law told him. " A recent presentation. He 
 says it will serve." 
 
 " Good heavens, what a godsend," cried Lucien. 
 
 " It's no consolation," said James. He watched the 
 meeting of the pair with suspicion, but he could find no 
 fault with M. Lemaure's behaviour. He laid a hand on the 
 boy's shoulder with marked kindness, and put him into a 
 cab with very little said. He omitted even his usual cor- 
 rect inquiries as to his father's health. He was, for Lucien, 
 a little peculiar, and different from Antoine's memory, 
 though it was true all things seemed strange to-day. He 
 had braced himself to meet a storm, and found only the 
 most amiable propriety. 
 
 " No, no, there is no rehearsal," he answered a query 
 carelessly. " Wurst says he knows your ways of old. You 
 are not too tired, mon cher? You would do well to come 
 straight to the hotel and get some sleep. Eight o'clock 
 to-night and close by — only the hour's work, I saw to 
 that. No, the boxes can wait till later. We will see to the 
 business presently." 
 
 " Is there business ?" the boy said mechanically, as they 
 both followed him into the car. It seemed to him odd to 
 abandon the boxes, for the charge of various precious 
 things was on his mind. 
 
 " I have yet to hear details," said his uncle, glancing at 
 James. " But there is no harm in prompting the police. 
 If a rogue at Amiens wished to leave the country, it is 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 335 
 
 clear which way he would come, Jem, you know Scotland 
 Yard. What time do the dark blue gentlemen get up?" 
 
 In short, Lucien, like Jem in the first instance, seemed 
 half inclined to a demeanour of festivity. Why, Antoine 
 had no idea, since for his own part he felt more like a 
 funeral. The day was dark to him, the weight on his 
 brain intolerable, London more formidable and joyless even 
 than of old. He was dragged like a prisoner, feeling as 
 dull and helpless, to a strange hotel room, surrounded for 
 some minutes there by the fuss of servants and contrary 
 orders, and forced by his father's hands to swallow some- 
 thing warm. As to what they were discussing, he gave it 
 the barest attention, and only gathered his faculties when 
 addressed. His uncle's new manner still baffled and al- 
 most seemed to mock him ; but at least in speaking he was 
 clear and slow. He heard Lucien invite his father to pass 
 the night at Brackenhall, and with a fresh sense of disap- 
 pointment, Jem's decisive refusal. 
 
 " The thing's my affair," said Jem. " I claim an interest 
 for once, at least as great as yours. I sha'n't leave a stone 
 unturned on that side, if you watch here. You stay up, of 
 course? " 
 
 " As you will," said Lucien. " For this personage, I am 
 under orders." 
 
 " How ? " said Antoine, as he caught a glance. 
 
 " You sleep at Brackenhall to-night, at least. My wife 
 is expecting you and will not be disappointed. I will tele- 
 graph and explain. Well, what is the matter ? " For An- 
 toine, watching him, had frowned. " You trust me in 
 your interests, do you not? But he is half asleep," the 
 master laughed. " I should know the violin at least as 
 well as you." 
 
 " Yes, yes — of course." The boy diverted his gaze. " I 
 will go down," he said, after a minute, gently. " She is 
 very kind." 
 
 " He has got there," reflected Jem, amused. " He's not 
 
336 SUCCESSION 
 
 so quick as usual this morning." Personally, knowing his 
 sister-in-law well, and the influence of her exquisite idea 
 of the becoming on all that surrounded her, he had awak- 
 ened sooner to the origin of Lucien's change of tone. 
 Cecile Lemaure's life's adoration was accomplishment, the 
 technical above all. She had that instinct and passion for 
 the right way of doing things, of manipulating material, 
 even of the poorest, to the best advantage, that is eminently 
 French. Lucien was a neat technician, of material not 
 quite the best, but it contented her. Antoine, barely recog- 
 nised as an " original " during the two years he had been the 
 pupil and fag of her household, had proved himself since 
 of the royal stuff. He was no longer to be treated in the 
 same way. He was to be sheltered now, not used ; regarded, 
 not laughed at; studied rather than criticised. It was a j 
 notable change of view, approaching to the delicate snob- ! 
 bism of certain Parisian circles, which Cecile had already 
 foreshadowed to her little world at Brackenhall, and which ■ 
 Lucien had absorbed unknowing. 1 
 
 " Do you mind," he inquired, at parting, " if we lock the | 
 door?" He had a smile, and his hand rested lightly on j 
 the presentation violin. " I mean " — as the boy looked j 
 from him to it — " one might be asleep at our return." j 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Antoine, endeavouring to answer the 
 smile. " I expect it is better." [ 
 
 Lucien locked the door with a click, and joined Jem ; 
 upon the stairs. 
 
 " Poor little creature," he said, with unusual feeling. 
 "Thank heaven, Jem, you were there. Really, he would 
 have gone crazy alone." 
 
 " No, he would not," said Jem, whom Lucien stirred to 
 pugnacity. " He has an uncommon level head, the young- 
 ster. He'd have done all I did, in less time. Gets it from 
 me, I shouldn't wonder." 
 
 " What was he thinking of, to leave the thing at all ? " 
 Lucien ejaculated. 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 337 
 
 " Me," said his brother-in-law blandly. " I may men- 
 tion that as soon as I was in, I looked up to see that all 
 was right. It's a bad look-out. Whoever did it, you see, 
 did it too well. The rug was rearranged across a stick, and 
 tucked in, to follow the form of the cases. We should 
 never have missed a thing till Calais, but for the chance 
 of wanting the rug." 
 
 " You have the stick ? " snapped Lucien. 
 
 " I have," said James, still bland. " It's my own." 
 
 "Ridiculous to have wrapped them up at all," growled 
 the master, relapsing. 
 
 "You think so, do you?" said Jem, with interest. 
 
 " Well, wouldn't it suggest to any fool they were 
 precious ? " 
 
 " Suggests my fool's a precious little goat," said James. 
 " I know that already, thank you. Suggests a lot more 
 things I haven't time to tell you — surprise you if I did. 
 Say, Lucien, I had a question. Do you know of a fellow 
 called Charretteur ? " 
 
 "Hey?" His brother-in-law rose to the bait with a 
 snap. " What about him ? " 
 
 " He was in the carriage, that's all. I thought you 
 might have placed the kid in his charge." 
 
 "I?" Lucien ejaculated. Having thus amused himself, 
 Jem related the facts with conspicuous fairness in order, 
 so far as he had yet unearthed them. 
 
 " Do you make anything of it ? " he inquired. 
 
 " I make out he has the violin," said Lucien curtly, and 
 proceeded to air his views in turn. Jacques had been 
 before the public eye for a short season, but it was long 
 enough for his character and origin to be discussed, and 
 every picturesque incident of his career quoted with orna- 
 ment, especially among the regular art contingent from the 
 colleges and schools. Lucien still touched musical college 
 gossip at many points, and he had a taste himself for 
 piquant little scandals. Savigny, who owned in his pro- 
 
338 SUCCESSION 
 
 fessional capacity knowledge of the subject at once more 
 remarkable and more veracious, had kept his confidence 
 perfectly, and had only grumbled out, in the Lemaures' 
 presence, as even a doctor may, his personal distaste. 
 Charretteur himself was not the man to deny adventures 
 ascribed to him. He smiled sidelong on such, and let 
 them run without criticism. At some of Lucien's details 
 Jem was a little grave. 
 
 " I always told my father what would come of the con- 
 nection," said Lucien, who saw his disapproval. " We shall 
 never trace him now, for his acquaintance is as wide as it 
 is shady. How the devil did he rediscover the boy, I want 
 to know. Raymond might have seen to it." 
 
 " Mightn't he ? " Jem agreed. " Raymond's engaged, 
 and I'm occupied, and you're somewhere else, and Phil's a 
 selfish young dog. We take honours, the lot of us, in the 
 attendance line." 
 
 " It was an oversight," M. Lemaure admitted, and said 
 no more for a time. Jem paid a private tribute to his 
 manners, and was silent also. Lucien had a wife as well 
 as his work, and until the two claimed him inevitably, his 
 strict guardianship of Antoine had been immaculate. He 
 had nothing whatever to reproach himself with — men such 
 as Lucien never had, and it was a part of their irritating 
 quality. 
 
 Throughout the day's business, at station and police 
 offices, James felt him at his side, now prepared to prompt, 
 now tactfully silent, filling in his omissions or lubricating 
 his roughness of method in his neat French way, unfail- 
 ingly quick and attentive, and not infrequently amusing too, 
 though it was apt to be at the expense of the nation with 
 whom he dealt. 
 
 " Age improves Lucien," Jem reflected. " After all, 
 his father's qualities must be in him somewhere. Cecile's 
 as clever as they make them too. Pity he's got no children 
 to carry on the line." It may have been such thoughts that 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 339 
 
 urged him, when immediate business was disposed of, to 
 renew the subject of the missing Jacques. 
 
 " Lucien," he said abruptly, " Antoine appealed to me, 
 and to you through me, to keep this young fellow's name 
 from public mention in the afifair, and more specially from 
 the press. He clearly knows a thing or two of those you've 
 been telling me, or he would not have been so earnest. He 
 proposes " Jem was proceeding, when his brother- 
 in-law struck in. 
 
 " Antoine is entirely incapable of realising the situation, 
 still less of proposing any line of action in it. He has 
 made the blunder, and he had better leave the reparation 
 of it to us." 
 
 " I guess he realises a bit," returned Jem. " He was 
 realising under my eyes from Dover to London; and he 
 wasn't happy, either. He proposes to write himself to the 
 fellow to-day, and to leave negotiations, if they are neces- 
 sary, to a certain person in Paris." 
 
 "My father?" snapped Lucien. "I will not have him 
 vexed about it. I would sooner go over myself." 
 
 " It wasn't your father he proposed," said Jem, " or you. 
 Or me, for that matter, because he weighed me up and 
 down, somewhere about Canterbury, and found me want- 
 ing. Then he got to work again, and towards Croydon the 
 right one turned up. Now then, what was the name?" 
 
 " Duchatel," said Lucien, impatient of his deliberation. 
 
 " No ; a shorter name. He must be the right sort, be- 
 cause after he thought of him, the kid went to sleep. The 
 vision of you," Jem added, unprovoked, " would never have 
 sent him off so peacefully." 
 
 " I will ask him," said Lucien shortly. 
 
 But he did not, at least till the next morning; for when 
 they returned to the hotel at lunch-time, the boy was sleep- 
 ing fast, curled up on the window couch. Two letters, ad- 
 dressed in his odd bold hand, one to his grandfather and one 
 to Dr Bronne, lay at his side on the table. Jem, however, 
 
340 SUCCESSION 
 
 paid no heed to them, when at his departure he slid an 
 arm beneath the writer. 
 
 " You will take those," Antoine said, when the awaken- 
 ing process was more or less accomplished. " That will 
 be quicker, I think." 
 
 " Right," said Jem, stowing them away. " No further 
 directions? " 
 
 " No." He blinked, still dizzy with sleep, and groping 
 for his English words. " It is to-night I have to play ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 His father nodded, scanning him. "Tired?" he said, 
 for his eyes were singularly heavy. 
 
 " No, no. I was only not sure — about the days." 
 
 " Hoped it had become to-morrow, hey ? Or yester- 
 day ? " 
 
 " I don't know." As Jem subsided on the couch, he 
 struggled up and slid both arms about his father's neck. 
 " I was stupid to lose it," he confessed, low, but with pas- 
 sionate expression. 
 
 " Stupid little donkey," Jem assented. " What would 
 your mother have said ? " 
 
 " Elle m'aurait gifle," the boy murmured. " You were 
 always more kind." 
 
 "Rash to leave the query," Jem reflected, privately 
 amused. " He never lets one off. Sure you can manage to 
 get through to-night," he said, concealing his real anxiety, 
 " without your friend." 
 
 "Which violin does not matter," explained Antoine, 
 with gravity, " to them." 
 
 "Only to us, hey?" 
 
 " I do not think it would to you, if I had not said it was 
 gone." He laughed, still looking wretched. 
 
 " Pluck," Jem muttered, and waited an instant. " Like 
 to come to California," he inquired casually, " in Febru- 
 ary?" 
 
 " Papa ! Es-tu sot ! Of course I can't." 
 
TRAGEDY BEGINS 341 
 
 " It's a jolly nice part," said Jem. " I've got to go over, 
 as it turns out." 
 
 Antoine stared at him with lifted brows. Of course, his 
 father always had a way of regarding a thousand miles 
 much as ordinary members of society regard ten. " Is 
 it true you will go ? " he asked, after examination. 
 
 " I guess so, owing to that young Banks' folly. He says 
 the plans aren't workable, which means he's not fit to work 
 them." 
 
 "They are beautiful," said Antoine, with decision; he 
 having been permitted at St Aviel to study half-a-page. 
 
 " So I said I should come along pretty soon," Jem pro- 
 ceeded, " and perhaps bring an assistant. I didn't promise 
 what sort." 
 
 " I should assist you ? " inquired Antoine, looking very 
 intently, though his tone was light. James looked intently 
 back. 
 
 " They'd never expect, out of Europe, anyone brighter 
 than you." 
 
 " You say this ' pour rire,' hein ? " suggested Antoine. 
 There was not the glimmer of a smile to reassure him — 
 such was Jem's way. 
 
 " There are some places I could show you," he said, 
 " no one on this -side ever dreamed. Big places made so, 
 not little scraps of nature raked over. Stuff to get hold 
 of, not always slipping through your hand. If you wanted 
 something to think about, or play about, or write about " 
 
 " Do not," said the boy breathlessly. " Not now." 
 
 " Too big to tackle," his father suggested. " I'll advertise 
 then, all right. Sorry I mentioned it— now. Go to sleep 
 again, stupid, it's all you're fit for." 
 
 But he was not at all sorry he had mentioned it; nor 
 had the proposition, carelessly as it was produced, been 
 unconsidered. He watched the boy's dreamy expression, 
 in the interval before he left, keenly, as though he would 
 have followed his thoughts. Jem was given to undervaluing 
 himself in the intellectual world, but not with this most 
 
342 
 
 SUCCESSION 
 
 accomplished of his children. He reckoned in that inter- 
 val exactly the effort it would cost to whistle him to the 
 ends of the earth, and leave all the musical connection 
 frantic. The idea tickled him, but he found a measure of 
 reason in it which made it the more attractive. It had 
 something of the boy's own attraction ; and it kept intrud- 
 ing on his more serious thoughts, as he retraced his way 
 to France that night. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE CRITIC 
 
 "You will have to give up Charretteur's address," said M. 
 Lucien to his nephew, when he reached home the next 
 morning. " It is perfectly absurd to keep the police in the 
 dark. For all you know, the instrument may be there." 
 
 " I know it is not there," said Antoine. 
 
 " On your own showing," said Lucien, " the fellow's 
 behaviour was underhand. He joined you for no reason 
 and left you furtively. I do not assert he is dishonest ; 
 he may have taken it on a stupid impulse to tease you. 
 There is no reckoning with a drunkard." 
 
 " He is not a drunkard," said Antoine. 
 
 He looked simply sulky, as he drilled holes with a pencil 
 on the paper pile beneath his hand. He had climbed nearly 
 on to the table in agitation of mind, and the points of his 
 wild hair bristled in all directions. Beneath it his face was 
 flushed, and his eyes avoided his uncle. He had not ex- 
 pected this morning visit, and he did not desire it; but he 
 felt debarred from expressing his full feelings, in the new 
 state of things at Brackenhall ; and since ordinary patience 
 was not sufficient, he had to summon the tolerance of his 
 public life to aid him, in order to remain decently com- 
 posed. 
 
 Up to this, all had gone well. He had arrived alone the 
 night before, and had explained things quite to his own 
 satisfaction, his aunt attending, polite if amused. She had 
 always been amused by his most ordinary remarks, and 
 her new and charming courtesy could not quite conceal the 
 
 343 
 
344 
 
 SUCCESSION 
 
 expression. His first hasty observation — " Grandpapa said 
 I was to give you his love before I forgot " — entirely dis- 
 jointed her opening formality; and after that she found 
 it hard to be quite serious again; especially when Antoine 
 told her on inquiry all about Jacques and the lady in the 
 train. This had been the part of the whole day's adventure 
 that interested her the most, so he naturally enlarged on it 
 so far as his memory would serve. Only he was oppressed 
 by a feeling that, strive as he would — and he was quite 
 excited and talkative after the concert— he was giving her 
 a wrong impression of Charretteur. This was the more 
 annoying that she always communicated her impressions 
 soon or late to her husband, and Antoine suspected his 
 uncle to be already prejudiced, even before they had had a 
 conversation on the subject. He now feared that the pair 
 must have shared their suspicions below; else why should 
 Lucien post upstairs and disturb his morning retirement 
 like this? 
 
 He was in possession of the guest's room at Brackenhall, 
 though he would have much preferred, had he been con- 
 sulted, his original little burrow on the floor above. It 
 seemed strange, from this lower level, to look out upon the 
 same garden view, engraved upon his memory, so often he 
 had watched it up there while struggling to arrange the 
 thronging ideas in his mind. The view was not quite right, 
 he decided, without the farthest line of woods behind, and 
 the worry of such incompletion barred his brow as he stood 
 watching, and accounted no doubt for the general derange- 
 ment of his thoughts. When his uncle came at ten o'clock 
 he had been trying to dress, but matters had not advanced 
 very far. He felt extraordinarily tired this morning, 
 broken by a fatigue that seemed physical, for every limb 
 was aching. So since circumstances, consisting of the 
 lady's-maid and his aunt at second hand, had encouraged 
 him to be lazy, he was so, and dressing had been inter- 
 spersed with various things, including a little eating, and 
 the slow unpacking and sorting of kis store of papers. 
 
THE CRITIC 345 
 
 Then, the room he was in being admirably adapted for 
 everything except writing, and with no convenient hiding- 
 places except cupboards, which he dared not unlock — he 
 had laid the majority of his properties in piles about the 
 floor ; with the exception of those papers which immediately 
 engaged his attention, which were naturally strewn upon 
 the only solid table in the room, denuded summarily of its 
 looking-glass, which he did not require. Madame's maid, 
 an old ally of Antoine's, treated these arrangements of his 
 very politely when she came, made no comments except to 
 call his attention to the cup she laid beside him, and stepped 
 1 about the encumbered floor with equal grace and attention. 
 Yvonne was always satisfactory, and there was no occasion 
 to crawl half on to the table, and glare mistrustfully at her 
 among unkempt locks, which was the distinguished guest's 
 immediate proceeding when her master entered. 
 
 M. Lemaure, however, did not ask what he was doing, 
 his mind was too full of Jacques. The concert being well 
 and safely over, and his vigil in town unrewarded, Lucien 
 had decided that a little plain-speaking on the subject of 
 the common loss would not come amiss. His brother-in- 
 law was doubtless doing wonders, the police both sides 
 were on the alert, but nothing had yet been heard of the 
 three chief actors in the silent drama ; and the more Lucien 
 turned matters over in his ingenious brain, the more he saw 
 who might probably hold the clue. He put things strongly 
 to his pupil as usual, and Antoine did him the honour of 
 answering in a like vein. In the matter of free discussion, 
 they had had some practice ; so that it was hardly surpris- 
 ing that the mistress of the house, when she arrived on the 
 scene towards midday, should remark that they were quar- 
 relling as usual. 
 
 They both stopped to look at her as she came in, and 
 Antoine's eloquence, at any rate, seemed frozen. His back 
 was against the wall, metaphorically speaking, and he was 
 not at all in a state of mind or body to welcome such an 
 exquisite little figure as she presented. Yvonne, the maid, 
 
346 SUCCESSION 
 
 had been tolerable, his uncle more than a little out of place, 
 but as for his aunt, Antoine's keen sense of the appropriate 
 cast her out. He felt rough and violent, inclined to those 
 moods of Duchatel's music to which his grandfather so 
 objected. Madame's perfect finish, her dark blue silk and 
 falling lace, were not at all suitable to the scene ; and well 
 knowing how she detested disorder, personal or mental, the 
 boy shrank under her leisured inspection. 
 
 But behold, instead of scolding him, Cecile turned on her 
 husband. "Well, have you worried him sufficiently?" she 
 inquired. " Because, if so, I am now ready to take my 
 turn. It is nearly time for dejeiiner, and he has not even 
 had the leisure to put his clothes on." 
 
 Lucien looked surprised a little. " He will not give me 
 this fellow's address," he said, " though he must see it will 
 come to that in the end. Every moment saved is naturally 
 of value to the police. I keep repeating to him, if the man 
 is innocent of the theft, as he asserts, he need not fear the 
 disclosure. If he is not, we surely have the right " 
 
 " How long," interrupted Madame, " has he been speak- i 
 ing in that tone?" She had an air of easy interest, and 
 addressed Antoine. " Talk of rights, mon Dieu! I ask you, 
 whose is the violin ? " | 
 
 Her tone, snow-soft as it was, seemed to scatter icy water ■ 
 on the atmosphere of warfare in the room. Her husband ; 
 was yet more surprised, though protesting. 
 
 " You do not understand, Cecile," he said. " Antoine's 
 views, as to the functions of the police, are elementary. He 
 thinks they can find the thing — like a dog, apparently — with ' 
 nothing to go upon but the scent of the leather, and the ' 
 extremely sketchy description he chooses to provide. While 
 the merest common-sense indicates this individual as " 
 
 "Juste ciel," said Madame, "what a fuss! It is hard 
 you should be asked to bear this, darling, as well as the loss 
 of your property. Listen, Lucien : if this individual — 
 whose name one is not polite enough to supply — is innocent, 
 and wishes to assist Antoine, as will be natural on seeing 
 
THE CRITIC 347 
 
 the newspapers, he will himself communicate. He has no 
 need of half-a-dozen agents, whose stupidity is proverbial, 
 arriving on his premises to prove a thing he has not taken 
 is not there." 
 
 "And if the nameless one has taken it?" said Lucien. 
 " Is it permitted to suppose that," said Madame, " when 
 we are so soon to meet one of his friends at lunch? " 
 
 "Whom?" said Lucien sharply. " Bah, Cecile, you are 
 ridiculous." But her light touch on the boy seemed to re- 
 mind him of something, and he rose uncertainly. 
 
 " Just so," said Madame. " Now, I can see various im- 
 provements possible in this room." 
 " I should think so," Lucien growled. 
 " And your absence is the first of them." His wife's 
 glance on him was quite friendly, but so expressive that 
 after another pause of protest he turned about and went. 
 Antoine instantly slid back into what she supposed had 
 been his original position on the chair before the littered 
 table. So far his aunt's behaviour had been admirable, and 
 he quite hoped the removal of herself would follow in its 
 natural course. But the hopes were disappointed, for she 
 proceeded to glide about his room, engaged in the bestowal 
 of his possessions in their proper drawers. She stepped 
 , as daintily as Yvonne, and was even more rapid and noise- 
 less, her silk skirts making barely a whisper as she moved ; 
 but even so, Antoine was only just able to bear her, even 
 among his less valued effects. Luckily these seemed to 
 : interest her most, and Antoine, had he had leisure, would 
 i have been grateful to his shirts and socks, over which 
 '■■ Madame stopped in absent brooding at intervals. She was 
 charming in the pose of contemplation, but he could not 
 afford her even his usual aesthetic approval. 
 
 " I want those," he snapped once, as she stooped to gather 
 up some torn sheets, covered with unseemly scrawls. 
 
 " I have no intention of destroying, dearest," she said 
 smoothly, " I wish you would go back to bed." For he 
 
348 SUCCESSION 
 
 was still hanging over the table, a pencil swinging in his 
 fingers. 
 
 " Oh, but I have got up." Antoine was rather disturbed. 
 " It is only a collar, and those things." He lifted a hand 
 to the back of his neck. 
 
 " Does that hurt you," she asked at once. 
 
 " Only a little." He withdrew the hand, " No, I do not 
 think that is hurting." He sighed and looked at her, unable 
 to bid her go. " Those things in the box you can throw 
 away," he said, as though to appease her taste for destroy- 
 ing. 
 
 " Thank you," said Madame. " This, for instance." She 
 withdrew from the rubbish a photograph, signed and 
 stamped with gold. 
 
 " Oh no," said Antoine, rather shocked. " That is the 
 king's, he sent me once. I had forgotten it was there." 
 
 " We will frame it," said Madame, examining the trophy. 
 " I will give you a silver frame, then it will have less 
 chance to get among the waste paper. This is a beautiful 
 Bossuet — is that also a presentation ? " 
 
 " No, no. Grandpapa gave me that when I was ten. 
 That is the croquis of Philippe," he added hurriedly, as she 
 picked up a little canvas, quite new, carelessly wrapped, 
 and smelling fearfully of oil. 
 
 " But it is charming ! " exclaimed Philip's aunt, dropping 
 the king's portrait incontinently. 
 
 " You can have it if you like," said Antoine. Now 
 surely he must have satisfied her, his tone suggested. Ce- 
 cile glanced at him swiftly; tones afifected her when she 
 was interested, and the boy, *' rough " as he was, inter- 
 ested her deeply to-day. 
 
 " Jespersen did it," he proceeded to explain. " He is 
 always painting him. I liked that one, so he gave it me 
 when I went to say good-bye." 
 
 " Paiement provisoire," read Madame, still studying the 
 sketch. "What does that mean?" 
 
 " That was a joke," said Antoine. " I played to them 
 
THE CRITIC 349 
 
 once; and now when I go there they say every time they 
 have not paid me. They are all rather silly, those Rats, but 
 I think Jespersen is a clever painter." 
 
 Madame did not dissent. She laid the portrait on the 
 chimneypiece after an interval, and took to the clothes 
 again. A period of great calm ensued, and Antoine nearly 
 forgot her. She had all his belongings nicely concealed in 
 what w^ere doubtless the correct places, when the lunch- 
 bell shattered the studious peace of the room. 
 
 " You shall have it here," she said, as the boy started 
 violently and exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, don't you mind ? " He was quite taken aback by 
 such prompt accommodation. 
 
 " We will bear it," smiled Madame. " You will have no 
 need of a collar in your own company, nor of a comb 
 either." 
 
 The boy put his hand to his hair. His eyes roamed the 
 room, perhaps in search of a mirror. 
 
 " Under the table," said his aunt's soft tone. " Never 
 mind, dearest, leave it to me." 
 
 She brought a comb to his side while he read, and parted 
 his hair for him, manipulating the long front lock with a 
 clever jerk across his brow, in the fashion the family ap- 
 proved. Antoine pushed it back at once with an absent 
 hand. 
 
 " No, mechant. That is how you spoil yourself," she 
 reproved him. " In three photographs at least it stands on 
 end like that, and think of my feelings." 
 
 " How your feelings ? " said Antoine, rather shy at her 
 proximity. The faint smell that clung to her robes was 
 agreeable, different from that which pervaded Madame 
 Bertrand's in Paris. Without looking, he sniffed it fur- 
 tively. 
 
 " I am responsible," she said. " Are you aware that you 
 are still my pensionnaire, in spite of all your wanderings? 
 I answer for your clothes and general demeanour, which 
 are now a public question; and you are disgracefully care- 
 
350 SUCCESSION 
 
 less of both. You will have to come to London— yes, give 
 a whole day to it — and be properly dressed." 
 
 " My collar is there," said Antoine, in case she should 
 imagine he was permanently in want of one. Madame con- 
 cluded her lecture. 
 
 " But it is no good my providing you with nice clothes, 
 if you do not respect yourself." 
 
 He gazed sidelong, as if he quite wished to attend to her, 
 but was listening perforce to something else. " Am I 
 dirty ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 " Very," said his aunt, unmoved. " Here, beneath the 
 eyes. No, you can do nothing, it is not your fault. They 
 were as black at the concert probably. Did nobody remark 
 it?" 
 
 He shook his head, perfectly at sea, and soon she left 
 him. 
 
 " No," she said, in answer to her husband's question at 
 lunch-time. " Monsieur our guest does not descend." 
 
 " Is he still out of temper? " said Lucien. 
 
 Madame shrugged. " As you will. He is not inclined 
 for us, and made it evident. I was unwise perhaps to let 
 you precede me." 
 
 " Pish," said Lucien. " You should have brought him 
 down. Savigny says, especially when he is nervous, we 
 are to treat him as usual." 
 
 " Don't speak to me of Savigny, for heaven's sake," said 
 Madame, flicking a letter on the cloth. " I have that scrawl 
 from him in return for the best I could compose. Men 
 grow impossible who live like that, with nothing to worship 
 but their own ideas. For a person who was once worth 
 something, it is pathetic." 
 
 Lucien lifted his eyebrows, and took up the letter sheet, 
 which had strayed in his direction. It was quite short; 
 in the course of perusing it, he pished once and laughed 
 twice. 
 
 "Just so," said Madame. "He can afford to amuse 
 
THE CRITIC 351 
 
 himself over Antoine, it appears. Well, such results of my 
 best efforts would not amuse me." 
 
 " You find him changed ? " said Lucien, who needed her 
 opinion, in order to test his own. They had neither of them 
 seen the boy since the short holiday at St Aviel in June. 
 
 "Changed? It is incredible. Anxious, thin, enerve — 
 tired of life, he looks at moments. And he has learnt self- 
 control," Cecile finished, with resentment. 
 
 " An admirable quality," Lucien began. 
 
 " Respectable," she cut in. " It is never admirable, least 
 of all at that age." 
 
 " It is the root of Raymond's regime," said Lucien. 
 
 " Humph," said his wife, leaning back. " I remember 
 occasions when his own was inconspicuous. As a young 
 man, he was intemperate. ' Don't talk to me,' I said to 
 Maman, the very first time she showed me to him. * That 
 is a very unstable genius. One day it will overbalance 
 him.' " 
 
 " How old were you," said Lucien, " when you uttered 
 that ? " 
 
 " Fifteen," said Cecile, with serenity. " One is down- 
 right at fifteen, possibly — inclined to severe judgments. 
 Certainly Savigny's treatment did me good. At a given 
 moment, Maman thought she had triumphed, merely be- 
 cause I admitted it. He interrogated pie with singular in- 
 sight, I remember." 
 
 " You mean," said Lucien, " he had the singular insight 
 to interrogate you, and Maman sat aside." 
 
 " Frowning," she assented. " IMaman often thought me 
 forward in those days, when I was merely curious. Sa- 
 vigny is certainly interesting." 
 
 " You admit it," said Lucien. 
 
 " Freely. But it was absurd. How could I flirt with 
 him, in any case? I knew he was in love with Henriette." 
 
 " Good heavens ! " her husband ejaculated. " Your dates 
 must be out, ma petite. At the time you speak of, Hen- 
 riette was in the nursery." 
 
352 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Not at all — I was the younger. Henriette turned 
 sixteen that year. Raymond Savigny was hopelessly epris 
 since her first Communion. I should know, being her 
 friend." 
 
 " You mean my sister told you," said M. Lemaure. 
 "That does not " 
 
 " I mean he told me so," Cecile interrupted, " every time 
 he entered the room where she was. Oh, I was not a fool 
 at fifteen, though I looked it, owing to chere Maman's pro- 
 ceedings." 
 
 " Did she try to restrict you, at that advanced age?" 
 
 " She was perfectly tactful," declared Cecile. " You 
 know, I admire Maman immensely. But she dragged me 
 persistently round the doctors through those years, and one 
 does look foolish in such circumstances, I told Savigny 
 I had seen too many doctors. * One too many,' he sug- 
 gested. ' Five before you,' I said, for I was an accurate 
 girl. Maman fumed in the background — it is true, his smile 
 is particularly agreeable. I could manage him now," pon- 
 dered Madame, " if I could get at him." 
 
 While she pondered, Lucien read the letter again. " Ray- 
 mond wears the mask," he said, laying it down. " My 
 father said, in Munich he was extremely anxious about the 
 boy. Even after his return, he agreed to a consultation 
 with Weber, which, for him, is remarkable." 
 
 " Gervais Weber?" inquired Madame, who knew most 
 of the Paris doctors. " I wish I had written to him instead. 
 He knows how to treat a woman." She still gazed at 
 Savigny's scrawl resentfully. " I could almost wish Hen- 
 riette had married him," she muttered. 
 
 "Are you not too severe?" said Lucien. 
 
 Their eyes met a moment. Henriette had set her mark 
 deep on her family, and Cecile, arrant critic as she was, 
 always trod round the subject daintily. Not that Lucien 
 ever repulsed the truth, especially when supplied by her. 
 He had the general taste for free dealing she approved, 
 which made the quality of their companionship. But his 
 
 1 
 
THE CRITIC 353 
 
 reserve she appreciated equally; for like his father's, it 
 was less the reserve of exaggerated sensibility than of fine 
 taste; and only the temptation to humour broke it down. 
 
 " It is odd," she observed, still leaning back and watch- 
 ing him, " how I had a possession of Hcnrictte yesterday, 
 before the boy's arrival, and later. I thought of her half 
 the night." 
 
 " Apropos of him ? There is not the least resemblance." 
 
 " I never thought so : that is the point." 
 
 "How the point, my dear?" 
 
 " She must, you see, have affected him. She was very 
 influential, Henriette — that you admit ? " He half nodded, 
 smiling. "Unfortunately, hein? She influenced me. It 
 amazed Maman that I, for instance, clung to her so per- 
 sistently. I was a delicate girl," said Madame, fingering 
 the doctor's letter, " hampered at all points. My youth 
 was ratee, Lucien, really. We had an interesting society, 
 but I missed every occasion of note — simply, I believe, by 
 desiring it too much. Henriette went everywhere, since she 
 manipulated her father. I might have been jealous, with 
 reason, of her advantages. She boasted of them, pitied 
 me, told me all her ' affairs,' wore me out with her emo- 
 tions. She was generally good-humoured, healthy, witty 
 in her way — she was radiantly successful. Heavens, how 
 I admired her, and do ! " 
 
 " You admire success," said Lucien, gazing at her oddly. 
 
 " You observe," she retorted, " how I welcome it to the 
 house. Success is defiance, in essence. It is defiance that 
 I adore." 
 
 " I know it," he said. " My sister was defiant, is that 
 what you meant ? " 
 
 " Defiant? Grand Dieu, she had nothing to defy. Every- 
 thing in life was for her, as I said. For those who watched 
 over her, she barely had a fault." 
 
 " She had a temper," said Lucien, with the tolerant judg- 
 ment of an elder brother. 
 
 " She was a fiend," said Madame, " on occasion. I learnt 
 
354 SUCCESSION 
 
 it the only time I ever entered into rivalry. She had no 
 pity for weakness, and hated it. She had just enough 
 nerves herself to know how to rally them in others ; and 
 once her jealousy aroused she was merciless." 
 
 " Psst ! " said Lucien. " This is a woman's attack." 
 
 " You know well it is not. You Lemaures, who are one 
 and all slaves to beauty, shut your eyes and let her trample 
 willingly. But what of her children?" Her little palm 
 dropped on the table. " What if she were alive now ? Have 
 you thought of it ? " 
 
 Lucien smiled, caught evidently by a new idea. " She 
 would be proud," he began. 
 
 " Bon," cried Madame. " That is the commonplace. 
 Did you ever discover what this little one thought of his 
 mother? " 
 
 " He was a baby," said Monsieur. 
 
 "And is now, is he not? What are fifteen years?" 
 
 " I do not follow, my child." 
 
 " Only, to be now where he is, one may well have mis- 
 judged his cleverness throughout. He talks of everything, 
 Antoine. Have you ever heard him talk of her?" 
 
 " He would not, to my father," said Lucien. " Nor to 
 me." 
 
 " Why should he not, if he regarded her in your man- 
 ner? It is the simple proof. Have you ever watched him 
 when there was talk of her — I have done that. Philippe 
 shrinks and changes colour. He is blank singularly — a 
 mask." 
 
 " She neglected him for Philip, possibly," said Lucien. 
 
 " If I could think it was neglect," said Madame, " but I 
 remember her too well. A girl she might have neglected. 
 You never heard her teach him ? " 
 
 " Thank heaven no," he said, with emphasis. " That her 
 teaching was teasing, I well believe. How he made what 
 he did of it, is remarkable." 
 
 " Well, for my part," said Madame, " I believe she taught 
 him a good deal. He has been afraid of women ever since." 
 
THE CRITIC 355 
 
 Lucien laughed out. " Six years old," he protested, eying 
 her. " Reckon a little for age, my child. One's mother, at 
 six years old, is not a woman." 
 
 " Henriette was a woman, always. She was your sister : 
 did she ever let you forget it ? " 
 
 He still smiled ; but the quality of the smile, which had 
 been grim, changed under her eyes. 
 
 " Ah ! " she exclaimed, " you are like your father. I 
 like you when you look like that." She rose and joined 
 him, for he had turned from the table suddenly, and caught 
 up a newspaper to read upon the hearth. " I profit by a 
 weakness I admire," she murmured, as she slipped within 
 his arm. " Have I been teasing you ? " 
 
 " Never," said he. " But beware of theories a la Sa- 
 vigny. I doubt myself if all you could sweep up of history 
 or inheritance would account completely for any child, 
 least of all for this." 
 
 " You think Antoine exceptional ? " she said, accenting 
 the pronoun. " You must have had a good many." 
 
 " IVe have had plenty," laughed Lucien, " but none like 
 him. Leave it now and let me read." He read for a time 
 and she looked over. He would have turned past the con- 
 cert article, which he had seen, but she held his hand. 
 
 " He continues to write, it seems," she said quietly, when 
 she had read the little paragraph, referring to the subject 
 of it without further definition. 
 
 " You saw," said her husband shortly. " I never ask him 
 now, and my father seems to have lost his curiosity. That 
 is not, so to speak, our concern. He may amuse himself 
 as he will, now his career is chosen." 
 
 "Yes," she said. "Who chose it?" 
 
 "The career? He did himself. You have not already 
 forgotten Jem's eloquence that night?" 
 
 " No, no," said Madame, but her brows were in motion. 
 Theories were working in her, and would surely in time 
 find an outlet. " Jem is charming," she said, " but his 
 knowledge would be partial — special, let us say. Savigny 
 
356 SUCCESSION 
 
 there has special knowledge also — so have you, a lot of 
 clever people. I pick a little from each " — she laughed up 
 at him — " that is the critic's privilege ; only I have my uses, 
 Lucien. No, be serious. See, v^hat I mean is, the boy 
 might be impatient of the crew of us sometimes, might he 
 not? — oh, his eyes were insolent to-day. But it is per- 
 mitted." 
 
 "All this brain-searching," Lucien exclaimed, "to ac- 
 count for an imp's fit of sulkiness! It is not permitted, 
 my dear, for Antoine to be insolent to you." 
 
 " But I like it ! It amuses me, I assure you, to account 
 for things. It is my daily occupation. Faute de mieux, I 
 analyse you. Have you never remarked my earnest atten- 
 tion, when you were in a fury ? " 
 
 " I suppose it escaped me," said M. Lemaure. 
 
 " I trust it will escape Antoine also, for I intend him to 
 suffer it. Voyons, I arranged his hair for him just lately, 
 and Philippe would have been most interested. The child 
 looked at me through it — insolent is the word. Mon Dieu ! 
 if he ever looked like that at his mother " Her move- 
 ment was expressive. 
 
 " I do not think she was rough with them," said Lucien, 
 reading. 
 
 " Not unbecomingly," said Madame. " No more than a 
 cat is rough. The gesture would have been graceful, but 
 effective. You are all so effective, you Lemaures. Lu- 
 cien ! " She seized his arm suddenly and the newspaper as 
 well. " I will not tease, if you treat me seriously. I am 
 quite clever, though ignorant of course. Why should he 
 play at all, if he can write? " 
 
 "You ask? I thought you loved success." 
 
 " Serious," she adjured him. " What is his writing 
 worth?" 
 
 " Ask Duchatel," said Lucien. " I believe he is con- 
 stituted judge." 
 
 " Good," said Cecile, her brow fixed. " You are jealous 
 
THE CRITIC 357 
 
 now of little Duchatel. Well, I tell you I can only take the 
 superficial view. That is why I apply for information." 
 
 *' Antoine is so young," was Lucien's reply to this. He 
 still grasped his paper as defence. 
 
 " I was waiting for that," said she. " It is so convenient, 
 hein? He can be too old, or too young, as required, for 
 some years to come." 
 
 Lucien was engaged on a Parliamentary report, ap- 
 parently. His face was set, and Cecile's courage, high as 
 it was, began to fail. On some points he was singularly- 
 obstinate. 
 
 " You consider," she said, with a touch of appeal, " that 
 he is better engaged at present in interpreting the ideas of 
 others, rather than his own. He can have none of his own, 
 possibly. Enlighten me, dearest, will you not? Is that 
 absolutely all, that he is so young?" 
 
 " And my father so old," said Lucien. " The boy knows 
 it very well. He is learning self-control, as you say; and 
 he is capable of doing quietly what is expected of him, 
 even if it should not be invariably thrilling. It is his work." 
 
 Lucien's enunciation of this word was characteristic. 
 His own work had rarely been thrilling, and was invariably 
 well done, which gave him some right to use it. It meant 
 much on his lips. 
 
 " I see," said Madame. " Savigny speaks of the ivork 
 as well." Her delicate face twisted slightly as she quoted 
 him. " It is prescribed, then, by the three legislators who 
 direct him — and by your father over all. After his 
 death " 
 
 Lucien raised his hand; and at that gesture, sensitive, 
 
 j barely conscious as it was, the free discussion suddenly 
 
 failed. Cecile, feeling her way, had reached the wifely 
 
 limit, but she saw from that point as he saw, accurately 
 
 and sympathetically, and had no need of more. 
 
 " How," she took to wondering instead, " will Lucien 
 ever support his father's loss? He has lived deliberately 
 in him and his ideas, his whole life long." 
 
358 SUCCESSION 
 
 Antoine had plenty to do, and it was some time before 
 Madame had an opportunity of testing any of her theories 
 upon him ; but in the interval, he continued to amuse her. 
 She could not imagine how she had never discovered his 
 companionable qualities before ; for, as soon as she turned 
 her tact seriously upon the task, she easily circumvented 
 his timidity. He was very kind to her, she told Lucien, 
 and she quite hoped in time to awaken his interest. Her 
 reports on her progress in the acquaintanceship entertained 
 M. Lemaure, who found himself unable in the long run to 
 take his nephew's new standing very seriously ; and who, 
 between periods of necessary complacent calm in public, 
 rated and managed him at home as it had always been his 
 wont to do. 
 
 " His mind," Cecile informed him, " is more mature than 
 his brother's was at eighteen. One can speak with him 
 quite unguardedly, so long as one puts it so as not to startle 
 his little nerves. He dislikes satire, but his appreciation of 
 a good point is sure. I am learning his language by 
 degrees. I may say, I realise at last in him the art about 
 which you others are always chattering." 
 
 Lucien let her go her way, glad that she had found a 
 new amusement. He was distracted by many things, in- 
 cluding his own work in town, the reports on his father's 
 health, ever less reassuring as the season advanced, and the 
 quest for the missing violin, which, despite their most in- 
 genious efforts, came to naught. Antoine, after the first 
 day, avoided all debates, and showed a kind of fatalistic 
 languor in the matter of his loss. He played finely as ever 
 to crowded rooms on the violin the black lady had given 
 him ; and, from the few true friends who knew the dif- 
 ference, received commiseration with a little gesture, sug- 
 gesting self-disdain. Nothing, certainly, could have been 
 simpler or less sentimental than his demeanour, and so far 
 as that went, his guardian was content. 
 
 His refusal remained stubborn to discuss Jacques with 
 anyone; buj his uncle flattered himself that he pondered 
 
THE CRITIC 359 
 
 a good deal in private, and had come round secretly to their 
 opinion. His repentance, Liicien would fain have pointed 
 out, arrived too late, for Charretteur had extinguished him- 
 self completely, and was no longer heard of in professional 
 or private circles. The hotel in Amiens had been able to 
 give no news of him. Ribiera, the favourite of queens, 
 tried another gentleman in his place, discarded this person 
 with contumely, and took to playing alone. It might have 
 been the gilded Spaniard regretted Jacques when he had 
 lost him, or perchance his temper was growing spoiled by 
 success. He lingered in Paris to the verge of his English 
 season, and his more than royal airs amused that light- 
 hearted public. Antoine was given to understand, by 
 Victor's caustic pen, that the etceteras, finding themselves 
 temporarily desocuvrees, had suddenly discovered Ribiera, 
 whose fame for three years past had filled three other 
 capitals ; and that as his profile was much admired, they 
 were likely for some time to be happily occupied, and to 
 leave M. Duchatel in peace. 
 
 Antoine found that his aunt was interested in Duchatel, 
 whom she had known as a youth in her mother's salon ; 
 and as he received letters regularly, he read her now and 
 then the scraps of gossip attached to them, being convinced 
 that the body of the correspondence, purely medicinal in 
 :haracter, could not amuse her. 
 
 *' He has a biting tongue, the little boy," said Madame 
 ndulgently. Once, she inquired about the rest of the let- 
 er, over which she found the boy poring with a bitten lip. 
 A^hat, she wondered guilelessly, could it be about? 
 
 " Our things," said Antoine. 
 
 " Things one writes ? " said Madame cheerfully. 
 
 " There is a good deal about his own," said Antoine. 
 
 " A common trait of criticism," said Madame. " Does 
 le bite himself, dearest?" 
 
 " Oh yes," said Antoine, still frowning. 
 
 " There are several now who imitate him, I suppose," 
 aid Madame, sticking her needle in and out adroitly. 
 
36o SUCCESSION 
 
 " There are some. He bites them more." The boy 
 laughed. 
 
 " Aha ! And what of those who do not follow him ? " 
 
 Antoine shrugged and departed, folding the sheet in his 
 hand. 
 
 " You, at least, do not flatter him in that way," his aunt 
 reflected above her embroidery. " If Victor has not 
 changed, no two minds could be more dissimilar." 
 
 It was a fact that Victor had the air of being at least as 
 hard on himself as he was on Antoine ; but then, as he con- 
 tinued to publish and to be played, the case was slightly 
 different. He was a severe young taskmaster, skilled in all 
 the critic's methods, cutting often in the terms he used, 
 above all when he used them on paper; and he preferred 
 to write, despite Antoine's private taste. Throughout the ' 
 year, he had turned the boy's hopes back scores of times. 
 Antoine differed from his opinion often, whether on his 
 own work, Victor's, or that of other people ; but he never 
 combated his verdict as to technique, since he had himself : 
 fought so far ahead on the difficult way. The boy had , 
 torn up countless things he valued, which had been secret : 
 joy and consolation to write ; and he had preserved several ! 
 he cared for less. One only — part of an ambitious mass ' 
 for voices, which Victor had utterly mocked and con- 
 demned, he had kept in secret, to show Fritz Reuss some 
 day, when Victor's cynical French eye should be turned 
 off him, and he had made his own path sufficiently to 
 venture. 
 
 " I wish you would not work down here, darling," said 
 Madame, one of the days in early December her husband ■ 
 was in London. " Your room is so cold." 
 
 Antoine had come down to lunch rather late, for it must 
 be owned that he took every advantage of the license he 
 was offered. He looked strained, as often in the early | 
 hours, and the fingers he stretched for his soup-plate were ' 
 grey and stiff. He paused to put it down before he an- 
 
THE CRITIC 361 
 
 swered. " I shall be hot after lunch again. You do not 
 want a noise here." 
 
 " I imagined you were reading," said Madame. " I had 
 heard no noise." 
 
 " No — there wasn't any," said Antoine. 
 " Ought there to have been ? " 
 
 " Yes ; from nine to twelve. It is a day to play, before a 
 concert." 
 
 " How naughty of you," said Madame, in tranquil tones. 
 " Well, if you continue to transgress, why not do it here, 
 that is what I mean. I shall not attend to you, and my 
 needle makes little noise." 
 
 He laughed, and waited to finish the soup before he an- 
 swered. " It is not the noise," he then said, pushing his 
 plate away. " Margot makes a great deal of noise in the 
 kitchen at home, and so does the street. Paris is a noisy 
 place, but I do not mind it." 
 
 j " What do you mind then ? " said Cecile. " Curiosity ? 
 11 am the most incurious person that exists, and the 
 laziest." 
 
 He laughed again, and met her eyes for a second. His 
 aunt was amusing, and she had been extraordinarily kind 
 :o him of late. To-day she looked pale, and he knew by 
 he note of her voice she was tired. As a fact, Cecile's 
 'lesire for his company was largely to escape from herself, 
 for her health made her subject to fits of depression, which 
 i'.ven her skilled acting could not always disguise. 
 
 After lunch, the boy brought a stack of books into her 
 
 oom, and throwing a few of them on the floor, proceeded 
 
 }D interview the remainder at the table as long as the light 
 
 jisted. Cecile worked by snatches, tormented herself by 
 
 rnitless thinking on intimate questions, and threw him a 
 
 ilance at intervals. She could see him as it happened with- 
 
 ut efifort, for he sat at an angle to a mirror. He at least 
 
 as perfectly unconscious and perfectly comfortable, and 
 
 I so far a soothing spectacle. For at least half the after- 
 
 Don he did nothing at all, to all appearance, but sit with 
 
362 SUCCESSION 
 
 his hands driven deep into his pockets, and watch the fall- 
 ing sleet. His brow at these times was calm, and all his 
 habitual little nervous movements were wanting. But it 
 was not the mere idle contemplation of a handicraftsman 
 out of work, for when the period was finished he passed 
 without a pause into energetic action; using, it seemed to 
 her, every part of himself, fingers, ears, eyes and brain. 
 He scribbled vigorously, tossed paper after paper to the 
 floor, and tore up, it seemed, as many as he wrote. Then he 
 subsided anew, regarding the mass at his side not at all, 
 and the snow with concentrated interest. Then he picked 
 up some sheets from the sheaf with the swing of an ap- 
 parently careless hand, and chose one or two details to cor- 
 rect minutely. One gave him immense trouble, and he 
 regarded it for some time sidelong, with a look of absent 
 disgust. Then he had an amusing idea, which dawned 
 slowly, perfectly visible to the critic's eye in the mirror 
 inclined above his head. It was not, she imagined, a quite 
 permissible idea, possibly audacious, possibly vulgar. He 
 interviewed it at some length, his face changing; and dur- 
 ing the changes, the likeness to his grandfather, always 
 hovering just over his brow, descended and settled finally. 
 He had pushed his hair back, as ever in distraction, which 
 added to the impression. Then he dismissed the intrusive 
 idea, and set to work anew, gripping his tools. He fought 
 a losing battle with the fading light, sliding ever nearer to 
 the window where the inclement night was oozing through 
 the cracks. He wrote long after Madame thought it im- 
 possible even for young eyes to see, his head bowed on the 
 page; but though disapproving, she still said nothing to 
 disturb him. Lastly, he abandoned the attempt with a 
 gesture, rose with decision, and came to her. 
 
 " It is dark," he said, snapping his stiff fingers before 
 the fire. " You cannot see." 
 
 " I have ceased work for an hour," said Madame. The 
 pale triangle of her face was just visible, otherwise she 
 was a delicately scented shadow along the velvet couch. 
 
THE CRITIC 363 
 
 " Shall I ask Yvonne for the lamp ? " 
 
 *' For yourself, dear, if you wish. For me there is no 
 hurry — ever." He did not answer at once, and she felt she 
 had been wrong to let her bitterness escape her. " I spend 
 the time in observation," she said, in her ordinary pretty 
 tone. " One lives and learns. I never yet knew it was pos- 
 sible to write with both hands." 
 
 '' You saw that ? " He was surprised, for his back had 
 been towards her. " With a wide score," he explained, at 
 leisure, "tt is quicker sometimes." 
 
 " Oh," said Madame, " I observed the object also. I 
 might have invented the method too, had I ever had to 
 write vertically. I am as clever as you by nature, very 
 nearly." 
 
 Again, instead of assenting or smiling, he left a pause. 
 " I think everybody writes like that," he said, after the in- 
 terval. 
 
 " I am sure nobody does," answered Madame. " It is 
 unheard of and monstrous. You might as well have two 
 heads." 
 
 " Do not," he muttered, and turning from her, shook 
 ;iimself angrily. 
 
 ' " Bad acting, and he saw through it," reflected Cecile. 
 ,' One must pay attention, with these. Darling, will you 
 "ing?" she said, resuming her soft accent. " I should like 
 ;ome tea. It is better than jesting in the bad moments — 
 IS you observe." 
 
 When the lamp came, as she foresaw, he had to come 
 loser. He brought his occupations across to a table within 
 ange of her, bu-t not near. Madame did not intend to let 
 lim escape. 
 
 " Show me that," she said crisply, as he passed her. He 
 •aused, and then advancing to her side, laid one sheet be- 
 ore her. 
 
 " It is very untidy, hein? " he said. 
 
 " You treat me as a child," said Madame. " Do not be 
 uperior. Tell me what it is." 
 
364 SUCCESSION 
 
 He told her, rather shyly at first, but warming rapidly to 
 the description. Cecile, utterly ignorant as she was, was 
 interested in his manner of building the thing, and none of 
 her questions lacked intelligence. 
 
 " It is nice of you to tell me," she said at last. " You | 
 are nice — gentil — always. See now, will you have tea with j 
 me since your brother or my husband are not there to be j 
 sacrificed?" j 
 
 " Oh yes, I will," he said tamely. " Only I do not drink 
 tea." 
 
 Madame cursed Savigny in a sweet and equable tone, 
 and made him laugh. He tossed the paper he held aside, 
 and going to the tray of tea, supplied her carefully accord- 
 ing to direction. Then, as though he was playing a serious 
 game, he fetched a cup, containing the smallest possible 
 quantity of the liquid, and guarding it carefully between his 
 cold hands, sank down in a low chair at her side. His easy 
 pose suggested that he offered himself to society a willing 
 sacrifice ; and Cecile, suspecting the attraction on the lighted 
 table, felt flattered — precisely as M. Lemaure's deliberate 
 attentions had been wont to flatter her in old days. 
 
 " Amuse me," she said. " I am to be amused, being 
 miserable. Talk of something." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Anything — those * paperasses,' if you will. Who else 
 knows about it, besides me? " 
 
 "These? — only Victor Duchatel. The others think I 
 write some little things, just to amuse myself, do you see? " 
 
 " But this is your real work. How long has it been? " 
 
 " Always." He gripped the cup, sitting very still. 
 
 " Ah — so much for Lucien," his wife thought. " Then 
 you have deceived them, dearest," she pronounced aloud. 
 
 " No, never. I had always thought of that." 
 
 " You certainly deceived your father. No " — she held 
 up a hand — " I am sure of what I say. I cannot bear to be 
 proved wrong to-night. Drink that tea, for mercy's sake, 
 and let me consider the situation." 
 
THE CRITIC 365 
 
 - He laughed, and drank a little. 
 
 " Your mistake is," his aunt decided, after an impressive 
 pause, " that you play too well. It seems easy to correct 
 it." 
 
 " Perhaps I shall soon," he said beneath his breath. 
 Then, as she shot him a glance, he made a visible effort to 
 throw off the languor attached to the subject. " I had not 
 thought enough, to know it was wrong," he said. " Moricz 
 knew — my master in Paris this summer. He laughed dur- 
 ing the lessons, he knew so well. He said, it was natural 
 grandpapa should make the mistake. It was not always 
 very nice," said Antoine, frowning, " the way Moricz talked 
 about grandpapa." 
 
 " Herr Moricz let you see that opinion ? And you told 
 nobody ? " 
 
 He frowned still more. " I was not sure. Moricz said — 
 it would do. He only laughed a little at me. But he said, 
 wait three months ; and now, after three months, I see so 
 very well." 
 
 " You have had bad luck," said Madame, after a pause. 
 " First to be ill, and then the violin. You have lost courage 
 a little." 
 
 He acquiesced. " It is not a good season, certainly. It 
 is— cold." 
 
 " Child ! " she exclaimed, almost in reproach. " You 
 have so many friends. Here is half the world of London 
 requiring you, as I know to my cost." 
 
 " Yes," said the boy, still tamely acquiescent. " They 
 like it, I think." 
 
 His aunt thereupon tried a little flattery, of fine flavour, 
 for she was accomplished in the art. She quoted opinions 
 she had read and heard. Antoine sat listening, his eyes 
 on the cup. 
 
 " I wish you liked it yourself," he said fervently, at the 
 end, and the polite aunt was reduced to laughter. 
 
 " You can crush with a courtesy, like your grandfather," 
 she said. 
 
366 SUCCESSION 
 
 " You see, I ought to be playing now," said Antoine, 
 stretching back to be close to her, in sudden confidence. 
 " I do not want to think of that. Talk your own things to- 
 night." 
 
 " Ah," she said, '' that is harder than you know." 
 
 "Hard?" he queried swiftly. 
 
 " Because of my own I have nothing. I have been re- 
 flecting, that is our fate." 
 
 Antoine's reply to this was to slide his long fingers round 
 her hand and kiss it. 
 
 " Well," said Madame, her tone softening. " Tell me 
 something I possess, besides an artist in my house, who is 
 kind to me." 
 
 " You are beautiful," said Antoine, after a pause of 
 thought. 
 
 " I am not, darling." She laughed in spite of her bitter- 
 ness. " That is your mistake. I please, because I have 
 studied it, that is all. Dites done, Antoine — do you remem- 
 ber your mother?" He turned his eyes, surprised, and 
 nodded. " She had more than a gift of pleasing," Cecile 
 said, " one might say she had a genius. She had only to 
 come into a room to change every face, however cross and 
 careworn. I cannot say what it was, but certainly not her 
 beauty alone. I know half-a-dozen men — yes, I could 
 count them — who took her death as a kind of personal af- 
 front — would have crossed the shades with a drawn sword 
 to fetch her back from an exile so absurd, so unmerited." 
 Stopping short, she met his fascinated eyes. " You remem- 
 ber her beauty, hein ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said gently. " She was beautiful, I expect. 
 I remember her hands on the violin, and her rings, and her 
 great eyes when she knelt down. I did not want to be 
 stupid for her then." 
 
 " You were never stupid." 
 
 " Oh yes. I never could play in her lessons. I could do 
 nothing when she was there. Perhaps," said Antoine, con- 
 sidering sadly, " I was more easily afraid then, when I was 
 
THE CRITIC 367 
 
 six." He waited a minute. " She always told papa about 
 me," he proceeded, " but papa did not generally mind. He 
 was so tired when he came home. Sometimes I saw him 
 first, because I went to meet the bicycle. Then I rode with 
 him to the gate." 
 
 The boy had dropped his head back on the chair, con- 
 sidering with half-closed eyes. Suddenly a clock struck. 
 
 " It is curious to remember that," he said, coming to life 
 and sitting up. " Now it is five o'clock." 
 
 " What then? " said Madame, holding him. " You need 
 not practise — nonsense." 
 
 " Yes. There are some difficult passages to-morrow. I 
 have done the tea — look." 
 
 " Antoine, stay where you are. Yes, I shall think of hor- 
 rors, if you go. You amuse me very well. Go on remem- 
 bering — your point of view is so perfectly absurd." 
 
 "About her?" he asked. "They are all such stupid 
 little things." He told her a few, quite mechanically; it 
 was clear he did not care to turn his mind that way. 
 
 " She spoilt your childhood," reflected Cecile. " Her 
 death, do you remember ? " she asked aloud. 
 
 He made a little movement, half shrinking, half a shrug. 
 " I did not understand," he said. " I was with Madame 
 Fantec, down in the village. I asked her, but she only cried 
 — I think about the little baby. Philippe was ill, too; he 
 was not there. I did not understand at all, really, until 
 papa came, and then of course I saw him." The deep 
 breath he drew was heavy with ancient suflFering. " He 
 took me to Paris, to grandpapa's house," he proceeded. 
 " I hated it — because I wanted to be with papa alone. I 
 did not know how grandpapa was then." An interval, while 
 he smiled disdain upon his youth. " I thought the noise 
 in Paris was like the sea," he resumed seriously, " that the 
 sea was behind the houses. I did not like all the stairs in 
 that house. Grandpapa went away with papa to the station ; 
 and I was all alone with my uncle there in the little study." 
 He caught himself up, sliding his eyes suddenly to her 
 
368 SUCCESSION 
 
 face. " I shall not tell you any more of that," he con- 
 cluded. 
 
 " Go on," said Madame calmly. " Lucien would not be 
 at his best, with a strange child of — how much? — seven. 
 He was far more afraid of you, mon petit, than you of 
 him." 
 
 " Oh no, he was not afraid," said Antoine, with absolute 
 certainty. " He did not like me, that was all. I did not 
 like him either. It was awful, how we were." His gravity 
 was so extreme that she could not laugh. " And papa had 
 told me to be good, so of course I had to try. But he said 
 such silly things, and there was a wind out of doors, and 
 I hated the place, and the smell of the books, and papa had 
 gone altogether, so that I felt quite sick " 
 
 " Pauvre cheri," murmured Madame. " And Lucien 
 did not console you? What silly things did he say? " 
 
 " He asked me if I had not got a handkerchief," said 
 Antoine. " Twice, he asked that. And was I hungry, and 
 would I go to bed. To bed at five ! That was all, till grand- 
 papa came." 
 
 " Well," said Madame, as he stopped short. " It was 
 surely not so awful then." 
 
 " It still was rather. He was there quite suddenly, be- 
 cause perhaps I had been asleep ; in his cloak, all wet — I 
 had forgotten his hair was so white. I did not know I was 
 lying in his chair, and I was much too sick to move. My 
 uncle told me to get up." 
 
 " Precisely," said Madame, at the tone. " And then ? " 
 
 " Then — grandpapa spoke to me. It was all right, when 
 I stood up, because he was holding me with his hand. I 
 remembered his voice when he was near. I heard him 
 speak to my uncle with ' tu,' and say I wanted food. It was 
 the ' tu ' showed me how they were together. I did not 
 mind my uncle so much after that." He turned a half-shy 
 glance to his uncle's wife, who happened to be holding him. 
 " Please," he said to her, with propriety, " will you let me 
 go and practise? It is only because I must." 
 
THE CRITIC 369 
 
 "Only," said Cecile. "You do not want to, eh?" 
 
 " Not at all," he said, with evident sincerity. 
 
 " You had sooner scribble your nonsense over there, 
 with a pencil in each hand." 
 
 " I had sooner be down here," said he. 
 
 " Do you hate playing, Antoine ? " 
 
 He turned his dark eyes on her for a moment. " No," 
 he said deliberately. " Only, I am afraid rather." 
 
 " What have you to be afraid of ? You do what you like 
 with your audience, Lucien says." 
 
 " Do not tell him," said the boy. " I do what I like, the 
 days it is good. Yes, I believe they would not mind so 
 much, in England." 
 
 " Mind what?" 
 
 " If I ' ratais.' " 
 
 " Child, how ridiculous ! " Cecile was almost indignant. 
 " That is the student's fear." 
 
 " I know," he said. " But when I was a student, I never 
 thought of it. It is only lately I have become like that. It 
 is stupid, hein?" She thought his eyes, fastened on her, 
 wonderful. 
 
 "Are you serious, Antoine?" 
 
 " Serious ? " A pause. " The day before a concert is 
 bad. To-night will be awful." 
 
 " But, darling — since when ? You ought to tell them if 
 you suffer." 
 
 " Tell whom? " he said, with faint impatience. " I have 
 told you, cela suffit." With that he got to his feet, his back 
 to the bright light beyond, so that the expression on his 
 face was lost. 
 
 " Good-night," he said. " The tea was nice. I am sorry 
 I could not be very amusing for you, but — one cannot al- 
 ways." 
 
 " It is for you to forgive," she said, in her softest tone. 
 " I shall know in future which are the bad days. Listen 
 an instant." She held his hands. " It is right that you 
 should be assured. I love chatter — but I do not make mis- 
 
370 SUCCESSION 
 
 chief. I shall not say a word of this, unless it can be of 
 use. You trust me, do you not ? " 
 
 He kissed her hand fervently again: and, catching up 
 the paper pile, was gone from the room. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LETTERS 
 
 "Is 1\I. Lemaure receiving anybody, can you tell me?" 
 said Jem Edgell, pausing at the entrance to the concierge's 
 dim retreat. There were two women within, one with a 
 basket, engaged upon confidential gossip, low-pitched but 
 voluble ; the feminine talk which, in middle-class societies, 
 is sure to encompass malady. 
 
 " Voila pour vous," one of these addressed the other, 
 and the lady with the basket turned. 
 
 " Tiens, Monsieur," she said, her brown face beaming. 
 " M. Philippe up there will be enchanted." 
 
 " How are you, Margot ? " said Jem, equally affable. 
 " Off to market ? It's the grandfather of Monsieur Philippe 
 I am after, as it happens — my time is limited. I came to 
 find out what's the best hour for him." His colloquial 
 French, the language of all his young manhood, was so 
 good that the other woman was surprised. To her the tall 
 Edgell was a foreign and singular apparition ; but to Mar- 
 got it was a familiar oddity, and she adopted an air of 
 proprietorship at once. She was suspicious of all visitors 
 just now ; but he would not come, she knew, unless there 
 were good reasons for his coming. She had respected his 
 good sense and manners equally, ever since the days when 
 he recognised, in his straightforward fashion, her authority 
 over Antoine, and had taken her into council, more will- 
 ingly than Monsieur himself, over those little matters of a 
 child's health and training on which all women love to be 
 371 
 
372 SUCCESSION 
 
 consulted, and on which Margot, simple femme de menage 
 as she was, had very definite and vigorous ideas. 
 
 Now, instead of proceeding upstairs, when he heard that 
 Monsieur I'abbe was sitting with Monsieur, he set forth 
 with Margot, and strolled along at her side, oblivious of 
 all form and custom, across the boulevard and the strip of 
 garden that separated the dwelling from the nearest shops. 
 They made an odd couple, but in that quarter hardly any 
 couple could be so odd as to attract much attention. 
 
 " Is he eating well ? " asked M. Edgell concerning his 
 father-in-law — he had such intelligent questions, Margot 
 thought. 
 
 Monsieur, alas, ate little in these days — almost nothing 
 except when M. Savigny obliged him. M. Philippe's ap- 
 petite, on the other hand, was happily exceptional. She 
 was inventing the present meal entirely for him, and hoped 
 to-day to be repaid by his approval. 
 
 " He's not so well then ? " said Jem, still ignoring the 
 claims of his son. 
 
 Monsieur, Margot feared, was failing — ah, but we all 
 grow old. M. Savigny was constantly there, or M. I'abbe, 
 to cheer him ; but his spirits were unequal, and at the worst 
 times he shut himself from all, even his faithful Margot. 
 
 "Is Philip any good?" said Jem, glancing at the tear 
 on her brown cheek. 
 
 " He does what he can, pauvre petit," said Margot, wip- 
 ing the tear. " Monsieur, when he is well enough, is 
 pleased to have him there. But when he has the pain at 
 nights," she added, wath a kind of pride, " he calls me al- 
 ways, now M. Antoine has gone. He had taken to waking 
 the little one, which I did not like ; for though he was good 
 and quiet, he suffered from the fright." 
 
 Jem noted this, but made no direct comment. 
 
 " You have a pretty houseful," he said cheerfully. 
 " Phil's flourishing, at least, if he is to eat all that basket." 
 
 The cook considered, pursing her lips. " M. Philippe 
 had a ' torticolis,' of which he complained lately." 
 
LETTERS 373 
 
 " Pish," returned Jem. " Your mistake is, to listen to 
 the complaints." 
 
 " That is what we other women are for, Monsieur," said 
 Margot demurely. " Even when the pain is of small mo- 
 ment, one can listen, and ask how it goes. Here I get my 
 vegetables. Monsieur must not derange himself decidedly." 
 
 Monsieur, however, was strong on vegetables. He 
 was far from ignorant in matters of the market, nor 
 was it the first time in his varied experience that he had 
 been out with a cook and a basket. He chose Margot's 
 apples with an almost professional rapidity, and he pointed 
 out a blemish in a salad that Margot herself might have 
 missed. He was so clever in the matter of fowls, finally, 
 that his companion, emerging from the poultry stall, was 
 driven to fall back on an ancient formula. 
 
 " Monsieur has all the capacities," said Margot. 
 
 " Necessities of life," said Jem. " It's better to know." 
 
 Margot knew the world, however, and betrayed her 
 penetration. " Monsieur has done it once for Mademoiselle 
 Henriette," she breathed seductively, looking sidelong. 
 
 " Once or twice," said Jem, with a smile. " I generally 
 sent the chickens home." He added, after a pause, re- 
 flectively : " She loved cooking a la folic, but she always 
 felt bourgeoise followed by a basket. Her figure was 
 wrong for it, I understood." 
 
 " C'est bien elle," murmured Alargot, amazed and 
 charmed by his confidence. She shook her head over the 
 remembered picture. " But Monsieur is English," she pro- 
 ceeded. " It is marvellous that he knows." 
 
 "Is it?" said Jem. "Well, perhaps it is. Phil would 
 never feel chickens for you, would he?" 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! " Margot was shocked at the idea. M. 
 Antoine used to love to come, when one would let him. 
 But it was only Thursdays he had the time. For herself, 
 Margot, she considered an early walk highly beneficial for 
 youth ; but M. Lucien gave him those long exercises, one 
 after another, and he could not be completely at his ease 
 
374 SUCCESSION 
 
 till he had done them. Then on Sundays he accompanied 
 Monsieur to St Etienne, and could not go to the shops with 
 her. On s'arrangeait comme ga. For M. Lucien, who was 
 not croyant, that was so convenient. 
 
 Margot sniffed. Passionately on her master's side, and 
 in latter days very frequently on Antoine's, the silent 
 tension with Lucien had never failed through all the years. 
 It amused Jem to find the lines traced by old habit still the 
 same in Margot's mind, as they were upon her shrewd, 
 determined face. It put the clock back for him a little, and 
 made him feel less weary and old in these haunts of youth. 
 How long was it — how many lives ago, since he met Hen- 
 riette by these fountains? 
 
 " Monsieur has good news from England? " said Margot, 
 breaking the silence after the right interval with instinctive 
 courtesy. She knew where his thoughts were very well, 
 and had shaken her head marvelling often at a faith beau- 
 tiful as — in man — it was rare. 
 
 " All serene so far," he said, the wrinkle returning to his 
 brow. " I think he will get through. He doesn't write 
 much, of course." 
 
 " Writing vexes him," said Margot, in extenuation. " Yet 
 it was wonderful, when he was but eight years old, how 
 well he drew his name." 
 
 James abandoned his frown. " Well," he said, " he has 
 had practice in drawing it since. That's about all is re- 
 quired of him in the literary line. As to news — ^he was 
 never worth a cent." 
 
 " He will talk while he writes, p't'it etourdi," said Mar- 
 got. " M. Lucien in the spring would often leave him 
 things to answer. * I shall come into the kitchen to-day,' 
 says he to me, ' because I have a letter. It is not amusing 
 in the study.' * Monsieur should talk only to his letters, 
 when he writes them,' I say. ' How talk to it,' says M. 
 Antoine, ' un sale petit bout de papier. You talk to me, 
 and that will go quicker.' ' Ah,' I said, ' it is not like that 
 M. Philippe writes his beautiful letters, nor Monsieur son 
 
LETTERS 375 
 
 Papa either. You will see them sitting quiet, and their 
 hand moving so fast — it is incredible.' " 
 
 " Question of capacity,"' moralised Jem, who enjoyed 
 such flattery at her hands. Soon after they arrived at the 
 house, and the heavy basket was hoisted by leisurely de- 
 grees up the stairs. 
 
 " You are getting too old for such loads," said Jem 
 bluntly, vexed that she would not let him carry it entirely, 
 though she stopped to gasp at all the halting-places. 
 
 " Dame," said Margot, " Monsieur is right. The stairs 
 are higher than they used to be. But there! — even if a 
 house should possess these lifts, they are always out of 
 order." 
 
 "That's your experience, is it?" said James. "Well, 
 look here: you get a lift out of the proprietor, and I'll en- 
 gage to keep it in order — even if I have, as is probable, to 
 build it new. That's not a capacity," he added hastily. 
 " That's my trade." ' 
 
 " It is a worthy profession for Monsieur," said Margot, 
 courteous even in extremity, " to relieve the limbs of the 
 ageing by his inventions. Ah, viola M. Philippe, qui sort 
 pour ses etudes." 
 
 Arriving at the fourth floor, Philip stood before them, 
 dressed as for an Arctic expedition, an enormous muffler 
 round his throat. 
 
 " Dad ! " he ejaculated, his eyes brightening. " Oh, very 
 well, that settles it : I sha'n't go." 
 
 " You seem relieved," said Jem. " How are you, old boy? 
 Open the door, can't you, you young cub." 
 
 It had not occurred to Philip to relieve Margot, who had 
 to balance the mighty basket, stoop for the key, and un- 
 latch the door with a practised jerk. 
 
 " I hadn't meant to go," said Philip. " The library only 
 seemed the least of two evils, when it's such a deadly bore 
 indoors." 
 
 " And I've trod down the balance," said Jem. " Very 
 
376 SUCCESSION 
 
 good; though, as a fact, I've not come to Paris to amuse 
 you." 
 
 " Grandpapa's engaged," said PhiHp, catching his arm, 
 " so you may just as well. That priest is with him all the 
 time that Savigny isn't. I don't get a chance at him. One 
 talks about his soul, and the other about sanitary inspectors, 
 and anybody but grandpapa would have got tired of them 
 both. I say — I am beastly glad you have come, papa." 
 
 There was a note of genuine pathos in his voice that 
 made him seem, to his father, extremely young. Margot 
 had hinted the impression also. It reminded Jem that, 
 alone of all the family, this boy was facing the problems of 
 death for the first time, for he had been on a sick-bed him- 
 self all through his mother's last illness, and helpless either 
 to anticipate or realise his loss for long. Now he was left 
 in comparative solitude to meet the unknown presence, and 
 it was bringing his ignorance more home to him as the 
 days passed, despite all his recently acquired information. 
 The faint resentment, fainter panic in his tone and grasp, 
 showed this. His grandfather's last weeks were like to bei 
 a final stage in Philip's education. 
 
 " Glad to see me, hey ? " said Jem, in his pleasantest tone.l 
 "Well, now, what's the news?" They had arrived in the; 
 little study, which bore already an air of disuse and melan- 
 choly, with its empty chair. 
 
 "There is none," said Philip. "How could there be? 
 I'm out of everything up here, and nobody comes to see' 
 me; and I've got two essays to write on subjects I know' 
 nothing about, and I can't slop eternally to the library with' 
 a sore throat in this beastly weather; and here's the kid 
 having an absolutely giddy time in London, and it's not' 
 fair." He half laughed at the close of the tirade, as' 
 though conscious of its childishness. 
 
 " You're languishing in neglect," said Jem, eyeing hiir 
 without a smile. It was really gratifying to look at any-: 
 thing so healthy and so handsome. " You have some cor-; 
 respondence, anyway, which means somebody attends tc 
 
L E T T E R S 377 
 
 you." He glanced at the morning's post, scattered broad- 
 cast on the table. 
 
 "Letters!" said Philip, with expression. The object 
 of letters was to reconcile him to his existence, which the 
 present budget had not accomplished. James, a remote 
 twinkle showing in his eye, tried a different tack. 
 
 " Well, you get a nice close time for working out of it, I 
 shouldn't wonder." 
 
 The effort had no success. " I've given up working," 
 said Philip. " Fve had a frightful stiff neck for three 
 days." 
 
 " You wear your collars too low," observed his father. 
 " Didn't I tell you so, last time ? You shouldn't give in to 
 those artist fellows so easily." He laid a large hand as 
 he spoke behind the injured neck. Philip did not feel quite 
 comfortable. He had been through a phase of personal 
 vanity in the spring, owing partly to Jespersen's persistent 
 interest in his profile. He had kept it quiet, and he did not 
 think Jem had realised its existence. 
 
 " It's the weather, Margot says," he growled, turning 
 his gaze towards the sky. " If it goes on, I shall jolly well 
 go and sit in the kitchen." 
 
 " Bright idea," said Jem. " That's where Bebe used to 
 pass his time — may still for all I know; unless he's learnt 
 better in the circles he frequents. He's gone up in the 
 world a bit, hasn't he?" 
 
 " I should think he has," said Philip, reaching the letters 
 he had discarded. " Here's Glenmuir — can't talk of any- 
 thing else — answers none of my questions. Pie writes from 
 London, though what he's doing there in term you may well 
 ask. He thinks he has been having influenza, so of course 
 he drops lectures, and makes for his mamma." 
 
 " Pitiful behaviour," murmured Jem. 
 
 " Well, you'll be pleased to hear Antoine's improved out 
 of knowledge, and likely to be the success of the season. 
 Jolly for him, isn't it? — since Glenmuir knows nothing 
 .about it. I daresay he hears them gabble at Oxford, and 
 
378 SUCCESSION 
 
 picks it up. Well, then he says his mother is giving a big 
 party, and can't for love or money get his precious assist- 
 ance." 
 
 " Wait a second," said Jem. " Mrs Glemuir " 
 
 " Lady Earraid," said Philip. 
 
 " I beg her pardon," said Jem. " She wants whose as- 
 sistance — her son's or mine ? " 
 
 " Antoine's," said Philip. " He's high in favour in that 
 quarter — was from the first. She did a lot for him his first 
 season, even my uncle admitted, netting people for his con- 
 certs. She's ever so well known — this would be a jolly 
 pufif for him. And now they give out he's too delicate, or 
 something, for extra engagements! Awful rot. Pve a 
 mind to show Savigny that." He tossed the sheet from his 
 friend aside, and paused impressively. " Here's my aunt," 
 he observed. " She's worse." 
 
 The tragic point of this at least James realised. He re- 
 membered Philip's position in his aunt's household, and 
 he had already had an inkling of the turn of Fate's wheel 
 at Brackenhall. He drew Philip on the subject with great 
 sympathy, and got some useful information by the way. 
 
 " He's getting spoilt, do you think?" he queried, at last. 
 
 " Well," said Philip, " she doesn't spoil exactly — I mean, 
 you can't help knowing she's noticing all the time. In this 
 letter she says some pretty cute things about the kid, though 
 she says he's better fun than she remembered. He's prob- 
 ably been treating her to some of his society graces. He 
 seemed to me, the last time we met," said Philip, with 
 weight, " to be getting a trifle artificial." 
 
 " Hum," said James, as though considering it. " Does he 
 write himself? " 
 
 " Oh, Lord, no. Yes, he did though, once. A large sheet 
 with about six words on it, in his style." 
 
 " Got it there ? " said Jem brusquely. 
 
 " No ; I tore it up. It was only to say a tree we used 
 to climb had come down in the wood, and Yvonne had 
 refused the gardener, and Glenmuir had sent his love to 
 
LETTERS 379 
 
 me, which I'm sure he didn't, and would I mind mentioning 
 if the vioHn turns up. I suppose he thought you might have 
 overlooked the chance of the milkman bringing it back, 
 and my dropping it in a drawer and not letting on. What 
 are you laughing at, papa? " 
 
 " It doesn't sound specially artificial, that's all," said 
 Jem, who had smiled. 
 
 " Most kids of six could compose better," said Philip. 
 •' Call that a letter ? " 
 
 " I should keep them, though, if I were you," said his 
 father, and passed immediately to the latest police reports. 
 It was not so much the words or tone as the fact of his 
 instantly leaving the subject that gave Philip a remote shock. 
 Jem may have known that the crosser and more egotistic 
 Philip appeared to be, the more sensitive he was to slight 
 hints. He became at once intensely anxious to know what 
 his father had thought of Antoine ; but from the position 
 he had adopted he could not show concern and preserve con- 
 sistency. So he merely became a trifle more gloomy; 
 though, being a really expert detective, his practical advice 
 was at his father's service, and they discussed the chances 
 keenly for some time. 
 
 " By the way," said James, as a distant door shut cau- 
 tiously, and slow steps made their way out, " you had bet- 
 ter post me up how much your grandfather knows before I 
 see him." 
 
 "About the violin, you mean? He heard it all," said 
 Philip, " except what you told me about Charretteur — only 
 he forgets a bit." 
 
 "How did he learn — from your uncle?" 
 
 " No, from the papers. I'd kept the telegram and let- 
 ter from him, as you said: it never struck me the beastly 
 reporters would get hold of it." 
 
 " It might have entered your calculations," said Jem. 
 " Was your grandfather vexed ? " 
 
 " He was at first; and the kid's letter came at the wrong 
 moment and didn't improve matters much. Perhaps it was 
 
38o SUCCESSION 
 
 as bright and careless as that little trifle he sent me. I 
 rather think grandpa returned him a rouser — he can," 
 
 "Did he dictate it?" 
 
 " Not to me," said Philip. " The priest held the pen. 
 I only heard about it afterwards." 
 
 " Did the boy reply again ? " 
 
 " Don't think so," said Philip. " He probably dropped 
 the subject gracefully — feeling outmatched by the holy al- 
 liance. Grandpapa calmed down by degrees, though he's 
 still depressed about it. There's been a complete new row 
 since then," added Philip, " which has put it out of his 
 mind." 
 
 " What's that ? " said Jem, who knew. 
 
 " Some fuss about the accompanist. Haven't you heard ? 
 I told grandpapa," said Philip, who was by now enjoying 
 himself, " that it was simply against nature for the kid to 
 live a month with my uncle, without setting a match to 
 him, one way or another. He would droop in the intervals 
 of the concerts without a little harmless excitement at home. 
 My aunt alludes to it too, but she's on Tony's side. She 
 says it's his right to have a word as to the fellow he plays 
 with, and that he's too nervous for sudden changes. Per- 
 sonally," added Philip, " I don't think that fellow Axel 
 is half bad, though a bit of a bounder in private life." 
 
 Jem said nothing, for he gathered by Philip's remarks 
 that he was ignorant of at least half the facts in the " row " 
 he referred to, which was what had brought him to Paris. 
 His own knowledge was incomplete, for he had only An- 
 toine's point of view, in a hasty and very excited short 
 letter. He wished to sound his father-in-law, if it were 
 possible, on that and attendant questions of general policy; 
 and he wished further to judge with his own eyes in what 
 state of mind and body he was, for the various reports an- 
 noyed him. 
 
 He could not, however, choose his days of leisure ; and 
 though he had taken the precaution to warn the old man 
 well in advance, he had to risk the condition in which he 
 
LETTERS 381 
 
 found him. x\s it chanced, he had fallen on a good hour, 
 for M. Lemaure had slept passably, and the priest's de- 
 parture had left him fairly cheerful. Also he was so 
 pleased and flattered to see his son-in-law, that Jem was 
 touched. As always in emotion, speech left the engineer 
 for some minutes, and standing at the bedside, the delicate 
 white hand in his, he left the invalid to take the initiative 
 and make his gentle excuses in English. The words were 
 well chosen and finely enunciated as ever, his mind most 
 evidently untarnished, though his nerves were strained by 
 constant pain ; but the sentences came slowly, with pauses 
 between, his voice was not strong, and had lost nearly all 
 its colour and vivacity. It was there the ebbing life showed 
 most; and Jem decided even in the first few minutes that 
 the interview must not be long. 
 
 It was pain to him, this realisation, for he loved to hear 
 Henriette's father talk, though he was apt to be rather 
 wordless himself in his company. He had a deep respect 
 and affection for him, but he could never lose the sense 
 of living in a different world. His wife had done little 
 to bridge this gap of which he was so sensitive, and since 
 her death, at almost every meeting in the last seven years, 
 Antoine had been his unconscious interpreter. In a fashion 
 the boy was so still, for now in his absence they spoke of 
 little else, turning instinctively to that subject as the thing 
 that must unite them. Edgell on his side advanced his 
 ideas with caution, feeling humble here as he never did in 
 the boy's own company. The spectacle of age is powerfully 
 appealing to the strong man of middle life, especially when 
 age puts its clutch on powers that have been rare. Jem had 
 all his nation's strong sentiment, and his hopes soon failed 
 of stating more than half his case. Instead, he suffered an 
 old fascination, and attended, storing up thoughts and 
 phrases deliberately. The weakness of the tired voice lent a 
 new plaintiveness to M. Lemaure's little remarks on his 
 grandson, which fell oddly on the father's ear, and so en- 
 graved them on his memory. 
 
 
382 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I wish he would write himself," he said, as he slowly 
 sorted and arranged one-handed Lucien's series of letters 
 for Jem's benefit, for that seemed the simplest way to spare 
 discussion. " I frightened him perhaps in my last. Phil 
 said it was severe. I am easily severe with him — as you 
 know." 
 
 " I know also," said Edgell, " that he can bear severity." 
 
 " Generous, yes, the sweet. He knows the reason — I am 
 anxious, helpless now. It is only through him — I can tes- 
 tify." His voice failed, and he waited to recover. " He 
 has faults, of course," he resumed painfully. " But it is 
 not as Lucien thinks. He is not arrogant." 
 
 " Does Lucien say that ? " said Jem. 
 
 "He implies it, more than once. The question is com- 
 plicated, rather. You had better read." 
 
 Jem turned to the letters, unwillingly enough. He would 
 a thousand times sooner have had M. Lemaure's own 
 thoughts on Antoine. It was the greater tribute to Lucien, 
 truthful and exact as he was always with his father, that 
 the reader grew interested as he perused letter after letter, 
 short, and written evidently at fixed intervals, seeming some-' 
 what of the nature of reports on his charge. The hints as 
 to Antoine's growing reputation were slight, but quite per- 
 ceptible, 
 
 " Cecile is kept busy refusing invitations," he said once, 
 " She declares it entertains her to correspond with the 
 aristocracy. Why the child should attract such, it baffles 
 me to imagine. But she, who has some experience, says 
 that they are, for the most part, simple folk." 
 
 Later on came the first allusion to the point at issue. 
 
 " I am glad Victor continues to visit you. Tell him 
 that I am quite of his opinion that Antoine and young Axel 
 should part company. What served last winter does not 
 serve this. Axel did well enough the first season, faute de 
 mieux. He has shown himself pleasant and fairly adapt- 
 able, and modest even to an unnecessary degree. But char- 
 acter is not the point, Antoine has a very marked style 
 
LETTERS 383 
 
 and Axel has none. He can carry through a classical pro- 
 gramme passably, but in modern music he is helpless. Vic- 
 tor of course gave him several lessons gratis in the autumn, 
 and the boy teaches him constantly, but it is evidently 
 absurd it should continue thus. The mere strain of it for 
 Antoine is greater than any change would be, though I 
 cannot make Cecile see it. She is against me, for some rea- 
 son, in this. . . . Axel is no more than the rather am- 
 bitious hack accompanist, who has had unusual chances. 
 Antoine should pair now with a pianist of his own calibre, 
 if it is only for his own education." 
 
 " I have told the boy," the next letter pursued the theme, 
 " that you leave all decision in the matter to me. His only 
 reply to my reiterated arguments is that he likes Axel. I 
 said that he liked outshining him, which is the fact. The 
 only answer he could discover to this, after much twisting, 
 was characteristic. Nobody, says he, can play the piano 
 very well. I said it was time he gave up saying so, and pro- 
 posed that he should go and hear Ribiera. Cecile had heard 
 so many reports that she was curious, and I had agreed 
 to take her to a recital. I found myself unusually busy 
 at the time, so I sent Antoine, much against the grain, in 
 my place to escort her. The effect on them was amusing. 
 Cecile was quite enthusiastic, more emotionnee than I have 
 ever known her to be, by music. The boy was mute and 
 evidently cast down. He agreed when my wife appealed to 
 him, and when pressed, discriminated a little. But he 
 seemed tired almost to tears, and as it was late, we did not 
 press him much. I think the experience may have a whole- 
 some effect upon him." 
 
 Jem, after skipping a little, found the next reference to 
 the subject, tacked on to the account of a rehearsal. 
 
 " I caught young Axel afterward," said Lucien, " and 
 had a conversation with him on the subject I mentioned to 
 you. I put the position as pleasantly as I could, and he 
 seemed amenable enough, and is evidently quite aware of 
 his weak points. He was full of rather awkwardly ex- 
 
384 SUCCESSION 
 
 pressed gratitude, to you, mon pere, first and foremost. 
 We have given him a ' leg up,' if you comprehend that ex- 
 quisite expression. He said he had never supposed my 
 nephew, whom he calls by a nickname, would put up with 
 him for so long ; especially since Moricz, and after Victor's 
 kind attentions to him in the autumn. Indeed, he turned 
 pink and restive at the first mention of our friend's name. 
 He says, if M. Duchatel ever finds anybody to play the 
 passages in the third and fourth sonatas, he will be glad to 
 meet the fellow. He added that no one in the world but 
 Antoine would have stood his rudeness at the last re- 
 hearsals, and that he, little Axel, could hardly keep his 
 seat. This interested me as throwing light on M. Victor's 
 discontent. We know he can be unpleasant when he likes, 
 and it is easy to see how he could score off this poor little 
 Cockney. Antoine himself has said nothing of any differ- 
 ence; at least they must have made it up, for I happen to 
 know Victor's hand, and he writes regularly. And, by the 
 way, father, Cecile says you might ask him to be more 
 lenient to the child's little inventions ; for he takes criticism 
 in that quarter very seriously, and I notice his periods of 
 depression often coincide with the arrival of these tirades." 
 
 " Is this Victor," Jem demanded of a sudden, " a person 
 who counts? " 
 
 " For Bebe, profoundly," said M. Lemaure, his fine brows 
 lifting slightly. 
 
 " Not for you ? " 
 
 " I have a personal sympathy for him," said M. Lemaure. 
 " His mother is an old friend, and he has been exquisitely 
 kind to me." He waited. " As a writer, he has courage 
 and sincerity." He waited again. 
 
 " He overdoes the sincerity, perhaps, with others," said 
 Jem. 
 
 " I hardly know," said the old man. " They say so. He 
 is never bitter with me." 
 
 " Is he a teacher?" said James, having thought a little. 
 
 " Teacher ? — no. What makes you ask that ? " 
 
I LETTERS 385 
 
 " I had not meant professionally. I suppose I meant, 
 if he had it — the knack, instinct, whatever it is — he would 
 be safe not to hand the bitterness on." 
 
 "To our jeunesse, do you mean? You have not found 
 him embittered, surely?" 
 
 " I have not, no ; but there's the danger." 
 
 M. Lemaure considered for a space, his thin, beautiful 
 hand veiling his eyes. " I think there is no danger for 
 Antoine," he said at last. " For the reason that he has 
 never been happy enough. The bitterness you mean is an 
 imprudent happiness soured — a nausea of the mind. He 
 suffers much, the child : he has always had the capacity of 
 suffering. I may be wrong, but I believe it makes for 
 sanity." 
 
 Jem, after a pause, nodded and turned to the letters 
 again. " Is this all ? " he asked, having read a few more 
 accounts of conflicts, in all of which the writer, according 
 to himself, had the advantage ; and during which the young 
 man Axel's chances seemed to be vanishing rapidly. 
 
 His father-in-law stirred from his thoughts. " You have 
 read the proposition of Ribiera? Ah, no, I am stupid, 
 you have not had Cecile's. You should read all of that, she 
 writes so charmingly." 
 
 The fact that he failed to find at once the letter he wanted 
 agitated him clearly, and Jem, to give him time and to dem- 
 onstrate that there was no hurry, let himself be diverted 
 by an illustrated sheet that lay near him on the bed. 
 
 " Time passes fast," he commented upon it. " I did not 
 know the Christmas numbers were out." 
 
 " My daughter-in-law sent that," said M. Lemaure, his 
 anxious brow clearing. " She finds so many things to 
 amuse me. I suppose you have seen Zep's drawing?" 
 
 " Not I," said Jem, turning the pages easily. M. Lemaure 
 said no more, but, postponing the question of the letter, 
 watched his face with a smile till he exclaimed. 
 
 " Parfaitement," he then said gently. " I see they neg- 
 lect you for me, in these important matters. Caricatures, 
 
386 SUCCESSION 
 
 on the whole, are kinder than in my day. Lucien has a col- 
 lection of mine, I believe, and that must join it." 
 
 " But it's extraordinary," said Jem. " Zep must have 
 seen him in the life." 
 
 " He did once, for five minutes, according to Lucien. 
 Quite a kindly attention, would you not say, from such a 
 cynic? At least, Bebe does not stir bitterness in others." 
 
 Zep's drawing, or rather series of drawings, represented 
 a fete offered to the prizewinners in the lottery of the last 
 season. These were largely French, for the talented artist 
 himself was of that nationality, but various English and 
 German notables were also freely treated therein. Zep, 
 whose pen spared nobody, saw his chance, and dealt with 
 every branch of science, art and literature in turn. The 
 actors were there, and more particularly the actresses; the 
 'painters, among which the melancholy M. Zep himself ap- 
 peared in a modest corner, with a face twice as long as life, 
 and his round shoulders heartlessly exaggerated. His own 
 commentary beneath was crisp, and he went on to mal- 
 treat the authors, who gave way in turn to some of the 
 Lemaure's intimate acquaintance in the " new academy of 
 music." A portion — an unmistakable portion — of Victor 
 Duchatel, looking like a man-doll or tailor's model, was 
 discovered shrinking behind the enormous bulk of the 
 operettist Adrien Dorn, who occupied the whole fore- 
 ground, and was a sample of Zep's wit on its least pleasant 
 side. Turning the page quickly to escape this monstrosity, 
 Jem had been confronted by an unmistakable likeness of 
 his son, shoulder to shoulder with Lemonski, and followed 
 by a diminishing rank of children. 
 
 " Nor was youth lacking to the festal scene," Zep ob- 
 served blandly, below. " Little Rudolf with his celebrated 
 scowl, little Antoine with his celebrated smile " — and so 
 passed to chaff others of the band. But his wicked pen 
 supplied all omissions in the drawing of the pair, though 
 form and features were still rendered with the utmost 
 economy of line. Jem lingered over it with the over- 
 
LETTERS 387 
 
 powering relish of one who was both a parent and a 
 draughtsman. 
 
 " I shall negotiate for the original of that," he declared, 
 before he flung the paper down. " Line-drawing gives play 
 of feature, w-hich is where photographs always fail. Zep 
 never flatters, but for once he's just. Now, shall I look for 
 that letter?" 
 
 M. Lemaure was reminded, but both their efforts failed 
 to find it. By the way Jem witnessed again his great feeble- 
 ness, the pain it was to move, and the intense nervous an- 
 noyance he could barely contain at this blocking of the 
 channels of expression ; an annoyance naturally more keen 
 in one who had expressed so finely and so freely, whose 
 senses, tones and movements had been alike so eager in 
 their service on the brain. Equally touching was his de- 
 liberate tranquillity when forced to abandon the effort. 
 
 " Useless," he smiled. " I am a log henceforth, my son, 
 and you must bear with me. I must endeavour to tell you 
 the case instead, if you excuse a pause to summon my 
 faculties." 
 
 " I hoped it might come to that," said Jem. " It was gen- 
 erally to be talked to that I came here, wasn't it?" His 
 large, warm hand closed on the frail fingers. 
 
 " Was it ? " said the old man. " Certainly no child of 
 mine ever interrupted me so little. You explained your- 
 self once for all, eh? That sufficed." 
 
 " I've passed examinations in my time," said Jem, " but 
 none so severe as that. However — I was received." 
 
 " Received, yes," M. Lemaure repeated, gently pleased. 
 " That is true, Jem. You have even been entrapped, some 
 might say. We hold you fast, hein? " 
 
 " At your service," said Jem quietly. Then and there 
 he saw that one part of his communication could not be 
 made, that he could let no suggestion fall, at this time, of 
 any radical change in the existing arrangement. He could 
 not cut the last strand that bound this man to life, as he 
 
388 SUCCESSION 
 
 must inevitably do if he tore his son summarily from his 
 voluntary service. 
 
 M. Lemaure's wistful look on Zep's drawing had meant 
 that, the hesitating words he used, the photographs that 
 faced him, the way his still capable hand strayed among the 
 papers scattered on the couch ; dated records of triumph in 
 which, even among the descending mists of age, he could 
 not but believe. There was nothing for Jem to do now but 
 what he was doing — wait. 
 
 He sat in the same spirit of submission to hear of Ri- 
 biera. It was all in the same vein, surely, he thought, 
 these unconscious and unsought conquests. In spite of 
 himself Antoine scored — it could not be entirely to his 
 special talent that he owed his effect, for it was on the 
 uncommon men of all tastes and ranks that the effect was 
 most clearly produced. " Zep " was, to Edgell's knowledge, 
 both violent and vulgar; Ribiera was, by common report, 
 a cunning snob; but they were men of genius both, and 
 the latter at least of distinguished intellect. Cecile Lemaure, 
 in the lost letter, had described the charitable concert, a 
 semi-public entertainment which the Earraids had arranged, 
 and of which the Spanish pianist — a former professor of 
 Lady Earraid's for a season — had been the unquestioned 
 star. He had agreed on his pupil's instance to play once, 
 and all society had flocked to hear him. Madame Lemaure 
 had once more been shaken out of her cool attitude, she 
 used the words of the multitude about Ribiera, called him 
 exquisite, divine. Jem gathered that he was a handsome, 
 languid Southerner, whose grace could captivate even where 
 his art failed of appeal. Antoine, in his own little letter, 
 which Jem was fingering in his pocket while his father- 
 in-law talked, said that Ribiera " warmed " the piano, and 
 now he had discovered how to write for it. Aware of the 
 boy's odd and lifelong prejudice against the timbre of that 
 particular instrument, Jem realised the weight of the trib- 
 ute. Antoine himself had played at the close of the chari- 
 table programme, with the much criticised Axel to support 
 
LETTERS 389 
 
 him ; and Senor Ribiera, who chanced to approve the extra 
 piece he selected, took upon himself to shoulder Mr Axel 
 off the stool before all the world, and accompany the 
 morccau in person. Lady Earraid had been gratified, the 
 public charmed, Antoine and the ruddy Mr Axel much 
 amused. But Ribiera himself, as affairs proved, was not 
 such a freakish person as most geniuses are presumed to 
 be, and it seemed he was merely experimenting. 
 
 His note to Antoine, received the next day, had been 
 enclosed to the head of the Lemaures, and the old man 
 found and read it to Jem, his tone trembling with pure 
 pride. It invited the boy, in terms of mature dealing, to 
 join him in a trio-playing enterprise at or after the New 
 Year. It finished with a phrase of full-worded flattery, and 
 was signed with the famous name. Antoine's grandfather's 
 pleasure in reading it was obvious, and Jem, veritably puz- 
 zled, left it in his hands. 
 
 " Voila," said the old man, finally dropping it. " And 
 now — he refuses." 
 
 " Antoine does? " 
 
 " Completely. He was extraordinarily moved, Lucien 
 said, but quite stubborn. He upholds little Axel — and he 
 rejects Ribiera. My son finds it incredible, and I own that 
 I do also. He is surely getting fanciful, our little celebrity." 
 
 Jem watched his troubled face for some moments, won- 
 dering w^hich course among two or three was best. Then, 
 on an irresistible impulse, he drew out the letter he was 
 fingering, and offered it silently. 
 
 " This is himself ? " said the old man, grasping it, his 
 face clearing. " But that is what I wanted — I thank you. 
 Jem. He writes in English to you — yes. That is a good 
 .child." 
 
 [ "Dear Papa [the letter ran], — I do not know how to 
 live, because I may not talk to grandpapa. My uncle has 
 
 ibeen furious again, and he says while I am excited I must 
 not write to him, because it hurts him when I am. I am 
 
390 SUCCESSION 
 
 very excited, and I do not want to be ill, just because they 
 will not understand. So you will not mind me to tell you 
 about it, though perhaps I shall not post the letter." 
 
 This was the opening. There followed the character of 
 Ribiera the musician, aptly expressed, and most penetrating 
 as the father suspected, for he saw the old artist linger, 
 half smiling over the lines. " This is the man," the writer 
 proceeded, " who wants me to play some beautiful things 
 ensemble, duo and trio, during these months in Paris. He 
 has presented me the programme with a polite French let- 
 ter. I wrote to him at once, of course, to say what had he 
 done to Jacques, and had he paid him — that he was to tell 
 me first. It was the next day that my uncle was so furious, 
 because Ribiera sent to make him come, and said a lot of 
 things. That I would marchander with him instead of to 
 know my interest, and awful words to be most cruel of 
 Jacques, and sent us all to the devil in swearing. And he 
 said my uncle should teach me manners before he let me 
 arrange my own finance, and a rude thing of grandpapa \ 
 I have forgotten, and my uncle should bring me by the ' 
 ear to ask his pardon, and everything to annoy him most ! 
 horribly. So he was furious in the evening, and said I was j 
 mad, and Ribiera un veritable demon — and still he wants j 
 us to play together ! Cher papa, will you represent the \ 
 beautiful Beethoven andante that we shall make together j 
 like that?" 
 
 " Do not be angry yourself," the letter concluded, " but | 
 listen. If grandpapa himself says I shall apologise and j 
 play, good. If he is still vexed about my violin, and has ! 
 forgotten Jacques, and I am alone to remember all that, j 
 then I will do the concerts after Christmas. Because it I 
 seems one must forget, not to be completely afifole, and I 
 have still two more concerts here, and I wish to think of 
 them, and prevent my uncle talking." 
 
 After completing the slow perusal, the old man paused, , 
 his hand across his eyes again. 
 
I LETTERS 391 
 
 " Madness, of course," he said, " to speak of money to a 
 Spanish Jew. Good heavens," — he stared at the sheet anew 
 — " this explains Lucien's annoyance. Why can they not 
 tell me all ? " 
 
 After another difficult pause, as the father still sat be- 
 side him silent, he said: "See, Jem, it is better if you 
 write, since he appeals to me through you." 
 
 " He trusts me to interpret," said Edgell, " though God 
 knows I can't. Perhaps it was chiefly to relieve his heart 
 he wrote." Jem was uncertain still if he had done right 
 to show the communication. He felt helpless almost, before 
 the man who knew, and with his own knowledge of the 
 child. 
 
 " It is passionate," said the sick man, and a faint edge 
 of resentment was just perceptible. The passion of life 
 was past for him. " This Jacques is young Charretteur," 
 he pursued painfully. " Perhaps you have not heard of 
 him." 
 
 " I have heard something," said Jem. Especially after 
 that cry for the truth it irked him not to tell his companion 
 all the facts, while he was about it. Yet he knew the old 
 man had been purposely kept in the dark, as to the suspicion 
 that rested on Jacques. Jem's own suspicions, in the long 
 run, had begun to settle there ; and he quite saw what fruit- 
 less vexation of mind would have been aroused by the dis- 
 closure. Yet he saw also, from his boy's point of view, 
 how nearly the question of Jacques' guilt or innocence 
 touched the present difficulty — that the origin of the " pas- 
 sion " of this writing lay there. And it was his private 
 persuasion that, in a question of justice, the best brain 
 should be taken into council, even though the frame at- 
 tached to it might be weak. After all, was it not M. 
 Lemaure's affair as well ? Jem had come questing aid, hum- 
 bly enough, for himself as much as Antoine, but the spring 
 of inspiration to which they both turned on instinct was 
 failing now. 
 
 "You remember Charretteur?" he prompted gently. 
 
I 
 
 392 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Yes, yes, poor boy. He was headstrong — I saw it. 
 Raymond agreed. Victor says he has wrecked himself. 
 Many do." 
 
 " You think Bebe had best forget him, then ? Let him 
 go ? " Jem queried as he stopped again. " That he should 
 take this offer? " 
 
 " He must certainly apologise. Ribiera is his superior — • 
 the front rank, and has paid him a high compliment. He 
 has failed in common courtesy." 
 
 " To be sure," his son-in-law said patiently, for the sen- 
 tences dropped ever more slowly. " Is that all ? " After a 
 silence, he said : " I will send him a scolding on my own, 
 if you like, for going outside his business. He has no right 
 to swagger and rebel, I quite admit. Only the position is 
 stiff for a boy, if he knew this Jacques, and knew him to 
 be unfairly treated. I'll soothe him, sir, or set him down, 
 or both together, just as you think best. He'll take it from 
 me — even at the roughest — always." In the last phrase, 
 the inner trouble came through his voice, though his eyes 
 were cast down in speaking. Jem was anxious, more than 
 he could betray, for a message of confidence and consola- 
 tion, to convey to the boy in England. i 
 
 "Not rough," said the old man, yet more painfully.! 
 "You must be keen and clear — clear above all, for him. I 
 could give the words if — English seems vague to me at 
 times, and Antoine has the French brain. Tell him it is 
 a chance, another step — absurd to thrust it by. My son 
 says truly the only thing he lacks is the good ensemble. 
 Lucien speaks of condescension — but there is too much 
 talk of that. It cannot exist, in art. Lucien knows, as I 
 do, that Ribiera will not be disappointed." 
 
 " He can't forget Lucien," thought Jem, his pencil sus- 
 pended though his head was still bent. " Towards the 
 end, habit conquers." 
 
 " The programme is — such as I would choose. Two of 
 the trios named are exquisite. The other — the Mozart — if 
 I might hear it " M. Lemaure's white head sank, his 
 
LETTERS 393 
 
 brow resting on the fragile hand again. " Eternal youth," 
 he murmured in his own tongue, " my Marcel," — and si- 
 lence fell. 
 
 Jem, fearful of forgetting a word, even of such frag- 
 ments, had jotted a sheet half-full of notes, and sat toying 
 with his pencil anew. 
 
 "Your love?" he said gently, prompting once more, as 
 the silence was unbroken. But it remained unbroken, for 
 as he discovered soon after, his wife's father, still in the 
 attitude of reflection, had fallen asleep. 
 
 Jem's remaining plan was to see Savigny, but there his 
 day's fortune failed him. It was the " children's morning," 
 Philip informed him, at the clinique, and Savigny not in- 
 frequently left the children in his younger partner's hands. 
 His own appearance was given to inspiring terror purely 
 amongst youth ; and though the terrorising faculty had at 
 times its advantages, especially on the parents — who were 
 usually responsible, according to the doctor's experience, 
 1 iot the sins and sufferings of their offspring — the little 
 • sinners themselves confessed more readily to Dr Bronne. 
 I Thus, on the day in question, Savigny had abandoned his 
 1 post with small scruple, and gone into the country to in- 
 I spect a certain institute for the cure of nervous disorders, 
 ) recently founded by his example and instigation, which at 
 ■ present occupied the forepart of his spacious mind, and 
 crowded all his other activities to the rear. 
 
 Since Philip could not say when he would be back, Jem 
 
 I determined to call at the clinique, which was quite near, 
 
 1 though ingeniously concealed in a maze of little streets. 
 
 1 Edgell had been there once before to visit Savigny at his 
 
 ' work, so, though the occasion was long since, he begged the 
 
 eager Philip not to disturb himself, and retracked his way 
 
 to it alone. He even remembered the position of the side 
 
 ; door, to which the doctor had then conducted him, making 
 
 : straight, by sure instinct, for the centre of operations. As 
 
 he expected on a show morning, nobody attempted to bar 
 
394 SUCCESSION 
 
 his entrance. This weekly consuhation was gratuitous, and 
 open to the curious as well as to the regular patients ; for 
 Savigny's abiding desire was to attract the middle and 
 lower classes to his methods, and overcome the existing 
 prejudice and suspicion of them by as much publicity as 
 was consistent with the necessary regard for those he 
 treated. Now the young, supremely important as they are 
 in the community, can have no very harrowing secrets, and 
 are frequently less sensitive than their elders ; so it was 
 natural to throw open the children's consultation to the 
 public by preference to that of the adults. 
 
 Jem only wanted a few words with any authority, but he 
 found he had to wait; for the young man who seemed to 
 be in charge of things was engaged. It was what Savigny's 
 staff called a quiet morning, by right of the small number 
 of those consulting, and the limited auditory ; but it was 
 quiet also, from the spectator's point of view, by right of a 
 certain atmosphere, sacerdotal almost, that the doctor on : 
 the platform flung about him. He sat, an elbow on the ; 
 table, his brow on his hand, with an air of still attention that 
 seemed to have spread to the casual public, themselves ' 
 straining to hear. It was a poorly-dressed old woman who : 
 was being examined, and Bronne's dark eyes left her rarely : 
 to shift upon the child between them, a small and very sulky 
 girl. The tale w^as of woe, of disgrace, of despair, to judge 
 by the woman's expression and gestures, though her voice 
 was low and weak. The patient, or culprit, or outcast, 
 was rigid and sullenly apprehensive. Something was to 
 be done to her, she supposed, in this strange room, or in 
 the next, where she had already seen other children enter — 
 good little things, accustomed apparently, going to their ' 
 fate. But she was not going to be condemned, whether to 
 punishment or perdition, without a struggle. The treach- 
 erous granny who had seduced her there, the strange dark 
 man who held her wrist and pierced her with his melancholy 
 eyes, should have reason, before the worst occurred, to , 
 regret their behaviour. This small virago was a citizen of 
 
LETTERS 395 
 
 the republic, and intended always to misbehave herself, in 
 public or in private, as she chose. 
 
 " It's the confessional, by Jove," thought English Jem, 
 having looked all round the ugly room, and back to the lit- 
 tle group that made the centre. "What's wrong?" he 
 queried sotto voce of his neighbour, a bearded youth with a 
 portfolio who might be a student. He had begun at once 
 to be interested, for he had gone out of his way to seek 
 knowledge of Savigny's chosen ministry. 
 
 " I can't hear the crone," muttered the youth, annoyed. 
 "These are all nervous cases — the last was filching — what 
 do you call it? — kleptomania. Last week there was quite 
 a young one who had delusions, rather remarkable. I wish 
 they would speak up." 
 
 " They're ashamed, I suppose," said Jem simply. " Is 
 Savigny here? " 
 
 " No. That's Bronne, the second in command. He has 
 an easy time to-day. Sometimes there's quite a crowd, they 
 can't the least foresee. Do you know Savigny ? " Jem 
 nodded. " He's coming to the front now," confided the 
 young man. " He'll have a free hand with this new place 
 at jMeudon, they say. It's only money that's wanted." 
 
 " Ah," said Jem. " It generally is. Well, I'm glad he's 
 being recognised, at least." 
 
 The young man, casting glances at his serious face side- 
 long, speculated if he were a parent, a former patient of the 
 doctor's, or merely the inquisitive tourist. He was a for- 
 eigner evidently, but the English were known to be inter- 
 ested in experimental psychology — it was one of their few 
 strong points. They were a credulous, kind, rather child- 
 like people, the young man believed, to whom the exact 
 sciences were indifferent. They were easily tricked by 
 charlatans, for example; they liked ideas quite apart from 
 their realisation, and rejoiced in the improbable, even as the 
 French revelled in the true. The English, as everybody 
 knew, saw ghosts, and this tall fellow doubtless came to 
 
396 SUCCESSION 
 
 Savigny's clinique in the hope of spirit-rapping. To find 
 a gosse being scolded was disappointing for him. 
 
 The bearded young man grieved for Jem's disappoint- 
 ment. It would no doubt have consoled him had he known 
 that James was seeing ghosts, from his corner in this dull, 
 plain, dusty room. The atmosphere of it, and the silence, 
 both invited visions. Jem had been far, thousands of miles 
 away, when his little boy had been brought here; but he 
 could picture it very well. He had come frightened, sullen 
 and desperate, doubtless, like that child by the table ; cling- 
 ing to his grandfather's hand, as her poor little fingers, in 
 spite of all her rebellion, were fiercely gripping her granny's 
 shawl. It was awful, James thought, to realise how chil- 
 dren suffer, and how helpless they are to tell their pain. It 
 was worse for the woman-child, without a doubt ; far 
 worse, since all life was hardest on women. And this was 
 the place where those ugly, unpublished ills were attended 
 to, where some were cured. Jem had seen, in the course 
 of his wanderings, living souls torn from shipwreck, in 
 fierce seas; but this game of soul-doctoring was greater, 
 surely. Was it likely he could ever forget the letter, stored 
 among his treasures, signed in Savigny's scrawl, which told 
 him in beautiful, cautious words that his child's life and 
 reason were saved? He had crowned Savigny long since, 
 and seen in imagination this plain building in a poor quar- 
 ter as a very heaven of healing. That young fellow with 
 his hand on the child was one of them evidently, this little \ 
 group of beneficent pioneers. Jem watched Bronne as he 
 seemed to ask the child again and again the same question, 
 patiently repeated for all her shrugs, set lips and shifty 
 eyes. 
 
 " Tu ne veux pas me le dire, hein?" said Bronne, and 
 after a silent minute rose. There was an immediate stir 
 of interest in the little company. 
 
 " Come," he said absently almost, holding his hand out 
 to the girl. " I have something to show you." 
 
 His ease and indifference were deceptive, his tone pleas- 
 
LETTERS 397 
 
 ant, and for the moment Eve's daughter failed to recognise 
 the serpent. He had a strong warm hand, and slie slid her 
 little bony one into it. She followed him a short way in 
 the direction of the door, her grandmother looking on with 
 folded hands, in a kind of admiring apprehension, Marie- 
 Therese had rarely been managed as easily as this. It was 
 a prodigy. Aha ! — there ! 
 
 The pair were close to Jem, w^hen the young lady realised 
 of a sudden that she was submitting — and to a recognised 
 enemy. The enemy had inquired lately if she were tired, 
 and she had denied it; for had not her granny disclosed 
 that his plan was to put her to sleep? She would not sleep. 
 She was not sleepy, far from it. She was awake, capable, 
 determined — demoniac the instant that she wished it. She 
 was mistress of her fate. Tugging at her imprisoned hand, 
 Marie-Therese hung back, planted her feet firm and wide 
 apart, and " No — no — no," she reiterated, with growing 
 and hysterical emphasis. 
 
 Her grandmother, though the doctor signed her back im- 
 peratively, ran forward at once, and the child, sensible of 
 the sympathy implied, fell crying into her arms, confessing 
 piteously though incoherently, promising amendment, as 
 no doubt she had done a hundred times, and so swayed the 
 soft hearts round her. 
 
 "Do not pity her," said Bronne, in warning; and then 
 louder: "When is her birthday, Madame, did you say? 
 And the age ? But there are two children in there younger 
 than she. I had better go to them, hein? — since she is 
 afraid." 
 
 " I am not afraid," gurgled Marie-Therese, her head in 
 her grandmother's shawl. " I am penitent! " 
 
 " Pauvre cherie," said her grandmother, touched. " Mon- 
 sieur has made an effect — she repents. Perhaps, Monsieur 
 — since she promises to be a good girl — next week." 
 
 " Next week," said Marie-Therese, thinking within : " No 
 — nor even next year." 
 
 Bronne never wasted words. He looked at his watch. 
 
 i 
 
398 SUCCESSION 
 
 and at the door beyond. " It is a week lost," he uttered, 
 crisp and low, to the woman. " It is useless, as I have told 
 you, if she cries. Persuade her, and soon, for I cannot 
 stay." Then bending, he turned the child's crimson, sulky 
 face with his hand. " I want you to come," he said. " We 
 shall not hurt you, as you know. If you are sorry, soon, 
 you have only to come and tell me so quietly ; and no one 
 shall hear you say it." Jem saw the child's lips part at that, 
 but she hid her face again. Bronne, having freed her, left 
 them at once, and passed through the unlatched door. 
 
 Jem saw the students pack their notebooks and prepare 
 to leave. He supposed they might not approach the inner 
 sanctuary, or else had seen its mysteries already. The 
 consulting-room cleared by degrees, but he did not move. 
 He wanted a word with Bronne when he had done with 
 his children, and further Marie-Therese attracted him. One 
 of what Margot named Jem's capacities was for little girls ; 
 and he had a part-ownership in several, though fate had 
 granted him none for his own. At a point in Marie- 
 Therese's discreet and artistic recovery, he caught her eye. 
 The actress bridled, frowned, and looked away. Then she 
 looked again ; and presently she tried the quality of Jem's 
 rough coat with an absent hand. None of her acquaintance 
 wore coats like that ; and she was eleven, and had seen a 
 number of men. This one spoke to her, with a somewhat 
 amusing accent on accustomed words ; and she had no ob- 
 jection, by way of variety, to being taken on his knee. 
 From that elevation, she could test the smell of his sleeve, 
 which was singular, and needed leisure to define. Marie- 
 Therese, being a Parisian, was able to define it later; at 
 the time she had sufficient leisure over to unbend grace- 
 fully to Jem's advances. 
 
 " Perhaps your granny is waiting," suggested Jem, after 
 a little deliberate dallying. 
 
 " Oh, she is not going yet," said the child. Granny, at 
 this clear indication, sat down. 
 
LETTERS 399 
 
 " She hopes I shall go in there," Marie-Thcrese observed. 
 It was a daring advance, but she liked to be daring. 
 
 " I am also hoping that," said the stranger, in confidence. 
 
 " Me to go ? " — very sharply. 
 
 " To go myself. I am hoping to have permission." 
 
 " Bah ! " said Marie-Therese, in disdain. " Why don't 
 you walk straight in ? '' 
 
 " Pas permis," said Jem, shaking his head. " The rule 
 is, somebody must take me." 
 
 " What somebody ? " 
 
 " Anyone on business," replied Jem. 
 
 ^larie-Therese considered the position. " How do you 
 know," she asked, "about the rule?" 
 
 " I asked that young man." 
 
 There was a long silence. Jem watched her wide eyes 
 fastened on the door. Curiosity, cunning, fear — horror, 
 too ; good, evil, and sheer weariness — vague shades of each 
 in turn. And what a thin little neck it was, what an uncer- 
 tain, trembling lip, what nervous, grimy little hands. 
 
 " / will take you," said IMarie-Therese, in a low tone, 
 rather faint. " Moi, je vous conduirai." 
 
 " Good," said Jem, without emotion. " Blow your nose 
 first, my dear, won't you? " 
 
 Marie-Therese did so, her grandmother w^atching in awe, 
 wide-eyed. A mere sign from the strange man had kept 
 her silent, though she was bursting with contained con- 
 fidence. 
 
 "Come along," said Jem. " Shall I carry you?" 
 
 Marie-Therese put up her arms, and without a word he 
 carried her through the barrier, to the other side. 
 
 The doctor turned to take her, not a whit surprised. He 
 barely spoke, though he just answered Jem's smile with 
 another as slight. The silence within the magic doors was 
 more weird, more impressive, than the silence without. 
 Yet it was only a little company of children, sleeping, and 
 a few white-aproned attendants moving among them. 
 
 " Will you stay ? " said Bronne, in a lowered voice. 
 
400 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Can I, for an instant? " 
 
 "Certainly. What name?" His hand lay on an open 
 book by the door, 
 
 " Edgell," said Jem, and marked the change of counte- 
 nance. Dr Bronne pushed the book away, nodded, and 
 went about his business. 
 
 "What's the crime?" said Jem, some five minutes later, 
 as he and Bronne stood over the sleeping Marie-Therese. 
 She looked as young and sweet as any child in the cradles 
 of the better-born — and of the less exposed. The doctor 
 related a tale of infantile misdoing, and grimy little habits ; 
 and again it might have seemed a commonplace, and he 
 indifferent, but for his grave eyes. 
 
 "What do you do then — educate? Suggest?" 
 
 " One may suggest. It does no harm." 
 
 " No harm, no," said Jem, pleased by his moderation. 
 " Your cure is rather monotonous work." For he had 
 watched their proceedings a little. 
 
 " Well — so is education. I think," said Louis, looking 
 thoughtfully round his flock, " that I may go now." 
 
 " You trust the suggestion to others ? " said Jem, sur- 
 prised. 
 
 " That is the least part, when they have been instructed. 
 Will you excuse me?" He stepped aside, and touched a 
 lady assistant — the only woman, Jem had been astonished 
 to note, among the visible staff. " Mademoiselle Clemence," 
 said Bronne, "may I present M. Edgell? You will remem- 
 ber Antoine." 
 
 The lady did. She wore glasses, and looked herself worn 
 and delicate. 
 
 "This is Monsieur his father? He speaks French?" 
 she queried. " The case was not my charge. Monsieur," 
 she explained to Jem. " There was but one week I took 
 care of the little one at nights. Then M. Savigny replaced 
 me." 
 
 "Were you reckoned too kind?" asked Jem, blunt as 
 usual. 
 
LETTERS 401 
 
 " I was not strong enough," she said simply. 
 
 " That is a defect, in Savigny's eyes," said Bronne. 
 
 *' And rightly," said the nurse. She was diverted by her 
 duties and quitted them without apology. On leaving the 
 room finally, Jem spoke to her in passing. 
 
 " Shall I give my boy any message ? " he said. Mile. 
 Clemence looked round. 
 
 " Useless — no," she said, with her tired smile. " He 
 could not remember me." 
 
 " He's a good memory," said Jem. 
 
 " So much the worse, for it would be a distorted image. 
 He was too ill, you see. Monsieur." 
 
 When they were outside, Bronne said, taking off his 
 apron in the empty consulting-room : " She is an excellent 
 nurse; but Savigny lets the women get no chance. In her 
 case, I think it is a pity." 
 
 " She looks more like a patient herself," said Jem. 
 
 " She was one, in the early days. She is actually a re- 
 markable cure — what some I know would call a miracle." 
 
 " Do not you ? " 
 
 " Savigny is no saint," said Bronne. He was washing 
 his hands, still very serious. " He has methods saints 
 would not approve. I am sorry he is out, sir. I suppose 
 you came hoping to find him." 
 
 Jem admitted it. He asked if Savigny would be back 
 before three, his limit. The assistant shook his head. 
 
 " I persuaded him to take a holiday, if it can be called so. 
 He has a rage just now for building and sanitation methods. 
 The new place is to be a model in those ways." After a 
 pause, Bronne added at leisure: "He would have picked 
 your brains, had he been here." 
 
 "The compliment would have been mutual," said Jem. 
 " I came to pick his, as it hap])ens." 
 
 " I don't suppose I can help you," said Bronne. He had 
 a certain almost awkward modesty, pleasing to the older 
 man, combined as it was with his evident ability. " I am 
 going to have lunch now. Would you care to come out with 
 me?" 
 
402 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I promised the boy up there," said Jem. " However, 
 he can wait a bit." 
 
 Philip did not weigh on his mind. He walked slowly 
 with Bronne in the direction of the neighbouring boulevard, 
 talking idly. Jem had a capacity for idling on an instant's 
 notice, when he found a pleasant fellow. He had found 
 them in every part of the world, according to his need. It 
 was only regrettable that the choicest sorts had generally 
 so little time to waste. 
 
 "I don't remember you," he opened fire in the street. 
 " Weren't you on the spot when my son was brought 
 here?" 
 
 " I did not know Antoine then. I have met him since." 
 
 " Not been here so long yourself ? " suggested Jem. 
 
 " Yes, for seven years. And for three I have been super- 
 intendent of the pension. But your son was Savigny's 
 patient. Consequently," said Louis, " I never saw him till 
 he was practically well." 
 
 "Does he keep them as close as that?" asked Jem, 
 amused. 
 
 " We may not approach him, when he is experimenting. 
 I merely heard it was an interesting case, and gathered it 
 was a young one. I never knew till afterwards," said 
 Bronne, " either the boy's danger, or the fact that he was 
 Lemaure's grandson. It explained various things." 
 
 "Had the chief been short with you?" said Jem, still 
 amused by these out-of-school disclosures. 
 
 " Savigny, you mean? He was wild — for several days. 
 I was almost afraid for his own sanity, when he thought 
 he was failing. He would never forgive me," added Bronne, 
 " if he knew I had said that." 
 
 "What does it matter," said Jem, "so long as he did 
 not fail?" 
 
 " That's what I think." There was a pause, the engineer 
 wondering if he could open the question of the boy's present 
 condition with this evidently sensible young man: Bronne 
 himself thinking of quite other matters. He had his ideas 
 
LETTERS 403 
 
 about Antoine truly, but it was Savigny's affair. It was 
 part of the system to which he had been trained, that they 
 never meddled with one another's patients unless definitely 
 charged to do so. Bronne resumed after a pause, on his 
 own line of thought. " However," he said, " it might be 
 classed as an unsaintly weakness, that we are not allowed 
 to mention Savigny's failures in front of him. Of course, 
 there must be some — many, in the kind of cases we take 
 here, which are half of them other people's failures already. 
 
 Talking of that, I wonder, sir, if I might venture " 
 
 He hesitated. " This seems a chance." 
 
 " Venture away," said Jem. 
 
 " I am thinking of Antoine. His letter was confidential ; 
 but he probably confides also in you." 
 
 It seemed a question. Jem, still thinking only of the 
 boy, stared puzzled for a moment. Then, adjusting his 
 thoughts, he remembered. " There ! " he exclaimed, " I 
 knew I had heard your name before. It was to you he 
 wrote that day. I stuck the letter in the post and never 
 thought again. It was about that unfortunate young fel- 
 low — Charretteur." 
 
 " You know, then. That is right. I have done my best 
 to get at him. I washed to follow Antoine's directions, as 
 I told him, but I have been baulked altogether by the 
 police." 
 
 "The police?" Jem queried. "How do they come in? 
 I kept the young fellow's name out of the reports, ex- 
 pressly. Antoine told me to." 
 
 " I supposed he would," said Bronne. " Indeed, I heard 
 so from M. Philippe. But he was tracked all the same to 
 his address, had warning just in time, and left it. Now he 
 is naturally suspicious of everybody, and will not tell me 
 his lodging, though I have seen him once." 
 
 " You have seen him ? " 
 
 " For a few minutes only. He was engaged in his busi- 
 ness, and we could not converse freely, for there were 
 people close upon us." 
 
404 SUCCESSION 
 
 " What business ? " demanded Jem. " You'll excuse me, 
 but Antoine's fashion of informing is erratic. He leaves 
 out the useful things." 
 
 " So he would, but this is rather picturesque as well. I 
 learnt from his second letter that Charretteur plays at a 
 certain cafe in a poor quarter of the city. Yes " — he cut off 
 Jem's ejaculation — " he has gone down in the world, lost 
 his vogue, ruined himself, if you will. He is very well 
 otherwise, he told me, and lively." 
 
 "Well?" Jem repeated, somewhat at sea. 
 
 " He was an interne here, in the summer. Dear me, did 
 Antoine omit that? I asked after his health — from me it 
 was a natural inquiry." 
 
 " Ah 1 " Jem recollected his informant had implied that 
 the missing criminal was a reclaimed inebriate. One had 
 to get the doctor's point of view, in these matters. " May 
 I ask if you pushed the inquiry further ? " 
 
 " I asked his address, as I said, and did not get it. He 
 rather enjoys dodging the police. He is naturally anxious 
 not to be brought up, for it would ruin his chances — such 
 as are left him. Antoine saw that as well." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Jem. He stopped in the road, for they 
 had reached the doctor's lunching quarters. *' You will 
 excuse me," he said, taking off his soft hat, and passing a 
 hand across his hair. " I daresay I seem pedantic. Did 
 you gather the young fellow had the violin ? " 
 
 "The violin?" M. Bronne stopped too. " Oh— I did 
 not ask him, sir." 
 
 "You didn't allude to it? It's rather interesting to us." 
 
 " We were conversing as ordinary acquaintance," ex- 
 plained Bronne. " And we had a limited time — ten minutes 
 I think they allow at those places — at our disposal. I 
 might have been addressing him on the treadmill, and both 
 of us riddled with eyes. I supposed, if he could have been 
 of any use in your affair, he would have communicated 
 direct." 
 
 " Just so. Well, I am keeping you from your lunch." 
 
LETTERS 405 
 
 Jem uprooted the stick he seemed to have planted in the 
 pavement. His eyes travelled over Louis once. " There's 
 a pair of you," he said, in apparent admiration. 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " Bronne smiled, for the 
 phrase had been in English. 
 
 " I mean — you and my younger son are hand in glove. 
 I might have guessed it." 
 
 " I have a respect for Antoine's judgment," admitted Dr 
 Bronne. " Though, owing to Savigny, I see him rarely, I 
 sometimes think Savigny himself might respect him more." 
 
 " Ha ! Is Raymond against the young fellow ? " 
 
 " Flatly against. I may not mention him. If you re- 
 member, that was how we entered on the subject." 
 
 " Good Lord, yes." Jem arrived slowly. " You're too 
 smart for me. He's a failure, is he?" 
 
 " Not at all," said Bronne earnestly. " But he is regarded 
 as such, because he would not stop out the cure. Feeling 
 stronger, he took the bit in his teeth and bolted." 
 
 " Was that all? " said Jem. 
 
 " Not quite all," said Bronne. " Before that, he had 
 been high-handed. He sneered at Savigny." 
 
 " I say! Couldn't you correct that, among you?" 
 
 " I tried, once," said Louis. " But I fear he was not per- 
 suaded." 
 
 On that, Jem remembered the claims of the indignant 
 Philip, and Bronne those of his hunger; and they parted 
 promptly, though in a cordial fashion. The result was, 
 that Mr Edgell never learnt what form the " persuasion " 
 had taken; which was a pity. For he had thought the 
 young doctor, generally speaking, too demure ; and he 
 would certainly have liked him better for the incident. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 
 
 " Would Monsieur mind going? " said Margot softly. " It 
 is a young man." 
 
 Philip lifted his head with a jerk. All voices in the house 
 were hushed just now, but tones seemed to acquire the 
 greater significance. It was the end of a wet and dreary 
 Christmas day; and as the light failed early, towards five 
 o'clock, Philip had sought refuge in the kitchen, driven 
 from all posts of dignity at last by sheer dread of solitude. 
 Margot's solid accustomed presence was comforting in the 
 incredible blank the world had become since his grand- 
 father's voice had ceased ; the light of her little lamp was 
 sufficient for his young eyes to read by, and the warmth of 
 her hearth was grateful in the chill that had fallen since the 
 frost definitely turned to rain. 
 
 " Oh, I can't," he said, frowning. *' What is the good 
 of their coming all the time? The concierge might see to 
 it. They can sit at home and watch the papers like the rest. 
 That's the only decent way." 
 
 "This one was not about Monsieur," said Margot 
 meekly. " He asked for M. Edgell. But he stammered, 
 and would not give his message." 
 
 " Stammered ? " said Philip. He threw his book on the 
 table and went out to the door. There he faced a man al- 
 most as tall and quite as thin as himself, his form and face 
 dark against the glimmer of light on the staircase. An old 
 violin-case occupied one hand. 
 
 " Well," said Philip haughtily, sure with a prompt 
 406 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 407 
 
 British instinct of the class of the visitor. " What do you 
 want ? " 
 
 " N-nothing with you," said the visitor, shying Hke a 
 wild animal at his appearance. " Isn't he there then ? 
 What did she mean ? " 
 
 " Oh," said Philip, who had had painfully to realise the 
 existence of another M. Edgell in the world. " You want 
 my brother, do you ? What about ? " 
 
 The visitor stared at him out of the twilight with nar- 
 rowed eyes ; then he twitched a little forward. " What a 
 precious fuss you make," he muttered roughly. " Let me 
 come in. Is he ill? " 
 
 " No," said Philip, gripping the door to guard it. " My 
 grandfather is ill — dying, if you want to know." 
 
 " Oh ! " The visitor seemed taken aback. " Where's the 
 gosse, then ? " 
 
 " He's still in England. He will probably be here to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " Why isn't he here now ? " persisted the young man, 
 still with extreme suspicion. It seemed Philip was not 
 being so impressive as he imagined. " I saw little Lemaure 
 in the boulevard, I am sure." 
 
 1 " My uncle has been here three days," said Philip. 
 I "You mean he left him behind?" snapped the peculiar 
 visitor. 
 
 " There was another engagement, for the twenty-fourth, 
 so my brother stayed behind to finish, naturally. He was 
 to come with my aunt to-morrow, if they couldn't get 
 across to-night. She has wired that they can't. If you tell 
 me what you want," said Philip, with an expression of 
 dignity and disgust, " I'll ask him. But I can't answer for 
 his replying very promptly, in this state of things." 
 
 " No," said the man, unoffended, and seemed to reflect. 
 He gazed at Philip while he reflected, and had not the 
 seriousness of Philip's situation been so overwhelming, he 
 might have suspected a faint light of amusement in the 
 gaze. "He'll have plenty to think about, won't he? One 
 
 I 
 
4o8 SUCCESSION 
 
 could keep it till the New Year — that's only a few days 
 more." He had stopped staring now, and was looking 
 downward. " Can you give me a bit of bread ? " he inquired 
 suddenly. 
 
 " Bread? " said Philip, gaping almost, doubtful if he had 
 heard right ; for however poor the visitor looked, his tone 
 was not that of a beggar. 
 
 " Th-that's what I asked for," he assented. " I forget 
 the English word. It's no matter, though; don't disturb 
 yourself." And with that he turned and slunk off, so 
 swiftly and silently that Philip, who was still regarding him 
 with blank amazement, hardly heard a sound. 
 
 " I say ! " The boy sprang forward, as a conviction 
 flashed into him. " I say — are you Charretteur ? " 
 
 It was too late to recall him, for the young man was al- 
 ready beyond his reach; but Philip the detective was not 
 to be baffled so easily. He was lightly made, and quicker 
 on his feet than Jacques; and leaping downstairs, he was 
 on him before he attained the next landing. 
 
 " You've got it," he ejaculated, in a righteous fury. " It's 
 ours — ^give it here." Charretteur tried to dodge him, and 
 was instantly grappled. The pair struggled a moment, try- 
 ing to trip one another in the half-light; but Philip was 
 more practised at the game, and Jacques soon abandoned 
 the effort of resistance. " Give it up at once," repeated 
 Philip, gasping. " It's our property ! " 
 
 The prisoner laughed at his excitement, a grating laugh 
 that was not disagreeable really, though his opponent bris- 
 tled at the sound. He was quite passive now, leaning 
 against the wall, and he seemed half to relish the situation. 
 The young Englishman had pinned him truly, but it was 
 quite another thing to get the violin away. He laughed 
 anew as Philip tried. His hand of steel was clenched on it, 
 and no effort of the boy's was sufficient to unlock a finger. 
 
 "It's yours, is it?" he gibed. "Well, it's in my case, 
 and that I retain. You're wasting time, I should say. Go 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 409 
 
 for the police, come. Shout for the concierge to lielp, you'd 
 better." 
 
 Philip would have followed the latter suggestion prob- 
 ably, but before he could shout another voice broke in, so 
 stern as to recall him, with something of a shock, to present 
 things he had forgotten. Savigny, who had almost lived 
 with the Leinaures of late, was mounting slowly to his self- 
 imposed charge, with a somewhat exhausted step. As his 
 tall form darkened the stairway turn, Philip ejaculated an 
 appeal for help. 
 
 " What noise is this ? " said Savigny, with intense dis- 
 pleasure, though his cutting voice was low. " Philip, what 
 are you thinking of, skirmishing here? Let go at once." 
 
 Philip did so. There were few people in the world he 
 obeyed more promptly than Savigny ; only the captive he 
 so released did not move. Jacques still stood, supported 
 by the wall against which he leant, staring at this vision of 
 the tyrant, more terrible than he had ever been, with his 
 exhausted voice and drawn face ; for the nights of vigil at 
 his friend's side, voluntarily undertaken, had left their 
 mark. 
 
 " Is that you, Charretteur ? " he demanded in his turn. 
 The shadows were deepening at the point where the boys 
 blocked the stairway, and Jacques' gaunt form, purposely 
 immovable, was hard to distinguish from them. " What 
 are you here for, at such a time ? " 
 
 " Nothing," said Jacques, and his voice seemed petrified 
 as well. 
 
 " It's the violin — maman's," said Philip, with a note of 
 appeal. " He has got it there, I'm sure, though it's not the 
 case." 
 
 " How are you sure? " said Savigny, crushing him coldly 
 in turn. " You would not recognise it if you saw it, would 
 you? I know this gentleman, as it happens. Go back, and 
 1 leave me to talk to him." 
 
 Philip, having caught a glimpse of his face, obeyed. As 
 he reclimbed the stairs he had raced down, his excitement 
 
4IO SUCCESSION 
 
 died as suddenly as it had arisen. He might have made a 
 fool of himself, of course, he reflected in some disgust. 
 Charretteur was a violinist himself, after all, and so might 
 be allowed to carry an instrument. He could not imagine 
 now how he had had the idea so strongly; but something 
 in the fellow's scoffing manner, and the cool stare of his 
 eyes, had stirred him. It had been like the sudden un- 
 reasoning scuffle of two dogs ; and Philip felt sure, if they 
 met, it would happen again. 
 
 When the boy had gone, the doctor turned silently, and 
 led the way to a lower landing. Jacques followed, slink- 
 ing, his eyes ready for any opening of escape. 
 
 " Now," said Savigny, facing round, " we can talk more 
 freely here. Whom did you come to see ? " 
 " Not you," said Jacques. 
 
 "The boy, eh? What did you want with him?" No 
 answer. Jacques' eyes avoided his. 
 
 "Whose property are you carrying?" Savigny pursued. 
 " Your own? " 
 
 " I d-dare you to touch it," snarled Jacques. 
 " Leave swaggering," said Savigny. " Did you steal it? " 
 " I stole it, yes," said Jacques. " I came to bring it back." 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Christmas present," Jacques explained. " I thought it 
 was about his turn." 
 
 "Why?" Savigny repeated inexorably. 
 " Bah — because he wants it, of course. He ' ratait ' in 
 London, the young one — missed the note. That's for want 
 of an instrument he knows, very likely." Jacques stopped, 
 for the doctor's eyes on him were terrible. 
 
 "Broke down— the child? Who told you so? What 
 are you talking of? " 
 
 " Someone I know told me. I daresay he hasn't boasted 
 of it," growled Charretteur. " You don't." 
 " What were you told ? " said Savigny. 
 " Only he broke right off, at the last recital, and cried 
 after. It's n-no fun, I can tell you," said Jacques. 
 
I TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 411 
 
 " Do you mean last night? " 
 
 " No — last night was nothing. The big one a week back. 
 Before little Lemaure left — he must know of it. They're 
 all over now, thank goodness," said Jacques. " That's 
 why I came to-day. He ought to be here." 
 
 His eagerness was very curious. Savigny was silent, 
 adjusting his ideas. 
 
 " He's ill in London, is he? " said Jacques. " Mysteries 
 about nothing — doctors are all the same." 
 
 " Antoine is perfectly well," said Savigny coldly. " Give 
 that thing to me. I will give it him to-morrow when he 
 comes." 
 
 " No," retorted Jacques still eagerly. " He'll not mind 
 my keeping it a day or two longer. You have to be quiet 
 now, don't you? He can't play." 
 
 " You'll disappear again," said Savigny, He thought, 
 for one moment, that the man's manner did not fit with his 
 story ; but he was incapable of giving the thing such atten- 
 tion as was necessary to distinguish the exact shade of lies ; 
 for the main current of his thoughts, of his life almost, 
 was running in that sick-room up the stairs. Under the 
 stress of the distraction he had to act on habit, and he found 
 it simpler to ride Jacques down by his will, than to test his 
 statements. 
 
 " I'll not," Jacques promised him. " I only did it while 
 the police were fumbling. They're such fools, you know, 
 ril be found at my address." 
 
 " Who has your address? " 
 
 " The gosse, of course ; and your tame cat Bronne." 
 
 " You're lying," said Savigny, moving a little. " Bronne 
 said he did not know it." 
 
 " He's lying, then," laughed Jacques. " You force people 
 to lie. I've noticed it." 
 
 " I am wanted above," said Savigny. " I cannot trust 
 you, Charretteur, or stay to argue on such lines. Give me 
 that violin." 
 
412 SUCCESSION 
 
 " L-leave it," stammered Jacques excitably. " If you 
 take it, I'll make a disturbance here, I swear." 
 
 " You will not," said Savigny. " You will not venture. 
 The man who is dying in the house is a friend to musicians, 
 great and small." 
 
 " Do you think I don't know that? He would have let 
 me in — treated me like a man. He did before." 
 
 " It is for his sake," said Savigny, " that I do not treat 
 you now like a criminal. Give it to me, and go." 
 
 " I won't," reiterated Jacques. " It's Antoine's, it's not 
 yours. It's fair I should give it him — it's only fair." He 
 tried with a sudden twist to get by on the narrow landing, 
 but it was fruitless — the effort spent as soon as made. He 
 felt his courage crumbling, his forces leaking away, before 
 the silent doctor, with his altered face and strange eyes, 
 who gazed at him from the gloom. Savigny was sure of 
 himself absolutely — Jacques was not. There could be but 
 one end to it. 
 
 " You c-coward ! " jerked Jacques, almost with a sob. 
 " Take it then, and be damned to your principles. At least 
 you've stolen it too." 
 
 With that, as the relentless gaze dropped at last to the 
 thing he offered, he got past the doctor stumbling, feeling 
 for the stairs, and an instant after vanished round the 
 corner like a shade. 
 
 Dr Savigny went on and upward slowly, Henriette's 
 violin clasped in his hand. He might have felt triumph in 
 reclaiming it, but he did not; perhaps because the hour 
 permitted no intrusion of joy; perhaps because that form 
 of triumph had become to him so tasteless. He only felt 
 dissatisfied to sickness with a life that supplied these 
 triumphs alone, and wearier even than before. 
 
 M. Lucien was in his room, Margot said, so he went 
 straight to the door and knocked guardedly. Lucien came 
 to the door with a hasty step. 
 
 " I sent the boy in," he said, as though in self-defence. 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 413 
 
 " since it seemed to me he wanted him. Otherwise there 
 has been no change, Raymond." 
 
 " Very good," said the doctor, giving him a passing 
 glance. It was so unhke Lucien to excuse his proceedings. 
 The younger Lemaure was of a type that shows fatigue or 
 distress but little, since his sharp little face had at all times 
 deep lines upon it. But he looked fagged for all that, and 
 rather dull, as though his habitual energy of mind had de- 
 serted him, and he barely knew where to turn. He seemed 
 to wish to guard his privacy, but Savigny pushed his gaunt 
 form brusquely through. 
 
 "Lucien, will you examine this? On my life, I can't 
 now feel sure the slippery young cub has not been fooling 
 me." He laid the case down, and sank on a chair, passing 
 a hand across his brow. "Is it right?" he said, after a 
 pause. Lucien had said no word; only his clever fingers 
 acted mechanically for him, and he had the thing out of 
 its shabby case in the least possible time, and examined it, 
 turning it this way and that, his brows intent. 
 
 " It is ours," he declared, and laid it down. " Raymond, 
 I thank you for all of us. I own I had lost all hope of 
 seeing it again." His tone expressed the necessary emotion 
 and surprise, for Lucien was a Lemaure and acted ade- 
 quately to the occasion. But his eyes remained distrait, 
 and the doctor saw how little the thing of wood had be- 
 come to him. Lucien would barely have struck a blow for 
 it lately, like Philip. His interest was his father's, the 
 essence of it had vanished with his. Lucien's mind was a 
 curious study, just now, for the psychologist. 
 
 " It cost me an effort, I admit," said the doctor. " But 
 I had it from the hands of the thief." 
 
 "From Charretteur? " 
 
 " Yes." He told the story, very cleverly, and it stirred 
 Lucien a little, as he intended. At least his sunken eyes, 
 fastened on the narrator, showed some of their wonted 
 spark. 
 
 " Queer," he admitted briefly, at Savigny's appeal ; then 
 
414 SUCCESSION 
 
 remained silent for a space, his eyes on the recovered violin, 
 as though there must be something further to say on the 
 subject, if only he could find it. " The child will be 
 pleased," was the result of the search. " One might keep 
 it to give him for the fete, eh? One is still young enough 
 to appreciate that — and he will have little else." 
 
 Savigny approved his kindness and his conscience. 
 " That," he said, " was also M. Charretteur's idea. Chez 
 lui, it struck me as amusing." 
 
 Lucien made an effort. " Of course," he said, rousing a 
 little, " I always knew he was the culprit. Only the boy 
 was so obstinately on his side that neither I nor James 
 dared accuse him openly." 
 
 "You did in private, eh? Was it you set the police on 
 his track?" 
 
 " It was absurd," said Lucien, not answering directly. 
 " It was our affair to judge, since the loss was ours." 
 
 " The loss was Edgell's," observed the doctor, " since the 
 boy is under age. How did you get Charretteur's ad- 
 dress? " 
 
 " I suggested they should go to Ribiera, when Antoine 
 refused to speak. Ribiera was ready enough to help, and 
 by no means astonished at the charge ; in fact, he added to 
 it freely, and called the world to witness, in his fashion." 
 
 " Ha! It got talked of, did it, in your circles? " 
 
 Lucien shrugged. " I was in London, In any case, Char- 
 retteur had long since lost his character." 
 
 " His character is a remarkable one," said Savigny, " if 
 you want my opinion. He confessed to being a thief with- 
 out an eyelash moving." 
 
 " He has no moral sense," said Lucien, 
 
 "That is what Louis Bronne denies. What was his 
 ^ord? — perverse and crooked. And Bronne watched de- 
 velopments a little." 
 
 Lucien was not interested. He arose, as though to end 
 the discussion, repacked the violin and set it aside in a 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 415 
 
 drawer. " He keeps the case as perquisites, I presume," he 
 remarked, as he did so. 
 
 "Aha! Was the case of vakie?" 
 
 " He might get eighty francs for it. It was one of my 
 father's last presents ; good leather, and almost new." 
 
 " Antoine's name on it ? — in full ? Really," murmured 
 Savigny, " the ways of thieves are strange. Why should 
 our playful young friend keep that? Lucien, do you think 
 the whole affair is a solemn farce ? " 
 
 " U it is," said Lucien, " such farceurs should be shut 
 up, in my opinion, at least long enough to learn better." 
 
 " Perhaps I was rash to leave the joker at large," said 
 Savigny, fixing his queer eyes beyond Lucien. He saw 
 confronting him persistently the face of Jacques as it had 
 been at the close of their interview — not carrying the ex- 
 pression of a man in jest. Bringing them back to Lucien, 
 he said, in his sudden, detached way : " You'll hear of it 
 from Antoine, won't you ? — when you explain." 
 
 " I should prefer to make my own explanation," said 
 M. Lemaure instantly, " and to choose my time." 
 
 " Oh," said Savigny, " it is between you. I shall not in- 
 terfere, and I can manage Philip. In fact, I have done so. 
 Has Antoine worried about it much?" 
 
 " Not visibly. He has been pretty quiet." Another 
 pause. 
 
 " I say, Lucien, we're dealing with an eccentric pair. Do 
 
 you think they could have been in collusion? I mean, could 
 
 the boy have agreed to let him have the thing, or been ter- 
 
 1 rorised into it, and not let on ? This Jacques could be a 
 
 ' young ruffian on occasion." 
 
 Lucien stared a minute. " You have extraordinary 
 ideas," he then said. " If so, all I can say is, Antoine acted 
 very well." 
 
 " He's a magnificent actor," said Savigny parenthetically. 
 
 "To the extent of nearly fainting? That was his first 
 proceeding, Jem said, when he discovered the loss." 
 
 Savigny, thrown out again, was vexed. " He never men- 
 
4i6 SUCCESSION 
 
 tioned it," he said. " He has no right to faint, and when 
 he does, I expect to be told." 
 
 " You can abuse him to-morrow," said Lucien, lifting his 
 brows — all the sign of humour he could muster. "If they 
 
 come I trust they will." He walked to the window 
 
 and watched the scudding clouds under bent brows. There 
 was little doubt he was thinking of his wife, though he had 
 not mentioned her. 
 
 " It's about time they did," growled Savigny. There had 
 already been a little strain between this warm-tempered 
 pair at the time of Lucien's arrival, three days since. Sa- 
 vigny had expected Antoine, quite unreasonably, as Lucien 
 pointed out, and refused to regard the engagement as an 
 excuse. As if any engagement he argued, at such a time, 
 could count against the boy's plain duty to a dying relation. 
 Lucien had not failed to point out his friend's inconsistency 
 with the attitude he ordinarily assumed to Antoine's work; 
 and Savigny in retort had hinted pretty clearly that he con- 
 sidered jealousy was at the root of Lucien's actions. 
 
 As a matter of fact, he knew well that the eldest of the 
 Lemaure sons was jealous. It was the family fault, and 
 Lucien with all his virtues could hardly have avoided a 
 share. In days that the nearest friends could still remem- 
 ber, he had been jealous in that way of Marcel, his brilliant 
 brother, and of the little Henriette. Before that envy 
 could bear fruit, both those fair young things had died; 
 and Lucien, in the common sorrow, had become all he 
 would be to the father he worshipped. For many years 
 past now he had been, as none knew better than himself, 
 his father's right hand; in latter days half his brain. 
 
 But the jealousy that is based on weakness does not die; 
 and when the intruding grandchild broke upon their in- 
 timacy, it had not failed to lift its head. Even in the first 
 years, almost of babyhood, Antoine had spent with them, 
 there had been times when the subtle understanding that 
 linked his father's mind with the child's had been brought 
 home to Lucien in a flash, a fact indisputable. Together 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 417 
 
 they assumed or divined things which, to him, needed 
 explanation. They were moved, or amused, or indifferent, 
 when he was not. Worse, they had intimate friends, like 
 Reuss, who left him out. Lucien had borne it well, as a 
 rule, for he had a genuine dignity ; but now, at this supreme 
 moment of both his and Antoine's life, he could bear it less. 
 As first born and first friend, he clave to his rights, and 
 argued easily in defence of them. The boy had his busi- 
 ness, and M. Lemaure himself detested broken engage- 
 ments. He had made all arrangements for Antoine to fol- 
 low him at the proper time, and it was not his fault if the 
 programme had been deranged first by his father's rapidly 
 weakening condition, then by Cecile's indisposition and 
 storms from the south-west. 
 
 He took observations of the weather now, so far as the 
 fading light would let him. " The wind is getting up," he 
 said uneasily. " We shall have a rough night. Raymond, 
 I think I shall go back there. He might wake again, and 
 the wind annoys him always." 
 
 " As you will," said Savigny. " I shall be in the study 
 if you want me. I will come for an hour before dinner." 
 As he said it, it seemed to occur to him that this might easily 
 be their last chance that day of private conversation, so 
 strictly they shared their guard ; and he spoke in the sud- 
 den manner that annoyed his friend. 
 
 " Lucien," he said. " Why did not you tell me there had 
 been an accident in London ? " 
 
 " What accident ? " Lucien, who had been moving, 
 stopped. 
 
 " That the boy had come to grief." 
 
 Lucien's vexation was obvious as he paused, still half 
 turned away. "How did you hear of it?" he said. "I 
 thought the fact better passed over in silence. Most fortu- 
 nately, the reporters did also." 
 
 "Why fortunately?" 
 
 " For my father's sake, I mean. I trembled the morning 
 I arrived here, which was also the last time he asked for 
 
4i8 SUCCESSION I 
 
 the news. But I could hand the English journal without 
 fear. The notice was a good one, even unusually kind. 
 They are fond of the boy in London ; and so, I suppose, 
 they forgave." 
 
 " Forgave what ? " 
 
 " His carelessness." 
 
 " Is he commonly careless in public ? " 
 
 " Not hitherto, but he has been getting worse. In private 
 he has always been so, intolerably. It is the thing with 
 which we have struggled." 
 
 Savigny scratched his chin. " I thought his memory was 
 remarkable. It certainly was as a child." 
 
 " That is the worst of it," said Lucien, growing restive, 
 and moving to and fro with short quick steps. " He simply 
 plays with his advantages. He has often done so deliber- 
 ately, to annoy me." 
 
 " Made mistakes, you mean ? " 
 
 " Yes ; or altered passages — things he really knew quite 
 well. No memory could stand such treatment. It is a 
 dangerous game, and so I warned him." 
 
 " You imply this breakdown was naughtiness ? " 
 
 " Not this time, no. He really did lose the thread — let 
 his mind wander at the critical point. It is lack of method, 
 at the root," said Lucien. " Well, it will be a lesson to 
 him." 
 
 "Was the thing difficult?" 
 
 " No. It is intricate a little — a show piece. He can play 
 it very well, and has played for years." 
 
 " He was frightened when it happened, eh ? " said Sa- 
 vigny, his queer eyes exploring the teacher. 
 
 "Frightened? He was furious. Beside himself for 
 some minutes, Wurst said." 
 
 " Were you not there? " 
 
 " No — I was waiting at home. It was the night you 
 warned me." 
 
 "Did he know that?" 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 4^9 
 
 " No. I had told him nothing of the change ; purposely, 
 not to disturb him." 
 
 " Just so," said Savigny, and thought a little. " Did he 
 finish?" 
 
 ** Wurst forced him — almost drove him on. Fortunately 
 he has an influence. He finished like an automaton, in the 
 worst possible temper." 
 
 ''Whom did he accuse?" said Savigny, having thought 
 again. 
 
 " You show insight, Raymond. At the time, the accom- 
 panist ; and afterwards, me." 
 
 " How you ? " said Savigny. 
 
 " I should not have put the morceau on the programme. 
 It was a stupid thing, and he cannot remember those for- 
 ever." 
 
 "Humph!" said the doctor. "Did you cuff him?" 
 
 " No. I made the necessary allowance for injured 
 vanity. I did not talk much, I was too worried that night. 
 Besides, he is not foolish, though he chooses to appear so. 
 He' knew as well as I did that he had been wasting his 
 working-time in his private amusements." 
 
 " What amusements? " 
 
 " Scribbling, and so forth. He knew there was no one 
 but himself to blame — he admitted it before he had done. 
 I let him talk himself out — you have never seen him in 
 those moods — and then spoke as quietly as I could. I 
 said " 
 
 "Well, what did you say?" 
 
 " I thought you w^ere not attending. I said I should 
 keep it from my father's knowledge, if possible; that he 
 had already been more than sufficiently disturbed about his 
 other piece of carelessness — the loss of the violin." 
 
 " Did that calm him ? " inquired Savigny, with the 
 faintest twinkle. 
 
 " He said his grandfather was to know, and that if I did 
 not tell the whole story instantly on my arrival, he would 
 write. He added that he would not play again — would 
 
420 SUCCESSION 
 
 break his bow — some such trash. I said that the best he 
 could do was to stay quietly, and make the last concert 
 more worthy of us and of his reputation. He had no an- 
 swer, and I let him sleep on it — having told him, of course, 
 the news. Next morning he was steadier, and let me go 
 without a fuss." 
 
 Savigny sat forward. "Did he write?" he asked, knit- 
 ting his brows. 
 
 " Yes. He must have done so that very night. My 
 father," said Lucien, " has not had the letter." 
 
 "Did you read it?" 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Lemaure should have it," said Savigny, moving. " You 
 are wrong, Lucien, on my word. It is very possible now 
 that Antoine may not see him conscious." 
 
 " The letter was nothing but tantrums," said Lucien. 
 
 " You are unjust," Savigny persisted, " to both, remem- 
 ber. It is no trivial responsibility." 
 
 Lucien, stirred by the words, turned slightly. "I tore 
 it," he said. 
 
 Savigny, who had sat up, sank back with a gesture. 
 " Go," he said quietly. " And see, if you are to be in there, 
 send the boy to me. He will have had enough." 
 
 Lucien went into the quiet room, and stood by his father's 
 bedside, still biting his lip. The clash that had occurred 
 was violent, though neither side had raised their voices, and 
 though they were old adversaries, well used to difference; 
 but he was glad nevertheless to have spoken the thing, for, 
 prudent by habit and necessity, he did not love conceal- 
 ment. He was always ready to defend any course of action 
 he had chosen. In this case he had performed his filial 
 duty, as he conceived it, and he could not complicate that 
 pre-eminent duty with others just now. He had gained 
 the thing he wanted, the thing he needed, a clear field, and 
 a few hours of undisturbed communion with this excep- 
 tional man, by whose guidance he had lived. In the fields 
 of reflection and of memory on which he desired to enter. 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 421 
 
 Antoine's hot young spirit worried him. The mere neigh- 
 bourhood of the incalculable thing called genius put him 
 out. It had broken his rare seasons of peace so often — it 
 had intruded even between himself and his wife of late — 
 he had flown from it, thrust it by. If he had used the boy's 
 failure to shame him into submission, he could not yet 
 regret employing such tools. It had to be, for it was peace 
 and peace alone he sought for now ; if he could have 
 prayed, he would have prayed for that, like all who watch 
 the dying — just quiet of mind, in deference to the august 
 eternal peace. 
 
 He had not found it : he had failed. As he stood watch- 
 ing his father's face he knew it. He had nothing to com- 
 plain of, he had been treated in each interview with the 
 same exquisite care and courtesy, but the last tenderness 
 he desired was missing — the gap was there. There was a 
 want, his spirit felt it now, that all his faithful love could 
 not supply. It was the thing in all life that Lucien had 
 missed: that divine touch which, the poet says, of three 
 sounds makes harmony. The musical image was with him 
 unawares, as it was almost bound to be. He had spoilt 
 the closing chord of one musician's life, and the musician 
 was his father. 
 
 Nor could he enter that other peace, the peace of a steady 
 
 md unshaken faith, that illumined the elder man's face, in 
 
 he happier intervals between suffering. To the son's more 
 
 clodding, self-tormenting nature, that consolation was not 
 
 granted either. He envied now — knowing not that he was 
 
 mvying — the little chaplet betraying itself by a gleam of 
 
 :;ilver under one beautiful hand. The other hand lay on 
 
 ^hilip's hair ; for the boy, when his uncle came, was sitting 
 
 in the floor beside the bed, his head resting sidelong upon 
 
 t. He was still grasping his book, and the crumpled paper 
 
 i his aunt's telegram lay across the open page. He did 
 
 ot stir as Lucien approached. 
 
 " Asleep ? " he said, very low. 
 
 The boy shrugged slightly and turned his eyes. Both 
 
422 SUCCESSION 
 
 watched and listened for a space, while the wind without 
 shook the panes ; but there was no sign from the motionless 
 figure. 
 
 " Did you speak to him ? " Lucien murmured. 
 
 " The wind worried him, I could see by his eyes. So I 
 said they were not coming over to-night." He glanced at 
 the telegram, the contents of which Lucien knew. " Come 
 to-morrow midday boat," it ran. " Concert successful. 
 Cecile." 
 
 " You told him your aunt had not been well ? Did he 
 speak ? " 
 
 " I saw him say ' Pauvre petite/ so he understood." 
 
 " No more? " said his uncle. 
 
 " When he opened his eyes, I said Bebe's concert was all 
 right. I said Bebe on purpose, because Savigny said his 
 mind had gone back. I don't think he followed, though. 
 He only looked at me." There was another interval. " Is 
 it safe now ? " the boy murmured, still motionless. 
 
 " I think it is. My dear, had you not better go to bed? " 
 For Philip, still lying where he was, had shut his eyes. 
 
 "I've been reading too much," he answered proudly; 
 and after a minute he laid the passive hand aside, kissed it, 
 and rose. 
 
 Philip came into the ring of lamplight in the study still 
 blinking, and walking stiffly, for guarding one posture so 
 long had strained even his active limbs. 
 
 Savigny, reflecting by the fire in his grandfather's chair, 
 held a hand out without turning ; and the boy went to him 
 as though accepting the exchange which that place and 
 movement suggested. By tacit agreement everybody in the 
 small household seemed to unite their efforts to spare its 
 youngest member. Savigny himself was no exception, 
 though in school-time he took Philip's ability and attain- 
 ments seriously. They had admitted him now and again to 
 his grandfather, at such times as the sick man remembered 
 and asked for him ; but those times grew rarer as his mind 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 423 
 
 grew weaker, and Philip had had but a slight portion of 
 the strain of that prolonged vigil that had worn the others 
 out. How it came about that neither IMargot, Lucicn, nor 
 the doctor discovered that they were offering him quite 
 an undue meed of indulgence and . consideration at each 
 moment of the day, I leave it to those who solve the mys- 
 teries of inheritance to judge. Henriette Lemaure had 
 never been surprised by such masking of the thorns of life 
 by her attentive surroundings, and Philip took it nearly as 
 unquestioningly. Nearly — for the man and woman of 
 twenty years must differ ; and Philip was annoyed at mo- 
 ments to find his practical uses so generally neglected. At 
 other moments — and the present was one — the attention 
 and sympathy were comfortable merely. 
 
 "You've not been trying to read in there?" said Sa- 
 vigny, noticing the book still in his hand. 
 
 ** No. I thought I could, perhaps, but the light goes so 
 soon." 
 
 " Don't play tricks with your eyes, or you will regret it 
 later. Have they been aching again ? " 
 
 " Only a bit," said Philip, turning aside. 
 
 " Come here and let me see," commanded Savigny. 
 
 The tall young student obeyed meekly, and dropped 
 kneeling at his side. Savigny drew the lamp close, took his 
 chin, and gazed a minute fixedly. Philip thought what a 
 queer face he had, and how little terrifying really. 
 
 " You might hypnotise me while you are about it," he 
 muttered, wincing away after he had borne the scrutiny for 
 a minute or so. It was useless of course to disguise from 
 the examiner that tears and not treatises accounted for the 
 present strain. 
 
 " Would you like me to? " said the doctor. " You would 
 DC an easy subject, probably. Are you sleeping well?" 
 Philip had to admit it. " Working well, evidently." He 
 jlanced at the book, an essay of his own. " Eating ad- 
 nirably. Pulse as steady as a pendulum — try." Philip 
 ried, making a slight face as he did so. " No excuse then, 
 
424 SUCCESSION 
 
 is there? Get along." He pinched the boy's chin, and set- 
 tled the lampshade he had tilted. 
 
 " I wish you weren't so particular," said Philip, subsiding 
 into a seat. " I say, did you find out why young Charret- 
 teur came to-day ? " 
 
 " He appeared to want your brother. By the way, he's 
 older than you." 
 
 " He's a fish," said Philip, disregarding the remark. " A 
 queer fish. That is what we say in English." 
 
 " I should like to find the hook to catch such fishes," ob- 
 served Savigny. " Had you any theory yourself why he 
 came ? " He did not mean to go into the story, as to the 
 rights of which he was not yet privately satisfied, but he 
 liked testing people's judgment, quite apart from adopting 
 their opinion ; and he had enough experience of Philip's 
 age to know it always had a theory ready at call. 
 
 Philip ruminated. " I thought," he said, " either to bring 
 some news about that fiddle of ours — or to beg." 
 
 "To beg?" Savigny's brows fixed in a scowl — a sign 
 of interest. 
 
 " Antoine gave him money last time," said Philip, 
 pleased to inform. " He asked me for bread to-day, though 
 he seemed to be half fooling at the time. He is a fish, that 
 fellow." 
 
 Savigny scratched his chin, " I believe I owe him some 
 money myself," he said suddenly, and subsided into mus- 
 ing. Philip supposed he had heard nothing of the violin, 
 or he would have said so. His respect for Savigny's reflec- 
 tions was vast ; so in order not to disturb him, he took up 
 the psychological treatise, and laying it carefully open on 
 his knee, prepared to study it. Only, instead of doing so, 
 he stared at the fire, absently twisting a lock at the back of 
 his head. 
 
 " Let your hair alone," snapped the tyrant, without warn- 
 ing. "I hate fidgetty tricks. Phil, had you heard your 
 brother had rate? " 
 
 " IVhatf " Philip's hand dropped, and his pale face 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 425 
 
 flushed. He gazed helplessly at Savigny. " It's not true, 
 sir, is it?" 
 
 Savigny, experimenting as usual, was pleased at such 
 instant response from a subject younger and more sensitive 
 than Lucien. He had never given Philip credit for much 
 natural sympathy with his brother — none of the French 
 contingent who saw the pair together ever did — so that his 
 present emotion was the more pleasing. 
 
 " M. Charretteur had heard of it, and your uncle knew. 
 M. Charretteur's friends might be fishes like himself ; but 
 your uncle's word cannot be doubted." 
 
 " You mean he never let on ? " snapped Philip. 
 
 " Lucien purposed to spare us ; but such things get out. 
 I gather he broke down completely, before a roomful. 
 What do you think of it ? " 
 
 Philip rose, and held the chimney-piece. " I've a mind 
 to go to England at once," he said, in a crisp tone like his 
 father's. " You mean he was left alone, after that, to face 
 another concert ? " 
 
 " The other concert is over now," said Savigny, pleased 
 again at a line of thought so sympathetic with his own. 
 " It's well over, too, according to your aunt." 
 
 " That doesn't make it much better," growled Philip. 
 " He must have been baited half to death to fail in the first 
 place." Pie considered hard a minute, staring at the coals. 
 " I can't believe it," he admitted, turning. " It's not a bit 
 like him, sir. If you knew " 
 
 " Would you not call him nervous? " 
 
 " Of course ; but not in that way. He would play in 
 front of anybody, always, when he was five years old. He 
 enjoys a crowd of people — you have only to see him at it. 
 When he has got his hand in, the more the better — d'you 
 ;ee?" 
 
 " Your uncle calls him careless," said Savigny. 
 
 " He isn't," the boy said bluntly. " He rags my uncle, 
 )f course — always did. I remember grandpapa rowing him 
 ibout it, in this room, when he was ten. He was fairly 
 
426 SUCCESSION 
 
 sinful at ten — I suppose he was well." He stopped, and 
 Savigny waited. " But this — now — it would be the other 
 way. They've been at him, I bet — harrying him round with 
 his duty, and the credit of the family, and what grandpapa 
 expects — when all he asks is to stand up anywhere and 
 play out what's in him." Philip broke off short. He was 
 still visibly flushed, and his tone was warm. 
 
 " Well done," said Savigny. " If I had known you were 
 so observant, Phil, I would have come to you sooner for 
 evidence. It was a bad day, then, and other people's fault. 
 Is that your theory ? " _ j 
 
 " I'm pretty sure it's not his," said Philip, turning his ! 
 eyes away. " Careless ! My word — you should have seen 
 him tackle Duchatel's recital here, when he had that fright- 
 ful cold — " : 
 
 " Which ? " said Savigny. 
 
 " All right. I shouldn't have let on. Anyhow, the sonata 
 was a corker. Axel, who is a strong fellow, told me after 
 it he had had about enough. The young one was done for 
 simply : couldn't speak to us for some minutes " 
 
 " Breathless ? " said Savigny sharply. 
 
 " Oh, he got over it," said Philip. " He was frightfully 
 hoarse as well. But it was no wonder: you should have 
 seen the way he went at it." 
 
 " Perhaps I had better," said Savigny, " since you have 
 said so three times." 
 
 "Said what?" 
 
 " That it is my duty to see." 
 
 Philip was brought up. " I say — I didn't mean — of course 
 he would be jolly pleased if you would." 
 
 " Do you think so ? " 
 
 " He has always been a little sore neither you nor papa 
 would attend. That's another odd thing about Tony's 
 nerves — he likes people he knows to be there. It makes it 
 twice as bad for me " 
 
 " How often have you played in public ? " asked Savigny. 
 "You mean to inform me that Antoine would not break 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 427 
 
 down at the next concert right off, if I sat in the front 
 row ? " 
 
 " He'd break you down," said Philip, with conviction. 
 " That's the one with Ribiera, the sixth of January. Grand- 
 papa said, the last time he talked to me, the programme 
 was out of the way interesting. Do go, sir — it would be 
 ripping." 
 
 "Was the one you heard cut of the way interesting?" 
 asked Savigny. 
 
 "Which? I've heard several." 
 
 " The one that took your breath away, and his." 
 
 " Oh — well — grandpapa would not have cared for it. I 
 expect you'd like this better." 
 
 " Thanks. The question is," said the tyrant, " if the 
 programme fits into mine." He fished for his engagement- 
 book and studied it for some minutes ; or appeared to study, 
 for his eyes w^ere not looking at it all the time. Then he 
 pocketed it, and locked his hands behind his head with 
 closed eyes. 
 
 "Any questions?" he asked presently of a sudden, al- 
 luding, it seemed, to Philip's book, into which the youth 
 had again subsided. 
 
 " Heaps," said Philip, glancing up. " But I sha'n't ask 
 them now. You're tired." 
 
 " With one line of thought," said Savigny. " So I change 
 to another — sea?" He extended a hand. " Allons, mon 
 petit," he said, every line of his face altering to kindness. 
 He gave the boy practically a lecture after that, and Lucien, 
 when he re-entered the room, was amazed at him. There 
 was simply no tiring Raymond. He seemed more than 
 mortal, supporting them all, though his own suffering could 
 not be doubted for an instant by those who knew him so 
 well. He was wonderful with Philip now, watching him 
 closely, while he talked, waiting for him, humouring his 
 difficulties, luminously clear in statement, and showing at 
 moments a reflection of the wit which in his public lectures 
 
428 SUCCESSION 
 
 captivated an audience by no means exclusively profes- 
 sional. 
 
 " That boy," he said later to Lucien, when he joined him 
 for dinner, " is much more susceptible than he appears." 
 
 " The English mask is deceptive," said Lucien. 
 
 " I thought when he first came," Savigny proceeded, " that 
 he was the stiffest young coxcomb I had ever met. I even 
 thought of discouraging his entrance into my profession." 
 
 " Is self-conceit such a bar to your profession ? " said 
 Lucien. 
 
 " Naturally. To any work where constant research and 
 an open mind are imperative. One has perpetually," said 
 Savigny, " to revise one's most firmly established opinions — 
 a proceeding which amour-propre cannot endure." 
 
 Lucien lifted his eyebrows. He could not be stirred to 
 dispute. 
 
 " In fact," finished Savigny, " though a little may be al- 
 lowed to the student age, one cannot attain my years with- 
 out the quality being entirely eliminated. I argued that 
 lately with Louis Bronne, and he agreed." 
 
 " Tiens," said Lucien. 
 
 " The nicest thing about Louis is his responsiveness," 
 said Savigny. 
 
 " I beg your pardon, Raymond. What opinions has 
 Philip obliged you to change ? " 
 
 " I did not say it was changed. I said I had to consider 
 the possibility of revising it." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Lucien. " Well, the state of mind cannot 
 last. You a-re low-spirited, Raymond — no wonder. Come 
 and dine." 
 
 The fact that Margot's dinner was excellent, and that 
 Philip ate his share of it most heartily, did not prevent him 
 from feeling intensely miserable when he retired later to 
 his room — or rather to Antoine's, of which he was in occu- 
 pation. Healthy youth seizes on what the body needs me- 
 chanically, even when the eternally insoluble prol)lems of life 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 429 
 
 and death are tearing at the mind. Savigny was summoned, 
 in the middle of the meal, by the night nurse, who had 
 just arrived. For though a nurse is evidently an expensive 
 luxury, and though M. Lemaure's son, his friend and his 
 servant were all ready to sacrifice their sleep for him, and 
 even disputed the privilege, after three nights it became 
 clear to Savigny's good sense that it was no real economy 
 to sacrifice their health as well. For this night, trusting to 
 I the nurse and the telephone, he had intended to go home; 
 I but as the evening advanced, and quiet sank upon the va- 
 I rious floors of the household and the wide street without, 
 ' in the sufferer's room the powers of life and death drew 
 ! up in battle-line, and the doctor set all thoughts of rest 
 I aside, and flung himself with his accustomed fury into the 
 i ranks of the defence. Savigny was wonderful thus to see, 
 j terrible even, for a will that had hardly known resistance 
 i from man was set, like Lucifer's, against the invincible 
 forces. He could not win, and yet he fought undismayed — 
 wild, as Bronne had called him when he fought for the 
 i little Antoine — as though he would have laid his life beside 
 his friend's. Lucien was cowed by him, Margot breathless 
 with admiration, but Philip, his young pupil, was not al- 
 lowed a glimpse of that last noble conflict ; and alas, had 
 he seen, he knew he could not have borne the sight. His 
 uncle's face, when the summons came at dinner, had been 
 enough. Philip shrank inwardly before it, and retreated 
 as soon as possible to his garret behind the kitchen, where 
 he sat with his head resting on his hand, feeling incon- 
 ceivably solitary. 
 
 He did not fear to be wanted by the little group about 
 : the dying man. He knew — something had informed him 
 already — that these last grave hours belonged to the elder 
 people. He was forgotten — stranded. He could only wait, 
 hoping for nothing, fearing the least whisper, furious with 
 the long whining of the wind that mocked his pain, longing 
 most bitterly for something young to talk to, something 
 of his own kind to join him in this place apart. Left to 
 
430 SUCCESSION 
 
 grope alone, he could only repeat to himself his uselessness, 
 the uselessness of all things. Yesterday he had believed 
 in science and Savigny ; but now that these could not save 
 his grandfather, the faith grew thin and stale. 
 
 Nothing in his experience could help him. He had 
 missed his mother, of course, though he had been languid 
 after a long illness when the news was broken to him, and 
 the shock had only come home to his spirit by degrees. He 
 had missed her profoundly, as an exquisite image, a daily 
 romance, a stirring, charming presence that had vanished 
 from his life — not as many mothers are missed. Henriette 
 had seized upon her children's imagination, on their devo- 
 tion, in Philip's case on a young unconscious chivalry ; not, 
 like her father, on their reverence and their trust. It was 
 in part owing to his mother's example, in part to his own 
 nature, that Philip had from quite early years adorned his 
 grandfather's image with all the graces, and had grown 
 easily to regard him as something a little more than human. 
 He was devoted to his father; in all the ordinary needs 
 of life he could turn to Jem for counsel ; but there were 
 certain contingencies, he felt, which, owing to fortune, 
 had never yet occurred, but which always might — certain 
 tempests of soul that had merely muttered, certain shocks 
 of doubt and shadows of despair only darkening his dreams 
 at present; and childlike he felt, that if these should ever 
 confront him in lifetime and in daylight — his grandfather 
 was always there. 
 
 M. Lemaure was one who, by his very existence, replaced 
 a faith for his surroundings. He had become an idol un- 
 wittingly, as those may do who are strong and simple of 
 soul. Fervently religious his whole life long, he had never 
 tried to enmesh his children or his friends. Marcel had 
 been a languid believer, Lucien had argued himself con- 
 scientiously into independence of the church. Henriette 
 had observed the forms as women do, revelled in confes- 
 sion as an excitable girl, and laughed openly at all the laws 
 and ordinances her father most prized. His son-in-law. 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 451 
 
 whose sincerity he respected, was a Protestant, Savigny a 
 rabid materialist, his other sons had lapsed more or less 
 through inhabiting foreign lands. To none of his circle but 
 the abbe, a friend of later life, could he speak his inmost 
 thoughts quite freely ; and the abbe was a man of narrow 
 outlook and rigid tenets with whom he often failed to agree. 
 For the new generation he prayed constantly, but recog- 
 nising James Edgell's right, he refrained from action and 
 had never voluntarily tampered with their young minds. 
 Only Antoine, the child, had been unconsciously at mo- 
 ments allowed to see his own; for to M. Lemaure art and 
 religion came very near to meeting at certain points; and 
 no child of his had been initiated into art by him with such 
 earnest concentration as the last. 
 
 Margot, who forgot nobody among her bewildering mass 
 of small duties as the only servant, brought Philip some 
 food towards midnight, and remained with little persuasion 
 to converse. Margot, Philip's faithful ally and adorer, 
 filled some of his need; and her simple talk of the dying 
 man relieved him. He encouraged her to revive memories 
 of his mother's young days in the house, of M. Savigny's 
 patient courtship, of Alonsieur son papa's breezy conquest, 
 of his own charms and wickedness at five years old, and of 
 the arrival seven years later of ce chcr petit, whose absence 
 at such a junction JNIargot quietly mourned. 
 
 " He knew it when he started, monsieur. But I am sure 
 he knew it, his look at Alonsieur was so strange. And he 
 kissed me with a violence — his little fingers bruised my arm. 
 He knows more than all of them, he always did ; but he is 
 too good and devoue to say so. It was Monsieur's wish 
 sent him to that England, and it is Alonsieur's wish that 
 should recall him now. But monsieur your uncle would not 
 see it — he left that telegram till this morning. And now 
 Madame is ill, and he will be too late." 
 
 "Where will he sleep when he comes?" said Philip, to 
 turn her thoughts from a subject on which he also had felt 
 uneasiness. The great convulsion of illness had disturbed 
 
432 SUCCESSION 
 
 all the customary arrangements in the house, and at the 
 best of times the space was limited. But Margot, he dis- 
 covered, had planned it all in advance. M. Antoine should 
 have her little bed in the kitchen ; he loved the warm, and 
 she had killed most of the blackbeetles he so disliked. 
 Madame was provided for on the third floor, a fine room 
 she had occupied once before. If la petite Yvonne came 
 with Madame, heaven would be good to Margot, and fur- 
 ther inspire her. That indeed would be the climax, yes. 
 
 " It would be a problem," admitted Philip. " She is 
 nearly as particular as my aunt ; and I don't suppose either 
 of them would put up with many blackbeetles. What about 
 you, I say ? " 
 
 " I shall be on my feet till it is finished," said the woman 
 quietly. " There will be much to do. In any case, a chair 
 will suffice." 
 
 Having fed and flattered M. Philippe sufficiently, and 
 made him as comfortable as her means could compass, she 
 left him late ; and rather later still he slept. He dreamt 
 persistently of his brother, mingled with tragedy, storm and 
 wreckage; dreams no doubt inspired by the rattling of the 
 attic casement, and the wailing wind. Latest of all he 
 awoke, and found Antoine sitting by his bed. 
 
 Philip, full of his visions, roused to their subject's actual 
 presence by degrees, with full leisure to do so, for he did 
 not move at once. He was sitting in the deep chair near 
 the bedside, where in old days it had been his grandfather's 
 custom to sit. Philip remembered having seen him so long 
 since, with Antoine a mere baby at his feet. He had told 
 them then, in his exquisitely simple language, the life of 
 Pascal, and Pliilip, a schoolboy on holiday, had listened 
 entranced to all the early part, and been bored by the end. 
 The child of eight had been motionless throughout. The 
 elder brother remembered the whole scene in a flash, seeing 
 the boy sitting there ; for he sat in M. Lemaure's very atti- 
 tude, his brow sidelong on his hand, his fine long fingers 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 433 
 
 I dividing his hair, pushed back a trifle by the gesture. The 
 
 I movement disclosed some little lines, and his eyes were 
 ! shaded slightly, but he looked rather serious than dis- 
 j tressed. The quality of the daylight, entering by the low 
 
 II window beyond, proved that it was late. 
 
 ' As Philip gazed, the boy turned his eyes, and the look 
 
 of age was swept from his face. That had happened also, 
 
 always, when his grandfather's thoughts were interrupted. 
 
 " What — on — earth " began Philip helplessly, still 
 
 I doubting if he saw a ghost. 
 " Tu as bien dormi ? " Antoine suggested. 
 "What are you doing there?" said Philip, remorselessly 
 English in manner and speech. 
 
 " I have been waiting — since an hour," said Antoine, 
 English too to oblige him. " That is all." 
 "You came — alone?" He nodded. 
 " My aunt did not mind," he explained. " I told her I 
 had got to. I have brought her box. She comes to-day 
 with Yvonne." 
 
 " How did the concert go ? " said Philip, still waking 
 slowly. " I say — Fve got your bed." 
 
 " Yes ; I do not want it," said Antoine. " You are well 
 
 i there, hein? Comfortable." Stretching a little forward, 
 
 : he leant an elbow on the bed for a change, and looked at 
 
 i Philip with most friendly eyes. At an answering movement 
 
 ; of course, he would have embraced him, but Philip made a 
 
 i point of never encouraging that. He had taught Antoine, 
 
 ' at the age of six, to beware how he attempted it. He took 
 
 hold of the wrist instead. " Bebe, what's happened ? " he 
 
 muttered anxiously. He could not say how it entered him 
 
 through the boy's eyes, now seen so near, that the worlds 
 
 had moved while he slept. 
 
 " It is all right," said Antoine, to reassure him. " There 
 is nothing to happen again. Savigny says the pain cannot 
 come back." 
 
 " Has it been " 
 
 " It has been an awful night," said the boy, looking 
 
434 SUCCESSION 
 
 thoughtfully through him. The elder bit his lip, realising. 
 For Antoine on the sea, for Savigny in the sick-room, it had 
 doubtless been awful. But he had slept. 
 
 " He will live to the night, perhaps," Antoine pursued, 
 with the same curious ease. " M. I'abbe went to him at eight 
 — that is an hour ago." 
 
 Philip moved. " You mean — you were there ? " 
 
 "Yes, yes; he let me go in, with Margot. I had just 
 come, at eight. I was wet, and very dirty." His calmness, 
 to Philip, was the most amazing thing of all. Even his 
 great eyes were perfectly calm, as they moved about the 
 room, taking note, as it were, of familiar objects from his 
 upper level. 
 
 " You and Margot — was that all ? " Philip felt intensely 
 curious. 
 
 " And the sister that is there. My uncle and Savigny 
 did not wish, you see. They were outside." 
 
 "Are you a Catholic?" said the elder brother. He had 
 no idea what he was, in this strange moving of the worlds. 
 
 The boy made a little movement. " Soon. My uncle 
 held my arm — perhaps because I was so dirty with the 
 trains ; but M. I'abbe saw me in passing, and he let me go. 
 I washed my hands," he added, with exquisite simplicity, 
 " because he always looked at that." 
 
 " Grandpapa ? " 
 
 " Yes. And once he said — long ago — that le bon Dieu 
 did also." 
 
 "Grandpapa recognized you then?" 
 
 After a short pause 'he boy said : " I do not think so. 
 But I was very near, beside the bed." 
 
 Philip's eyes stung with tears. " It's too horrible," he 
 muttered, " and I've had him all these weeks. It — isn't 
 fair. Why didn't you come with my uncfe ? " 
 
 " I could not. There was a concert." 
 
 " Why didn't you cut it ? " 
 
 " I could not," he said again. " It had to be a good one. 
 Afterwards, I saw that too." 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 435 
 
 "Not at the time?" 
 
 " No. I said a lot of rude things to my uncle. I was 
 excited that night, after the other one — I wished to make 
 him angry too." He spoke as of something long past, his 
 brow strained, his eyes, for the moment, anguished. " I 
 expect he told grandpapa all that." 
 
 " I'm sure he told no tales of you. He couldn't be so 
 low. Don't worry," said Philip, in his father's tone. 
 
 " I wish I knew what he had said," the boy repeated. 
 
 " I don't think, anyhow," said Philip, with an effort, 
 " grandpapa would have minded. He wasn't thinking of us 
 at all ; only of maman and the old days. He had done 
 with us, I mean." 
 
 " Yes, yes," said Antoine, his brow slightly clearing. 
 " He was very old." He leant back in the chair. " I told 
 him in the letter," he said, with a certain satisfaction, clasp- 
 ing his long hands together, " that the last concert should 
 be good." 
 
 " But you can't tell him it was," said Philip, with a keen 
 look. Antoine shook his head and smiled faintly. " I say, 
 you're a bit proud of yourself this time, it strikes me." 
 
 " Because it was very hard," the boy explained. " It was 
 quite a difficult concert — but " His wide gesture sup- 
 plied boasting. 
 
 " Well," said Philip, after a pause, during which he was 
 quite convinced, " I should think you had better stop crow- 
 ing and go and get me some breakfast." 
 
 Antoine swung himself up at the suggestion, and went 
 to the kitchen, which adjoined his room. After a period, 
 during which Philip, who was hungry, grew impatient, he 
 returned with two bowls of hot chocolate, adroitly bal- 
 anced. " I made that," he observed. " Margot was not 
 there, but I have seen how she does it." 
 
 " Any fool can make chocolate," said Philip. " It smells 
 all right. You'll spill it if you throw it about like that." 
 His anxiety about spilling showed that he approved the mix- 
 ture, and Antoine was content. It remained enormously 
 
436 SUCCESSION 
 
 important to please Philip, who had shown himself so kind 
 and understanding lately. It was flattering — and amusing 
 also — to see him in occupation of Antoine's peculiar room, 
 which, as Philip remembered it in its original incarnation, 
 as a home of spiders and dust, he had never taken seriously 
 enough. It was decidedly kind of Philip to sit up in An- 
 toine's bed and drink his chocolate, and make English jests 
 by the way, in order to set the owner at his ease. 
 
 As for Philip, he could not have conceived that things he 
 had left so disordered and disjointed overnight, could have 
 come right so strangely. He represented it as the work of 
 sunlight and the new day, for he could not quite admit it 
 was the boy's presence and behaviour that had worked the 
 happy miracle. Tony fitted the occasion, as usual — so much 
 he might have allowed ; not that by his mere coming, his 
 easy posture in the chair, his quaint, careful sentences, he 
 had brought all things into tune — ^grief and contentment, 
 the exalted and the commonplace, life and death, the pres- 
 ent and the past : that he had done in short that which M. 
 Lemaure alone had been able to do. It was the touch of 
 art that Philip was suffering, the inexorable magic touch 
 that still transforms in spite of us ; that never hesitates to 
 test and examine first the materials it has to transmute, 
 but never fails to transmute them. Antoine had his own 
 manner of dealing with common things. He told Philip, in 
 the middle of drinking his chocolate, that he had break- 
 fasted already on arrival, but that he needed a good deal, 
 because he had been " so very sick " upon the sea. 
 
 " Did you stay up? " said his brother. 
 
 " Yes. That is how I got so wet. The waves," said 
 Antoine dreamily, " were rather beautiful all the time." 
 
 " Didn't Savigny rag you for coming alone? " said Philip, 
 eyeing him rather closely. 
 
 " No, He was pleased that I had come. He said I had 
 done well." 
 
 " What did my uncle say ? " 
 
 " Nothinsf. He was not thinkinsr of it." 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 437 
 
 " Is Savigny still here?" said Philip, after a pause. 
 
 " I think he has gone to the clinique ; it will soon be ten." 
 
 " Going to do a day's work after that? Oh, Lord, what 
 a fellow! Do you know he has had no sleep for three 
 nights? " 
 
 " He is very tired," said the boy. " My uncle was angry 
 with him for something, but he did not answer. He went 
 away. You see," he added, " there is no more to do." 
 
 Philip thought he need not emphasise the fact. His own 
 chief feeling was still a wish to escape from any deliberate 
 weighing of his loss. 
 
 " I shall go out," he said, with decision. " I must have 
 some air, or I shall be ill." 
 
 " I should like to come," said the boy. " I want to see 
 M. Bronne." 
 
 "What on earth for?" 
 
 " He is to tell me something. Do you think my uncle 
 would mind for us to go?" 
 
 " It would only be an hour or so," said Philip. " You go 
 and see." 
 
 " You go," said Antoine. 
 
 " Don't argue, or you'll make my head ache," said Philip. 
 Antoine drank the remains of his liquid slowly, set the cup 
 down with a tap, and went. He came back after a period, 
 looking quite different. 
 
 " Well ? " said Philip. 
 
 " I am not to go, he says. You may do as you prefer." 
 His voice had changed too, was lower and shaken. He had 
 had a shock evidently in the interval. Through Lucien, the 
 horror he had not felt for himself had touched him, dis- 
 turbing all his thoughts, and shattering for the moment 
 that spiritual vision of the dawn. 
 
 He sat down away from Philip, by the window, and 
 looked out with unseeing eyes. Philip, in the process of 
 dressing, glanced at him sharply once or twice, but he did 
 not move. His eyes were steady, but distended a trifle, re- 
 minding Philip of the profde study Jespersen had made 
 
438 SUCCESSION 
 
 long since, which he had scoffed at as theatrical. He might 
 have accused the boy of posing now, for one long hand lay 
 upon his heart, the other gripped the chair. Only when 
 Margot entered he stirred, changed posture, and clasped 
 both before him, his elbows on his knees. 
 
 " Pardon," said Margot, " M. Philippe has taken his 
 water, hein? I had to leave his breakfast because they 
 needed me." Then she saw the other occupant and ex- 
 claimed : " M. Antoine — mechant — you have not changed. 
 Did I not tell you? You were wringing wet when you 
 came." 
 
 " It has got dry," Antoine reassured her, " and the boxes 
 were all downstairs." He offered a sleeve to be tested as 
 she approached. 
 
 "And could you not have fetched what you wanted? 
 You are heartbreaking. You will do nothing for yourself, 
 and can I manage the affairs for everybody? It is not 
 reasonable to expect it. It is like that you have your colds, 
 and the good God knows in this house we can do with 
 
 nothing more. I do not need to be embraced, monsieur " 
 
 She accepted a kiss from him, though unmoved by it from 
 her attitude of censure. " You are still wet underneath, 
 without doubt. Come at once into the kitchen and undress 
 completely, that I may have you under my eyes." 
 
 Philip felt his responsibilities distinctly lighter when An- 
 toine had departed in the woman's charge. For though 
 Margot, like the majority of cooks, had a temper, her sever- 
 ity wfth the boy was apt to exhaust itself in words. Later, 
 when Philip passed the kitchen on his way out, Antoine 
 was sitting beside Margot, each on a wooden chair, and 
 talking to her rapidly and low. Philip saw the tears on his 
 face, and Margot's handkerchief clenched in her hand ; but 
 he could only guess the subject of their dialogue, as both 
 stopped when he came in. Whatever it was, their views 
 upon the immediate matter agreed, and they could cry and 
 converse upon an equal footing in comfort. Philip, being 
 convinced by long experience that Antoine was always the 
 
TRAGEDY PROCEEDS 439 
 
 better for talking in the end, decided to let him struggle 
 back to peace of mind in his own fashion without inter- 
 ference. Philip greatly preferred not to interfere. It was 
 of course the last thing in the world that would ever have 
 occurred to himself, to sit embracing his knees, with his 
 feet on the rail of a wooden chair, in front of softly hissing 
 saucepans, and exchange spiritual experiences with a cook. 
 On the other hand, it was just like Tony, and must con- 
 sequently be tolerated with the least visible embarrassment 
 he could contrive. 
 
 " You can have your room now," he said kindly, " I 
 should go in there, if I were you, and get some sleep." 
 
 " He shall sleep here in the warm, the cheri," said Mar- 
 got, drawing the boy's head upon her shoulder. She was 
 evidently moved, and had long left her anger behind. 
 " When the pastry is made I will consider, and find the 
 sheets for his little bed. M. Philippe need not disturb 
 himself, hein? " 
 
 Antoine's little movement seemed to agree that the less 
 disturbance that could be contrived in the world, the better, 
 since he found himself for the moment warm and com- 
 fortable by Margot's stove. His thoughts, peaceful and 
 painful alike, had all merged for the present in agreeable 
 drowsiness ; and the intermittent flare, crackle and puffs 
 from the burning wood filled the whole of his horizon, 
 while other things flitted sidelong past him, like shades. 
 
 " It's really wonderful, on the whole, how quietly he 
 takes it," thought Philip, on the stairs. " Because in a way 
 you would have said he must miss grandpapa more than 
 anyone." 
 
 ; It did not occur to him that what he had been witness- 
 ing, the trouble and tears that had disturbed him for an 
 hour, were but the aftermath of storm ; such a handful 
 of fierce drops as might have been flung from one of the 
 rags of cloud now scudding across the faint blue winter 
 sky. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 AND FINISHES 
 
 Philip walked furiously half-way up the hill, before he 
 bethought himself that he was making on instinct for the 
 habitation of his friends, and that, as it was Christmas 
 week, they had probably scattered to the winds. Then it 
 occurred to him that Jespersen the faithful might still be 
 there, and that the quiet northerner had a soothing presence 
 that might be more grateful than the folly of the French- 
 men, or Ostrowski's tiresome activity of body and brain. 
 So he went on, climbed to the haunts of the Rats, and 
 found, as he expected, all the rooms abandoned but the 
 studio, which was evidently still occupied, for smoke hung 
 upon the air. Philip waited for a period, admired — since 
 being solitary he could admire — a fine half-finished study 
 of a woman that stood upon the easel, looked at photographs 
 of Scandinavian snow scenes with envious desire of the 
 purity and solitude they represented, and finally became 
 impatient. Catching the caretaker on the stairs, he learnt 
 that M. Jespersen had gone to Notre Dame. 
 
 "Whatever for?" said Philip indignantly. 
 
 To paint, the concierge supposed, since ces messieurs 
 were not devots. 
 
 Philip, thus reassured, clattered down the wooden stairs, 
 and made by back streets for the cathedral. The sun had 
 come out, though the clouds were still flying, and the river 
 scenes were daintily clear in the winter light. Philip was 
 reminded of the season by stacks of mistletoe on the quays, 
 and little fir-trees before the flowershops; and straight- 
 440 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 441 
 
 way his mind rushed back to Antoinc's first Christmas in 
 Paris, which he had kindly come from England to attend. 
 M. Lemaure on that occasion had bought a ridiculously 
 small tree for a few sous, and decorated it according to his 
 own ideas, regardless of Philip's English criticism, and the 
 fact that he had none of the trade materials. He remem- 
 bered watching him operate with a kind of wonder: he 
 seemed so certain of what he wanted, so sure in doing it, 
 only pausing to consider at intervals, his eyes on the sky 
 without ; and then the overwhelming effect on Philip's 
 mind of his last proceeding, which was to lift the white and 
 green thing, faintly glittering, that he had made, and set 
 it in the high window against the dark blue twilight sky, 
 as though that had been throughout his intention. And 
 Philip had abandoned all idea of the conventional object 
 in his own mind, and had only found a new faith in his 
 grandfather's power of evolving beauty independently of 
 poverty and all sordid inconveniences. 
 
 It was during this first visit also, Philip remembered, 
 that he discovered to his surprise, almost to his discomfort, 
 that it was not his grandfather, but his uncle, who was 
 teaching Antoine ; and that M. Lemaure's own lessons were 
 rare, and more of the nature of periodic tests than regular 
 instruction. They read together truly, over a surprising 
 range of subjects, in at least three languages ; but the elder 
 brother could never remember having seen musical history 
 or criticism in the boy's hand. Beyond that, Antoine's 
 business with his grandfather was to copy the rough 
 manuscripts ; and even then he was far more often re- 
 proved for carelessness than commended for his almost 
 eerie understanding of the much-corrected scrawls. Alto- 
 gether, Philip in his wisdom had decided that M. Lemaure 
 had not educated his natural representative in the technical 
 business of his calling at all ; and had at most entered from 
 time to time into a discussion of general principles ; taking 
 frequently by preference a line with the child that seemed 
 to the domestic critics either too playful or too severe ; and 
 
442 SUCCESSION 
 
 which not infrequently annoyed or disturbed everybody 
 present except Antoine himself, who remained amused, at- 
 tentive, or perhaps a little inquiring. 
 
 Turning on to the island, Philip's eye caught Manuel 
 Ribiera's name on a column, and it jerked him from his 
 dreams into the actual. Yes, there it was beneath, the name 
 Philip shared, that was now becoming familiar in the public 
 streets. It reminded him that the concert was due quite 
 soon, and that his brother could not take a breathing-space 
 even during the holiday, for they had rehearsed only once 
 in London, and then Ribiera had been freakish and un- 
 satisfactory, according to his uncle. He had meant to ask 
 Antoine what he thought of the gilded celebrity, and it had 
 slipped his mind. What Ribiera thought of Antoine was 
 easier to surmise. He would be amused by him probably, 
 take him in hand, possibly make his fortune: that was 
 really funny, and caused Philip to smile. The boy had con- 
 fided to him that morning that, negligent as usual, he had 
 arrived at the terminus with a single halfpenny, which he 
 had had to offer to the porter with apologies. 
 
 At this point, having attained the Paris Notre Dame, it 
 became necessary to consider whether Jespersen would be 
 more probably found within the building or without. He 
 would be sketching details for a background probably, but 
 Philip had recently rather lost count of him and his plans. 
 Finally he decided to look round the interior first, and 
 pushed the entrance door with a careless hand. 
 
 Thereupon, Our Lady of Paris revenged herself upon his 
 heedlessness, for the boy was overcome, as by a revelation, 
 by the sombre glory and dense stillness of the church. 
 Philip had forgotten the darkness he would meet there, 
 coming from the sun without. His eyes were cut off, as 
 by a velvet curtain, in their instinctive search for distrac- 
 tion from serious thought. The underpart of his mind was 
 forced to work, and he knew he must strive now with the 
 vision of his loss, just like any other common sufferer who 
 had ever crawled into that sanctuary. Dropping his quest, 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 443 
 
 he sat for half-an-hour on a bench, gazing before him with 
 set lips and fingers clenched. First, he felt a shame for 
 having so rarely been inside this place, for having regarded 
 it, British fashion, as a show, instead of as an intimate part 
 of innumerable humble lives. He could not say why that, 
 the tragic aspect of the church's meaning, struck him first. 
 It was not a mere ornament, a glory of the capital, it was 
 Paris itself, the inner side, representing thousands of 
 crushed lives in the small streets round, for hundreds of 
 years. The shadow that haunted it was the shadow of 
 eternity; the faint sounds, plaintive in the stillness, were 
 the echoes of human grief. Then grief itself, true grief, 
 smote Philip, the grief which life demands as a toll, higher 
 for every year the sufferer lives. It was his first grief, and 
 so his truest; sweeping away the little sentiment of his 
 memories, so carelessly seized and stored, shaking, rebuild- 
 ing and bracing him ; teaching him, as youth must be taught 
 once at least, by defeat. 
 
 Jespersen, the bearded student, who was not far away, 
 crouched modestly in a corner with a sketch-book in one 
 hand, and a pencil balanced across the other, saw Philip, 
 noted in passing the admirable drawing of his head and 
 shoulders, and resisted with success the temptation to trans- 
 fer them to his book. For those who knew Jespersen, it 
 would have been sufficient to say this, to prove in him a 
 genuine sympathy. He had a friendliness for Philip, not 
 only as an obliging model ; the attraction one northern 
 I spirit feels for another in a Gallic milieu. Philip frequently 
 : followed meanings in Jespersen's work that the other Rats 
 failed to see, or disapproved entirely if they saw. The Gallic 
 Rats were suspicious of significance in art, but Jespersen, 
 regardless of them, introduced a good deal. The signif- 
 icance of Edgell's rigid posture and gripped hands in the 
 cathedral was, for instance, an excellent inspiration, but 
 Jespersen renounced it. He dodged Philip neatly, and is- 
 sued through the western door, whence he circumvented the 
 building with deliberation, took a new seat in a conspicuous 
 
444 SUCCESSION 
 
 place, and began to sketch a portion of the exterior. There 
 he sat, his head tilted slightly, swinging his pencil over 
 wide curves, or jotting in the fretwork and carving, until 
 a long shadow fell across the page. 
 
 " That you ? " said Philip carelessly. " Isn't this a new 
 line?" 
 
 " No ; several old ones," said Jespersen, who spoke 
 English competently. " It strikes me all the same, Edgell, 
 that the parties who built this knew their trade better than 
 I do." He screwed his eyes at his drawing. 
 
 " Ripping," said Philip. " I always like pencil-work. 
 My father does it pretty well." 
 
 " Pencil is an invention of the devil to flatter the simple," 
 said the artist absently. " No offence to your father. I 
 mean it is useful, you understand." 
 
 " Perfectly," said Philip. " I'll tell him." 
 
 " And talking of utility, how's Antoine? " j 
 
 " Oh, as well as usual. He's just across." j 
 
 " I supposed the last news I saw would bring him. If i 
 there is nothing to tell, Edgell, don't tell it." 
 
 " There's no hope," said Philip briefly. The artist, crook- ' 
 ing the pencil deftly with his thumb, passed four fingers : 
 sidelong and gripped his hand. 
 
 " Is your brother bearing up?" he said. 
 
 " Perfectly extraordinarily," said Philip. 
 
 " What it is to have a brain ! He thought all round it 
 and out the other side — before he was five, probably." 
 
 " He was rather more than six," said Philip. 
 " So. Does he want you at home, or will you come to 
 lunch with me? " 
 
 Philip opined that Antoine would be all right, but that 
 the cook might miss him. 
 
 " I shall take little," said Jespersen, putting in finishing 
 touches, which were, Philip grieved to see, completely 
 imaginary, to the drawing. " I dined at ten last night by 
 an oversight. If you come along and disregard the cook, 
 I win veil you in gr-eat detail how it happened." 
 
TRA.GEDY FINISHES 445 
 
 So Jespersen, with the kind intent of cheering Philip up, 
 related his experience over a restaurant table. It proved 
 unexpectedly interesting to its auditor, and was successful 
 in turning his thoughts. 
 
 The previous evening Jespersen and a comrade, being in 
 a Christinas mood of festivity, and on adventure bent, had 
 penetrated into the wilds of Montmartre, and having missed 
 their dinner at a proper hour in pursuit of a lady who might 
 have served for Jespersen's next picture had he managed 
 to see her face, and finding themselves hopelessly lost, they 
 had dropped into a cafe towards ten to refresh their bodies 
 with food, and their memories by a map of the quarter. 
 
 " It was a cheap place near a theatre," said Jespersen, 
 " gilt over and smartened up, but I should say on the down- 
 ward grade. However, the food was passable, the com- 
 pany killing, and the music — this is the point — quite off the 
 common lines. We changed tables after a time, simply to 
 get a better view of the men who played. The first fiddle 
 was a ' type ' — eccentric-looking beggar and a bit sour — 
 sort of fellow you could see as Harlequin, or any essentially 
 tragic part with a comic side ; and the odd thing was, 
 Edgell, I knew his features by heart. As soon as I started 
 drawing him on the dinner bill, I could have sworn I had 
 drawn him before. Georges Charpentier reminded me. 
 He said, before we had sat for five minutes: ' If that's not 
 Charretteur, it's his twin brother.' Then I remembered. 
 I had once sketched Jacques Charretteur — it was at An- 
 toine's recital — and this fellow, squeaking away in a cheap 
 cafe, was exactly like him." 
 
 " The deuce he was," said Philip. Jespersen was look- 
 ing expectantly at him, for Philip, by right of his descent, 
 had successfully claimed and kept a position as referee in 
 the musical discussions of the fraternity. 
 
 " Do you know anything of his circumstances ? He's 
 touring, isn't he? " 
 
 " Lord knows where he is," said Philip. Jespersen saw 
 he withheld something, but did not press for it. 
 
446 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I'd have thought it done for a joke, or a bet ; but I 
 asked a fellow near by, who said Harlequin was a regular 
 at the place, and a bit of a draw, which didn't surprise me. 
 He was in a devil of a temper, anyone could see, but he 
 was playing brilliantly, and someone started the idea of a 
 collection. We handed in such sous as we could spare, '' 
 just for the fun of it. We had an idea, with a face like > 
 that, the man would refuse ; but he didn't. He just parted 
 the coins on a tray into four with his hand, handed it round : 
 the quartet like refreshments, and tossed the other fellows 
 for an odd franc with an air that made us laugh. He's a 
 born comedian anyhow. He wouldn't give us a solo, but 
 they put on an extra piece; which was not an arrangement 
 of low opera like the rest, but music ; and he played it like ' 
 a musician — and the company was bored." 
 
 " Fish," murmured Philip. " Pardon, Jespersen ; go on." 
 
 " I had a feeling something must occur before the even- 
 ing was up, he was so evidently excited ; and so it did. i 
 About eleven or so, he was drawn into a quarrel. There 
 was some pretty heavy drinking going on, and the theatre ^ 
 opposite turning out did not add to the quality of our! 
 society. We couldn't leave, though, it was so curious. 1; 
 don't quite know where the quarrel started, there was such 
 a noise at once. As far as we could gather, an unpleasant- 
 looking character in a cheap fur coat began abusing the 
 men at his table, raised his voice, stood up and shouted 
 something at our Harlequin on the platform. Harlequin 
 looked sidelong at him over the fiddle, sneered, and con- 
 tinued playing. Then there was a row — a jolly row. A 
 woman was in it — Columbine, naturally — and a fiddle 
 which Harlequin had stolen." 
 
 " A fiddle ? " gasped Philip. " When ? " 
 
 "Recently — in the last act. Columbine, I gather, had 
 been a party to the theft. Harlequin was charged with 
 stealing it, and her, from our friend in the cheap coat. He 
 denied both counts, jeering like Satan. The man, who 
 was pretty drunk, gave him the lie and, what convulsed 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 447 
 
 our audience, called him out. Harlequin, who was sober, 
 accepted the challenge without winking, and brought down 
 the house. At which point, up comes the manager, swear- 
 ing. Now, it struck me in rather a singular fashion, be- 
 cause there's a legend connected with the real Charretteur 
 about a duel, and he has the reputation of being one of the 
 finest fencers in Paris." 
 
 " Who told you ? " said Philip. 
 
 " Paul Ostrowski, who knows most of those fellows be- 
 hind scenes. I rather think Paul himself has had a bout 
 with him." 
 
 " Confound him," muttered Philip. Being but a beginner 
 in the art, prowess with the foils impressed him terribly. 
 He had rashly plumed himself the previous day on being 
 a better wrestler than Jacques, but now his superiority 
 dropped. 
 
 " We had to leave," said Jespersen, " before the comedy 
 was completed, but it turned ill for our hero. The man- 
 ager had better not have tried to intervene, for he caught 
 it from both, and Harlequin has a tongue as tough as his 
 twin brother's rapier. He enjoyed himself, I can tell you, 
 and he convulsed the room. He gave me an impression of 
 having been loaded up in advance, and only waiting to dis- 
 charge on somebody. He took on two as easily as one, and 
 raked them alternately, with an eye to the audience all the 
 while. Well, I should lay a good deal he has sacrificed his 
 engagement for that hour's innocent amusement, whether 
 he saves his honour at the sword's point or not. The little 
 manager was like a turkey-cock with fury." 
 
 " Did he stammer at all? " said Philip, after a pause. 
 
 " He did a trifle. Do you know him then ? " 
 
 " I might." 
 
 "Rather an odd occurrence, don't you think?" said 
 Jespersen. 
 
 Philip thought it was. He thought a good deal more 
 than he would say, it was clear. However, his friend saw 
 by his more lively look, and rapid questions, that the main 
 
448 SUCCESSION 
 
 object of diverting his mind for the time was accomplished. 
 The fact was, nothing ever pleased Philip more than the 
 chance of a little amateur criminal investigation. Such 
 psychological observation as he possessed turned naturally 
 in that direction. He found in Jespersen's experience, com- 
 bined with the details Antoine had given his father of 
 Jacques' story, a rather singular chain of circumstances. Had 
 he possessed Savigny's knowledge in addition, he would 
 have been saved some brain-searching; but conjecture sup- 
 plied the links missing well enough. Unless Charretteur 
 had a morbid passion for violin collecting, he could hardly 
 have stolen two violins in two months, especially if he knew 
 the police were on his tracks for the first. It was not, on 
 the other hand, so impossible that he should have witnessed 
 or suspected the theft in the original instance, lain low, and 
 despoiled the spoilers on his own account. That he should 
 have blarneyed the woman to accomplish it, Philip judged, 
 was not unlikely either, given his physiognomy; for there 
 certainly was a queer attraction about this " fish " of An- 
 toine's. Nor was it improbable that he had contrived the 
 crime for Antoine's sake ; though the possibility must still 
 be faced that he was playing for his own hand in the theft. 
 Yet, if so, why had he come of his own will to inquire for 
 the boy? And in that rather eager, hungry fashion? 
 Philip, having found the word hungry in his thoughts, en- 
 deavoured to lose it again, for it had an uncomfortable 
 connection with Jacques' request for bread. Fellows who 
 asked for bread were not in Philip's scheme of things, and 
 he did not want them there. 
 
 " Thanks, Jespersen," he said, at parting. " You have 
 given me food for thought." 
 
 " I observed you fattening on it," said the artist, " and 
 I venture to draw my own conclusions. If true, they will 
 make a fine tale." 
 
 " Do you mind not letting loose at present ? " said Philip. 
 " My family is implicated, that's the fact." 
 
 " My mouth is sealed," said Jespersen gravely. " Shall 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 449 
 
 I give you a general reflection instead? When anecdotes 
 collect about a personality, it implies something in the per- 
 son. He may be a poseur, which is the common product, 
 or an actor, which is the rare. An actor acts for his own 
 amusement, regardless of the public eye. He will pretend 
 to be a lunatic, when he is alone in a railway compartment. 
 Now, Charretteur has the true actor's type, I recognised 
 it as I drew him. Such as you or I, my dear Edgell, get 
 involved in knots by life ; but we get into untidy situations, 
 or awkward, or silly ones. The born actor, aided by his in- 
 stinct, gets tied into a picturesque knot always, colour and 
 atmosphere about him, and his situation makes a story. 
 My Harlequin was such, and I should not wonder if his 
 brother Jacques was as well. Your brother " 
 
 " Well ? " said Philip. 
 
 " He gets into other people's knots, I should imagine. I 
 don't imply he knows harlequins, or gets involved in shady 
 transactions." 
 
 " He does," said Philip. " At least I mean, he might." 
 
 " Well, he would make them sunny if he did, by his own 
 unassisted light. I love Antoine," said Jespersen, " though 
 he has stolen my best picture. Indeed that may be why. 
 Farewell." 
 
 Meanwhile, Antoine remained solitary for most of the 
 
 morning, for Savigny did not return, and his uncle did not 
 stir from his watch in the inner room. The kitchen in the 
 late morning grew admirably warm, as the sputtering wood 
 fire sank to a bed of embers, and the boy succumbed by 
 degrees to the heavy travelled feeling that had held off 
 during the earlier excitement. Towards lunch-time Mar- 
 got, who could afford him little attention, looked in. 
 
 " M. Duchatel would like a word, cheri," she said, dis- 
 turbing him from a doze. Antoine jerked himself up and 
 went out to the door, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. 
 There stood Victor on the staircase, beautifully equipped 
 for motoring, with fine furs wrapping him to the ears. He 
 
450 SUCCESSION 
 
 sought the latest news for his mother, and, since he did 
 not choose to converse with servants, had sent the message 
 in. Antoine told him what there was to tell, and Duchatel 
 found a few pretty phrases of condolence, his eyes search- 
 ing the boy curiously meanwhile. They had undoubtedly 
 drawn apart a little since the concerts; also he had won- 
 dered once or twice of late whether in some of his letters 
 he had not gone too far. As usual, so soon as he set eyes 
 on Antoine in the flesh, he realised those evident facts of 
 his youth and delicacy, which in the perusal of his work 
 entirely escaped the mind. 
 
 " What a little thing," flashed through Duchatel. " I 
 have been brutal, evidently. Might one enter an instant?" 
 he said upon the thought. " I must not stay." 
 
 The boy, still drowsy and listless, let him into the ves- 
 tibule and then stood in doubt. 
 
 " Do you mind the kitchen ? " he suggested. " Those 
 rooms are so cold." 
 
 " If I do not inconvenience Madame Margot," said 
 Victor. "You are in confusion, hey?" he added grace- 
 fully, half to the, woman, as he entered her domain. 
 
 " Bon Dieu," Margot muttered, " what does Monsieur 
 expect?" Privately she considered the visitor superfluous 
 at such a time ; but M. Antoine must be allowed his freaks, 
 now as always. She placed her best chair for the guest, 
 and escaped by the other door, muttering something as she 
 did so. Duchatel lifted his brows and sat down, after a 
 pause, upon the chair. Antoine retired to his former place, 
 the pallet couch in the corner, where he sat in the shadow, 
 clasping his knees. 
 
 " You must be shockingly cramped here," said Duchatel, 
 having used his eyeglass a little on various primitive domes- 
 tic arrangements. "Say, can we be of service? I was 
 commissioned to inquire of Lucien. If Madame Lemaure 
 would honour us, for example, my mother would be more 
 than charmed. It is years since we saw her properly." 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 451 
 
 Antoine shook his head. " My uncle wants her. Margot 
 has a room." 
 
 " Lucien is devoted, one knows," said Victor. " Still, 
 they have so frequently been separated " 
 
 " He wants her," the boy repeated. " When he saw me 
 come this morning, I had to say she was not there. He 
 looked " A gesture finished it. 
 
 " Psst ! " said Victor, with compassion, " You were no 
 good, I suppose, mon petit. Were you at war, then, to the 
 last?" 
 
 " Yes," said Antoine. " Only I think he has forgotten 
 that. I never imagined, really, how it would be for him." 
 
 " And you ? " said Victor, after a pause. As the boy 
 looked round inquiring, he pursued : " Are you to sleep 
 with friends? " 
 
 Antoine struck the little pallet on which he sat expres- 
 sively. For a moment Duchatel did not follow ; then his 
 cool face changed. 
 
 " Here ? — impossible ! No, but it is disgraceful. See, 
 my little one, you come to us; for that I take no denial." 
 He rose brusquely and approached the couch. As Antoine 
 only shook his head, he persisted, moved yet further by his 
 pallor and unwonted silence. " You poor little tired thing ; 
 after all your labours, and with more to come, to be con- 
 signed to the coal-hole " 
 
 " It is not," the boy said, smiling faintly. " It is a very 
 good kitchen for this quarter, Margot says." 
 
 " That does not prevent its being half the size of my 
 dressing-room. I cannot conceive it — and that cross woman 
 to rattle you up at dawn ! Have you out of bed with the 
 poker, hein? She would be more sour than ever, then.". 
 
 " No, no ; she is not sour. You see," said Antoine, with 
 an effort to explain, " I have got to be here. Philippe can 
 do what he likes, but I must stay. There are my uncles 
 coming " 
 
 " Not more," Victor groaned. " And is it not my missiorij 
 
452 SUCCESSION 
 
 to save you from all uncles? I am sure that entered our 
 compact originally — eh ? " He took him by the arms. 
 
 The boy half laughed. " You are kind," he said, and the 
 tears that brimmed his eyes showed his real fatigue. " I 
 do not want those people, of course. Nor does he. But 
 they have to come, and as I have met them, they will want 
 to see me " | 
 
 " Vile curiosity," said Victor. " Oh yes, I comprehend. ' 
 You are the spectacle of the moment, to Lemaures; pry-; 
 ing! — no, it is detestable. Thank heaven at least my rela- 
 tions are so few. Look here, why cannot your brother 
 deal with them, if he is there? " 
 
 "Philippe?" The boy shrugged slightly. "He hates 
 them worse. He will probably tell my aunt he cannot see 
 them, and go for a walk. That is how Philippe does, when 
 he is not happy." 
 
 " Is that what he is doing now? " 
 
 " Yes. He will be better when he comes home. You do 
 not go, Victor?" He extended two detaining fingers.; 
 " Voyons ; I had something for you, when I can remember 
 where it is." He swung his feet off the couch, and sat up 
 to consider. 
 
 " Not another ! " Duchatel exclaimed. " Well, your 
 master can approve your industry, little one, at least. I 
 have not unpacked the last one yet." 
 
 The boy's eyes showed faint disappointment, as he fixed 
 them on the critic. " This is the end of that," he explained. 
 " You see, I did not think I should come so soon. That is 
 why I sent those, for you to see them quicker." 
 
 " Are they so wonderful ? " said Duchatel, chaffing him. 
 
 " Again." He nodded. " You will be astonished, be- 
 cause I have made a piano part. I think that is a nice in- 
 strument. It is not a really difficult part, do you see, but 
 for a good man to play." 
 
 " To the devil with the man who plays," said Victor. 
 
 " Not in my things," said Antoine, still very grave. " Be- 
 cause it is all right for him — ^beautiful passages — you un- 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 453 
 
 derstand? I took a great deal of trouble in it, because I 
 had seen very carefully how Ribiera did." 
 
 " It is designed for Ribiera, hey ? Your modesty, An- 
 toine, is magnificent." 
 
 " It is for Ribiera, if he likes," said Antoine. " Only per- 
 haps you will not like it first, hein? And then, for poor 
 Ribiera, it is finished." He shot a keen sly glance at the 
 critic, and went to seek his " thing." When he brought it 
 back, Victor's thoughts had taken an excursion, which left 
 the " thing " behind. 
 
 " I see you affiche with his Magnificence," he observed. 
 " Say, Antoine, am I to have the honour of a place? " 
 
 " At the concert ? " 
 
 " On the programmes. I have not seen them,"~as it hap- 
 pens." 
 
 " No," said Antoine. " You see, those programmes are 
 his." 
 
 " And he dislikes me, eh? " 
 
 " He dislikes everybody French, he says." 
 
 " Not you ? " 
 
 " Oh yes. He likes my playing with his, voila tout." He 
 looked rather haughty, standing by the hearth, facing 
 Victor now. But his visitor was curious, and pressed for 
 details of the rehearsal. 
 
 " I think he is mad," said Antoine, with a gesture. " He 
 plays only bits, and makes remarks on us, out loud, all the 
 time he is playing. He did not look at the notes, but at me, 
 to make me nervous, but I was not. M'en fiche. When I 
 led the tempo as he liked, he said : * Decidedly the ape has 
 intelligence.' Then he said to me — always playing beauti- 
 fully, you understand — ' If you continue on these lines you 
 will content me ' — and v/hen I could not stop laughing, he 
 was surprised. Then in the Allegretto, I told him please 
 to be quiet, and he was. And at the end he said I was a 
 little devil, but had been sufficiently trained, and that would 
 do for to-day. And since he did not thank Monsieur the 
 
454 SUCCESSION 
 
 other one, I did. And Ribiera said ' Pourquoi ? ' and shut 
 the piano." 
 
 " He will chuck you soon," Duchatel decided. " Either 
 you will be too impudent, and he will knock the desk over, 
 as he did once to Jacques, or you will be too popular, and 
 he will overplay you deliberately. That is the more prob- 
 able. He is a charming person." Antoine shrugged, 
 haughty still. " Do you rehearse this week?" 
 
 " He has not written. He said, not before the New Year, 
 and I hope not, for I cannot practise here." 
 
 "If he had a grain of courtesy he would put it off," said 
 Victor. 
 
 " We must rehearse before the sixth," observed Antoine. 
 " I shall write to him to-day, just to explain." 
 
 Unable to extract further gossip, Duchatel finally went, 
 having had the roll of manuscript confided to his charge. 
 He took it carelessly enough. In the doorway he stood a 
 moment, and laid his forefinger on the boy's brow, a dainty 
 arrogant little gesture, just like himself, and the nearest 
 he could approach to caress. 
 
 " I should tell you," he said, indifferently almost, " the 
 last time I saw M. Lemaure, he was troubled over a letter 
 from your uncle. He said in passing he wondered whether 
 you were wasting time over composition." Victor waited 
 a minute, while the boy's eyes fixed him anxiously. " I said 
 I was sure you were not." The anxious look wavered into 
 • a smile. " A double entendre, as you perceive. I hoped 
 he would press me further to explain it ; but he was only 
 greatly pleased that I thought you a good boy." 
 
 " He would not, if he had seen some of the things," sug- 
 gested Antoine. 
 
 " If he had seen some of the things," Victor mimicked, 
 " he might have thought I was far from a good boy myself 
 for keeping them private. Who knows ? " 
 
 " Who knows ? " Antoine echoed, vacantly rather, and, 
 with a little nod to Victor, turned back into the deserted 
 house. 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 455 
 
 " I have failed," Duchatel found himself repeating as 
 he drove away. " I have failed, though where, heaven 
 knows. He slips through the fingers, little oddity, like a 
 fresh-water shrimp. It is hardly the trouble to catch him 
 by the tail." 
 
 That same evening, in his exquisite sanctum, with the 
 scrawled and erased lea'.*es of the pianoforte quintet before 
 him, Duchatel confessed his failure anew, but less lightly. 
 
 I He had had a curious sensation throughout that kitchen 
 
 i interview, that he was approaching some notable defeat. 
 But Antoine had refrained for once from striking with his 
 agile tongue. He had been far quieter than usual — dull, 
 
 ! for him. He struck with his pen instead, in a language the 
 witty Duchatel comprehended. It was a simple and most 
 
 t direct retort upon his patronage. 
 
 1 " Great heavens," the young man murmured, gazing upon 
 the hieroglyphic pages almost haggardly. *' This is the 
 First Work, sent me like a packet of groceries, and I let it 
 lie for three weeks unopened. He is my master, and I have 
 been playing with him. The prating ass I must have 
 seemed, while he was passing through tragedy. A flag of 
 the future, brought back by another of these untoward ex- 
 cursions of his. . . ." Then he left phrases, and, over- 
 come by a thought, sank into a chair. " And to think the 
 old man could have seen it — died holding it — had I known 
 or cared." 
 
 Antoine remained in the kitchen, and Philip, returning 
 at about four in the afternoon, discovered him alone there, 
 industriously making his bed. Margot had ordained this, 
 it seemed, and left directions and materials. The direc- 
 tions were not lucid, nor the materials exquisite, but An- 
 toine found the affair, for the moment, absorbing. Simple 
 as it might seem to the male mind to prepare something fit 
 to sleep on, Antoine had gathered from her remarks that 
 there was a right way and a wrong way of doing it. So 
 he follow^ed the right way as indicated with attention, dab- 
 bing the pillows into place with strict exactitude, smoothing 
 
456 SUCCESSION 
 
 the outlines and surfaces with movements ten times as able 
 and agile as Margot's own. Having reached the last stage, 
 and being about to give his whole consideration to the ques- 
 tion of the finishing coverlet, which was irregularly shaped 
 and damaged in places — he became aware of Philip, 
 dropped the coverlet on the floor, and collapsed himself 
 upon his construction. 
 
 " There was a thing on little legs," he announced, " that 
 went under the carpet just now. It was rather horrible, 
 and I have not looked for it." 
 
 " A blackbeetle, I presume," said Philip. 
 
 " It was not black," said Antoine. " It was pink — a not- 
 clean pink, you understand. I found it " — a pause — " dis- 
 agreeable." 
 
 " How could you find it when you had not looked for 
 it ? " said Philip. Another pause, Antoine considering the 
 point, which was an old one. 
 
 " You will catch it," he suggested, shooting a soft glance 
 at his brother. 
 
 "Why should I?" said Philip. "They're perfectly 
 harmless." 
 
 " I shall dream of it," said Antoine, shutting his eyes. 
 " It was too long, do you see, and pink as well." His brow 
 contracted, and he finished with gentle conviction. " If it 
 comes upon my bed in the night, I shall be sick." 
 
 Philip observed him; as soon as his eyes were shut he 
 looked ill, there was no denying. After a minute the elder 
 moved, lifted the carpet with his foot, discovered the 
 enemy according to description, and another negroid variet> 
 as well, and flung both into a pail, containing a certain 
 preparation in which Margot believed. \ 
 
 "You had better have your own room, I should think,'* 
 he said, in a cool tone, when Antoine's brow of anguish 
 cleared, and he opened his eyes. " It wouldn't take long tc 
 change the things, if you'd rather." 
 
 " No," said the boy. " It is nice and warm here — if they 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 457 
 
 don't come." His vague gaze dropped to the line of the 
 fender again. 
 
 " My aunt ought to be here by now," said Philip, leaving 
 the question of the rooms, '' if she took the early boat." 
 
 " She cannot be here before eight," said Antoine ; and 
 proved conclusively by a string of country trains his mem- 
 ory provided that this was so. As Philip did not answer, 
 he resumed, after a pause : " Where did you go when you 
 went out? " 
 
 " Do you really want to know ? " said Philip. 
 
 " Oh — not very much." 
 
 "Why do you ask, then? Just to make conversation?" 
 
 " I thought perhaps you would go away," said Antoine. 
 He glanced again at the fender-line, where incredible things 
 lay concealed. 
 
 " I don't mind reading here," said Philip. " But if you 
 mean to soliloquise, don't expect me to answer." 
 
 " I shall not talk," the boy promised hastily. " I will 
 only see you a little, because that is so long I have not." 
 
 Philip smiled unwillingly. He really was too absurd. 
 " I do wish you would talk decent English," he said, with 
 a judicial air, subsiding into a chair with his book. " Lin- 
 guistically, you don't seem to have made much of your two 
 months in England." 
 
 " Because I talked French there all the time," Antoine 
 explained. " Wurst talked French to me, and Glenmuir's 
 mother, and a lot of people." 
 
 " Glenmuir did not, I presume," said Philip. 
 
 " No ! His French is amusing when he tries. But when 
 he does not," he added dreamily, " he speaks better than 
 most English people." 
 
 " Really," Philip exclaimed, " you'd better not try to 
 criticise ! He can't pronounce English at all, being born 
 west of Perth." 
 
 Antoine was crushed, and Philip read five lines. 
 
 " There is Peter Axel," he murmured. " Perhaps he 
 pronounces altogether more like papa." 
 
458 SUCCESSION 
 
 Philip, outraged, jerked anew. " Axel has the purest 
 Cockney dialect," he snapped. " Really, one would think 
 you had no ear." 
 
 " I like to listen to all of them," Antoine assured him. 
 " But most of all papa. I find papa's words, in English, 
 very good." 
 
 " Papa's style is not exactly literary," began Philip. 
 Then he subsided. " Oh, bother, I won't argue." 
 
 " Your style is best ? " suggested Antoine, not at all 
 satirical, but seeking light. Philip did not answer, though 
 he heard. Pie explored a diagram with attention. " I think 
 if you talked to me a lot, perhaps," Antoine pursued, " all 
 the evening, so that I could listen to make the little sounds, 
 
 and speak with a still face " He was practising as he 
 
 spoke, coming a good deal nearer to Philip's diction than 
 Philip liked. " You are not angry? " he interrupted himself 
 Jn a hurry, as his brother rose suddenly and came across. 
 * " Do you mind keeping your face still ? " said Philip. 
 " Really still — teeth together. Thanks. Now remain like 
 that for a period." With that he turned again, but Antoine 
 stretched a hand. 
 
 " Did you know that I had rate the solo at my concert ? " 
 he said softly. 
 
 Philip as usual had not been ready for him, and had a 
 shock. The boy had simply wished to confide, as anyone 
 acquainted with him might have guessed ; and Philip had 
 been holding him at arm's length instead of assisting. 
 
 " I heard of it," he said awkwardly. " Were you ill ? ' 
 
 " Oh no. I have not been ill for a lot of months. I don't 
 know — how it was." A cloud crossed his face. *' Did m) 
 uncle tell you ? " he asked. 
 
 " No. Savigny did." 
 
 " My uncle had told him ? " Antoine sighed, resigned 
 " Perhaps, after these other things, he will have forgotten 
 I wish I could forget." He spoke bitterly, looking downj 
 " It was all such a stupid thing." 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 459 
 
 " How did it happen ? " said Philip, taking a seat by him 
 on the bed. 
 
 The boy, pleased by the attention, wriggled a little to 
 make room for him. " I don't know," he said. " Attends 
 — I will tell you about it. The first part had gone pretty 
 well, though I did not like how the Duchatel sounded. I 
 thought that was the violin, perhaps — and a new room. It 
 was a bad room, pretty, but stupid for the sound. I heard 
 much too much, so I was sure they were not hearing 
 properly. They were extremely still, and made a little 
 clapping at the end. I did not find it a good concert, but 
 Wurst in the interval said it was very well, and I should 
 not excite myself. So when I did not, then I was tired, 
 and it seemed stupider than before. And at last that thing 
 came, the Mirski ' Caprice,' which you know how detest- 
 able. The passages are hard in that thing, but I know 
 them. Every morning I played them to Moricz, so now I 
 do not trouble. . . . And then, in the middle of it, I 
 heard Peter Axel playing wrong. . . . And I was 
 frightened, horribly. . . . And I made him an awful 
 frown for forgetting it, and Peter was looking at me. His 
 face was not happy like it generally is. It was like one of 
 those worst dreams. And of course I stopped playing al- 
 together, because it cannot be like that. And Peter said 
 * Go back,' very quietly, making a lot of little passages and 
 returning, for me to find it, do you see? " His quick hands 
 illustrated, as his tongue sought in vain for the words. 
 " He was perfectly clever, and good like the English — oh, 
 mon Dieu ! " The boy's strong fist was clenched, and he 
 dropped it on his brother's knee in his helpless fury. 
 
 " He gave you the chance to pick up, eh ? " said Philip. 
 " And you couldn't." 
 
 "Couldn't! I would not! I was furious — awful. I 
 could remember nothing. I did not want to think. I said 
 a rude thing to Axel in passing, and went off the estrade. 
 And they all clapped together down there, bah! — though 
 they knew it was not finished. They were sorry I had 
 
46o SUCCESSION ' 
 
 stopped — because they were people who like a difficult 
 Caprice, to be amused by it. But I was not amused. Noi: 
 Peter, very much." He laughed sharply. 
 
 " Don't, I say," said Philip. " It's all over now. It 
 doesn't matter, really. Everybody forgets, now and then." 
 He had no idea in the case how to console. 
 
 " I do not," said Antoine. " I do not know how it is, to 
 forget. I know that thing — I know all the little notes, long 
 ago, before Moricz — since years. It is not possible to for- 
 get a little concert piece that you know. That was why I 
 was angry with Axel : and Wurst, he was angry with me." 
 
 " Did you go on again ? " 
 
 "Yes. After Wurst had finished talking, I had to. I 
 should not have for my uncle, but I had to for him. He 
 was violent, Wurst. He stood for a long time cursing me 
 — that is how you say? He said it was indigne and lache 
 if I stopped, and a lot of other words. He was like a little 
 dog barking. A man like Wurst does not ' rater,' he does 
 not know how that is done. His head has all the big scores 
 inside, and a little solo part would not trouble him. Do 
 you think I am talking better English ? " He turned sud- 
 denly to Philip. 
 
 " You're talking too well," said Philip, " and too much. 
 You needn't, you know — I understand." 
 
 "You understand, yes." Antoine's painful frown 
 cleared slightly. " I believed you would when I made you 
 see. Wurst did not. He did not see how it was for me to 
 stand up on the estrade again, with quantities of beautiful 
 people looking kind. It would have been so better if they 
 had siffle, like here in Paris." 
 
 "Did you cry?" said Philip. 
 
 " Not then. Since Wurst spoke of grandpapa I did not 
 want to, my eyes were only hot. The Mozart was very 
 well, I think, though Axel played too hard. I expect he 
 had been frightened too, but I am not sure. I did not look 
 at him afterwards, and since I have not seen him." 
 
 " Did my uncle think it was Axel's fault ? " 
 
I 
 
 TRAGEDY FINISHES 461 
 
 " No. Because I said if he dared to speak to him a word 
 I would break my bow and throw the pieces in the fire. I 
 did not care — that night." 
 
 " Wasn't Axel with you at the last concert? " 
 
 " No. It was with orchestra. I have not seen Peter 
 since then, that I was rude." 
 
 "Have you written?" 
 
 " No," the boy said briefly again. " I never write. Be- 
 sides, the thing I said was true." After a pause, he 
 shrugged. " My uncle will be pleased." 
 
 " Did you forgive Wurst for cursing you ? " Philip 
 pursued, soon. 
 
 " Forgive ? " The boy looked up. " He was right. The 
 concert was to be finished since Mozart was on their pro- 
 grammes. He is Fritz's friend. Fritz himself would have 
 been more furious, and grandpapa " — he shrugged — " ter- 
 rible! I am glad they were not there, those two. That is 
 well to remember, that grandpapa will not come to a con- 
 cert again." 
 
 There was a kind of determination, even in his depres- 
 sion, which baffled the consoler. Philip gave it up before 
 long, and went back to his fireside chair. At least Antoine 
 had put words to his sensations, which was something. 
 Even in the midst of his real sympathy, Philip felt a little 
 envious of that power the boy possessed of delivering him- 
 self of such an intimate trouble by the natural means of 
 speech. Feeling so inordinately, he must otherwise have 
 died long since, Philip reflected. Nature was to be thanked 
 for granting such a safety-valve, in this capacity of his for 
 conveying emotions in any tongue, granted always the one 
 familiar and trusted face to look at while he spoke. 
 
 " I'm good for that, at least," thought Philip, and 
 plunged into reading. 
 
 Nothing further happened in the quiet house till after 
 seven, when there was a stir. But it was not the stir, as 
 Philip hoped at first, of an arrival — but of a departure: 
 
 I 
 
462 SUCCESSION 1 
 
 silent as a departure could be, furtive almost, on soundless 
 wings. M. Lemaure's beautiful spirit passed so quietly 
 that it slipped by the watchers and escaped unobserved. 
 Only when the doctor moved to the bedside, and the son 
 saw his face, did his cry of sheer despair thrill the little 
 household through. 
 
 The cry was not loud, but the quickest ear in the kitchen 
 caught it. It pierced the fog of slumber that had closed 
 down again, during the interminable hours of waiting, 
 about the younger boy. He stirred, moved, and sat up. 
 
 " Philippe ! " he said, in the disturbing tone of the newly 
 awakened. 
 
 Philip and the woman both turned, and the former, at 
 his expression, arose swiftly, dropping his book. 
 
 " Seigneur Dieu," said Margot, crossing herself. " What 
 did he hear?" 
 
 " What is it, Bebe?" said Philip. 
 
 Antoine watched the door a minute, listening. He had 
 the movements of a little animal, sensitive, alert and silent 
 utterly. Then he licked his lips, looked at them just as a 
 dog might do, as though he would have spoken but could 
 not, with anxious, feverish eyes, and lay down again, his 
 head on his arm, to wait. 
 
 The others were silent too, convinced of the fact he had 
 signalled, waiting only for the unseen terror his eyes had 
 reflected to approach. Philip, gripping a hand on the man- 
 tel-shelf, his book reversed at his feet, passed through some 
 of the worst minutes of his life, endeavouring to master 
 nightmare. Margot, her eyes cast down, her worn hands 
 teasing a chaplet, muttered prayers. It was long — it 
 seemed an age — before the door opened, and the new master 
 of the house appeared. 
 
 At Margot's low wail, Lucien held up a quick hand, 
 frowning. He was performing a duty which, as he regarded 
 it, he could leave to no one else. It was like him to insist 
 obstinately on its fulfilment before he faced his private 
 grief ; and it was like him, on this one occasion, entirely to 
 
TRAGEDY FINISHES 463 
 
 miscalculate his strength. His face alone, had he known 
 it, would have been enough to petrify the boys. His eyes 
 caught Philip's tall tigure in the firelight first, and his lips 
 moved, forming his name ; but only a hoarse, strange sound 
 emerged, and his clenched hand rose to his throat. Then, 
 abandoning the useless struggle, he made a sign to Margot, 
 and turned, with a hopeless little shake of the head, towards 
 his room. In the blank awestruck silence that descended 
 on his departure, they heard him lock his door, and even 
 the creak of the chair as he flung himself upon it. 
 
 " Was — was it him ? " whispered Antoine. " Philippe — 
 do not go " 
 
 But Philip had gone. Margot had gone also. Pie was 
 alone in a world that held the immeasurable cruelty of 
 such grief. The palace his imagination had built of tragedy, 
 to which his quick foresight had added stone on stone, 
 which he had torn every beautiful fancy from his mind to 
 decorate, crowned with willing sacrifice, strewn with mem- 
 ories, lit with his fervent faith — that structure, worthy of 
 him who inspired it, fell shattering about his ears. It was 
 gone, the world blank as it can only be to a dramatic nature. 
 He saw in its place death the destroyer, with sure instinct, 
 as the material mind sees it ; and he shrank, catching at all 
 he knew of beauty to shelter him in vain. 
 
 With a low moan of sorrowful indignation, Antoine sank 
 beside the pallet bed, thrusting his clenched hands far from 
 him across the torn coverlet, and lay there long, a figure 
 of passionate protest against things human, rather than of 
 appeal to things divine. It was so Cecile Lemaure found 
 him — keeping guard as it were in the empty kitchen, over 
 the deserted dinner, all the warm little sanctuary of kind 
 and common things — when she came. 
 
PART III 
 THE COST 
 
Jf 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE FAMILY 
 
 It had been one of M. Lemaure's last spoken desires to his 
 son, that no child's Christmas should be spoilt for him. 
 He was thinking, as was evident, not so much of the 
 motherless boys most familiar to his hearth, as of the other 
 grandchildren in foreign lands ; and it was in express ac- 
 cordance with this desire that his younger sons, when they 
 arrived late in Christmas week in Paris for the funeral, 
 came without their wives. 
 
 Of these, Andre, the organ-builder of Cologne, was al- 
 ready known to Antoine, Otto he had seen once at Nice 
 in passing through, and Bernard, the youngest, was 
 a stranger. Two out of these three brothers had quarrelled 
 with Lucien at one period or another of their stormy youth, 
 and Otto, languid and delicate, had made himself yet more 
 objectionable by his indifference to the points at issue. 
 They had reconciled themselves finally to living apart with 
 great willingness, only meeting, under their father's aegis, 
 at rare seasons of festivity. For the peculiarity of Le- 
 maures was, that w'hile exasperating one another individ- 
 ually or in pairs, they cherished as a whole an intense and 
 passionate pride of race, which, when tracked to its origin, 
 was little more than a pride in the common possession of 
 their father. This time their union was too solemn, their 
 grief too sincere, for anyone to desire bickering; and Lu- 
 cien's family were the more ready to sink their differences 
 and meet him kindly, that Cecile was admitted by all to be 
 exquisite, and that his roof sheltered le petit Antoine. 
 467 
 
468 SUCCESSION 
 
 The Lemaures were naturally curious about Henriette's 
 boys, for the little sister had married her strange English- 
 man long after all her brothers but Marcel and Lucien had 
 scattered and settled in life. Two had appeared from their 
 corners of Europe to bless her nuptials, and stare at the 
 foreigner Jem; but her children were little more than 
 names to them, and Antoine's was rapidly becoming a name 
 of note. Both Otto and Andre owned a talented offspring; 
 but, the star of their father having sunk from the horizon, 
 Andre himself was the first to own that Antoine was the 
 Lemaure of the moment, outshining either Andre's self, 
 or Bernard his younger brother, or Helga his second daugh- 
 ter, who had played before the German public now for six 
 seasons with unfailing success. 
 
 They all arrived in Paris knowing the facts about Antoine 
 to the minutest detail; indeed they knew more about his 
 " career " than he did himself, as was proved when his 
 cousin Helga took him to task on the subject. Helga was 
 said to be like Henriette, " except in appearance " — a some- 
 what serious exception. She was not pretty, but she had 
 chic and aplomb, and possessed, moreover, a furious ambi- 
 tion which led to her assuming the customary laurels of her 
 name at an early age. Since then she had been content 
 with keeping well ahead of her local rivals, and, between 
 concerts, tearing them to pieces with her tongue. The blood 
 of her German mother showed at intervals, principally in a 
 kind of dogged persistence on points where pure French 
 tact would have skimmed lightly. She alarmed Antoine 
 rather, and wearied him a little; and he was thankful at 
 the first meeting when Mile. Helga, having spied at Philip 
 in the intervals of her examination, fastened upon him 
 instead. 
 
 This was a mistake ; for Philip, highly annoyed to be dis- 
 turbed on such an occasion by an ordinary girl who called 
 him cousin and wanted to flirt, gave as good as he got, and 
 drove her routed from the corner which he and Antoine had 
 chosen for their retirement. He felt though that she would 
 
THE FAMILY 469 
 
 not be discouraged for long, and determined, in future, to 
 neglect no natural chances of escape. 
 
 " He is a nice little boy," Helga said lightly of Antoine, 
 as they returned to their hotel. *' Gentle, not such as one 
 would expect ; and Zep's drawing gives one a completely 
 wrong impression." 
 
 " You have not yet seen him smile, my niece," said her 
 Uncle Otto drily. " On the contrary, he looked anguished 
 during your interview." 
 
 " He is sensitive," said Helga pleasantly. " I tried to 
 penetrate that astonishing affair of the violin, and it seems 
 evident to me they took no proper care of it at all. Imagine, 
 father, it was not even insured — knocking about in the hands 
 of a kid — was grandpapa not incredible ? " 
 
 " The violin has been found," said Andre gently. 
 
 " What ? " Helga shouted. 
 
 " Hush, my dear. Cecile told me they had it safe, and 
 Lucien will restore it to the little one before the concert." 
 
 " Why not now, in the name of " 
 
 " The New Year," said Andre patiently. " It is a little 
 plan for his pleasure, when these sad days are past. He 
 cannot play at present." 
 
 " On the contrary," said Helga. " He told me he was tak- 
 ing every opportunity when he could sneak away out of 
 earshot. I should say he is a nervous boy. He ought to 
 have his violin immediately, and I shall tell Uncle Lucien." 
 
 " I ask you, my dear, not to speak of it," said Andre, 
 glancing at her once. " It is important not to excite him 
 unnecessarily ; and those who know him will manage best." 
 
 " It's his business," said Helga rather sulkily. " You 
 forget his position, father." 
 
 " I do not forget his position for a moment," said Andre 
 strenuously. " No one could, who saw his face." He turned 
 from her. " Has he not some lines of Marcel, Otto? " 
 
 The other brother nodded and shrugged. " I told Lucien 
 he should send him south for a period, and he seemed an- 
 noyed. Lucien is so easy to annoy. One would have said 
 
470 SUCCESSION 
 
 it was simply common-sense, if they wish to get the most 
 out of him in the future." Otto, always delicate, had mar- 
 ried a wife with money, and retired from active professional 
 life, though he wrote cleverly, and had published, in bulk, 
 more than his father. His brothers could not despise him, 
 though they were for ever on the edge of doing so; for 
 he was canny in material affairs, with certain commercial 
 instincts that ensured him success. Andre alone was kind 
 to Otto, as he was kind to all the world. It was on Andre 
 that Cecile counted principally to preserve the harmony of 
 the clan, during these critical days ; for Lucien was vaguely 
 irritable with the long strain, and that sense of insufficiency 
 that always attacked him among his brothers did not im- 
 prove, his spirits. The remaining brother, Bernard, who 
 was much the brightest, as well as the youngest of the four, 
 was inclined to admire her inconveniently ; and Cecile, who 
 actually felt his society a relief in the weary land of con- 
 ventional propriety, felt herself bound to snub him, and talk 
 wisely with the rest. 
 
 Thus it was with no very great anticipations of pleasure, 
 that, having protested in vain against the necessity, she 
 followed Lucien's directions, and invited them all to dine 
 quietly with her on the day following the funeral. Even 
 the prospect of making the best of unlikely materials did 
 not greatly enliven Madame, whose main idea now was to 
 protect her husband, and guard him in his unusual condi- 
 tion of helplessness, from the curious eye that insults true 
 suffering. Lucien had said nothing of the boys, but she 
 had decided in her own mind that Philip ought to appear, 
 and, having issued the invitations as directed, she seized a 
 chance, and attacked him with all her wiles, her little hands 
 on his coat beseechingly. 
 
 "Is that girl coming?" was Philip's first question. 
 
 " Helga ? We had to ask her. She may avoid it." 
 
 " She won't," said Philip gloomily. " I say, I want to 
 go to the fellows to-morrow — most of them are back by 
 now. Jespersen said he would put me up for the ni-ht if 
 
I 
 
 THE FAMILY 471 
 
 I would go." His eyes, worn by his genuine grief, avoided 
 hers. " I can't stand girls' chattering, really." 
 
 " I know, darling; it is hard. You see, I do not want to 
 ask the little one, he is so worried with these concerts." 
 She hesitated. " Well, what are a few men, after all ? I 
 will do it." 
 
 " H it was only men ! " said Philip sheepishly. 
 
 " It is only they who matter. Go, dearest, and do not 
 smoke too much." 
 
 " Sure you can manage?" said Philip, remorseful in his 
 relief. • 
 
 " Pfui ! When have I ever failed? " And, pushing him 
 from her with a pretty gesture, Cecile turned away. 
 
 " I think," said Antoine, " 1 have to go to London to- 
 night." 
 
 " Nonsense," said his uncle, on instinct. " What do you 
 mean ? " 
 
 "It is Ribiera. Will you see?" He handed the scrawl 
 he had just received, having ventured to intrude on the 
 privacy of husband and wife in Lucien's room, after the 
 first breakfast on the morrow of the funeral. Lucien, whom 
 the boy had seen only at a distance for days, was there, 
 slowly tearing up a pile of letters just answered, while his 
 wife in a rapid hand addressed others, black-edged, for 
 the post. Lucien, at the name of Ribiera, dropped the let- 
 ter fragments, and took the communication from the boy's 
 hand brusquely. 
 
 " Incredible ! " he jerked, and tossed it to his wife. Cecile, 
 somewhat curious, took it up in turn and read as follows, 
 scrawled on a thick sheet, under a stamped London ad- 
 dress : — 
 
 " Monsieur, — You will be so obliging as to attend at 
 my lodging for rehearsal 30th December at two o'clock 
 I precisely. — " Ribiera." 
 
472 SUCCESSION 
 
 " The royal touch," Cecile commented, amused. " Was it 
 posted in London? " 
 
 " I think so," the boy said. 
 
 "Think? It is the point," said his uncle. "Where is 
 the envelope? " 
 
 Antoine produced it, and it bore a West London post- 
 mark. 
 
 "I must go?" he suggested, resting his fingers on the 
 table. 
 
 " Certainly not," said Lucien. " Bah ! why did I not keep 
 the arrangements in my own hands? You did not make it 
 clear when you left. He understood you were still to be in 
 London, eh? " 
 
 " No," said Antoine still passively. " I wrote to him from 
 here. He directs this himself to France." 
 
 He touched the address in evidence. His uncle made a 
 sound of vexation, as much at himself as the boy. His 
 mind was slower than usual, and such mistakes in detail 
 annoyed him. "Was there nothing further? Why is the 
 sheet torn?" 
 
 " There was another thing — I did not understand." The 
 boy turned his eyes away towards the window. " He said 
 we would read the quintet if there was time." 
 
 "The quintet? What quintet? There is none on the 
 programmes." 
 
 " There is a piano quartet in the last one. Perhaps he 
 thinks of that." 
 
 " Ribiera should know the difference. You have prac- 
 tised that quartet ? " 
 
 " No." A pause. " I have practised nothing," said An- 
 toine, looking out of doors again. 
 
 " How do you propose to play if you have not practised? 
 Have you not worked in the morning?" 
 
 " This morning. Not yesterday." Yesterday had been the 
 funeral. 
 
 Lucien looked at Cecile — a look of helplessness almost. 
 "They cannot expect it of him," he muttered, consulting 
 
THE FAMILY 473 
 
 the sheet anew, as though fascinated by the cool command. 
 " The man is mad." 
 
 " If the other man is in London," said Antoinc, and 
 stopped. " But it is really the sonata we must do together." 
 He stopped again, evidently troubled by his uncle's silence. 
 " I did say once I should be in London till the New Year ; 
 only I had written since, from here. I put all the stamps 
 upon that letter. Perhaps it is easier if I go." He slipped 
 the sheet gently out of his uncle's slack hand. " Ribiera 
 will pay the ticket, I expect." 
 
 " If you mention anything of the sort to him " jerked 
 
 Lucien nervously. " We have had enough of that." 
 
 Meanwhile Madame Lemaure had had enough of them. 
 " Telegraph to this address that he cannot," she directed 
 quietly. " And tell them to forward it at once. The man is 
 probably in Paris himself by now, and posted this before he 
 started. Else it is incredibly cool." 
 
 " Nothing is too cool for him," said Lucien. However, 
 the pair of males took in this possible solution : Antoine's 
 brow slowly cleared. 
 
 "You mean he is here," he murmured, devouring the 
 strange letter. 
 
 " Have you the Senor's Paris address, darling? " said his 
 aunt. 
 
 " No. Victor will know it." 
 
 " Good. I will call on the Duchatels during my drive. 
 I had wished to acknowledge her kindness yesterday. I 
 will then discover your tyrant for you ; and meanwhile you 
 can practise your quartet." She put an arm about him as he 
 stood. 
 
 " He said a quintet," murmured Antoine. " That was 
 curious." 
 
 "Is there no such thing?" laughed Madame, thinking 
 how large his eyes looked. 
 
 " Oh yes ; there are some, I believe." He glanced at his 
 uncle rather shyly. Lucien had sunk back, as soon as she 
 took command, into his former weary attitude. He had left 
 
474 SUCCESSION 
 
 nearly everything thankfully to her. Never before had 
 her real ascendancy been so little disguised as these latter 
 days. 
 
 " Why did you tear that part off, imbecile? " said Cecile, 
 as she rose, gathering the letters up. 
 
 " I don't know," he said ; then quicker : " It was stupid 
 and annoyed me." 
 
 At his aunt's pressure on his shoulder, he prepared to 
 leave the room with her. 
 
 " Antoine." On the very threshold his uncle's voice 
 made him start and turn. " Here is Reuss's letter. I had 
 been forgetting. Would you care to see it, mon petit?" 
 
 " No, no." A spasm of absolute pain crossed his face. 
 " Later, I will read it." And he went out hurriedly. 
 
 " It is a beautiful letter," his aunt said, outside. Pri- 
 vately, she had thought it sentimental. "And there is a 
 word for you." 
 
 " Yes. I cannot read it now. I have to work," he said. 
 
 " He fears to be upset," thought Cecile. "Of course he 
 must know Reuss. He is just balanced, the child, no more. 
 Must you go upstairs ? " she asked him, with a little grimace. 
 
 " Of course, with that to-morrow. I had not thought it 
 would be so soon. Even now, I do not know which we 
 take." He sighed sharply. " I wish he would write clearly, 
 that man. Mine was very clear, to him." He looked round 
 at her. " Is it to-night my uncles come?" 
 
 "Yes, darling. But I shall arrange for you to dine in 
 your room. Those who rise early should sleep early too. 
 You will be missed, of course, but not wanted," she added, 
 with a little smile. 
 
 "You will miss me?" he inquired, and she answered as 
 though jesting: 
 
 " But I most of all." 
 
 When he was on the stairs he shot back at her : " You 
 will find out whether it is to go to London ? " — gave her a 
 sudden smile over his shoulder, and went on up the flights 
 to the roof. Under the roof he spent the morning hours, 
 
■1 
 
 THE FAMILY 475 
 
 half in playing feverishly, half in puzzling over the torn 
 fragment that had been Ribicra's postscript, which he had 
 concealed in an inner pocket, by the window. 
 
 Meanwhile his aunt, dressed and veiled to go out, and 
 opening the outer door, found an equally perfect figure 
 facing her — Victor Duchatel. 
 
 " Cecile," he murmured, clasping her hand. " How ad- 
 mirable. Yesterday I only saw you afar, since I could 
 not leave my mother." 
 
 " It was kind of you," she said, returning his greeting 
 with friendly emphasis. " We were flattered and touched 
 by your mother's presence, I was coming to thank you, and 
 for other matters. You will accompany me, hein ? " 
 
 " I sought your husband, really. My business concerns 
 him." At her lifted hand he added quickly: "Is business 
 not mentioned ? " 
 
 " Is it urgent? " she returned the question. 
 
 " Urgent, as I see it ; but I may be selfish. I need to 
 unburden myself, and I barely had the decency to spare him 
 yesterday, though I did contain it. I cannot see him, then? " 
 
 " He would say yes," she said. " But in fact, he is not 
 fit to bear anything further. Will you not burden me tem- 
 porarily, Victor, and let me take my time?" 
 
 Duchatel paused, considering her, with a raised brow 
 that added to his apparent age. For all that, the years had 
 treated him kindly, she was reflecting, for his age was little 
 short of her own. 
 
 " I am remorseful," he said slowly, " and humiliated. To 
 humiliate myself before you, Madame, is clearly easier than 
 before Lucien. Consequently " — he paused — " I fear I must 
 defer my penance. You will forgive me, hein ? " 
 
 " Come," she said, with a smile, " and drive with me. I 
 have a terrible need for air." 
 
 " My faith, I believe it. Is the whole gang still upon your 
 hands? " 
 
 " Until to-night. They have not quarrelled yet, thanks to 
 my management." 
 
476 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Lucien is hardly quarrelsome," he suggested. 
 
 " Poor Lucien — no. Find me a nice carriage, Victor. 
 Settle everything. I am tired of directing." 
 
 He laughed, and did so. They drove by the river, in the 
 pleasant comradeship that exacts no effort. She threw 
 back her heavy veil, v^elcoming the wind after days of se- 
 clusion. After a period of silence, her fair little face recov- 
 ered some of its animation. 
 
 " How is the little one? " he asked, soon. 
 
 " Antoine — fairly well. I wish he could rest a litile. 
 
 Imagine Ribiera " And to beguile the way she related 
 
 the incident of the letter. Victor, who had personal experi- 
 ence of the man, at once endorsed her explanation of the 
 address, and seemed by no means surprised at such an over- 
 sight. 
 
 " He is in Paris," he said. " I saw him myself last night 
 at his rooms." 
 
 " Excellent," she said, and stored the address. " Pauvre 
 petit, he will be relieved. He was quite prepared to go back 
 to London at his bidding. Do you think the man bullies 
 him, Victor? " 
 
 " No," said Duchatel. " Ribiera is interested, I can 
 answer for that. His interest has survived the first re- 
 hearsal. He is only thoroughly spoilt, and thinks the whole 
 world ordered to accommodate him. He takes fancies like 
 a monarch, and dismisses those who fail to suit him to the 
 devil." 
 
 " That is where I incline to dismiss him," said Madame, 
 " when I see the child's eyes coming out of his head. He 
 was happier with little Axel." 
 
 " We drove Antoine yesterday, as you know," said Vic- 
 tor. " Mamma enlarged upon his appearance the whole 
 way home. She punished me sedulously — she little knew 
 with what justice." 
 
 " My dear Victor ! " 
 
 " Frankly, Cecile, do you think he should be playing? " 
 
 " Frankly," said Madame calmly, " I think it absurd," 
 
THE FAMILY 477 
 
 " Absurd — and unnecessary, surely." She shrugged. 
 " Should we not protest, and soon ? " 
 
 " Why soon? Let me tell you, it is a bad moment." 
 
 " Soon," explained Victor, " because I arrive to-day ex- 
 citable, and it may go off. I wish to preserve the excite- 
 ment, which is both agreeable and, I feel sure, salutary." 
 
 Madame glanced at him, weighing it, as it were. " Do 
 you represent your mother ? " she asked. 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! Do you represent your husband ? " 
 
 '' Among others," said Cecile. " My private view has 
 been shaken a little, though heaven knows I am indignant. 
 You see, I have been studying their view, for three labori- 
 ous days." 
 
 " The Lemaures ? " 
 
 " Yes. It is interesting, really." 
 
 " Don't be interested — be indignant," he entreated her. 
 " Or I shall grow merely interested too. And that will 
 never solve the situation." 
 
 " What do you contribute to the situation — tell me that." 
 
 " That is to begin my confession," he objected. " I have 
 materials which Savigny — everybody, I believe — has over- 
 looked." 
 
 " Aha ! " Her bright eyes pierced him. " Well, I do not 
 ask. I will give you materials instead, which may be new 
 to you. You may not have heard that my father-in-law 
 bequeathed the boy the Stradivarius, with a written mes- 
 sage — I would give it, but that I fear to misquote. En 
 somme, there is but the one trareer for him — it was an 
 * idee fixe.' " 
 
 " I could have unfixed it," Victor murmured. " Here is 
 the penalty. . . , Cecile, how did the child receive it? " 
 
 " Very quietly. He was not, I think, surprised. He at- 
 tacked the lawyer, to our astonishment, with a question or 
 two. Whether he possessed it at present in such a sense 
 as to be able to give it away ; and to whom it would pass in 
 the event " 
 
 "Well — in what event?" 
 
478 SUCCESSION 
 
 She had shut her eyes. " My brain is not as clear as his," 
 she laughed. " I suppose he meant, in the event of his dy- 
 ing under age." 
 
 " He wished to secure it to your husband ? " 
 
 " He was formally apologetic. He evidently thought it 
 was Lucien's by right." 
 
 " Was Lucien hurt ? " said Duchatel, after a pause. 
 
 "Remarkably dignified. The Lemaures do those things 
 perfectly. Whether he had been hurt in the past I cannot 
 say, but it seemed a thing ' entendue ' — a compact. He 
 made the presentation before all the family, and read the 
 message in a manner that stirred us all." 
 
 " Cruel," said Duchatel softly. Then, at her little move- 
 ment: "Forgive me, Cecile ; but you must see the injus- 
 tice of it. You must see that such a message is a whip, no 
 less. Armed with that, and this portentous gift — for a 
 thing so valued by his family is portentous — Lucien could 
 drive that boy where he will. And before the conclave — 
 every member of which knew of his breakdown, hein? It is 
 cruel, simply." 
 
 "It is fate," said Madame. "A family character is 
 that. The cruelty of fate, if you will, but the Lemaures 
 can only see in the one way. They drank once of this pe- 
 culiar draught of fame — you admit the performer's draught 
 to be more heady than the writer's ? " 
 
 " I should admit it," said Duchatel. 
 
 " Well, they have lost one claim to it — they seize upon the 
 next. So far as I have talked to Lucien's brothers, there 
 is but one that sees reason, our reason, even faintly ; and he 
 is a worthless infirme, who potters over his tonics daily. 
 Andre and Bernard are strong men and keen musicians — 
 devoted both to their father. Lucien you know. Now they 
 
 have to support their will their great man's dying word " 
 
 " Which Lucien wrote," said Victor. 
 " God knows," she said, frowning slightly. " I have not 
 accused him." 
 
 " Forgive me again — I am unpardonable." There was a 
 
THE FAMILY 479 
 
 pause. " Well " — he gazed at her, sitting motionless, for 
 the carriage had stopped at his door — " I own the position 
 makes me hesitate. You see me cooling, Cecile. The brain 
 cools me rapidly, and the contact of your brain serves for 
 two. I feel, for instance, that we have served Antoine 
 greatly by this conversation. Have you any further light 
 for me, before I join mamma? " 
 
 " Only this — while we hesitate, Jem will act. Jem cared 
 for the dead, but he cares nothing for messages from the 
 dying. No man of sober judgment does." 
 
 " You speak of the father? I thought he was indifferent." 
 
 " He appears so, entirely, and to the last moment. Then 
 he acts suddenly, and wins. In that fashion, some per- 
 form impossibilities." 
 
 "Was that how he won Mademoiselle Lemaure?" 
 
 " Exactly like that. It is not too much to say that he 
 accomplished an impossibility there. I have regarded him 
 as superhuman, ever since." 
 
 " You think he is so superhuman as to be above ambition 
 for the boy ? " 
 
 " Easily, according to our notions. He regards Antoine 
 as a baby in life. He says he is half educated." 
 
 Victor laughed. " Is he a fool ? " 
 
 " Not the least ; enormously serious. We have talked," 
 said Madame, lifting her fine brows, " late on June nights, 
 beneath the lime-trees in my garden. He has ideals, Jem." 
 
 '* What are those? " asked Victor. 
 
 " They sprout in England and Germany— and flourish in 
 America. They are inconvenient in society at times, but 
 they keep their owners fresh. Jem is fresh, marvellously." 
 
 " It is a quality," said Victor, appearing to ponder, " that 
 I have noted in Antoine's work. Do not suggest he has 
 ideals too." 
 
 "No, no," said Madame, reassuring; and he laughed 
 again, and sprang from the car. 
 
 " You are delicious, Cecile; fresher than flowers yourself. 
 I am years younger, always, for talking with you — more 
 
48o SUCCESSION 
 
 content with fate; since, had I married, you would have 
 made me regret it at every meeting. . . . Only, I re- 
 proach myself still." 
 
 She only laughed at him as he stood before her in his 
 unperturbed perfection, and signed to the driver, whereat 
 Duchatel made a gesture, a bow, and went his way. 
 
 The family dinner, as may be imagined, was a matter of 
 importance in the kitchen. Margot's term of service, as 
 she knew too well, approached its end, for la petite Yvonne, 
 as she called Madame's bright-eyed maid, was more than 
 capable single-handed of supplying the wants of the little 
 household for the period of occupation that remained. But 
 Margot was allowed to stay on sufferance, being a friend 
 to whom all were indebted, and on this occasion her interest 
 was assured and her assistance of especial value; for she 
 had a surprising and intimate knowledge of the brothers' 
 tastes, their prejudices and partialities in all that apper- 
 tained to the important question of food. Thus M. Andre, 
 she informed Yvonne, drank beer; M. Otto was accustomed 
 to the cuisine a I'huile of the south, and was forbidden ice, 
 which M. Bernard, on the other hand, adored. Cette demoi- 
 selle, she reckoned, mattered less, and, since her own petits 
 were not there, Helga could give her attention to the pastry. 
 Soup was of an importance which could hardly be exagger- 
 ated — and all the Lemaures had a keen eye to coffee. 
 
 " Monsieur Antoine loves coffee," Yvonne murmured, 
 as she counted the cups. She was tactful with Margot, and 
 seemed to follow, though she led. 
 
 M. Antoine was no exception, but he was not allowed it. 
 " You would do well to keep the door shut, ma petite, while 
 it is made. Otherwise " Margot nodded her experi- 
 ence of boys in the house. 
 
 Yvonne took Antoine his supper when the company in the 
 dining-room had been served. As soon as the connecting 
 doors were opened, he sniffed the air with an awakened eye. 
 
 " I want some coffee," he observed to her brusquely. " It 
 smells good." 
 
THE FAMILY 481 
 
 " It is not recommended," Yvonne suggested. " Here 
 are many nice things." 
 
 " I am not hungry — I am only thirsty. Bring me some." 
 
 Yvonne reported this behaviour to Margot. " He is in 
 a bad humour," she added. " A Httle coffee might appease 
 him, eh ? " 
 
 " Bon — ga recommence ! " said Margot. " It might be 
 fifty times, since his iUness, that Monsieur has explained to 
 him. He has but to smell it, and all is forgotten." 
 
 She returned with Yvonne to the garret room. Antoine 
 was thrown across the large chair, facing his violin, which 
 lay upon the bed. They stood to either side of the chair 
 and argued. Antoine, sniffing the coffee, mocked himself of 
 both. He was subtle, cajoling the weaker Yvonne; he was 
 naughty, calling Margot, who remained stern, a rough name. 
 Then, discomfiting both alike, he laid his head down on the 
 score of the piano quartet that lay open over his knees, and 
 cried. The women looked at one another, and withdrew 
 softly to consult. 
 
 " Those great books of Monsieur's are too hard for him," 
 said Margot. " Music is to play — one should not watch it 
 for hours ; it is not natural. When he does that, one knows 
 what follows. His eyes get dark like that, his voice im- 
 patient, and he is ill. It was the same at nine years old." 
 
 " He is enerve because he has to play to-morrow," the 
 
 girl said. " He is frightened, and so rude. It was so in 
 
 England all these last times. It is a pity Monsieur Philippe 
 
 is not here ; but since he is not, I must try. Give me a very 
 
 '. little coffee in a cup." 
 
 i She forgot, for the moment, and commanded. She car- 
 i ried the cup in to the boy, and stood before him with it, 
 j equally pleasant and determined. 
 I " Voila, cheri," she said. " Now give me the book." 
 
 Antoine, as he reached for the coffee, tried to maintain a 
 i hold upon the quartets. " I do not know it yet," he argued. 
 1 " Monsieur can play some to-morrow morning. At night 
 
482 SUCCESSION ! 
 
 it is bad for his eyes. Voyons." She drew it out of his , 
 grasp. 
 
 " I shall think of it," he threatened, staring through her 
 in his wide-eyed, restless fashion. " All the parts — all night. 
 There are no quintets in that book, Yvonne. I looked in the 
 index." 
 
 " Tiens," said Yvonne. " Has Monsieur lost something? " 
 He was so soft, really, she reflected; so easy to manage, for 
 all his occasional violence. He was essentially reasonable, 
 M. Antoine ; only why the devil did they plague him with all 
 this music when he was mourning Monsieur? He might 
 have been, like herself, a servitor of that ring of men who 
 sat in the dining-room, instead of the most intimately con- 
 cerned, the most easily affected, the true heir of those deli- 
 cate endearing qualities which none who had served " Mon- 
 sieur " in that house could ever forget. 
 
 " There are not many quintets with piano altogether," 
 Antoine addressed her. " M. Duchatel has one. I sent it 
 to him lately." 
 
 " I could fetch it for Monsieur to-morrow," said the girl ; 
 and he laughed. 
 
 " I do not need you to fetch it," he said. " Because I 
 know it very well." 
 
 " Cher petit," said Yvonne, relieved at his smile. 
 
 " I can't play it," explained Antoine. " There are some 
 hard things. But I know how it goes together ; and that is 
 the important, you understand." 
 
 Yvonne understood : certainly. She quite liked to be lec- 
 tured to, only suggesting by the way that the lecturer should 
 eat his supper. Antoine took one small grape from the 
 tray and nibbled it. 
 
 " I suppose I should lead the strings," he said, gazing past 
 her. " The other violin part is interesting too. They are 
 all interesting, and rather hard. It would have to be good 
 men. Jacques — oh yes, Jacques the first, with the Stradi- 
 varius if he wished. Not with my little poor one, though he 
 likes it. That he would give me, just to do a quiet little 
 
THE FAMILY 483 
 
 inside part together. Nobody to look at us with round faces 
 in long rows. That " — he pointed suddenly in front of him 
 with dramatic contempt — " would be left at home. Three 
 violins, as well as Ribiera's hands, that would be ridiculous 
 to imagine. Jacques — oh, I am tired of thinking ! " He 
 swerved aside. 
 
 " Monsieur need not think any more," said Yvonne, 
 " since it is all arranged." 
 
 " All arranged, yes," he said, and laughed again. " To 
 play a thing that Duchatel will not read, with a lost violin, 
 and a dead man. Jacques is dead, since papa and grandpapa 
 said he was to be. Grandpapa is dead too, at Montparnasse 
 — and my little * giocoso ' was made so nice for him to hear." 
 
 The girl stood transfixed ; for the utterance had ranged 
 through a tense bitterness to passion, and so to a most child- 
 ish pathos in the last phrase, he lying motionless the while. 
 Frenchwise, she could have applauded, had it not alarmed 
 her ; for as always with this boy, the acting was a little too 
 good. She laid the large book she held beside the violin on 
 the bed, and came back to the chair's side. 
 
 " Cheri, you must go to bed," she said. " You have had 
 too much. Here is your own bed for you to-night, and I 
 will warm it." 
 
 " No, no," he said, moving and frowning slightly. " I 
 must go in to say bonjour to those people." 
 
 " But you need not. JMadame does not expect it — no, 
 nor he. They wish you to rest well, before to-morrow." 
 
 " It is important, hein? " he said gravely. " Perhaps the 
 last rehearsal, so I must be well. I must be good, too — 
 serious, since one is * en deuil.' It is a time to be most 
 good, just now." He thrust his clenched fists from him, 
 " And that Ribiera, who cannot write his letters, I should 
 
 like to " Then, almost in the same movement, he 
 
 swung himself up. " I like Uncle Andre," he informed her. 
 " He is a little like grandpapa, when you have forgotten a 
 few things. I like Uncle Bernard, too, his eyes are amus- 
 
484 SUCCESSION 
 
 ing when he talks. They are not bad people. They would 
 be sorry, very, if I spoilt Ribiera's concert." 
 
 " Monsieur could not," said Yvonne. 
 
 " No, I could not ; you know that. I like to talk to you, 
 Yvonne." He swung his arms about her. " I can play 
 everything in the world without studying, hein? — since I 
 have been to Moricz." 
 
 " Monsieur is very clever," said Yvonne, with convic- 
 tion. " We are very proud of him. But he must not excite 
 himself, for then he will not sleep." 
 
 " No," he said, his tone changing anew. " I will wait 
 a little, and perhaps eat some of this, until they come out. 
 I shall hear them very well." He added, as he turned his 
 back on her : " The coffee was very nice. Tell Margot." 
 
 Yvonne, disturbed as she was, accepted the dismissal, 
 and left him at once. 
 
 " II me trouble," she confided to IMargot. " On devrait 
 faire plus attention. Ca fait penser a il y a deux ans. 
 
 Enfin ! " The movement of her hands supplied speech, 
 
 and the other woman only shrugged. Monsieur prostrated 
 — Madame wrapped up in him — what would you have? 
 They went about their business in silence. 
 
 Meanwhile things had gone stiffly in the dining-room, 
 despite all Madame's efforts, and the excellent food. Lucien 
 did his best, but his best was automatic response to direct 
 question, and of entertainment in his father's sense he was 
 incapable. His younger brothers could not be other than 
 critical, when he presided at that table above all ; and he 
 suffered the more from that cruel illusion of domestic ease 
 and cheerfulness that such a family gathering gives, when 
 true ease is the last thing attainable. His glance fell on 
 his wife almost piteously from time to time; and she, gal- 
 lant as she was, felt that she was striving socially against 
 an overwhelming weight of circumstance. 
 
 Andre alone was of any assistance ; for Bernard, bound 
 to control his natural spirits, was rather sulky, and Otto 
 
THE FAMILY 485 
 
 infuriated them all by choosing the more conspicuous of 
 the pauses from which the dialogue suffered, to sigh heavily. 
 This was merely Otto's way; but as he barely contributed 
 otherwise to the entertainment, the proceeding was the 
 more resented. As for Helga, she made no secret of her 
 opinion that the whole affair was exceedingly dull, and worse 
 than the funeral, where there had at least been several 
 academicians to look at. Bernard, to whom she confided 
 this opinion in German, appeared faintly amused. Helga 
 interested him as being a variety on the family type ; but she 
 was not a pretty girl, and he soon turned from her to gaze 
 wistfully at Cecile again. His niece talked on undismayed, 
 her voice rising steadily; and Madame, who detested her, 
 and made the sentiment a little too evident, tried to cut her 
 off in vain. She had any amount of experiences to offer; 
 for though her uncles had been three times as long in the 
 walks of the profession as Helga, she soon showed that 
 she had no intention, in these matters, of sitting at her 
 elders' feet. They had but to start the most innocent dis- 
 cussion bordering on art to be drowned by smart anecdotes 
 of modern scuffles and rivalry, and the student gossip that 
 is more wearisome than all to the grown musician. 
 
 Occasionally only Helga interrupted her bright conversa- 
 tion to stare fixedly, whether at some opinion, some eatable, 
 or some method of service that was new to her. Yvonne, 
 the maid, was not exempt ft-om her attention, and Yvonne, 
 flitting clear-eyed and light-footed round the table, with a 
 dry glance at the young lady now and then, presented a 
 natural contrast the critic Bernard, at least, could not miss. 
 
 " You had better have invited la petite, there," Bernard 
 confided to his hostess, who agreed profoundly, though she 
 frowned at him ; for Bernard, much given to confidence, 
 had a particularly clear-cut articulation ; and, with the for- 
 tunate exception of Helga, everybody at the table heard the 
 remark, including Yvonne herself as she left the room. 
 
 " In trying to copy Henriette, she has become a 
 caricature," muttered Madame, and rose in despair to change 
 
486 SUCCESSION 
 
 the scene, since the occupation of feeding could be pro- 
 tracted no longer. 
 
 In the other room it was worse; for even the ordinary 
 resource at Lemaure gatherings of music was denied them. 
 Howsoever the brethren might clash, in constitution or 
 opinion, they could always play together. All the materials 
 of harmony were present, as Bernard satirically agreed, 
 when his sister-in-law, glancing round the company, hinted 
 the idea to him low-toned. He was himself a fine violoncel- 
 list, Andre played two or three instruments, even Otto was 
 more than capable of sustaining a part. 
 
 " It would shock them, I suppose," said Madame, appeal- 
 ing pathetically to the least conventional brother. 
 
 " Andre and Lucien have survived shocks," said Bernard. 
 " Marcel and I, not to mention Henriette, kept their nerves 
 in practice. It is not so much that, Cecile, as that if we 
 began. Mademoiselle our niece would play to us all the 
 evening." 
 
 " Zut ! " muttered Cecile, and turned away. " Well, talk, 
 Bernard. Talk her down, if you wish to earn my gratitude." ' 
 
 Bernard buckled to the task. He was only lazy, and far 
 from incapable when spurred, and he was really anxious 
 to serve her. Avoiding the snare of professional small talk, 
 he instituted general gossip on some of the notables at the 
 funeral, as a bait likely to attract Lucien. Such openings 
 as failed he tossed aside, and picked up others, amusing him- 
 self by the way, and daring ever a little more as he ad- 
 vanced. 
 
 " Raymond Savigny seems more toque than ever, Lucien," 
 was one of his efforts. " I ventured the mildest inquiry as tO' 
 the safest cures for insomnia, and he said the only cure he 
 could recommend by experience was to remain as he had 
 done, three nights on his legs. Tasteful, hein, to me? He 
 really boasts, that fellow." 
 
 " I tried him for an hour on psychology," said Andre, 
 " and could get no sense out of him. He is a singularly 
 restless person." Andre, sleepy after food, shut his eyes. 
 
THE FAMILY 487 
 
 Otto, in the pause, sighed deeply. " I asked Savigny if 
 he knew of a quiet place in the environs, to which one could 
 retire for a course of massage, and his only answer was to 
 deluge me with prospectuses. Stuffed with them, he was! " 
 
 " That's what made him such an odd shape, was it? " said 
 Bernard. " Yes, I heard that dialogue ; and when poor Otto 
 asked if the heating arrangements of the new institute were 
 to be trusted, Raymond said they would be when the roof 
 was on. No, he is toque, really. I wouldn't trust him nowa- 
 days with a case of measles." 
 
 " Well," said Lucien, " a good half of the amateur world 
 here considers him toque. I believe Raymond enjoys it." 
 
 The answer, the barely disguised snub of an elder brother, 
 had a damping effect. Bernard had had no intention but to 
 be agreeable, since Lucien and Raymond had always been 
 considered adversaries. The younger would have retorted, 
 but he happened to see Lucien's look as he rose to snip his 
 ash into the grate, and glancing at Cecile, desisted. Instead, 
 he leant to Andre, and awakening him by degrees, prodded 
 him privately to make the move. 
 
 '' It won't do, really," said Bernard, in his artlessly dis- 
 tinct undertone. " I saw it wouldn't, from the first. It 
 creaks." His face was expressive of slight agony, as at an 
 ill-oiled machine. 
 
 The hostess was stirred. " Do not go yet, Andre," she 
 said, as the big slow man made a movement. " Lucien, I 
 shall not have another cigarette unless you do. They are 
 really admirable, these of Jem's." 
 
 The name produced its effect at once. Even Helga seemed 
 less bored. 
 
 " How that fellow has changed," said Otto. " I never 
 expected to find him so grey." 
 
 "Where did he vanish to yesterday?" Bernard asked. 
 " I noticed him standing by the gosse, having dawned from 
 nowhere, and later conducting the little witch Duchatel 
 with her crutch, and looking like an obelisk beside her. He 
 is a fine figure of a man, I'll say that." 
 
488 SUCCESSION | 
 
 " He went back to his affairs," said Cecile. " I was thank- 
 ful when I saw him with the boys. Jem is a calming pres- 
 ence." 
 
 " The little one clung to him," said Bernard. " Hid be- 
 hind him almost. The elder boy told me he was off again in 
 a month's time to America." 
 
 " I had not heard it," said Madame, rather startled. 
 " Had you, Lucien ? I should regret it, indeed. He is use- 
 ful, Jem, and charming too. Did you talk to him, Andre? " 
 
 Andre shook his lion head. " Two words merely. Helga 
 tried her English upon him, did you not, my dear?" 
 
 " He was most sympathetic," said Helga, with emphasis. 
 " No conceit about him — so rare in the English." 
 
 " What did you talk of ? " said Bernard, on satire bent. 
 But Helga was too much for him. 
 
 " My impressions," she replied — " it is true, they were 
 early ones — of Aunt Henriette." 
 
 There was a thrill, a dangerous one, through the ranks 
 of the brothers. 
 
 " On what subject," said Madame Lemaure, calmly rul- 
 ing the disturbance, "did M. Edgell reply?" 
 
 " I can't remember," said Helga frankly. " I could not 
 follow all he said; but he pleased me. He is well bred, I 
 should say." 
 
 " Your aunt would have been thankful to know you 
 agreed with her," said Bernard, looking her over with his 
 disconcerting eyes. 
 
 " He struck me as melancholy, though," said Helga. 
 " Will he re-marry, aunt ? " 
 
 "Why should he?" said Cecile. 
 
 " Why should he not ? " said Helga, with an admirable 
 manner of audacity. " It would relieve you and Uncle 
 Lucien." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Why, good gracious, of the boys." 
 
 " Many thanks, ma petite," said Lucien. " The arrange- 
 ment, as a fact, comes rather late." 
 
THE FAMILY 489 
 
 " Helga," observed Andre, " to relieve your uncle, one has 
 but to avoid shouting the roof off. Remember also that 
 the boy is under it." 
 
 " What then ? " 
 
 " He is Jem's son. Lucien, would it be impossible to find 
 Antoine's room, and have a word with him? I would not 
 ask it, but that we leave to-morrow early." 
 
 Andre's quiet acceptance of his brother's explanation of 
 Antoine's absence had influenced the rest, and no one pres- 
 ent, except Helga in an undertone, had asked for further 
 excuse for his retirement. Excitability was a quality neces- 
 sarily reckoned for in the youth of the Lemaures, and in a 
 child of Henriette's was the more natural. Even the un- 
 married Bernard expressed no surprise that the boy should 
 be guarded closely on the eve of a performance, especially 
 such as this. Their father at his best had never combined 
 with a greater star than Ribiera, and it sealed Antoine's 
 claim to the general regard. 
 
 " I'd like to have some facts about that Spanish ' type'," 
 he said aside to Otto, as Andre, like a big ship in motion, 
 left the room. " I never got a chance to ask the child." 
 
 " Let's all go and see him," exclaimed Helga, rising, and 
 overturning a screen as she did so; for she had not Hen- 
 riette's grace of movement. 
 
 Whereupon, seeing her husband wince, Madame Lucien 
 Lemaure acted. She rose also, beating back her skirts 
 with a careless gesture. Cecile was lovely in black, whereas 
 the dead colour did not suit Helga. 
 
 " Antoine is very nervous," she said. " He has what I 
 may call real nerves, and his illness did not improve them. 
 He is also in grief as deep as any of us, who are more old 
 and experienced, can exhibit, with the exception, perhaps, 
 of my husband. He loved his grandfather, and he is mak- 
 ing this necessary effort out of a feeling as loyal to his 
 memory, as that which bids us be silent — as silent as pos- 
 sible — beneath this roof. I ask you, Helga, is it fair to dis- 
 
490 SUCCESSION 
 
 turb him? It is not his own family, I think, who should 
 treat him as a show." 
 
 " No, no," said Otto, " you are right. Girl, sit down." 
 
 " Admirably said," added Bernard, much impressed. 
 
 " Well, really," said Helga. " A kid of fourteen. It does 
 seem a bit sentimental." 
 
 But opinion was against her, as she saw by looking round. 
 Bernard was muttering to Otto, his eyes on Cecile, and 
 Lucien was frowning, a hand to his head. Madame herself, 
 half regretting her outburst, and momentarily more anxious 
 about her husband, felt no spirit to remake the party. 
 Well-pleased or ill, they must go, and grumble, she hoped, 
 as far from her as possible. She was feeling the shadow 
 of defeat, a shadow she detested, close over her, when 
 Andre returned to the room, beaming with mild triumph, 
 and brought Antoine with him. 
 
 " Le petit had not gone to bed," he said, guiding his 
 charge by a great musical hand on his shoulder. " He was 
 half asleep, curled up in the chair. I said one needed him, 
 and he came of his own accord. Gentil, hein? " 
 
 Antoine, blinking slightly, greeted the room with affa- 
 bility. 
 
 " I heard you talking at dinner," he said to Helga care- 
 lessly. " Not the others, but you." 
 
 "Eavesdropping, eh?" said she. 
 
 " No. The door was shut, but I heard everything you 
 said. It is curious how you sometimes can." 
 
 " You were supposed to be asleep," said Bernard. 
 
 " I could not have gone to sleep," said Antoine, pausing 
 a moment by his chair, " I mean, not till after dinner. The 
 smell of the coffee besides was very good." 
 
 " You drank none, I hope, monsieur," said his aunt. He 
 handed on his bright glance to her, and separated two fin- 
 gers to show how much he had drunk. 
 
 She shook her head, but not at the matter of the coffee. 
 He was evidently at his most brilliant and irrepressible — 
 a flame, as his mother had been on an occasion that called 
 
THEFAMILY ,491 
 
 out her efforts. Cecile should of course have been anxious, 
 she even told herself as much; but she only felt an im- 
 mense, an absurd relief. There was never any disguising 
 Antoine's motives; he flung himself down on his stool at 
 his uncle's feet, with the air of one entering a threatened 
 position for purposes of defence; and he tossed his care- 
 less remarks about like missiles, things designed to find a 
 mark and stir retaliation, with a sureness of judgment 
 that amazed her, though he seemed to take the first ab- 
 surdities that came. He neglected no one, his restless eyes 
 perpetually glancing about, though he held them all with 
 ease. Cecile, accustomed herself by long experience to the 
 operation, could almost see him feeling quick-handed for 
 flaws in the social structure he was offered, supplying, sup- 
 plementing, re-making, with conscious energy and uncon- 
 scious inspiration. Weary as she was herself with the 
 effort past, she left it gladly in his hands, and lying back 
 in her low chair, watched the room. 
 
 He was the centre from the moment of his entrance; so 
 much vras clear, and indeed, only to be expected. Andre 
 was awakened completely. Otto amused, Bernard's keen 
 glance softened, as by a vague reminiscence, while he 
 jested. Lucien himself was stirred to stare down with a 
 kind of dull amazement, as at a familiar miracle he had 
 not hoped to see again. 
 
 " We are smoky here," he said. " Coming from without 
 thou wilt feel it, eh ? " 
 
 His voice was not at all his own ; and the boy, slightly 
 frowning, made no response, nor even looked round. He 
 fought his Uncle Bernard instead, who was engaged in 
 deliberate teasing, on the subject of Antoine's lady friends 
 in London and Paris, as to whom Bernard, it appeared, 
 had amassed the most various and disturbing knowledge. 
 
 " It is only one, here, who gave me a violin," said Antoine. 
 " And I told her four times I did not want it. The others 
 have only given me some little things, not generally useful. 
 In England they are more sensible," he appended. 
 
492 SUCCESSION 
 
 The remark only set the circle of uncles off again; and 
 Antoine discovered, to his resentful surprise, that he was 
 regarded as partially English by Bernard, He endeavoured 
 to make clear for the general benefit the difference between 
 himself and Philip in this matter, struggling so fiercely to 
 prove it, that he brought the room down with laughter sev- 
 eral times. 
 
 " The English find me curious," was his last contention, 
 in a shaken tone, looking round the mocking company. 
 
 " But so you are — a curiosity," said Bernard. 
 
 "Your French accent is good," said Otto, joining in. 
 " Better than Helga's there, for example." 
 
 " Oh, she speaks very well," said the boy hastily. 
 " Listen," to Bernard, who was shaking again, " I believe 
 it is what people make, really, that matters, not what they 
 say. There are French things and English things, do you 
 see?" 
 
 ' " I see. I am in accord, my nephew. Make something 
 French, and I will leave the point for ever." 
 
 " Oh, but I cannot now," said Antoine, astonished at 
 such unreason. However, he looked Bernard over thought- 
 fully, for light-minded as this uncle evidently was, he had 
 been gratified by his intelligence on certain points. " Some 
 time I should like to, for you," he added, lower. 
 
 " C'est entendu," said Bernard, and held out his clever 
 hand. It seemed Antoine was understood again. Slip- 
 ping his own fingers into it an instant, he shot at a tangent 
 to safer subjects. 
 
 Meanwhile Mile. Helga, who had said nothing for long, 
 began to bestir herself. So far she had merely stared at 
 her young cousin in her peculiarly stolid and consuming 
 fashion, a fashion of which he was conscious unpleasantly. 
 
 " You are very excited," she observed suddenly, as he 
 finished a long and rapid speech. 
 
 " Oh no, I am not," said Antoine. 
 
 " Yes, you are. I have observed it. Are you nervous?" 
 
 " How ? " he said, much discomposed. 
 
THE FAMILY 493 
 
 " I mean, of course, about these engagements. Ribiera 
 is no joke, they say. Aren't you booked to play with him 
 to-morrow ? " 
 
 " Yes. Only one sonata. It will go all right." Every 
 inch of him protesting, he swerved to Bernard for relief. 
 This alarming young lady's eyes, sharp and black, seemed 
 to screw into his middle, and, indeed, produced a pain. The 
 pain Antoine had felt vaguely before. It had threatened 
 lately in his room, as he lay curled in the chair, sent by the 
 devil doubtless to disturb his thoughts, which had just 
 grown quieter. His eyes, turned to Bernard, glowed an in- 
 vitation. 
 
 " The thing will go, you mean, if Ribiera plays correctly," 
 said that useful uncle. " He frequently knows better than 
 the German masters, however he may treat ours. Did you 
 
 hear, Antoine, of that extraordinary affair at Leipzig " 
 
 Bernard ran into anecdote, speaking man to man in a fashion 
 Antoine approved. 
 
 " He is as nervous as possible," announced Helga, unde- 
 terred. " He is biting his lip at this moment, father. Of 
 course it is only his second season. When he has been out 
 a year or two " 
 
 " He will be just the same as now," said Andre. " Leave 
 your superiority, Mademoiselle. You have never played to 
 a full royal house, under Reuss's direction, as he was doing 
 this autumn." 
 
 " Nor ever will," muttered Bernard. 
 
 " The things are all right, really," said Antoine in a 
 hurry to his master behind, who moved. " There is some 
 to do to-morrow, of course " 
 
 "If you ' ratais,' " said the irrepressible Helga, " what 
 would Uncle Lucien do to you ? " 
 
 Antoine's social resources failed utterly. He was speech- 
 less and shrinking. The nightmare was then true — this per- 
 son sent, like the little pain, to forewarn of calamity. His 
 dilated eyes fixed her, prepared for the worst. 
 
 Helga, in the general paralysis, pursued the theme. 
 
494 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I did myself once, when I was a student. My word, 
 I shall never forget it. It was in the hall of the school. I 
 fainted quite away, imagine ! " 
 
 Antoine imagined. " I should not like to do that," he 
 murmured. 
 
 " And my best friend had hysterics," said Helga. " She 
 said she had foreseen it, watched it coming — the strain was 
 too much, poor love. For me, it seemed extinction. Not 
 for long did I recover, and then it was a marked success 
 resuscitated me. I felt resuscitated," said Helga, lest any- 
 one should have failed to hear. " I was very impressionable 
 in those days. Indeed, before a big thing, I feel a certain 
 emotion still." 
 
 " Your emotions are misplaced, my niece," said Bernard, 
 in his cutting undertone. " Will you turn your attention to 
 your father a minute? He seems to have something to 
 say." 
 
 "We must be going, Helga," said Andre. He looked 
 heavily displeased. Her whole behaviour, according to the 
 adjudged standards, was out of place; her last piece of 
 selfish flightiness unpardonable. Andre's small grey eyes, 
 levelled severely, blamed her not as parent, but in the name 
 of the Lemaures. At their look, the girl realised her 
 blunder, and bit her lip, rather horrified. She had heard 
 of the occurrence in London naturally, since gossip in the 
 family soon passed round, but she had failed to recollect 
 for the moment. Details about others than herself Helga 
 frequently failed to recollect, just when it was most neces- 
 sary. 
 
 "That's a heavy programme," she said brightly, break- 
 ing across her younger uncle's dialogue with the boy as to 
 the works in hand. " I should say that long sonata and 
 one trio was quite sufficient." 
 
 "Will you not tell Ribiera so before you leave?" said 
 Bernard; and the boy laughed suddenly. 
 
 "Look at him," cried Helga, pointing. "That's what 
 Zep meant, I suppose, by his funny line." 
 
THE FAMILY 495 
 
 There was a general outburst, not only from her father 
 this time, half in vigorous protest, half in mirth. Antoine 
 blushed, but took their personalities with forbearance, since 
 these people were, after all, his own. He had already had 
 to stand much, on the subject of the caricature. He told 
 the young lady a little about his meeting with Zep, since 
 she expressed curiosity. Antoine had not liked Zep ; but he 
 was careful to be just, since that person had made him so 
 conspicuous ; and his hesitating little sentences about the 
 man and his work were particularly charming. 
 
 Bernard's eyes met Andre's, several times. As for him- 
 self and Lemonski, Antoine advanced with caution, but he 
 succeeded in getting the more necessary things said. 
 
 " I don't think my eyes are little lines like that," he fin- 
 ished these careful observations, " and the hair of both of 
 us is more tidy generally." 
 
 " Not when you are playing, beloved," said his aunt's soft 
 voice from the rear. " It is that you are the last person 
 to judge, as I informed you. Look at it now," she added 
 to the world sotto voce, for he had driven his forelock up- 
 right with an impatient sweep of hand. " Must you really 
 go, Andre?" she added, as the big man approached her. 
 She found herself listening to cordial thanks, and realised 
 that the strain was over, and the people satisfied at last. 
 
 " Come, Helga," said her father, as the girl still stood 
 silent, staring. " What will your cousin think of our man- 
 ners, after this? " 
 
 " He is quite tired, really." Helga announced a discov- 
 ery. Then, to the great surprise of all, she went forward 
 to kiss the boy where he sat. 
 
 " Don't get up, dear," she said, in her pleasantest tone. 
 " I can manage for myself without you, or Aunt Cecile 
 either. You're all sick to death of us; and why you have 
 not said so, hours since, I cannot think." 
 
 But Antoine, after the embrace especially, conceived there 
 were a few final touches to add before this little work he 
 had undertaken could be complete. He went with them to 
 
496 SUCCESSION 
 
 the exit, slipping out in their wake and closing the door be- 
 hind the train, with an eagerness, just not too conspicuous, 
 to leave Madame and her husband alone. He did not come 
 back, and of the two, Cecile only noted it. 
 
 " That," said Bernard to Otto on the stairs, " was really 
 the most striking illustration of education by example that 
 I ever saw. Did you observe, the child was simply shiver- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Oh, I saw it well enough," said Otto. " And who won- 
 ders? The voice alone augmented my pulse, before we 
 began to dine." 
 
 " Little Cecile was shivering also," said Bernard, " with 
 rage. She nearly struck the girl when she made that 
 'gaffe.'" 
 
 " I suppose," said Otto, sympathetic on the national 
 point, " that is what in Cologne they call a woman." 
 ( " Ce pauvre Andre," murmured Bernard; and they de- 
 parted from the family gathering in amity. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 WEBER 
 
 The task of escorting Antoine to his rehearsal had been 
 assigned to Philip, who happened to be disengaged on the 
 afternoon in question. Philip having, like all the rest, a 
 vast curiosity about Ribiera, had advanced no objection, 
 and was the more ready that he was somewhat conscious 
 of having been useless to the community the night before. 
 He had boasted a little to his comrades the Rats of this 
 chance of viewing the much-talked-of celebrity in private 
 life, and he was quite pleasant even when his uncle worried 
 him before parting with unnecessary directions. Lucien 
 himself had an important consultation at his lawyer's, in 
 reference to his father's considerable bequests for charity; 
 and Savigny, since the most considerable bequest concerned 
 his institute, was to join them at some hour undetermined, 
 and go thence, either with Lucien, or alone, to the archi- 
 tect's dwelling at Meudon. Madame Lemaure, taking ad- 
 vantage of her husband's absence in Savigny's safe charge, 
 had gone to lunch with her mother, who had ever been her 
 best friend and counsellor, and to whose ear she had mani- 
 fold private matters to confide. It was an admirable ar- 
 rangement, perfect in every respect, except as to the con- 
 dition of the central figure. But that, by a singular over- 
 sight, they all ignored until too late: when, with equal 
 unanimity, they all said they had expected no less, from 
 the moment of the boy's return. 
 
 Cecile had said she would probably be back before the 
 departure of the pair. About the time she was expected, a 
 
 497 
 
498 SUCCESSION 
 
 visitor called to see her, and since she was refused to him, 
 left a card, Margot had to hold the door open while he 
 wrote a line of excuse and condolence on the card, stand- 
 ing without upon the stairs. He was a slight, well-built 
 man, tired-looking, one might have guessed delicate, with 
 the manner of business, and a fine brow lined with care. 
 
 " Pardon," he said suddenly, lifting his head with a 
 quick movement of attention. " What is that? " 
 
 A slight wailing sound had reached him, piteous, in- 
 fantile almost. 
 
 " On a du chagrin," said Margot vaguely, putting a hand 
 upon the door. Surely, in a house of mourning, du chagrin 
 might be taken for granted. The visitor did not think so, 
 however, for he continued to listen keenly for more than a 
 minute, though the sound had stopped. Margot, impatient 
 for him to go, saw the pencil suspended. 
 
 " The boy — the violinist — still lives with you? " he asked. 
 " I regret I have forgotten his name." 
 
 " The Messieurs Edgell are both here," said Margot. 
 " Tenez ! " she glanced past him, as Philip strode up the 
 stairs, in evident haste and vexation of mind. 
 
 " It's no good," he said. " I can't get through to the 
 fellow at this address. I suppose I had better telegraph, 
 or try Savigny. There's so little time." Then he saw the 
 stranger before him, and was simultaneously aware in his 
 rear of a beautiful dog, a deerhound of the highest breed, 
 which, eluding the watchful concierge below, had tracked 
 him like a shadow in his hasty ascent. 
 
 "I say, is this yours?" said Philip. "I'm sorry." His 
 hand was on the dog, mechanically caressing. 
 
 " Clovis," said the visitor sadly. " I told you to remain. 
 I am astonished." 
 
 The dog sunk head and tail, and turning like a ship in 
 narrow seas, prepared to descend again to his watch below. 
 He crawled a little way and stopped, looking round. 
 
 " I disturbed him by speaking, I'm afraid," Philip men- 
 tioned. " He was down there, lying on the mat." 
 
WEBER 499 
 
 " I think I saw you at the telephone as I passed," said 
 the stranger. " Perhaps I might have saved you some 
 trouble, for I have just failed to find M. Savigny at his 
 iiouse." He had a modest maner, retiring almost. Philip 
 patronised him. 
 
 " Oh, I knew he wasn't there, thanks. He's either at the 
 lawyer's or the architect's. Lord knows which, by now. I 
 must get the address, inside." With the last, half to the 
 woman, he was striding past into the house again whea 
 the stranger stopped him. 
 
 " Excuse me," he said, in his polite, weary tone, " but if 
 it is as a physician you seek Monsieur Savigny, possibly I 
 could " 
 
 " It isn't," said Philip. " I could manage alone, if that 
 were all. Savigny's something more than a doctor, for- 
 tunately." Philip had reason for long to regret those words. 
 
 " But I am aware of it," said the gentleman, and the boy 
 could no longer neglect the card he insinuated. Having 
 glanced at it, he blushed up to the ears." 
 
 " Fm sure I beg your pardon, sir," he said. " I don't 
 know what I am talking about, really. I'm rather bothered. 
 It's M. Weber," he added to Margot. 
 
 " M. Edgell ? " the other queried lightly. " I supposed 
 so — I am enchanted. I regret that I could not attend the 
 funeral. I hoped to come, but was prevented at the last 
 instant. You will perhaps be so amiable as to make my 
 excuses to Madame Lemaure." 
 
 Philip would be so amiable. He had put his foot into it 
 terribly; his speech to the celebrated specialist rang in his 
 ears. He blushed more when Weber said : 
 
 " I have seen you at a lecture, I believe. This must be a 
 terrible loss. Your brother has supported it passably, I 
 trust." 
 
 " Perfectly, up to now," said Philip. " Do you know my 
 brother, sir? " 
 
 " Dr Savigny consulted Monsieur," interposed Margot, 
 who was proud of her memory for names. " He saw M. 
 
500 SUCCESSION 
 
 Antoine, I think, on his return from Germany, for I re- 
 member M. Antoine spoke of the dog." 
 
 " To be sure : Clovis remembers Monsieur Antoine." 
 Weber glanced at his dog, which, still hesitating on the 
 stairs, returned the glance with passion. ''If your brother 
 is at home we should be pleased to see him." 
 
 " He's just going out, I am afraid," said Philip rather 
 sheepishly. " He has a rehearsal at two sharp at Passy. I 
 am taking him." 
 
 " Ah," said the visitor. " But I have my auto there. 
 Might I have the pleasure of conducting you? Even with 
 Clovis, there is plenty of room." 
 
 The boy was visibly embarrassed. His eyes once more 
 sought help of the woman. 
 
 " Monsieur could persuade M. Antoine to go, perhaps," 
 she suggested, " if Monsieur is not pressed. It is impor- 
 tant to be punctual, and the carriage gives us a little more 
 time." 
 
 " It does, of course," said Philip. Then, as the visitor's 
 inquiring eyes met his, he blurted out their difficulty. " An- 
 toine's taken it into his head he can't play one of the things 
 required, and he refuses to go. He's taken advantage of my 
 imcle being out to be as obstinate as he knows how. It's 
 serious rather, and I have been arguing with him for an 
 hour; but he simply won't hear reason. He just sits on the 
 floor and cries for grandpapa like a baby, and says he can't 
 bear it." 
 
 "What can he not bear?" said Dr Weber. He had 
 followed the boy a few steps inside, and was clearly listen- 
 ing again. 
 
 " Being without him, I suppose. I've told him it's as 
 bad for everyone, and we must all get used to it. He's 
 taken it so quietly till now," said Philip, aggrieved. " He 
 was the best of everyone last week, and so I told him." 
 He felt himself, it was absurd to start minding at this stage 
 of affairs, and it was evidently on that tone that he had 
 been discoursing to Antoine. Plis conduct was untimely, as 
 
WEBER 501 
 
 well as unreasonable ; above all, when his elder broi^her had 
 undertaken to produce him smiling with his violin at Ribi- 
 era's rooms on the stroke of two. With the importance of 
 this assignation the household was singularly possessed. 
 The hour of two blazed luridly in their minds, all Ribiera's 
 lustre behind it. By some means or other, Antoine must 
 be there, or his whole career was endangered. And An- 
 toine's career meant so much to all the family — except him- 
 I self. 
 I " An hour, you say ? " said Dr Weber. 
 
 " He began it at lunch-time," said Philip. " Really as 
 i soon as the others had gone. It must be more than an 
 j hour we've been standing over him — mustn't it, Margot? — 
 I and he hasn't a single sensible reason to offer. I tell him 
 it will be all right when he gets there — of course it will. He 
 can always play when it comes to the point. Really, I 
 couldn't possibly bother you, sir," he added, seeing the 
 strange doctor stand with an absent, rather haughty ex- 
 pression. " You must have any amount to do. It's more 
 temper than anything — nerves, we call it. We're used to 
 
 that " 
 
 "Will you kindly be quiet?" said M. Weber, in a tone 
 that froze his utterance. In the silence a reiterated sound, 
 between a sob and a cry, reached them again. " That's not 
 grief — that's pain," he said in the same rapid, restrained 
 tone, new to their ears. " Don't you know the difference, 
 sir, and you a student of medicine? An hour! Good heav- 
 ens, the poor child. Let me pass." 
 
 He thrust past both, and made in the direction of the 
 sound. Unseen by the two he left, the dog Clovis intruded 
 a pointed nose through the door, with a glance as in apology 
 at -\Iargot, whose hand had dropped from it. He entered 
 with the same air of courtesy, stepping daintily, gazed with 
 an intelligent eye along the passage in the direction his 
 master had taken, glanced into the kitchen, and turning with 
 decision towards the study, no doubt as the most pre- 
 sentable room in sight, he lay down there upon the hearth. 
 
502 SUCCESSION 
 
 Philip, cut through by the doctor's tone, which had been 
 startHng from such a mild-looking person, had turned 
 white. He looked at Margot in a kind of horror, and rested 
 a hand on the table near him. 
 
 " All right," he said, with an effort. " Don't cry, Margot 
 — there's no time. He's one of the biggest doctors in Paris, 
 so he'll know. Where's Yvonne? " 
 
 " La petite went out, when Monsieur Philippe would 
 not listen to her," sobbed Margot. " I believe to seek .Mon- 
 sieur Lucien, but she did not say." Philip and the girl 
 had been in conflict over the matter of the boy's ill-be- 
 haviour, as he conceived it. Now he could not deny a 
 need for her, as he saw old Margot, helpless with the shock, 
 wringing her shaking hands. As for Philip, his head was 
 turning. He went to the study and sat there, his head in 
 his hands, railing at his weakness, but unable to master it 
 instantly. He had seldom acted in better faith, or more 
 in accordance with Savigny's stringent precepts, than in 
 that scolding he had given Antoine. He had quite enjoyed 
 himself at first,' and filled Margot with admiration at his 
 eloquence. But now — how could he have been such an 
 absurd, such a heartless fool? Conviction had come in a 
 rush, it was as clear as day to him in the flashlight of that 
 man's few words. The boy's attitude in front of the chair 
 in his room, where the helper once had sat — his slim strong 
 hands clenched on its arms as he crouched before it, his 
 body bowed, his mechanical reiterated sentences, the little 
 choked half-animal cry, which had driven his brother almost 
 wild with pure irritation — all the evidence under his eyes, 
 all that time. How had he answered all this? He had no 
 idea, except that he had thought it fine, and that it had been 
 futile, cruel stuff, every word — had Weber not said so to his 
 face? It was unbearable. 
 
 Weber had resumed his gentle tone when he came back 
 to the study. 
 
 " Your brother is in violent pain evidently," he said. 
 
I WEBER 503 
 
 " Impossible to locate, since he remains obstinately curled 
 up. But he remembers me, and I think he will let me handle 
 him. Has he had any such crisis before?" 
 
 " No," said Philip. " They are always different. . . . 
 Grandpapa had opiates, sir," he added, with a new effort, 
 as the doctor turned to the table, and mentioned a few 
 names. Weber shook them oft" with a gesture. 
 
 " I am not satisfied with the heart," he said drily. " I 
 was not before, only — Savigny had better see. Where did 
 you say he was? " 
 
 " Lord knows. At Meudon by this time." 
 " Psst ! Well, M. Edgell, I am sending my man home. 
 He could take any message more or less on the road. Can 
 I use these writing things ? " 
 
 Philip put the materials before him, supplying informa- 
 1 tion as he did so. 
 
 I " The girl's gone to find my uncle," he said. " My aunt 
 \ should be in soon. I must go in person to this Ribiera, if 
 )| you don't mind. My uncle trusted it to me. It's an im- 
 :| portant rehearsal and not much time to spare." 
 ; " When's the concert?" said Weber, teasing his little 
 ;| moustache. 
 
 ,j "The sixth — advertised. I suppose that will be all 
 right?" Philip began to be hopeless of stability in the 
 world, this new man was so calm. Weber simply added a 
 word to a line he had written, and extended it. 
 
 " Give that to Monsieur Ribiera," he said, " if he will 
 !not take a simple excuse. It may prevent misapprehen- 
 Isions. Telephone this to the clinique, if you will be so 
 ikind, to await your doctor. It's lucky I knew him before; 
 'but I am on delicate ground in this house. You take 
 ithe motor, of course, it goes that way." He lifted his eyes 
 to the boy's face and added brusquely : " Are you equal to 
 this, M. Edgell? ]\Iy man has plenty of sense, and I could 
 use you here. Indeed, any one the patient knows would be 
 a gain." 
 
504 SUCCESSION 
 
 Philip swept the notes together, saying: " Shall I take 
 the dog?" 
 
 " No," said Weber, with the same air of business. 
 " Clovis waits for me." As Philip turned, he added : " The 
 woman's the only servant, eh ? You mentioned a girl ? " 
 
 " You can trust Yvonne, when she comes," said Philip. 
 " She's my foster-sister, and has known him all his life." 
 
 Weber nodded satisfaction. As he left the house, Philip 
 heard him in the kitchen, snapping off directions to Mar- 
 got. It seemed that another being must have written the 
 message to Savigny, which was in polite and ornate excuse 
 for M. Weber's intrusion on the premises. It became clear 
 he and Savigny were at formal enmity, whether on the 
 subject of Antoine or otherwise Philip had no time to debate. 
 
 He had no time to be shy either, strange as were the cir- 
 cumstances of his arrival at the Spaniard's handsome flat. 
 Weber's automobile spun him there so quickly that, what 
 with the sharp air and the recent shock, his senses re- 
 mained in a whirl. It was like a dream — one of those fa- 
 miliar dreams where one takes the place of speaker or per- 
 former on short notice, with a conscious inability to per- 
 form or speak. What, he wondered vaguely, would Manuel 
 Ribiera say to him? What kind of fury would he have to 
 face? As he went his eyes were fixed half consciously on 
 the message on Weber's card. It was a fine spidery scrawl, 
 that message, and it said that M. Antoine Edgell was pre- 
 vented by serious illness from attending. Serious — that 
 was the word he had inserted when Philip spoke of the con- 
 cert. The brother tried to read it as " sudden," but was 
 not able. Under the all-powerful name of Weber, An- 
 toine was written as seriously ill. Philip spent the time 
 till he reached the door in trying to grasp it. 
 
 Arrived there, he nodded dismissal to Weber's driver, 
 and went in. Philip had always heard, from the omniscient 
 Ostrowski and others, that Ribiera lived like a prince; 
 but he was almost bewildered by the costliness of sur- 
 roundings which the man had provided for his short stay 
 
WEBER 505 
 
 of two months. A servant let him in silently on hearing 
 his name, conducted him through two or three soft-carpeted 
 rooms, and opened a door. He passed into a long apartment 
 with a marked absence of furniture, except for a magnificent 
 piano at the farther end. Over this piano, on which a 
 quantity of manuscript music lay scattered, four men were 
 quarrelling in loud, excited voices. A cloud of smoke lay 
 over all. 
 
 " M. Edgell," said the servant, and three of them turned 
 to stare. The other said : 
 
 " There's the little firebrand ; now we shall catch it " — 
 and went on trilling a peculiar series of broken passages 
 one-handed on the instrument. " O my honour, it's 
 amusing," he shouted, as though in retort to one of the 
 men. " Duchatel was not far out. I am amused. I remain 
 amused. It entertains me. Look here, and here again. 
 Listen." He resumed the broken trill, the cigarette in his 
 teeth, and swung the other hand behind him. " Come to 
 my side," he said. " Thou wilt be crying by now. We are 
 maltreating thee, and shall continue. It is exquisite non- 
 sense, all of it; but exquisite. Come." 
 
 Nobody came to Ribiera. M. Edgell the elder stood stiff 
 as a column behind him, waiting for the farce to finish. At 
 a word from one of the men, Ribiera looked over his 
 shoulder, dropped the hand off the piano, and turned. 
 
 "Who is this?" he said, equally stiff on the instant. 
 " Whom have I the honour unaware, Monsieur ? " 
 
 " My brother is prevented by illness from joining you," 
 said Philip, in a very nervous voice. " I am charged to make 
 his excuses." 
 
 The four men stared, their cigarettes suspended. Me- 
 chanically the boy took note, British fashion, of the im- 
 mense physical superiority of the one at the piano to the 
 other three. Ribiera was a splendid person, and seemed 
 admirably self-controlled. Philip only wished the dream 
 sensations would pass, and leave him power to note them 
 
5o6 SUCCESSION 
 
 more closely ; for it must be, after all, an unusual occasion, 
 if he could believe in it. 
 
 " Pince, sefior," said somebody in the dream, 
 
 "Illness?" said Ribiera's voice. "Children are never 
 ill. Men are ill at times, in hospitals. This is invention." 
 
 " I wish I was inventing," said Philip. " The doctor says 
 it is serious." His voice broke. It had not struck him that 
 merely saying the thing aloud would be dreadful. He ex- 
 tended the card. The Spaniard took it, looked at it, and 
 tossed it on the piano. 
 
 " An illness, messieurs," he announced, " A serious ill- 
 ness. From Weber. Who is Weber ? " 
 
 Nobody could inform him — Philip was too indignant: 
 Someone laughed behind the smoke, the same that had said 
 pince. 
 
 " Ask Monsieur the tall brother," said somebody else. 
 " It is clear he comes among us to explain." 
 
 " Do you come to explain ? " said Ribiera, as Philip stood 
 silent. He realised he was a butt for their wit, these clever 
 men who sat in another world. He realised that it must be 
 so ; and simultaneously, he had little doubt, despite their 
 careless chatter, that they took Antoine seriously. " Do 
 you come to explain ? " repeated Ribiera, softly as though 
 to a child. 
 
 " No, Monsieur," he answered. " On the contrary, if you 
 will accept my excuses, I must go back as soon as possible. 
 My brother is suffering." 
 
 " He is suffering! But — mon cher petit grand monsieur " 
 — the Spaniard, who had risen, took two graceful steps — 
 " he must not suffer ! He is to be cured, and soon, since he 
 has promised me his assistance. He plagued me with tele- 
 grams on the subject — I have three, at least three notes, 
 from his hand. Eh bien ! " 
 
 " I am sorry," said Philip, biting his lip. He glanced 
 from one face to another, as though seeking anywhere a 
 sign of feeling. 
 
 " We need him to interpret," said Ribiera, striking the 
 
WEBER 509 
 
 music back-handed. " Need ! I say that. Do you knus- 
 my name ? " 
 
 " I can guess it, sir," said Philip. Baited as he felt by 
 them, clinging to his dignity, his face white still, and his 
 voice shaken by the recent shock, his appearance touched 
 all the little group of artists almost to tenderness. Ribiera 
 himself was smiling. 
 
 " You know what he is ? " he asked. " You can guess 
 him? Admirable. He has confided to you in the watches 
 of the night, perhaps, his projects of reform. Well, he must 
 do everything — anything — except write for the piano. My 
 hand will not accept his little passages " — he trilled again 
 carelessly — " and so they are rejected. Will you tell him 
 that, from me ? " 
 
 Philip gazed at him, his grey eyes wide, taking it in. 
 
 " On n'est pas musicien," murmured a smoking man. 
 " One hardly understands. We fatigue him, sefior." 
 
 " He is fatigued," said Ribiera compassionately. " He 
 may go — and we also, gentlemen, hein ? " 
 
 "Do you mean — he has written that?" said Philip. 
 Everybody nodded and waved their hands. 
 
 " AH this," said Ribiera, tapping page after page of the 
 scattered sheets. " Let him come to me here, when he will, 
 I shall be working at it. Soon, I shall get it to fit my 
 hand — a glove." He stretched his brown fingers towards 
 Philip, adding in a barely lowered tone to the company: 
 " He is imbecile, I believe, this little god. . . . To- 
 morrow I will expect him at this hour," he proceeded, 
 " when the serious illness has passed. I myself have eaten 
 imprudently. I am not offended — I am amused. Tell him 
 that. Send him," he finished magnificently, " bring him, 
 if he suffers still, to these rooms. We shall be waiting 
 here." 
 
 " It's kind of you," Philip managed to say. " But — he is 
 really ill." 
 
 " Oh no, no, no," said Ribiera. " Impossible." And his 
 court all cordially murmured : " Impossible." As Philip 
 
5o8 SUCCESSION 
 
 retreated and the dream grew dim, he saw the pianist drop 
 upon the seat again, and heard the persistent trill, clean and 
 clear in his exquisite touch, through all the clamour and 
 laughter that broke out. 
 
 " Que Madame sa mere a du etre belle," came in Ribiera's 
 musical accent through a pause ; and Philip heard that also. 
 
 He saw the whole, of course, when he had leisure to col- 
 lect his thoughts outside in the clearer air. Ribiera, him- 
 self a grand poseur, had accepted, almost on sight, his 
 brother's claim to pose as well. That was what the man 
 had meant by pince. Antoine was big enough, in these 
 men's eyes, to throw out an important rehearsal for a freak, 
 and to send in a doctor's card merely to flout them, when 
 they were all assembled for a serious purpose. This was 
 the kind of thing these wonderful people took calmly, with 
 a jest or two, and a fresh cigarette. Antoine's neglect of 
 the appointment made for him, instead of shaking the fabric 
 of his career, as his little home world had supposed, scored 
 one to him in the appointer's estimation. Ribiera would 
 doubtless study and retaliate at leisure, as in a game. 
 Philip, trained in business habits, above all as regarded 
 music, by his uncle and his uncle's milieu, saw that the boy 
 was indeed in the heaven above the markets now. He had 
 been lifted there, perhaps by that brown hand Ribiera 
 threw behind him as he sat at the piano, a teasing hand, 
 but offered him as an equal. The hand remained empty, 
 but the gesture had been made. Nothing in the world could 
 have brought home to Philip so clearly as this absurd in- 
 cident, the distance the boy had covered during that strange 
 year. 
 
 So great was the illusion produced by this kaleidoscopic 
 reversal of the serious facts in his brain, that he had to 
 repeat to himself on the way home that Antoine's illness 
 was not a fraud. He was almost ready to take Ribiera's 
 word against Weber's, and believe Weber wrong, until he 
 
WEBER 
 
 509 
 
 reached the house, and found the same conditions of sus- 
 pense that he had left. 
 
 " Will Monsieur Philippe come," said Yvonne quickly 
 and softly as he entered, " as soon as he has seen Madame? 
 He must see her a moment in the study." And she disap- 
 peared again noiselessly through a door. 
 
 Madame Lemaure he discovered lying on the couch in 
 the study, the doctor's deerhound gracefully disposed 
 alongside as though guarding her. They made a charming 
 group, posed as though for painting; but the effect their 
 inaction made was not of helplessness, more of a kind of 
 protesting patience ; and both pairs of eyes turned towards 
 \ Philip expectantly when he entered. 
 
 ! " Come and console us," said Cecile, extending a hand. 
 ! " You are tired ? " the boy said, kneeling down by her. 
 I " No, no — useless, merely. Equally useless, as you see. 
 \ What it is ever to have submitted oneself to a doctor! 
 I Weber is a perfect martinet, with his soft voice. Instead 
 ■j of answering the questions, all most sensible, I had pre- 
 ,] pared for him, he asked me how I did and laid me here, 
 '\ After that he gave me a picture-book and his big tou-tou 
 { to play with, et voila! He has the girl with him, that is 
 'I enough." She looked at Philip, pitifully rather, yet com- 
 i[ ically rueful. 
 
 > "I hardly know if it is serious," she proceeded. " An- 
 j toine interests them all so much in any case — impossible to 
 1 tell. I have had no history, only a lecture. I am passive." 
 ! " Is Savigny here ? " said Philip, frowning slightly. He 
 r| had to follow Weber's lead, and spare her, since he did. 
 'I " No. Little Bronne came up, and went again as 
 promptly. Yvonne told me he had all Savigny 's work to 
 do down there, and could not stay. Savigny has been de- 
 layed at Meudon evidently — he left Lucien to go there. 
 Bronne has sent to find him, failing any assistance from 
 I your uncle. It is most unfortunate, for Weber naturally 
 I feels he is trespassing, having quarrelled with Savigny be- 
 fore. These geniuses are the touchiest people — I should 
 
5IO SUCCESSION 
 
 know; and yet with Weber's manner of silk one can see 
 nothing. We must feed him, I suppose, and I have said 
 
 nothing to Margot. It is desesperant — so soon " She 
 
 put a hand to her head. 
 
 " Did Yvonne find my uncle ? " said Philip. 
 
 " He has come in, yes. Do not leave me, darling " — as 
 he made a movement. " It is useless to ask him either, for 
 he will hear nothing till Savigny comes. It is amazing the 
 faith they all have in Savigny, while they abuse him. You 
 also?" She glanced at him, exploring his face with her 
 fond eyes. " Cheri, how worried you look," she mur- 
 mured. " It was hard, hein, with the little one? If I had 
 only known, I would have stayed to help you." 
 
 " I am worried rather," the boy admitted. " I must go 
 to my uncle. Where is he? " 
 
 " In that room, the empty one." Philip lifted his brows. 
 " Do not go yet, I advise you. Weber was furious to find 
 no means of warming the child's room — refused Margot's 
 suggestion of the kitchen with contempt, and assumed pos- 
 session of Lucien's quarters before he arrived. He ex- 
 plained to Lucien in studied terms, after his fashion, which 
 made things no better. Of course, my husband would have 
 offered it." 
 
 " I see," said Philip, and looked thoughtful. 
 
 " You have a message? " she asked. 
 
 " If you call it one. Ribiera said a few things." 
 
 " To be sure — what of Ribiera? That is his anxiety." 
 
 " He needn't be anxious. Ribiera expects Antoine to- 
 morrow or some time, when we like, so long as he gets him 
 before the concert. The other fellows will dance attendance. 
 He doesn't take it seriously— thinks our excuses are blague. 
 He told me to say he was amused." 
 
 " The mountebank ! " said Cecile, with indignation. 
 "Yes, that is how they speak of him. Well, your uncle 
 will have to write and make it clear. Weber will never let 
 him go out to-morrow, after this — hein, Clovis?" She 
 dropped her eyes to the dog, which moved every time its 
 
WEBER 511 
 
 master's name was mentioned. She laid her little ringed 
 hand on his rough head. " Really, I must have a dog," she 
 murmured. '* Perhaps that is what Weber meant. It is 
 the thing I need." She seemed weary and vague to Philip, 
 who was accustomed to her keenness. 
 
 " Was my uncle angry?" he ventured. 
 
 " Angry ? — you can imagine it. He made it clear he 
 thought Weber was interfering unnecessarily. He still 
 trusts Savigny to support him — yet one cannot treat a man 
 like Weber so. Fortunately he is perfectly bred — and 
 doubtless saw the case. He is tired, Lucien — hardly him- 
 self. He went to his father's room, and would not have 
 me there. I suppose he suspects I hold the other side — 
 unwifely." She laughed a little. " Yours is a distracting 
 family, cheri. So I told maman." 
 
 " I am glad you saw her," said Philip, putting his arms 
 round her. " Look here, you are not to bother. Weber 
 meant that, and so do I. I'll see to Margot and everything 
 — and I'll tell you a bit of news. Then you can hand it on 
 to my uncle, and do it better." 
 
 " Tell," she said contentedly. She loved to be managed 
 by Philip, and had not been, for long. " Not bad news, 
 dearest? " 
 
 " My distracting family wouldn't think so, anyway. Of 
 course it's not your business, but you like meddling, don't 
 you? Ribiera has a thing down there he wrote." 
 
 "What, the little one?" Her face changed. 
 
 Philip nodded. " They were waiting there, intending to 
 play it when he came. A biggish thing — quintet, I suppose, 
 since there were four of them." 
 
 "A quintet?" Her eyes on him were brighter still. 
 " But that I know about, I may tell you. I am up to date 
 in Antoine's compositions." 
 
 " Well, I should say whether Antoine plays or not, they'll 
 produce it all the same. Ribiera was quite excited, and he's 
 an autocrat in his sets, isn't he ? " 
 
 " True. They will do it, and Ribiera will make it cele- 
 
512 SUCCESSION 
 
 brated. . . . Wait, that is what his postscript meant 
 then, the scrap our little oddity tore off and cherished. He 
 suspected probably. He half saw, Antoine, as always ; only 
 it makes one feverish half to see. Myself, I detest it. I 
 saw he was feverish last night. Yes, I still have a quarrel 
 with Ribiera." 
 
 " Let me go," said Philip, smiling. " You can touch it up 
 by yourself, and have it all straight by dinner-time." 
 
 " I must have somebody to think to, do you see ? It as- 
 sists. It was the fox Victor, of course, who passed the 
 manuscript on. Now, that will annoy Lucien, with reason. 
 He has been allowed no hand in it at all. This is serious." 
 
 " Invent something," suggested Philip impudently. 
 " Ribiera mentioned Duchatel." 
 
 " There ! But Victor should have more tact at his age. 
 He has known your uncle for long." 
 
 " Perhaps he thought Ribiera would sniff at the thing ; 
 but he won't, I can answer for that. You see, Bebe's writ- 
 ten it a bit sticky for him to play, and it's worrying his 
 dreams. He couldn't leave the passage alone." 
 
 " Good," said Madame ; " I trust it will. Antoine heard 
 him play in London — petit ruse, he did not seem to be 
 watching. Here is the result." 
 
 " It's a bit of luck, isn't it ? " said Philip, detaching him- 
 self gently. 
 
 She nodded. " The sort of luck those possess. I wish — 
 I was about to say I wished your grandfather could have 
 known, but looking backward is so useless. His luck failed 
 there." She looked up at Philip, who had risen suddenly. 
 "Will you tell the baby — to-night?" 
 
 " Not to-night, I think. He is rather wretched." 
 
 " Yvonne said he had not fainted, so it is not like the 
 last attack. There is no immediate anxiety. Will you not 
 stay and talk, darling? I have more reflections — a quan- 
 tity." 
 
 " Tell them to Clovis — his eyes are very sensible. Isn't 
 he a beauty? Good dog. I must go." 
 
WEBER 513 
 
 " Why ? " she persisted. 
 
 " I can manage Tony when he's fractious." He spoke 
 lightly, of intention, but her eyes were on his face. 
 
 " That is it," she said gently. " You are patient with 
 me all this time. Well, we can be patient too. . . . 
 That boy is tormenting himself," she said to Clovis, when 
 they were alone. " He turns soft like that when he is in 
 trouble. He has some private reasons probably, and he is 
 very quick to foresee." She gripped her hands again till 
 the rings hurt her. " Heaven grant it is not Marcel. There 
 was an afternoon like this — one cannot have forgotten. 
 That, for Lucien, would be the end. And I have nothing 
 to give him in exchange. Nothing. . . . Well, I must 
 get a dog." 
 
 Philip was useful. Even Yvonne, who was more useful 
 still, admitted that ; and Weber the martinet said later to 
 Savigny that, had both the boy and the girl been hospital 
 trained, he could hardly have had more efficient assistance. 
 Indeed, the doctor regretted his sharpness to Philip, when 
 he saw his real influence with the patient — and, by way of 
 proving the regret, used him mercilessly. Weber's own 
 efforts never wearied, during the long hours till Savigny 
 came, though he had all he could do. For the balance had 
 turned. For Antoine, resignation, patience, " politeness," 
 were no more, and he spared none of his surroundings the 
 knowledge of what he had suffered, and was suffering. 
 More than once Philip privately thought his mind must go, 
 in his struggle with the spasms of pain, to his nature in- 
 tolerable. He realised during those hours something of 
 what the walls of Savigny's clinique had hidden two years 
 since, some of the things of which Savigny had never 
 spoken. Had he been less than a brother, it would have 
 been instructive, and as it was, he learned much, while he 
 blindly obeyed. 
 
 Yvonne was the person who watched proceedings most 
 calmly, and who remembered best what she saw. Margot, 
 
514 SUCCESSION 
 
 who worked in the house now merely in the daytime, was 
 forced, to her great despair, to leave before Savigny's ar- 
 rival, though it was in one of the interludes of the patient's 
 suiferings. She received the whole account from la petite 
 the ensuing morning — adorned by such reflections as oc- 
 curred to the narrator at the time or since — while they 
 scoured the pans. As Antoine was not in his own room, 
 and Philip out, they could converse at ease. Yvonne was 
 as brisk as ever, and as spruce in appearance, though she 
 had been up all night. Since, when the hands are occupied, 
 immediate things come first to the mind, she began by treat- 
 ing of this fact. 
 
 " M. Savigny told me to leave him asleep," she observed 
 to Margot. "Jealous of my deranging his work, hein? — 
 by sitting near the bed. He had been furious with me be- 
 fore that for remaining while they discussed over the poor 
 little one with their long words ; but I remained. Those 
 two are more to me than a pair of doctors talking, I 
 imagine; and so long as they had need of me, you would 
 not see me budge, no! When M. Antoine was asleep — at 
 last, thanks to heaven — M. Savigny declared he would not 
 wake again, and I could make myself scarce. Good. I 
 smiled — thus — which contented him. But when he had 
 left, talking ever to M. Weber, who was silent, I returned 
 to M. Antoine, and so I stayed all night." 
 
 " Bien sur," cried Margot, with sympathy. " To leave 
 him lying, all pale like that — the idea ! " 
 
 " You saw last night how he was pale," agreed Yvonne. 
 " And his poor little hand wounded — bitten — when we un- 
 clenched it." 
 
 " Psst ! " said Margot. 
 
 " M. Savigny would have forgotten that wound, oh, com- 
 pletely. Such as that is nothing to a great doctor. But 
 M. Weber let me dress it, when I asked. He said the hand 
 is important too, and laughed at me, though nicely, for the 
 care I gave. He is a nice gentleman, that one. M. Antoine 
 
WEBER 515 
 
 was asleep by then. He lies like one dead still, as though 
 he would sleep into the New Year." 
 
 " M. Savigny was right about it then," said Margot. " It 
 is marvellous." 
 
 " It is not marvellous," said Yvonne calmly, " since in 
 any case he would have slept. Pain is exhausting, above 
 all if one struggles like that." 
 
 " They cannot stand pain, these of ours," said Margot. 
 " Monsieur his grandpapa was the same. They are not 
 made for it." 
 
 Yvonne assented. " Nor," she proceeded, " w^as M. Sa- 
 vigny right completely, for, note well, at two M. Antoine 
 awoke." 
 
 " Tiens ! " said Margot. " And you ? " 
 
 " When M. Savigny entered lately, I told him," said 
 Yvonne carelessly, " that he woke, in spite of his words. 
 For w^hat if I had not been there? He might have cried 
 for help, and all of us asleep. M. Savigny demanded what 
 I did ; so I told him how I imitated his movements, over 
 the temples, and down the body, and told him to rest again. 
 What followed? The little one remembered M. Savigny, 
 since I was there to assure him. He shut his eyes, and 
 passed back into his sleep." 
 
 "Did M. Savigny confess you had done well?" said 
 Margot. 
 
 " He ? " cried Yvonne. " He looked each side of me 
 with his eyes, and thought the invention good — for a 
 woman." 
 
 " That is himself, indeed," said Margot, appreciating it. 
 "It is only men who do well, hey? Say, ma petite, how 
 did he conduct himself when he arrived at the end of all? " 
 
 " Last night ? But he was enormous — formidable ! I do 
 not jest about such things. M. Lucien brought him in, still 
 seeking to explain ; but he would hear nothing. He came 
 in raging," said Yvonne. "And small wonder, to be so 
 late." 
 
5i6 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Ah, ah," said Margot, who had seen Savigny rage. 
 " With Monsieur, that last night, it was the same. And 
 long since, when M. Philippe was to be born out there — • 
 cela fait penser un peu." She nodded, lips pursed. 
 
 " En effet," said Yvonne modestly. Having beautiful 
 manners, she paused in her own recital. 
 
 " That you could not be expected to know," admitted 
 Margot, " since you were not born either." She recurred 
 to present history with condescension. " M. Savigny 
 would not regard M. Lucien, naturally. Did he regard the 
 other doctor ? " 
 
 " Not ! " Yvonne snapped her fingers. " He 
 
 snatched le petit from M. Philippe, who was supporting 
 him — ah, but he was bad then! I could bear all but that 
 little cry. And just when we had believed him better — you 
 remember when you left? — it all came back. The pain, 
 nausea — everything worse. And M. Philippe as white as 
 he was, but courageous ! And strong — the only one to keep 
 M. Antoine still, for M. Weber has little force. . . . 
 Seeing M. Savigny, M. Philippe gave a kind of sob of re- 
 lief, pauvre petit, from where he knelt by his brother on 
 the floor. And M. Weber — he said ' Enfin,' and extended 
 his hand politely." 
 
 " He is little good, that one," muttered Margot. " Writ- 
 ing on his little cards, and a great dog dirtying the vestibule 
 half the night." 
 
 " Pardon," said Yvonne, and she spoke with emphasis. 
 " M. Weber is a clever doctor, and kind as well. But see 
 how I take the thing, Madame." When Yvonne said 
 " madame " she was very serious. " M. Weber had tried 
 the bath, and the medicines, and the applications, and all 
 natural things. But M. Antoine's was a mind-pain, ac- 
 cording to him — at least a great part of it. And those, 
 though terrible, the doctors cannot touch. Now M. Sa- 
 vigny, he goes further. He is a doctor, but beyond. He is 
 a man of letters." 
 
 "Ah, ah," from Margot, impressed. 
 
I 
 
 WEBER 517 
 
 " He writes several books which lie there in M. PhiHppe's 
 room, and which I look at when I dust. They are about 
 the head — most curious pictures of it, my faith ! — and about 
 the mind within. It is that from which our little one suf- 
 fers — evidently, since he is so clever. He thinks, and rep- 
 resents his pain far more fearful than it is." 
 
 " Mais — ecoutez," said Margot, on the defence for the 
 patient. " He wounds his hand with his teeth. A woman 
 does that when her child is born. Thus " 
 
 Yvonne broke in : " The pain is worse for thinking of 
 it, not better. It is real pain, anguish, yes. Could I doubt 
 that, who had watched his face, and the change M. Sa- 
 vigny's coming made ? " 
 
 " Continue," said Margot meekly. 
 
 "'How long has he been like this?' said M. Savigny, 
 raging round on them, as I said. They had to tell him how 
 long; though I added he had been better, for, I affirm to 
 you, I was afraid. And, just at his voice, M. Antoine 
 turned his eyes that way, not moving them. Tenez, you 
 saw that fine dog of M. Weber's, and how it looked, and 
 stirred a little, when he passed? Well, it was the same. 
 And M. Savigny said: 'Yes, my love — immediately' — 
 answering it in a tone, a manner like Monsieur's self, who 
 rests in peace. It was beautiful to see — it was holy." The 
 girl stopped to cross herself. 
 
 Margot said nothing, but had ceased work, arms folded. 
 
 " His movement was to snatch the child away ; he wanted 
 none of us. But he had to let the other doctor hold M. 
 Antoine up, for he needed both his hands in that work of 
 his. He bade me go, in his ugliest tone, as he passed ; and 
 then immediately, for his eyes were everywhere, he said: 
 ■ Look to that boy, somebody.' And who was somebody, 
 [ ask you, if not I ? — since M. Weber was already occupied. 
 It was likely I should go, in any case, even if M. Philippe, 
 who is my foster-brother, had not needed me. I did not 
 allow him to faint, naturally ; but I could observe the rest, 
 very well, over his head. If M. Savigny disliked my look- 
 
5i8 SUCCESSION 
 
 ing, tant pis! — he must bear it, then; though, to be sure, 
 he pushed his long body in the way. It is singular, proud 
 of the power as he certainly is, to be so jealous." 
 
 " How was it ? " said Margot curiously. 
 
 " First, he gave him sleep, with both hands on his head, 
 carelessly almost ; the little one looking at him always with 
 those eyes, like an animal asking, but not sure. M. An- 
 toine cannot be sure with M. Savigny — I imagine few can 
 be. He is a man who is unequal, rough — what do you 
 say?" 
 
 " He was often unequal with that child," said Margot. 
 " He was cross with him for complaining of his angine at 
 nine. M. Bronne I always preferred, but he rarely came, 
 for Monsieur was entete for his friend." 
 
 " He was not rough last night," said Yvonne. " The 
 other doctor admired him greatly, one could see. ' Beauti- 
 ful, Savigny,' he said, when the child's head fell back 
 against his arm. But then, it was not finished. It is while 
 he sleeps lightly so, not full sleep, but the lids just fallen, 
 that M. Savigny can take the pain. He addressed himself 
 to M. Antoine, plain little words, repeated. Meanwhile, he 
 passed his hands everywhere, body and limbs, downward 
 from the head, always strongly down." Yvonne, dramatic 
 by nature, dropped her duster to illustrate to the admiring 
 Margot. " It is simple, this method to persuade, I observed 
 it well. The pain was less — it w^s nothing — il le debarrassa 
 de tout ga. . . . M. Antoine's face grew easier always, 
 his look more natural, more young. He dropped his fore- 
 head against M. Weber, who still supported him, with a 
 little sigh of contentment — ah, it did one good to hear! 
 M. Weber was touched, amused, interested. He said, 
 ' There is a good child,' half laughing, my word of honour; 
 and patted M. Antoine as though approving him — are they 
 not strange? It is a small hand he has, white like Madame's, 
 with a gold ring. He was fond of the little one, voyez- 
 vous ; because their knowledge had conquered him." 
 
 This was clearly a point in the discourse, and Margot's 
 
I WEBER 519 
 
 sympathetic commentary was ready. But Yvonne, moved 
 by her memoirs, could not let her comment long. 
 
 " Now, Madame, would one not have said that was 
 enough, to have him sleeping and happy after those dread- 
 ful hours? Far from that! That pain, though departed, 
 troubled their minds. It was not a right pain ; they had to 
 know about it, and to know, they had to talk. M. Weber 
 had laid M. Antoine down, as he was, upon M. Lucien's 
 bed ; and he stood to one side, and JM. Savigny to the 
 other, eating him with their eyes — it is true one can look 
 through him now, he is so thin — and quarrelling about it — 
 instead of thanking the saints for their mercy." 
 
 Margot had to interpose here. " M. Antoine got chilled 
 on the journey when the sea was bad," she observed suc- 
 cinctly, " and sat for an hour in wet clothes." That should 
 be something for a doctor to start upon, she imagined. 
 
 Yvonne laughed expressively. " M. Philippe made that 
 very observation to them, at one point, and M. Savigny 
 was vexed and told him to go to bed. But M. Philippe 
 preferred to attend to them, so naturally I waited too; 
 tliough I was past my patience with their behaviour, the 
 noise they made, and the tricks they played on the poor 
 helpless child." 
 
 "How? Not to wake him again!" ejaculated Margot. 
 
 " No ; nothing could wake him completely, it was singu- 
 lar. For the examining I say nothing — doctors must do 
 that; but the rest was to flatter M. Savigny's vanity, no 
 more. It seemed M. Weber was satisfied M. Antoine could 
 understand the other doctor's directions after sleeping; but 
 asked, could he respond. Imagine the folly of it when they 
 had him once quiet ! M. Savigny laughed " 
 
 " Laughed ? " Margot cried. 
 
 " Oh, they amused themselves," said Yvonne. " They 
 are about equal in mind, those two; and both having 
 proved themselves, to their ideas, had leisure to trifle. M. 
 Savigny took the little one's hand, and leaning close, asked : 
 'Was he comfortable?' M. Antoine, vexed to be dis- 
 
520 SUCCESSION 
 
 turbed, frowned and turned his head away. But when the 
 doctor repeated it, and insisted, one could just see his mouth 
 shape to ' Yes.' Not content with that, M. Savigny would 
 have the pauvre cheri say ' Thank you,' to M. Weber's 
 question, and after that ' Good-night,' — being himself tired 
 of M. Weber's presence, you comprehend, and desiring the 
 field to himself alone. He is ruse, that tall one! Well, 
 they could not persuade him to say ' Good-night,' it was 
 too hard ; though they tried, laughing low in their fashion. 
 But the little ' Merci ' made itself seen even to me beyond, 
 and M. Weber, who was leaning down, may have heard. 
 At least, that one said ' Exquisite,' and embraced le petit 
 as though he had said it consciously. I was glad to see that 
 much feeling in him. Then a little after, as though re- 
 minded it was late, he looked at his watch and went. And 
 then M. Savigny, in the midst of directing me, and handling 
 M. Antoine, remembered a ' mot ' he had forgotten, and 
 ran after M. Weber, to contradict him upon the stairs. I 
 thought he would surely come back ; but no, it seemed he 
 had finished with the child, and preferred his discussions 
 without. One might call such methods untidy, hey? — 
 without too great disrespect. Enfin, M. Philippe put his 
 brother into bed, sleeping all the time profoundly. And see- 
 ing his cleverness I left them, and went to the study to 
 report the success, and relieve Monsieur, whom M. Sa- 
 vigny had offended en passant, and whose agitation was 
 considerable. Then, since Madame had already retired, I 
 came back here, knowing M. Philippe would have the 
 hunger of a wolf when it was over. And I was right." 
 
 Margot remarked that owing to the favour of heaven, 
 M. Philippe's appetite could be counted upon ; and that 
 anxiety would naturally have increased it. 
 
 " He was anxious," the girl said briefly. " He remains 
 so, after all their wise talk. I had already observed that in 
 him very well, when M. Lucien disturbed us. One would 
 have thought he would know better than to come demand- 
 ing, and jerking about, just when I had got M. Philippe to 
 
WEBER 521 
 
 rest, and eat, and talk to me a little in the kitchen, like old 
 times, innocently. M. Lucien never learns how M. Philippe 
 is, and how it is impossible for him to speak at once of 
 what has moved or alarmed him. I know that; Madame 
 
 loving him knows it well ; but Monsieur his uncle " 
 
 Yvonne shrugged. 
 
 " M. Lucien was anxious also ? " the cook suggested, with 
 a glance. 
 
 " Doubtless, in his fashion. It chanced he saw M. An- 
 toine at his worst, when he entered that moment with the 
 doctor. It shocked him certainly. I saw his hands shake 
 as he collected his things from the table — for he feigned 
 to have come for that — and he forgot the half of them. 
 Then, quite late, when I had settled myself to remain with 
 M. Antoine, and had arranged all the room to my taste, he 
 came back to find the objects he had forgotten. So he said 
 ' Psst ! ' to discover them in the drawers, and I had to ask 
 his pardon naturally. I said, since M. Antoine would 
 doubtless remain there some time, I had thought better. 
 And he was offended, and grumbled something about an 
 indigestion. I had but the small lamp, so I trust Monsieur 
 did not see my smile. It would so naturally take two great 
 doctors, for five hours, to conquer an indigestion in M, 
 Antoine. I trusted he would see the absurdity on reflect- 
 ing, and possibly he did. At least he stood long by the 
 little one, with the expression of one contrarie, biting his 
 moustache." 
 
 " M. Antoine is useful to him," said Margot grimly. 
 " That can be conceived." 
 
 " There is more than that in it," said Yvonne quietly, 
 and spoke no more for some time. She and Margot had 
 already exchanged some thoughts as to Antoine's position 
 wath his uncle; and found themselves, oddly enough, 
 ranged on the same side. Margot remarked, to fill the in- 
 terval, that she did not envy "that one" his thoughts all 
 night in Monsieur's room. Yvonne pursed her lips and 
 shrugged, but her excellent taste arrested further com- 
 
522 SUCCESSION 
 
 mentary. It was Monsieur's affair, and, besides, her 
 adored Madame was troubled about him. Yvonne, it 
 should be said, was a young person set firmly against 
 matrimony, and who declared herself free of illusions as 
 to the married state. It was an untoward chance, holding 
 these opinions, that fate should have placed her in two 
 households in turn, where there was hardly a hole to be 
 picked in the domestic concord. Lucien and his sister, dif- 
 ficult as their tempers were, had been not only matched, 
 but managed: in each case with the least show possible. 
 Life ran with few hitches in both houses, and even cynics 
 like Yvonne were forced to admire. She had marked the 
 strain of late in her own, but had been very quiet about it, 
 though needless to say she backed " Madame " blindly in 
 the matter. It was thoughts of Madame which launched 
 her on dialogue again, after an industrious interlude of 
 polishing the pans. 
 
 " M. Savigny was not beautiful to see, I promise you," 
 she observed, " when he arrived this morning early. One 
 would say he had slept as he was, his hair on end, his eyes 
 straying, and his manner to all he met most peculiar. I was 
 in Madame's room, below there, with her coiffure half 
 completed; but she sent me out to stop him when he 
 descended. I mentioned to her the condition he was in, 
 for I had been here when he first entered, bouncing in, if 
 you please, as though no patient had been on the premises. 
 But Madame said ' Go '—and so I went. M. Savigny came 
 to her, making his ugliest grimace to be delayed, far from 
 amiable in his manners, appearing to see nothing in the 
 room. Madame " 
 
 " Madame would arrange him," said Margot, entertained. 
 
 " Madame, rallying him lightly at the beginning, said 
 that she felt for his embarrassment. M. Savigny replied 
 that she should be ashamed at her age to look so young. 
 Then Madame said, more wickedly, was he content with 
 Weber's diagnosis ; and M. Savigny, feigning to misunder- 
 stand, said, ' Tiens, was that the breed of the dog? ' Then 
 
WEBER 523 
 
 she demanded, how should M. Antoine be treated; and he 
 said, as well as usual. And when she would not have that 
 answer, he said, like an imbecile if we had no objection, 
 and so took the door in his hand to depart. But she would 
 not have that either — the idea! — and pressed him about 
 the food, and necessary things. And M. Savigny, speak- 
 ing over his shoulder, said the boy was all right, and since 
 she forced him to say it, her husband was in more need of 
 her attention." 
 
 "And what did Madame respond?" said Margot. 
 
 " Madame said, ' Raymond ! ' rather low ; and then, with- 
 out pausing, she thanked him steadily and beautifully for 
 all he had done for the boy, so that he must listen, though 
 his back was turned. And M. Savigny said, ' Taisez-vous, 
 Cecile,' with a bitterness most remarkable, and, turning, 
 bent right down to kiss her hand. There is a woman he 
 respects," finished Yvonne. " And he went away after it 
 very quietly." 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE FETfi 
 
 Antoine wished his doctor a happy new year at eight 
 o'clock, but Savigny did not return the courtesy. He had 
 a habit of chilling such innocent formalities by omitting his 
 share in them ; but this New Year's morning, a remarkably 
 cold one, he was more grim than usual. None of Antoine's 
 attempts upon him appeared happy, and yet the doctor 
 seemed to have nothing to do, and might just as well have 
 assisted him. When he said the snow was beautiful, Sa- 
 vigny said he should be thankful not to have to walk in it ; 
 when he inquired how he and M. Bronne were going to 
 spend the day, Savigny said, " As usual." 
 
 " But it is the fete ! " protested Antoine. 
 
 " All the more time for people to think of their ailments," 
 said Savigny. 
 
 " I mean, you will not have any to-day — patients." 
 
 " I've got one here." 
 
 This was really depressing, since Antoine had adopted 
 the light society vein entirely to disguise the fact that he 
 was laid prostrate in a bed. 
 
 " You needn't stay," he said carelessly. " I think you 
 are coming this evening to see papa." 
 
 " No, I am not," said Savigny. 
 
 " My aunt said so," said Antoine, mildly positive. 
 
 " I'm not under your aunt's directions. Lie still, boy," 
 he added, snapping. 
 
 " You are disagreeable," said Antoine softly. " I think 
 papa will come to see you, anyhow." 
 524 
 
I THE FETE 525 
 
 " Your father can write," said Savigny, presenting An- 
 toine with a complete back view. As a matter of fact, Jem 
 had written, and he was digesting the letter. The proposal 
 it contained was timely and practical, sound beyond crit- 
 icism, and clever to the point of inspiration — and Savigny 
 could not bear the thought of it. That was the simple thing 
 that had occurred, if only the patient behind could have 
 known it. 
 
 " Are you going? " said Antoine, after a period of silence, 
 throwing a hand forth as he turned. 
 
 " No," said Savigny. " Keep your arms still, or I'll tie 
 them." This sounded so savage that Antoine collapsed, 
 shrinking. Savigny went to one of his uncle's drawers, 
 pulled it open with a jerk, and then swore, shut it, and 
 pulled another. 
 
 " His things are in grandpapa's room," said Antoine, 
 frowning at the unnecessary noise. " I do not think you 
 
 will find anything " He stopped. 
 
 ;'{ The doctor had found something. He took out an old 
 i violin-case, which he laid upon the bed. 
 I " There you are," he said. " Don't make a fuss, now, or 
 "* I shall be sorry I did it. How the devil do these clasps 
 go?" 
 
 Antoine did it for him one-handed, for the right hand he 
 
 ; had wounded was still bound. He seized the violin from 
 
 the interior with a little chuckle of joy, and lifted it to his 
 
 : chin. As he extended the bandaged hand for the bow, the 
 
 doctor deftly jerked it away. 
 
 " Oh dear no," he said. " That's not part of the game. 
 Be content with what you have." 
 
 The boy complied tamely in the ordinance. It would 
 seem he was content. To Savigny's surprise, also, he said 
 absolutely nothing. He caressed the violin for some 
 minutes, his white cheek against the dark wood, his thin 
 clever hand lying upon the strings. The other hand was 
 simply grasping Savigny's cufif, as though to hold him quiet. 
 Savigny was quiet enough, sunk in the chair by the bed. 
 
526 SUCCESSION 
 
 He was glad of a pause, for he felt unequal to what was 
 coming — the course of penance he had laid out. If only 
 Charles were here, he thought desperately, to help him 
 with this sensitive child. Rough words he had taught him 
 to bear, but to have to hurt him with the truth was mad- 
 dening. Yet he saw no way of escape from the necessity. 
 
 " Has it been in that drawer all the time? " the boy asked 
 at last, throwing back his head. 
 
 Savigny nodded. " Lucien had intended to give it you 
 to-day; but I knew now he would not, so I might as well 
 take it on myself." 
 
 "Why would he not?" 
 
 " Because it seems like mocking you, child. Personally, 
 I am accustomed to doing cruel things." 
 
 " It is not cruel ; I like it." His dark, brilliant eyes 
 pierced Savigny. " You mean I shall not play ? " he 
 queried. " This concert ? " 
 
 " None of the concerts." 
 
 " Not at all this winter? " 
 
 " No. Nor this year, nor possibly next. I am here to- 
 day, Antoine, to break your career. To counsel, that is, 
 its being broken." 
 
 A pause — the boy exploring his violin sidelong. It had 
 suffered nowhere — a miracle. " Because M. Weber said 
 so ? " he asked. 
 
 " No ! Because — what you like. Because I value your 
 precious life more than my consistency. I was wrong!" 
 barked Savigny. " There ! " 
 
 The patient took it calmly. " That day," he began, " you 
 came up to the mansarde and listened " 
 
 " Yes. I knew I was wrong then. I hadn't the courage 
 to confess it. It needed the shock when Bronne's mes- 
 senger found me at Meudon, to finish it. Weber, curse 
 him, rode over the remains of me." The boy was silent. 
 " You liked him, didn't you now ? " 
 
 " Weber ? — yes." He frowned painfully ; and the doctor 
 
THE FETE 527 
 
 let him have a pause. " You have not told my uncle? " he 
 proceeded. 
 
 " No," said Savigny crossly. " Owing to my education, 
 you are so far and away the most reasonable of the fam- 
 ily " 
 
 " Bon," said Antoine, and sighed. He gathered from the 
 compliment that he was to do the explaining. There was 
 a penalty to Savigny's approval, always. " He must know, 
 because of Ribiera," he murmured. 
 
 " So I supposed. Well, leave that for the present. 
 Lucien hardly matters, really. Have I hurt you, tell me." 
 
 " No," said the boy, after the pause. " It is kind, how 
 you do things." 
 
 " Great heaven ! — I can't have you satirical, Antoine. 
 Had you foreseen it?" 
 
 " I had not thought I could play this one. I had not be- 
 gun to think about the rest. I must, now." 
 
 " Very good. Am I to go ? " 
 
 "No; wait a little, please." There was another long 
 pause. Savigny marvelled at his dignity, admiring it, while 
 it crushed him. 
 
 " Magnificent acting," he thought. " He cannot keep it 
 up." 
 
 " I do not see why now," said the boy, at last, " more than 
 at Miinchen." 
 
 " Good. I have been waiting for this. Go on." 
 
 " I mean — I was more nearly dead then, I believe." 
 
 " Go on," said Savigny, folding his arms. " Don't be 
 more ridiculous than you can help. I expect to be abused." 
 
 "I am reasonable," said Antoine, , lifting an eyebrow. 
 " I only do not understand." 
 
 Savigny did not help him, and he had to think it out. 
 As he thought, the strong fingers of the wounded hand 
 worked on Savigny's arm, and he captured them quietly. 
 
 " I should have been happier to stop then," said the boy. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
528 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I did not know they all — wanted it so much. Grand- 
 papa too." 
 
 " Your grandfather would be on my side now if he were 
 here. That is not worth considering." The boy was silent ; 
 his dignity wrapped him like a cloak. The doctor was quite 
 incapable of following his thoughts. This feeling of help- 
 lessness, Savigny supposed, was his penance. " Do you 
 not want it yourself?" he asked, at last. "Do you not 
 enjoy playing?" 
 
 " It — it is for them to enjoy, I think." 
 
 " That is begging the question. Answer me." 
 
 "I cannot. You do not understand. You have never 
 wished to." 
 
 Savigny nodded. " That I distinctly deserve. Go on." 
 
 " Of course there are — things I like." 
 
 " The applause," said Savigny. 
 
 " I suppose so," he agreed, the comic eyebrow slightly 
 lifting again. " I like to show them ; and with this it is 
 easy." He gripped the violin. " If it was grandpapa sit- 
 ting there," he broke out, " I could show him some things 
 now and he would see." 
 
 " You don't play," snapped Savigny, in warning. 
 
 " No ; I think I don't, when you hold my right hand. 
 One hand," murmured Antoine, " is not enough to play the 
 violin, except for us." He addressed the instrument, clasp- 
 ing it to his neck. With the single hand left him he shaped 
 a series of chords, and ran up a splendid flight to the top 
 of the strings. " You are not in tune," he murmured, as 
 one finger clung and caught a string sufficiently to sound the 
 note. " A little higher that should be — there." Holding 
 with his chin, he fixed the peg with a lightning movement. 
 The hand in Savigny's lay quite slack, and was clearly not 
 required, as he said. 
 
 " What's that ? " said the doctor, sensible that he ought 
 to stop it, but interested in spite of himself in the delicate 
 soundless manoeuvres he watched sidelong. 
 
 *' That is the Romance, his and mine. I could never 
 
THE FETE 529 
 
 ' rater ' that one, never. It is very well. . . . And 
 this — that is the end of Duchatel's first movement — very 
 difficult. You do not like him? — good. . . . And this 
 — what is this? You do not know, or anybody. That is 
 ours — between us — you understand?" 
 
 " No," Savigny growled. 
 
 " No. This is a doctor," the boy informed the violin, 
 
 " very distinguished, but Now look at this." He bit his 
 
 lip, attending again to the intricate changes of his finger- 
 tips. " That is Aloricz — much cleverer than anybody, 
 though he had a curious mind. You say I shall not play 
 the violin, monsieur, but Moricz said that before. We 
 heard him ; it is not new to us." He covered the violin 
 .with his long hand, numbing the higher strings he had set 
 vibrating. He looked sidelong under his lashes at Savigny, 
 ^who remained motionless, his head on his hand. " Not 
 yet ? " he queried, mocking. " It is rather long to show 
 him. Very well." He set the instrument before him, 
 holding it reversed. " This is my violin," he explained, 
 " and I love it. They all know that. I love all the touch of 
 it, the strings, the neck — just as grandpapa has often told 
 me of his. He has not forgotten — I shall not forget. Not 
 when I am old, not when I am dead. Now, that is the 
 first thing. Do you understand it well — you who have no 
 music? " 
 
 " Gently," said Savigny, keeping an anxious finger on his 
 wrist. " I understand quite well enough." 
 
 "You do? Well, take it then." 
 
 " You are tired, my dear? " 
 
 " Yes. It is finished, with that. Je peux m'en passer. 1 
 have played enough." Thrusting it aside, he laid the same 
 hand across his eyes. 
 
 " You had better rest now," said Savigny ; and Antoine 
 acquiesced, bending his head. 
 
 " I had better write." It still took a minute to penetrate 
 the doctor, who was putting the violin away. Then he 
 
530 SUCCESSION 
 
 stopped and turned sharply. The boy flashed a smile 
 straight at him, through his fingers. 
 
 " Who said anything about writing, hey ? " said Savigny. 
 
 " I did. You were clever to hear. That was what we 
 meant — and Moricz. All of us. . , , You see, I can 
 do it very well. There is a little' quintet Ribiera has 
 taken " 
 
 '' Boy ! You are to be silent." Antoine was dumb, his 
 hand across his mouth. 
 
 '"Why can't you say the one thing necessary first, and 
 save acting, which exhausts you? " 
 
 " Grandpapa " began Antoine. 
 
 " You were using me like him, weren't you? Explaining 
 to him — excusing yourself. Don't cry." 
 
 " I am not crying. You are rather like him, s-some- 
 times." 
 
 " Well," said Savigny, " I am not he — nobody can be, I 
 least of all, I am myself, what you call in your charity a 
 distinguished doctor. And you are not to think of writing, 
 or any kind of work, for months. You are ill." 
 
 " Yes. I was at Miinchen. Did you understand already 
 there?" 
 
 " I understood essentially. I never worked it out. If 
 
 you will be so hopelessly obscure — and shifty " He 
 
 failed to finish, annoyed at his own emotion. 
 
 "Did you get that violin from Jacques?" said Antoine. 
 
 " There you are! Shifty reminded you, didn't it? Now, 
 you are not to start a whole new conversation. You have 
 had more than enough as it is. You are my property, do 
 you understand? Bound to me." 
 
 " Yes." Antoine consitiered him. " Did Jacques steal it 
 from her? " 
 
 " Be quiet," said Savigny sourly, arranging his coverings 
 with careful hands. 
 
 " I expect he did," Antoine murmured. " He would be 
 clever to steal. M. Raymond " — just as the doctor had 
 
THE FETE 531 
 
 reached the door. " No, it does not matter," said Antoine, 
 subsiding. 
 
 " What were you going to say ? " 
 
 " Only — will you take a message for me to M. Bronne? " 
 
 " No, I won't. What message ? " 
 
 " I only want him to say thank you to Jacques for steal- 
 ing it. He knows where he is." 
 
 " You have no business to have secrets with Bronne, or 
 to send him messages. He's in my employ. That's not a 
 joke " — as Antoine giggled slightly. " Do you really want 
 to see Bronne? " A nod. " Well, I'll see if I can manage 
 it, one of these days. Meanwhile, you are to see nobody 
 else, unless relations. You understand? I forbid it." 
 
 " Forbid," echoed Antoine agreeably, if absently a trifle. 
 
 Savigny vanished, 
 
 A long morning was before Antoine, with nothing to do 
 in it. It was true he had much to think of, but he was a 
 little tired of thinking. He looked out at the snow, which 
 he saw against the tree-tops behind the balcony, for Lu- 
 cien's room, unlike his garret, gave upon the front. The 
 snow was coming all ways at once in a fascinating manner, 
 and suggested to Antoine's mind an idea for an orchestral 
 scherzo, equally fascinating — ravishing indeed. After a 
 happy interval, he remembered he was not to think of music, 
 abandoned the details of the scherzo, and studied the room. 
 Being his uncle's, it was orderly, and not interesting. Let- 
 ters, neatly addressed the night before, lay in piles on the 
 desk. His uncle was bound to come soon and look for 
 them. When he came, there would be explanations. An- 
 toine sighed — then yawned. He turned his attention to the 
 fire, which Yvonne had lit for him, regardless of economy, 
 and which was pouring beautifully up the chimney. It was 
 hot. He felt it on his face, since his hands were covered. 
 It was delightful to be hot, and to have a fire to look at as 
 long as he pleased. He looked for five minutes, and then 
 went to sleep suddenly for an hour. When he awoke, the 
 
532 SUCCESSION 
 
 letters on the desk were gone. Evidently his uncle had 
 been there. Antoine had missed his opportunity — annoy- 
 ing! He frowned, wriggled and felt thirsty. Nobody 
 came. A death-like silence reigned, as it had not before his 
 sleep. He had heard Yvonne then in the kitchen, singing 
 a Breton tune, and Margot knocking the corners of the 
 vestibule with her broom. Antoine felt indignant at the 
 protracted silence, and decided to stir things, and vex some- 
 body, by getting up to fetch some water. He could not 
 move — absurd. He did not want to move — absurder still. 
 Life became really too long, when a whole morning passed 
 with nothing occurring in it at all — the fete too ! It was 
 New Year's Day, He remembered a few other New Years, 
 pleasanter and noisier, in this house; music, at least, and 
 
 presents, and Useless to think of that, for it made 
 
 him want to cry. He caught sight of the old violin-case 
 on the chair, where Savigny had left it, and his vague 
 desires took shape. 
 
 " Jacques ! I want Jacques," he murmured, with closed 
 eyes, passionately. 
 
 " Qu'est-ce qu'il y a, cheri?" said Yvonne. He opened 
 them upon her. Was it midday then, at last? 
 
 " Nothing," he said irritably, sweeping a hand across his 
 face. " I think there is too much water in my head." 
 
 Yvonne retired, and sent Philip. An inspiration, this. 
 Philip was cheerful, in a brilliant mood. His father was 
 coming to tea with the Rats: the Rats were feting him — 
 Jespersen's notion. They were going to have an assault- 
 at-arms afterwards, to amuse him. 
 
 " Oh," said Antoine, his eyes glowing. " I wish I could 
 go. I suppose I can't. Do you think if " 
 
 Philip did not think, on the contrary. If Antoine be- 
 haved really well, and did not shed tears more than six 
 times before the evening, he should see his father for a 
 short time. " Twenty minutes at most," Philip explained. 
 " And not two if you cry." 
 
THE FETE 533 
 
 " I shall not," said Antoine positively. " I am very happy, 
 really." 
 
 He was certain now it was a good fete, since Philip was 
 so kind. Philip allowed him to talk a little, and talked him- 
 self a good deal. Antoine and he compared notes about the 
 mystery of the violin, and came oddly enough to the same 
 conclusion, highly creditable to Jacques. This was cheer- 
 ing; especially as Philip said nothing either about the duel, 
 or about Jacques' quarrel with his bread-and-butter, as 
 represented by his employer, the cafe manager. 
 
 "Will you go with M. Bronne and see him?" Antoine 
 asked. " He will like to see you. He has a beautiful high 
 room." 
 
 ** I can't this afternoon," said Philip, " and Bronne's 
 probably engaged. One of these days we'll manage it." 
 That was settled. 
 
 Then they talked about Alanuel Ribiera and the quintet — 
 Antoine did that part. Antoine came to the conclusion that 
 it would be polite to write to Ribiera at once, as to his un- 
 fortunate incapacity to perform on the sixth. Would his 
 brother mind sending the note? 
 
 " Don't put his back up," advised Philip. " He's not 
 sufficiently fond of you to stand much cheek." 
 
 It would not be cheek, far from it, Antoine assured him. 
 A most careful communication, short and striking like 
 Ribiera's own, which Philip should be shown as model. A 
 few kind lines — a well-made signature at the end. 
 
 " Hadn't Savigny better sign it ? " said Philip. 
 
 "Why?" said Antoine, pausing. 
 
 " Ribiera thinks you are a jolly farceur. He never be- 
 lieved you were bad enough to cut the rehearsal. He might 
 not take your word." 
 
 " Oh yes, he will," said Antoine earnestly. " Ribiera be- 
 lieves me when I talk." 
 
 " When you talk, perhaps. Writing's different." 
 
 Antoine saw the point. " I shall say I am in bed," he said 
 thoughtfully. " So if he likes to come here — do you see? 
 
534 SUCCESSION 
 
 I will not speak of Jacques, because that annoyed him be- 
 fore." 
 
 " Why should you ? " said Philip. 
 
 " I need not," said Antoine. " I expect he will see how 
 I mean, if I write carefully." 
 
 " Left-handed ? " said Philip. As to that, Antoine was 
 not sure ; but he would be clearly entertained to try. Philip 
 was only too delighted to entertain him, by whatever means ; 
 for he looked terribly ill, and he feared his father would be 
 discontented if he could not improve his appearance before 
 the evening. 
 
 After lunch, M. Lemaure sat with Antoine for an hour; 
 a kind proceeding; since the rest were out. While he was 
 there, Antoine started a conversation several times, with 
 singularly small result. His uncle was quite pleasant in his 
 responses, though brief; and as he was sorting papers at 
 his escritoire, kept his back turned steadily. This constant 
 back view, and the rustle he made, worried Antoine to the 
 point of frenzy. He had to guess the expression of his 
 face, instead of seeing it ; and how can one converse to any 
 profit on such terms? He could not arrive anywhere near 
 the thing he wished to say, and wriggled in desperation, till 
 he completely lost the commanding and comfortable posi- 
 tion which he had first enjoyed, owing to Philip's inspired 
 arrangement. 
 
 About two, Madame entered upon them. Her appear- 
 ance, beautiful, in silky fur, and her clear-cut, soft voice 
 brought relief, certainly to Antoine, possibly to both. At 
 least, their heads turned willingly towards her. 
 
 " Savigny will not come to dinner, Lucien," she said. 
 " Is he not a hopeless spoil-sport ? He says he will send 
 Louis Bronne if we like. Now, does he suppose I want a 
 consultation? " 
 
 " He is nice," Antoine suggested, 
 
 " Far too nice," said Madame. " I want conversation, 
 and contradiction, I need it. M. Bronne agrees with me." 
 
THE FETE 535 
 
 " What is Raymond's excuse ? " said Lucien. 
 
 "What do you suppose? A convalescent patient, an 
 unfortunate girl, is dining with him, tete-a-tete. They all 
 have to pass that test before he lets them go — n'est-ce-pas? " 
 She appealed to the boy, who nodded. 
 
 " She will be frightened, I expect," he murmured. " That 
 is an ugly dining-room." 
 
 " It is hideous," said Madame, with fervour. " But I 
 mean to sacrifice myself, and dine there this very night. I 
 shall invite Duchatel to meet me, and the patient shall stay 
 upstairs." 
 
 Antoine was much amused. " She had better come 
 down," he suggested, " It will be so different for her, with 
 you and Victor talking." 
 
 " It is not my role to cure Savigny's patients," said 
 Madame. " Except you, my sweet — and I fear you suffer 
 by this plan. It leaves you solitary, eh? " She put a hand 
 on the coverlet ; he shrank just perceptibly. 
 
 " Oh no, you must go," he protested. " It will be amus- 
 ing, if Savigny does not know." 
 
 " It is not to be borne," she contended. " He writes in 
 pencil, look ! I propose to wear my new dress ; will that 
 frighten him sufficiently ? " 
 
 " Yes — I like it." He started slightly as his uncle turned. 
 "You will go too?" he ventured. 
 
 " You are mad, Cecile," said Lucien, leaning a hand on 
 the table. " You will get no dinner either — his kitchen is 
 past praying for." 
 
 " Ah," she said gravely. " That is true. Must we have 
 some dinner sent in? Perhaps we had really better go to 
 coffee afterwards, since Victor is particular. We will dine 
 early, which will release Margot. You will join us, hein, mon 
 ami ? There are chairs enough, so far as I remember." 
 
 After a pause, M. Lemaure said, pushing in a drawer, 
 " You had better go alone." 
 
 " It will do you good," she pleaded. " A friend like Ray- 
 mond — voyons ! " 
 
536 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Who has not invited us," he said. 
 
 " Bah, I will get you an invitation, if you are so pedantic. 
 It is a harmless game, with him. And, if he is annoyed, 
 it will amuse this little one to hear of it, which is the most 
 important." 
 
 " My going will spoil the square," said Lucien. 
 
 " Psst — jealous! Look at it this way, you will spoil these 
 boys' tete-a-tete if you stay." 
 
 " No, no," said Antoine, and then, remembering a pos- 
 sible father, blushed. 
 
 "You see?" She indicated. "They can be in here to- 
 gether, and Yvonne will look after them. It is really a far 
 better plan than the other." She glanced at Antoine with 
 meaning, since his eyes were diverted. " Savigny likes to 
 be an institution — it is only treating him as a restaurant. 
 That I will explain, au debut." 
 
 Antoine giggled again. " He will be so angry," he mur- 
 mured. " He was rather cross already to-day." 
 
 " Ah," said Madame. " Were you not so well as he ex- 
 pected?" She looked down at him keenly, though she 
 jested. His utter languor disturbed them all, though his 
 spirits were good enough. He shrank at any approach, and 
 seemed afraid to move. To be lifted was a nervous tor- 
 ment, and Philip alone could accomplish it. The pain, 
 though it had held off since, had frightened him thoroughly, 
 and they could only judge what it had been by his present 
 attitude towards it. He lifted a hand now, as though to 
 keep her from him. She stooped and held the hand to 
 examine, with dainty little finger touches. 
 
 "Stiff still, is it?" she queried. "The silly boy you 
 were ! Have you confessed to him about it ? " 
 
 He shook his head, the colour burning faintly in his face 
 again. 
 
 " He has confessed nothing at all," said Lucien, " since 
 I do not allow it." 
 
 " It does not matter," said Antoine, concealing the band- 
 aged hand. " Because Savigny says I may not play." 
 
THE FETE 537 
 
 " When did he say that ? " snapped his uncle, without 
 turning. 
 
 " This morning. He is quite sure. I cannot do the con- 
 cert ; not any of the Ribiera ones, none of them." A dii^- 
 cult pause. " He did not say I was to tell you," said the 
 boy, catching for his breath, " but I think he meant that." 
 
 "If that is not exactly like him!" Madame exclaimed. 
 " He told us, and at once, darling. It is not your fault — 
 why should you think so? Lucien, for heaven's sake re- 
 assure him." 
 
 Her husband, whose back had been turned, swung his 
 chair about and spoke firmly. " Leave it, Cecile," he said. 
 " Antoine is right, we have not had our explanation ; nor 
 can we have it until he is stronger. He has to be a good 
 boy, and keep as quiet as possible." 
 
 " I — hate it," murmured Antoine, with set teeth. His 
 eyes were shut, his face a mask of revolt for all its startling 
 pallor. He could not imagine why the tears ran down his 
 cheeks, and wiped them off furtively with the sheet. Tears, 
 thus intrusively replacing the power to speak, were an ex- 
 asperating symptom of his weakness. Besides, Philip had 
 forbidden it. " When did Savigny tell you ? " he said, at 
 last, with creditable evenness. 
 
 " Before he left the house, at nine. Of course he in- 
 tended to," said Lucien. " It is even his duty, since he has 
 treated us so unfairly." 
 
 "Did he say — everything?" 
 
 " To be sure," said Lucien, with a glance. " We went 
 to Ribiera this morning." 
 
 "You did? Oh!" 
 
 " It is my duty to," said Lucien, patting the papers into 
 piles. " It is business, you observe. You really are not 
 concerned. As your aunt says, it is not your fault." 
 
 Antoine was thankful to hear it, even in that tone. Things 
 were a little less awful than he thought — though there was 
 no doubt of his uncle's resentment. Well, at least he could 
 
538 SUCCESSION 
 
 not break down at a concert, at least for two years. No 
 one could be vexed again in that way. 
 
 " What did you say ? " he asked. 
 
 " Little. Raymond did the saying, with authority and 
 ability. I could not have improved it," said Lucien. 
 
 Antoine bit his lip. "What was Ribiera like?" he said 
 fearfully. " Was he awful ? " 
 
 " Like a tiger baulked of his prey. We had not known," 
 said Lucien, " you were so appreciated." 
 
 " I wrote myself to Ribiera," said Antoine. 
 
 "Youf" His uncle turned half about again. 
 
 " I thought it was better. I had Philippe's pen, and quite 
 a nice little piece of paper Yvonne found." 
 
 "She had no business to find it. What did you say?" 
 
 " Not much, because it is hard to write here. Of course, 
 I did not know you would go, then," added Antoine. 
 
 " Tell us the words, dearest," said Madame. Her hus- 
 band was sitting, brows raised, eyes diverted, tearing at his 
 moustache with a restless hand. 
 
 " I have forgotten. It was very careful — and polite." 
 
 "Did Philippe read it?" 
 
 " Oh yes. There was a postscript," said Antoine dream- 
 ily. 
 
 " And what was the subject of the postscript? " said his 
 aunt, smiling. After a pause, he turned his dark eyes to 
 her. Their expression was so beautiful that she could 
 hardly bear it. 
 
 " It will be all right, I think," he said. " Philippe took 
 it with his bicycle, to be quicker." Then, as though forc- 
 ing himself, he faced the silent uncle and held out a hand. 
 " That was kind of you to do my business," he said. " I 
 was afraid Ribiera would swear a little when he heard. 
 But there is time to get another, before the sixth — I said 
 that." 
 
 " You did not suggest your substitute ? " said Lucien, still 
 dry, but more gentle. 
 
THE FETE 539 
 
 " Oh no — I did not suggest him." The polite letter- 
 writer was shocked at the idea. 
 
 " Antoine! You have not been imprudent again? " 
 
 " No — really," the boy assured him. " It was all exactly 
 the ordinary things that we said." He turned his head, 
 for Philip entered the room after a fashion he was prac- 
 tising, not soundlessly, hut with one neat click of the door- 
 latch to give warning of his approach, 
 
 " Philippe, relieve our agony," Madame entreated. 
 " What did this creature wTite to Ribiera? He assures us 
 it was commonplace." 
 
 Philip's short laugh was in a manner not exactly reas- 
 suring. " It's gone now, anyhow," he said, " so we shall 
 all have to put up with the consequences." Then he looked 
 his brother over. "What have you been doing?" he de- 
 manded severely in English. " That's not how I left you." 
 
 " I forget how it was. It does not matter," said Antoine. 
 
 " It's the one thing that does matter, how you lie. Have 
 you been talking?" 
 
 " Oh no, not much. They — he would not let me. Phil- 
 ippe, do not," he panted, frowning, fighting away the hands 
 on him. " It is horrible to move. Laisse — voyons ! I — am 
 so tired." 
 
 " 1 sha'n't hurt you, ducky," said Philip lower. " Let 
 yourself go, now. It's all right." He raised him deftly to 
 the former position. " Now, you shut your eyes," he ad- 
 vised, " and keep your mouth shut too, except for snor- 
 ing if you feel inclined. I'm going to read to you a bit, 
 before I meet papa." 
 
 " Are they not charming? " said Madame, when they had 
 withdrawn, leaving the pair together. " Sometimes I 
 think Phil could hardly be improved." 
 
 " The boy could, easily. What Raymond can have been 
 thinking of," muttered Lucien, with indignation. " Prop- 
 erly watched, he could never possibly have dropped like 
 that, before our eyes. He has Marcel's contour now — I 
 cannot bear to look at him." 
 
540 SUCCESSION 
 
 " That is a little too evident," said Madame. She picked 
 up a book on the study table, and threw it down. Why not 
 now, after all, she reflected ? " Lucien, can you not leave 
 all thought of Marcel, or whosoever it may be, and treat 
 him as himself? Really, you seem to forget he has a 
 character, and deserts. There are a dozen things he longs 
 to know, which only you can tell him." 
 
 " He is not strong enough " 
 
 " Pish," she said rather drily. " You know he is. Ray- 
 mond told us he was gloriously brave. He only asks the 
 truth, which only you possess. His eyes were demanding 
 it, as you sat there, turned away." 
 
 " I am not strong enough," corrected Lucien. " As you 
 will. You must be patient, Cecile." 
 
 Madame frowned. Sentiment he might have known 
 would not move her, and satire, in this case, helped little. 
 " Yes, yes," she said. " But it is waiting, with such na- 
 tures, that does the harm: has done it, for all you know. 
 Will you wait for him to challenge you — for he will." 
 
 "As to what?" 
 
 " As to the things he has a right to know — your father's 
 last hours." 
 
 " He will not dare to speak of my father. He has some 
 discretion left. It is for me to choose when I address him. 
 Or if," said Lucien. 
 
 " You cannot wrestle with nature, my friend. You risk 
 a downfall. He is quick." 
 
 " If you mean he judges me already, I know that," he 
 was beginning, but she interrupted. 
 
 "Judges? He is incapable of judging! You are think- 
 ing of somebody else. Oh, that is the worst of large fam- 
 ilies. Marcel, is it? — never mind. Antoine cannot enter 
 your character to judge it. You are either clear to him, or 
 a blank wall. Be clear, Lucien. Show him, for good or 
 evil, what you think. Blame him — bully him, like Raymond 
 — better anything than simply embarrass him as you did 
 
THE FETE 541 
 
 to-day. I am in earnest. You must be quick, or he will 
 leap on you unaware." 
 
 " You speak of the boy like an animal," said Lucien. 
 But her steady criticism was shaking him, as his uncertain 
 tone showed. 
 
 " I mean no such comparison. His motives are as sim- 
 ple as an animal's, that is all. One must speak of it in 
 images, where analysis fails. I mean — since you do not 
 love him." 
 
 "I do not?" 
 
 " Not a whit. Any affection would have made you give 
 him your confidence at once, regardless of pride, or what- 
 ever it may be. And note, his must tire in time. You are 
 risking finding it spent." 
 
 " You mean he " 
 
 " Most certainly he cares for you. We had a beautiful 
 proof of it the night your brothers were here. Andre was 
 touched by that, I noticed, but not you." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " He came for you. Andre told me he mentioned you 
 were suffering, and he roused himself and came at once. 
 He saved our little party alone and unaided for your sake. 
 It is a small thing, but worth noting." 
 
 " It is barely an effort to him," said Lucien, after a pause. 
 " Antoine pleases and is pleased easily. One had but to 
 watch him to see." 
 
 " Ungenerous ! " she said warmly. " That is ungenerous 
 simply. You might think a little, if you cannot feel. As 
 though he was not suffering as much as you, and more." 
 
 " He cannot suffer more." 
 
 " Pardon — what can you know of that ? Even — I must 
 say it — even if you dislike the boy, do him justice. Why, 
 reason alone is sufficient. Lucien, do you remember two 
 years ago — the trouble we had with him — our remorse? 
 Will you venture to say he did not suffer then ? And what 
 is that compared with this? Never mind his actions, rea- 
 son it. He must be almost heartbroken." 
 
542 SUCCESSION 
 
 " You think the present illness due " He turned 
 
 about. 
 
 " I do not assert it — Gervais Weber must be allowed his 
 symptoms — but my reason works. Could he fail to suffer, 
 coming as he did that morning, too late for farewell, hav- 
 ing offended your father, as he thought, three times over? 
 Did you recognize that? Having the last word, as trans- 
 ferred from his mouth, a cold one? Having no answer, no 
 message even, in return for his own little letter, which I 
 saw? " 
 
 " You ? " He almost stared. 
 
 " Why, yes ; he showed it to me — fearing his own im- 
 pulses, poor child, so greatly had you and the cautious ones 
 discouraged him. It was a confession of failure, a promise 
 to do better, most childish, most charming — touching, and 
 I say it, to tears. I altered not a word, heaven forfend it. 
 Did your father not read it even?" 
 
 " No." He still stared, almost vacantly. Brought into 
 conflict with her, he felt as he had not with Savigny, the 
 full force of what he had done ; and at the same time knew 
 it irremediable. It did awaken him a little from his self- 
 absorbed stupor. 
 
 " Speak to him," she finished strenuously. " Be kind 
 at least, since he was kind to you. It is not credible you 
 should not see the importance of keeping his affection, 
 since we must have him with us all this year. Why should 
 you, of all people, resent the fact that it is easily won ? " 
 
 " I do not," he said, troubled, and stopped. " I may have 
 been wrong. I cannot judge " — he stopped again — 
 " now." 
 
 " No," she said, all her gentleness returning. " Very 
 well." She felt tired suddenly, for she had been thinking 
 hard for two during the little interview ; and she had forced 
 him to betray his limits, a painful thing for both. After 
 a little she rose, touched him as though for forgiveness, 
 and went with her pretty languid step from the room. 
 
 " I wonder," she reflected over her glass in the room 
 
THE FETE 543 
 
 below, " why Lucien is afraid of loving? Surely it was not 
 his father taught him that. It seems, in the definition, a 
 simple thing." Then, without a pause, the critic turned and 
 rent herself. " Definition ! " mocked the inner voice. " Do 
 I love Antoine intellectually? It looks like that. Genius 
 is so refreshing, in our world. My feeling to Phil is cer- 
 tainly quite different. . . ." 
 
 Philip accompanied his father to the station, and told 
 the household carelessly that he might be late returning. 
 
 " You will not expect your little brother to wait supper 
 for you ? " said his aunt. *' We are dining early to go out, 
 and hoped to entrust him to you." 
 
 " Oh," said Philip. " He can eat a bowl of gruel before 
 I come, if that's all. I'll pick up something down there." 
 
 Yvonne, who had made her plans, looked pained. " I 
 have not prepared M. Antoine's supper," she said. " He 
 prefers to wait for M. Philippe, not being hungry at all." 
 
 " Temper," Philip commented. " Sheer jealousy that is, 
 papa. He thinks I oughtn't to go to the station with you, 
 because he can't. He practically told me as much, just 
 now." 
 
 " Well, don't," said James, getting into his coat. 
 Yvonne's face cleared at once. 
 
 " Thanks," said Philip. " Don't you want me ? " 
 
 " I can get on without you. I'd sooner he ate his supper, 
 anyway." 
 
 " Of course," said Philip, injured, " if he means to cry 
 till I come in again " 
 
 " II ne pleure pas," said the maid. " It is only we had 
 arranged a little supper for the fete." 
 
 " Oh, bless you, I'll eat it, if that's all," said Philip, re- 
 covering cheerfulness. " Anything in that line to amuse 
 him, any time. It's only a fellow I've got to see, Yvonne : 
 I sha'n't be long." 
 
 " Bien, Monsieur," said Yvonne. " M. Antoine would 
 eat himself, if Monsieur son papa spoke to him." 
 
544 SUCCESSION 
 
 " I'm going to miss my train among 'em," murmured 
 Jem. "If I go back, he'll keep me another five minutes 
 talking, just when I had him quiet, hey ? " He looked at 
 the girl keenly, for he and she were old allies. " You make 
 it and take it him," he said. " He'll have to eat it then — 
 manners, see? You can say I wanted it, if you like." 
 
 " And if he throws it at her? " suggested Philip. " Our 
 respected nerves are a little shaky to-night." 
 
 Jem was unmoved. " Oh — then you can give it him, also 
 from me, when you get home. But somehow I don't think 
 he will," he added, on the stairs without. " She has plenty 
 of character, that girl. It was only a bit of woman's 
 blague to get me back to him. I don't hold ever with going 
 back." 
 
 " When you've finished a job," suggested Philip. " Did 
 you finish him off, papa ? " 
 
 " Pretty well," said Jem, " I'm glad I shortened it. 
 He'd had enough." 
 
 " Did you tell him how I finished Ostrowski ? " said 
 Philip, whose mind was running on his recent prowess in 
 the Rats' exhibition of sword-play. 
 
 " I may have mentioned it," said Jem. " He seemed a 
 bit keen. Is he a fighter himself ? " 
 
 " Jespersen taught him a little. He wouldn't be so bad 
 if he practised. He's a good wrist and a straight eye. 
 
 Perhaps he'll be able to " Philip stopped discreetly. 
 
 " Well, six months hence," he improved it. 
 
 " Possibly," said Jem. " Fencing is not bad exercise. 
 I'll try it when I get him out there." 
 
 " Whatf" ejaculated Philip, in a tone so genuinely fright- 
 ened that his father laughed. 
 
 " It's not settled yet," he said. " But I thought you had 
 better be posted up, old boy. It's a little plan I've had for 
 some time, turning it about. Now seems the moment to 
 push it through. That's all." 
 
 " But — have you spoken to them ? " , 
 
 " Whom ? I came along to-day to take a preliminary 
 
THE FETE 545 
 
 survey. It will relieve your aunt, at least, of quite an un- 
 fair responsibility. She's had more than enough bother 
 ,vith you both, to my ideas."' 
 
 " Savigny," said Philip, breathless almost. 
 
 " I've thought of Savigny. I don't think he'll make any 
 lerious objection.'' 
 
 "Papa!. He'll kill you." 
 
 " Savigny will ? Oh no, my lad. He's too good a man 
 ■or that." They walked for a time in silence. 
 
 " Have you seen him to-day ? " Philip asked. 
 
 " No. Better not, I thought. I'll leave the proposal to 
 ;ink a bit, and not follow it up too closely. It's time I had 
 he boy, I think. Some folk would say it's a bit late, 
 rhere's not much of him left." 
 
 "He's thin, isn't he?" Philip pondered desperately: he 
 felt rather lost. " Papa — does he want to?" 
 
 " He did, when I first planted the idea. He's not very 
 ceen for the moment, poor little kiddy. Frightened of the 
 journey, I think." 
 
 " It's an awful way," said Philip. 
 
 " So-so," said his father. " I've friends all the way 
 icross. We'll go by easy stages now and then. I'll see 
 :o it," said Jem confidently. 
 
 " You're plucky, papa," said Philip. 
 
 " I consider it's worth risking," said Jem calmly. " I've 
 Dcen thinking it out. I know that if I could once get him 
 right across, I could get him better. I'm certain of that, 
 ^ou fellows have no notion what that climate is — no one 
 :an have without feeling it. I shall be busy this trip, but 
 not so busy. It's only an overlooking job, and fairly aris- 
 tocratic conditions. You see, I'm getting an old fellow, 
 left behind. Well then, we'll be stranded together, that's 
 my plan. I'll keep an eye on him, never fear." He placed 
 a hand on Philip's arm. The boy found nothing to say. 
 
 " I may go wrong," Jem proceeded presently, with a 
 sardonic touch, " but I can't mucker worse than they've 
 done, after all. I've held off, and let them have their fling." 
 
546 SUCCESSION 
 
 He reflected a moment, still holding Philip's arm. " I've 
 nothing against the French," he said. " Couldn't have very- 
 well, you'll say, when it's that way my children get their 
 brains. Their intellectual standard's magnificent; but there 
 are one or two things they miss, according to me. For all 
 the years I was here, I never got to believe that air and light 
 and exercise, for instance, can really be replaced, even by 
 the finest culture in Europe. I don't expect you to agree 
 with me now, but being British-born, I stick to my ideas." 
 Philip had no smile. 
 
 " I saw Weber to-day," said Jem more seriously. " A 
 nice fellow — cautious. He's not hopeless — didn't drop cold 
 water on my plan, as I was ready to find he should. He 
 says often, in the touch-and-go cases, strong steps are best. 
 Well, I had had a kind of idea that that was so. It'll be a 
 change of everything, you see: a turn-over. He has tried 
 this little civilisation, sucked the juice out of it, I reckon, 
 for he goes pretty fast. Well ! " 
 
 " There'll be a tram directly," said Philip, looking up the 
 street. Jem glanced at him while they waited, and his face 
 in the light of the lamp above looked white. 
 
 " A bit hard on him, this is," thought Jem, who was as 
 usual fulfilling part of an organised plan in speaking. 
 " He's had a shock too, recently. Wonder if I should have 
 waited till he got over it." Unconsciously his eye measured 
 the distance to the approaching tram. Having begun, he 
 disliked to leave a job unfinished, as he said. 
 
 " See there," he said lower, since the crowd was near, 
 and touched a name upon a poster column. " Remember 
 how I talked to you, a year and a bit ago? He's done his 
 best for us since then, hasn't he? He's dropped for the 
 minute, knocked off, for all his cleverness. Well, we've 
 got to do our best for him: save him for a useful life if 
 possible. That's what I propose, and what I mean to do. 
 Anybody may be wrong ; but no one's going to blame me for 
 trying." 
 
 " I supposed it was that," said the boy wearily. They 
 
THE FETE 547 
 
 mounted the tram, and said no more ; but all the glory of his 
 feats of arms had vanished from Philip's horizon. 
 
 Yvonne, when she vi^ent to Antoine, found him sur- 
 rounded by sheets of paper, containing scribbled eleva- 
 tions of bridges, one of which he was conning earnestly. 
 He frowned at the intrusion of the supper-bowl. He was 
 rather flushed, and did not look a hopeful subject for ex- 
 hortation. When Yvonne said that M. son papa desired 
 him to eat, he stared at her with evident suspicion. Still 
 frowning, and his eyes distracted by the bridge, he dipped 
 the spoon, tasted it, and laid it carefully down. Thereupon 
 Yvonne, instead of remaining to argue, prepared to leave 
 him with it and his conscience. Now, Antoine never could 
 bear to recognise his ownership of a conscience: it was 
 one of the few points in which he resembled his mother. 
 He preferred to defy duty's call to the last moment, and 
 then, if worsted, defend his position in a torrent of talk. 
 
 " Yvonne ! " he said indignantly. " Attendez ! I have 
 not finished it." 
 
 " IMonsieur will," said Yvonne, with serenity. " And 
 there is j\I. Philippe's dinner to prepare," 
 
 " Philippe has got nicer things," said Antoine positively. 
 
 " That is very nice," said Yvonne, with a discreet note 
 of offence in her voice. " I took pains to strain it, since 
 Monsieur complained before." 
 
 Antoine took up the spoon again and tried a little. " It 
 is pas mal," he said, his face twisting with disgust and 
 weariness. " I only want to know what there is for din- 
 ner, as if I was to have it — like the rest." 
 
 Yvonne told him gently, " The soufflee is very good," 
 she said. " I believe it would not hurt you, cheri. It will 
 be spoiled, at least, if M, Philippe does not come soon." 
 
 " I do not want it," said Antoine quickly. " I will eat 
 this, now." 
 
 " Pauvre petit," murmured Yvonne. She had rather 
 suspected his conscience would work by contraries. She 
 
548 SUCCESSION 
 
 had experience of Henriette's boys. Now, seeing him 
 forcibly sage, and eating against all his natural desires, he 
 who knew so well what good food was, compassion mas- 
 tered her. " Monsieur has done much drawing," she said, 
 as she put together the scattered papers. " With Monsieur 
 son papa, hein? That is how they did long since, on the 
 sand." 
 
 " I wish I was on the sand," said Antoine bitterly. " It 
 is so hot, here." He watched her put the papers in a 
 drawer, not protesting, for he seemed too really exhausted 
 to make protest worth while, " The good ones are all 
 his," he said. " I cannot draw, because my hand shakes." 
 
 " The left hand," suggested Yvonne. 
 
 " No — both. I tried with both ! " 
 
 " The ideas are clever, nevertheless," said Yvonne tact- 
 fully. 
 
 " That is worth nothing, for him, if the lines are bad. 
 You ought to remember that." He gave her a single look, 
 sulky and sleepy too. " It was to help papa I tried — but I 
 could not to-night. Not talk to him either — there was too 
 little time. He ought to have waited — for it to be better. 
 I — I told him that." 
 
 " Monsieur is tired," murmured Yvonne. " He will 
 sleep soon." 
 
 " Not before Philippe comes. I shall be awake for him. 
 I wish he would come quickly. — Yvonne ! " 
 
 " Yes, cheri? " 
 
 " Go and make his supper — do not stand there. I have 
 finished this — very nearly." 
 
 She retreated instantly and quietly. " He will sleep be- 
 fore long," she reflected. " He is tired out now. M. 
 Philippe will not mind eating in the kitchen for once, if 
 I explain to him." She prepared a diplomatic explanation, 
 as she moved among her pans. 
 
 Before long, explanations had to be made, but not to 
 Philip. It was a young man of about his age who arrived, 
 but rougher-looking, uglier, and with a manner that dis- 
 
THE FETE 549 
 
 turbed Yvonne, though the swagger, to her keen eye, 
 seemed a triile overdone. She thought he had been drink- 
 ing at first, but decided, before the interview had proceeded 
 for five minutes, that he was too acute. His demands, as 
 it appeared, were harmless. He wanted news of Antoine, 
 having heard a report somewhere of his ilhiess. He was 
 not satisfied by the formal bulletin Savigny had issued and 
 ordained for the public inquiry below stairs and above. A 
 number of people during the day, including M. Duchatel, 
 had taken that, but this young man had small respect for 
 doctors. He winked at Yvonne when she offered it, truth 
 to tell; and proceeded to drive her with cunning into per- 
 sonal detail, catching at every admission hungrily, yet 
 with a triumph that annoyed her. One might have said, at 
 the end of a few minutes of the game, that he desired an 
 intimate conversation with her, and saw a fair chance of 
 having it. 
 
 Now, it may seem a little late to remark that Madame's 
 maid was a clever girl, and accustomed, more than many 
 clever girls who are also pretty, to various types of young 
 men. She judged on sight that this was an exception to the 
 rules of her experience. It was not that he failed to ad- 
 mire her — he evidently did so. Even while he put questions 
 which he certainly had at heart, his sharp glance was run- 
 ning over her, in sly flashes sidelong, both appreciating and 
 taking her measure. His occasional manner of taking her 
 up proved further, beyond question, that he had chaffed with 
 'girls before. Yet in spite of this, when Yvonne made her 
 bold step, she made it without hesitation. She had vari- 
 ous motives, but the excuse she made to herself was that 
 his voice was harsh, and, though he backed from her a little 
 on the staircase, too audible. As she failed in answering to 
 satisfy his curiosity, it did not become less violent — the 
 reverse. 
 
 " Will Monsieur come within, to the kitchen," she said 
 softly. " M. Antoine hears too easily at all times, and he 
 should not be disturbed, for he needs sleep. Monsieur his 
 
550 SUCCESSION 
 
 brother will return shortly, without doubt, if Monsieur can 
 wait a little." 
 
 " I can wait, yes," said Jacques. His tone had dropped 
 at once, a proof of Yvonne's judgment of persons. He 
 had no wish to annoy le petit, though he evidently longed 
 to see him. He followed her, with a silent gait like a slink- 
 ing wolf, across the little vestibule, down the passage and 
 into the kitchen beyond. Yvonne closed the door with 
 care. 
 
 " Ca y est," she said, satisfied. " Now Monsieur can ask 
 as he will. If M. Antoine hears, he will only imagine M. 
 Philippe has arrived." 
 
 She signed Jacques to a chair, but he did not sit. He 
 stood, holding by the mantelpiece, as though attacked by 
 some disturbance of mind or body without warning. He 
 had only eaten once that day, and early, and he had been 
 prowling about, watching the house, for long. It was an 
 ordeal he had not reckoned for in his planning, to have to 
 stand in a well-warmed kitchen, with delicious savours 
 reaching him from the covered dishes by the stove. Meat 
 and bread, the lingering exquisite aroma of coffee lately 
 ground, the steam from bubbling soup in a small pan — 
 much what Jacques would have chosen himself had his 
 small store reached to a restaurant meal. He sniffed every- 
 thing over critically first, and then on an impulse wandered 
 away round the kitchen, stopping as far from the stove and 
 its pans as possible. Yvonne wondered why he turned his 
 shoulder to her so persistently; but the fact is, from 
 Jacques' point of view, there are moments when even a 
 pretty girl may be neglected. 
 
 " I don't think I'll wait, Mademoiselle," he said abruptly. 
 " There's a rendezvous I had forgotten come to my mind, 
 and the fellow will be vexed. Look here, I'll write some- 
 thing and leave it. You'll see he has it in private? " 
 
 Yvonne promised, watching his proceedings sharply for 
 all her easy and collected grace of the French maid, trained 
 in an English house. Something had reduced him, she saw, 
 
THE FETE 551 
 
 and had she been vainer, would have given herself the 
 credit. But she was too sensible, and, for all her years, 
 had too much experience, for she was country bred in 
 origin, and of a poor farm stock. She still watched, while 
 he felt within his loose clothes, and extracted the stump of 
 a pencil and a leaf jerked from his pocket-book, and while 
 he sat at the table over the scrap, pondering and erasing, a 
 hand supporting his head. His features, seen in the stronger 
 light of the lamp, were arresting, ugly as they were ; his hair 
 had been allowed to grow, and touched his collar behind ; 
 but it was the hand she noticed most. It had the same 
 formation as M. Antoine's, which she had been dressing 
 and binding up that evening, though larger, darker-tinted, 
 and not immaculately clean. The nails, however, were well 
 kept, her sharp feminine eye perceived. It was not an un- 
 distinguished hand, though it had been used, like her own, 
 for undistinguished offices. 
 
 "Monsieur est musicien?" said Yvonne, disturbing his 
 thoughts. He assented w^ith a movement. 
 
 "He does not call himself M. Jacques, par exemple?" 
 
 " What then ? " he said, looking round under his lids. 
 
 " Because le petit has desired a M. Jacques so much. He 
 spoke of him lately when he was feverish. He said this 
 M. Jacques was dead." 
 
 " So he may be," said the visitor, " It's not an uncom- 
 mon name." 
 
 " M. Antoine was excited — he did not mean all he said," 
 observed Yvonne. 
 
 He toyed with the pencil a minute. " They've forbid- 
 den him to see me," he said suddenly, in explanation. " It's 
 that doctor cad, probably. Dangerous I am — dishonest — 
 and he's a gosse. Nervous too, isn't he? Frightened at 
 anything, hey ? " 
 
 " M. Antoine is not easily frightened," said Yvonne. " It 
 
 is only that " She looked towards the door. Char- 
 
 retteur took advantage of her instantly. 
 
 " Look here, let me see him," he said, flashing his sly 
 
552 SUCCESSION 
 
 look at her, half bullying, half persuasive. " I'm d-driven 
 to extremes, and can't stand much fooling. If you knew 
 how one has to live on lies and hearsay, you'd understand." 
 
 Yvonne wavered. " M. Savigny will not have him see 
 anybody. He is tired to-night with the visit of his father — 
 and he may be asleep." 
 
 " If he's asleep I won't disturb him," Jacques assured 
 her, rising, " I want to see him — see that he's there. I 
 c-can't believe anybody, that's my state. On my honour, I 
 only want a look. I'll be quiet enough. I'll go like a s-snail 
 on the grass." 
 
 " I will see first," said Yvonne, her composure reproving 
 his excitement. She was at the door, touching the handle, 
 when something made her say, as she took a last view of 
 his attitude: "Will Monsieur have a cup of coffee?" 
 
 " No," said Jacques, very roughly indeed ; and, dropping 
 back into his former place with his arms on the table, bent 
 his head low over the little paper. Yvonne, sure of the case, 
 departed. 
 
 " He is hungry, cheri," said Yvonne, putting her arms 
 round the boy to lay him back on the pillows, for he had 
 struggled up before her entrance, and was gazing with de- 
 vouring eyes at the door. " It is a look I have known, I 
 cannot be mistaken ; he is in want of food. Monsieur must 
 lie down, he must not be emotionne, does he see? I mean, 
 for this Monsieur Jacques' sake, who is suffering. It is 
 necessary to be quiet and natural, and ruse a little, to per- 
 suade him. At the wrong word he will run away. Mon- 
 sieur is so clever to make projects — he shall think." 
 
 She stroked the boy's rough hair back tenderly. She 
 thought highly of the brain inside, the only brain in the 
 house that now represented Monsieur's. Monsieur, in a 
 case like this, gave his whole mind, all those delicate little ; 
 extra faculties which he possessed and would always use 
 to meet the claims of that high thing, real misfortune. 
 Philip or his uncle at this juncture, ingenious as they were, 
 
THE FETE . 553 
 
 ^ould have hesitated, she was certain, — plunged, shown 
 hyness or sharpness, failed to grasp the materials, and 
 ;iost probably lost the game. Her own eagerness was 
 lost innocently betrayed while she pleaded, and anyone 
 lUt Antoine might have marked an undue interest, even for 
 ine acting in his cause and in that of charity ; but she was 
 afe with him, and doubtless knew it. He considered a min- 
 [te, lying as she had placed him, holding her wrist with his 
 Dug fingers. He looked very little disturbed, only intent, 
 k^hile his mind felt all round the situation. 
 
 " That is nothing," he said, indicating the despised bowl. 
 ' Jacques will have dinner here with me, because Philippe 
 las forgotten to come." 
 
 "Bien," said Yvonne. "But Monsieur is tired, hein?" 
 
 " Yes ; very tired of waiting, and hungry a little. You 
 vill have enough for two ? " 
 
 " Bien siar." Yvonne invariably provided a double share 
 or her foster-brother, to be on the safe side. It was but 
 . matter of two covers instead of one. It was all ready — 
 polling — excellent meat which M. Lucien had praised. 
 
 " I will eat a little soufflee," reflected Antoine. " Do not 
 eave him there to smell it — go." He pushed her. 
 
 *■' M. Savigny " said Yvonne. 
 
 " M'en fiche," said Antoine, still with that pleasant se- 
 •enity of reflection. 
 
 " M. Philippe " said Yvonne. Antoine's level look 
 
 lismissed her. Half the joke of it, naturally — all the joke, 
 n short — was that Philip should find everything eaten 
 rvhen he came. 
 
 Antoine explained this joke to Jacques with care. " He 
 ;aid he would come, but he hasn't," he explained. " This 
 is the New Year." 
 
 " Is it ? " said Jacques. 
 
 He came in eating a crust with an air, and stood by the 
 door as though quite ready to retreat again. " I picked it 
 jp," he said of the bread, posing successfully in his capacity 
 
554 SUCCESSION 
 
 as the original. He bit the bread a trifle too eagferly, 
 though, for the part. 
 
 " Aren't you coming any nearer? " said Antoine, annoyed. 
 " I can't see you round the screen." 
 
 " I can see you," said Jacques. " You look as comfort- 
 able as a rabbit in a bag." He wiped his mouth. After the 
 bread he felt better: that little pose had been a bright 
 idea. He marched across, still soft-footed as a cat, though 
 purposeful, and embraced Antoine in a careless manner, 
 both sides of the face. It was exactly what Antoine never 
 could forget to expect of Philip, when they met after an 
 interval, and what Philip never did. If Yvonne had seen 
 it, she would have been successfully reassured as to their 
 mutual relations. 
 
 " Cher Jacques," said Antoine, in response. " That is 
 right. Now you will dine with me." 
 
 " Oh, I've dined," said Jacques. His host's face of 
 quickly contained disappointment was admirable. Luckily 
 the light was good, and the effort not wasted. " You're 
 dining very late," said Jacques sheepishly. " I don't mind 
 helping if it's just to score off what's his name? — Paul." 
 
 " Philippe will be extremely annoyed," said Antoine ear- 
 nestly. " There is a friend he has called Paul — Ostrowski. 
 It is not a name I like much." 
 
 " I know Ostrowski," said Jacques, peering about the 
 darker corners of the room, as though he suspected shame- 
 ful secrets concealed among Lucien's immaculate prop- 
 erties. " I had the pleasure of killing him — three times 
 over — at the rooms." 
 
 " Did you ? " said Antoine, vastly interested. 
 
 " Yes. Stopped his blague — dirty Russian." 
 ' " He is not dirty," said Antoine. " Philippe killed him 
 once this afternoon. They had an assault-at-arms down 
 there." 
 
 " Oh," said Jacques, not at all pleasantly. 
 
 Conversation remained in suspension, because Yvonne 
 brought the dinner — Jacques' expression was worth study, 
 
THE FETE 555 
 
 as she laid the things before him. Then conversation 
 sprang up again on Antoine's side, brilliant and irrepressi- 
 ble. Jacques could not stop him, partly because he had no 
 time to spare for speaking, partly because it was such a rare 
 delight to hear nonsense again. He had been consider- 
 ing and contriving with desperate cunning for a week. 
 They were days on which he did not care to look back ; and 
 the best of the gosse was that he could be trusted to be 
 incurious. Jacques did not believe that talking tired An- 
 toine either, for all that pretty girl's warning; he liked 
 talking himself at times, when he was not hungry. He did 
 once interrupt the boy in full tilt, to observe that he was 
 not eating much. 
 
 " Some of the things I am not allowed," said Antoine. 
 " Savigny " 
 
 Jacques intervened again with an improper expression 
 about Savigny. He was growing excited now, with good 
 meat and wine. He took wine, though with moderation, as 
 though a trifle afraid of it. His wet boots, which he had 
 kicked off carelessly, steamed before the fire, for they had 
 been snow-covered when he left the streets. He stretched 
 himself cat-like, his gaunt legs extended, happy as only such 
 as Jacques can be happy, in circumstances that cannot last. 
 It was very natural, since he felt so well fed and magnificent, 
 to be profane. Antoine did not reason it out as natural, but 
 he laughed at the expression. When he laughed, M. Char- 
 retteur glanced round the corner, reached a hand, and pulled 
 his ear. Then immediately reaching with the other hand he 
 snapped the violin-case open, extracted the violin, and 
 twanged the four strings lightly. 
 
 " About time for the entr'acte to begin," he suggested. 
 " After one dinner and before the next." 
 
 " Shall you have another down there ? " inquired An- 
 toine. 
 
 "Down where? I referred to your brother Paul's din- 
 ner. There's a nice bone there for him, and a little salt." 
 
556 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Isn't it after eight? " said Antoine, gazing at him under 
 his lashes. 
 
 " Yes," said Jacques. " I'm not on duty to-night. I've 
 g-got a holiday." He twanged the strings again, using An- 
 toine's best-beloved like a banjo. The owner watched him 
 unmoved. 
 
 " You haven't got the bow," he observed. 
 
 " No. I sha'n't play it." Jacques cuddled the violin. " It 
 is a little beauty, Antoine. Do you know, I kept it for 
 four nights? I could have brought it back before, or sent 
 it to England. I kept it instead. After midnight I played, 
 when I got home; drove the fellow on the fifth floor fran- 
 tic ; row with the proprietor, and all that. ... I s-say, 
 you haven't got your own case now, did you notice ? " 
 
 " No," said Antoine, with truth. " I like to see you hold 
 it, Jacques. You might have kept it altogether. I can't 
 play now." 
 
 " So I told that doctor, when he wanted it. Oh, Lord, 
 the brute, the pestilent, trampling brute. . . . You lie 
 quiet, little one. I sha'n't be violent, now I've fed. You 
 get wrong ideas when you're hungry — did you know that? 
 I'd have knifed him with pleasure, that day on the stairs." 
 
 " I think you are very good," said Antoine, lying quiet 
 at command. Jacques' clenched hands were hanging harm- 
 lessly by him, and he had laid the violin aside, out of all 
 danger. 
 
 " But all he was doing was killing you, eh ? Foul time 
 you've had, brutal, intolerable. I couldn't save the old 
 man for you, could I ? I sneaked up to get news of him 
 once or twice, but there was nothing good to send. I got 
 that thing there for you, as soon as I could. I had to get 
 round the woman — took some time. And you broke down 
 for the want of it, while I was smelling round that hole ! " 
 
 " No, no, it wasn't that," said Antoine quickly. Under 
 the other artist's eye, he blushed. " It is only easier to 
 do that — than I had thought. How did you find her house, 
 Jacques ? " 
 
THE FETE 557 
 
 " Too long to tell." Jacques gave him his slow smile. 
 " You'd be asleep before I'd finished. You're blinking 
 now. Not a story for a little kid, in any case. Low sort 
 they were, the worst : I saw that in the train. Had an 
 idea I had set eyes on him too, even then. Next day I saw 
 the papers, and a little thinking settled it. He was a regu- 
 lar at my cafe, do you see ? That's why his handsome face 
 haunted me. Well, I thought of the police once, but they 
 always make such a mess of things if they're given a 
 chance. I thought it would take less time to manage it 
 myself. I watched my chance, after playing, and followed 
 my beauty home." 
 
 " And stole it," said Antoine, with contentment. He had 
 no need of details, Jacques was glad to see. He merely 
 wished to know in addition, had the man played it himself? 
 Jacques could reassure him. 
 
 " Lord no, he only wanted the price. Didn't even know 
 its value till the papers let it out," said Jacques. " He was 
 waiting to sell it." 
 
 " I hate him," said Antoine thoughtfully. " Jacques — 
 why didn't he know you in the train?" 
 
 " Because, though I am stuck in front of them for hours 
 down there, most of them never look at me. Not the same 
 as a concert," added Jacques. " At eating-places it's the 
 m-music matters, not the man." 
 
 " Sometimes at concerts " said Antoine, and paused. 
 
 He was not so sure, with his experience, that he could con- 
 tradict the jibe. It was painful, and he frowned over it. 
 
 " You're getting tired," said Jacques, drawing in his feet 
 hastily, and catching at his boots. " I shall go out and 
 smoke. Paul will be coming, and it might worry you if 
 we fought here." 
 
 " I am not tired," said Antoine. " One is not, in bed. 
 It is only infernally ennuyeux — about that you can say the 
 worst words. And I want to go out noiv and smell the 
 snow round the park." 
 
 " I'll take you, shall I ? " said Jacques, rising obligingly. 
 
558 SUCCESSION 
 
 " No ! Do not touch me ! " He warded with a hand, then 
 added in a shaken tone: " I do not know why for two days 
 I have been like that." 
 
 " What are they going to do with you ? " said Jacques, 
 his hands clasped behind him. 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " The Lemaures, of course. Throw you away ? You're 
 useless, aren't you?" His tone was rough. 
 
 " Oh no. I have written a quintet. Ribiera has got it," 
 said Antoine. 
 
 Jacques threw back his head and laughed — a healthy 
 school-boy's laugh that reached Yvonne demurely darning 
 in the kitchen and made her smile. 
 
 " On s'amuse, sans M. Philippe," she thought. 
 
 " Ribiera likes it," said Antoine hastily. '* Wait — I will 
 show you." 
 
 Jacques waited as directed, grinning. Antoine searched 
 up and down the bed, and unearthed a crumpled sheet of 
 paper. " Tenez ! " he said triumphantly. " He wrote that 
 for me, to-day." 
 
 Jacques, standing erect, read the note. 
 
 " Monsieur, — Your haste to endorse the news of your 
 actual indisposition leaves me inconsolable. Without your 
 aid I am naturally lost ; for the inferior insects that infest 
 the town, as you trouble yourself to hint, cannot well supply 
 your place. There is nothing for it, then, but to erase the 
 programmes promised, and offer my sole self as sacrifice to 
 a public which has hitherto clamoured for you. Will you 
 accept, in bed, my heartfelt sympathy, and the expression 
 of my consistent esteem and admiration. 
 
 "Ribiera." 
 
 Beneath was written: 
 
 " Your work, which is ingenious, remains unplayable. It 
 is at your disposal to correct if you prefer." 
 
THE FETE 559 
 
 Jacques' long frame, straight during the body of the 
 letter, twisted rapturously at the postscript. 
 
 " You hold him, mon gosse," he said, tweaking Antoine's 
 hair with a powerful finger and thumb. " At your dis- 
 posal! If you prefer! Oh, the s-s-snake! You see what 
 he'll do, of course? He'll correct it, leave a blank on the 
 programme, and grimace his thanks as author at the end. 
 Oh, he's done as bad as that, twenty times. You can't 
 trust him a step, ever." 
 
 " Jacques ! He is not to ! You must go and fetch it ! 
 You must go — don't laugh." 
 
 Jacques was laughing, as though laughter did him good. 
 He held the sheet out of Antoine's reach, hampered as he 
 unfairly was by the prostrate position, and collapsed side- 
 ways into his chair again. 
 
 " Can't you hear him hiss through every phrase ? " he 
 crowed. " It's glorious." 
 
 " He likes it," Antoine persisted. " Jacques, it is not 
 amusing, really. Voyons — let me read." 
 
 He read it aloud to Jacques, weighing on every sentence 
 admiringly. In mere " politeness," not to mention style of 
 composition, Ribiera the courtier manifestly outdid him. 
 Even with Philip's skilled aid, Antoine could never have 
 thought of such words. 
 
 " I told him I was in bed," he interjected at one point ; 
 and at another: "I did not say insects — that is a wrong 
 word." Jacques twisted in his seat with appreciation 
 throughout the performance. 
 
 " I know the sort of insect you mean," he said, and wiped 
 his eyes. " Oh, you are a rabbit, little one — a little rabbit 
 in his hands. And yet you've caught him, pinched him, 
 that's the joke. I sha'n't get over this." 
 
 " I have not caught him," said Antoine, getting troubled. 
 " Jacques, see, I am tired to write again. You go to him 
 to-morrow and explain. Tell him I want it back, now." 
 
 " That's the way," Jacques assented, feeble with much 
 mirth. " You know all the dodges." He took notes obedi- 
 
56o SUCCESSION 
 
 ently of what he was desired to say. " You of all people," 
 he murmured. " All right, Antoine ; I suppose the dinner 
 was too much for me. If I had known what you were 
 holding over, I wouldn't have taken wine. I'll j-just say 
 you sent me, shall I? Sent me along like a lackey. And 
 I'm to fetch it? — rather. Oh, it's a chance like I never had, 
 this. I'll drive a bargain for you will surprise him, when 
 it's over. S-serve him right." He caught Antoine's eyes, 
 fixed on him anxiously. " All right," he said. " Don't mind 
 me. I'm drunk." 
 
 He rose unsteadily at the end. As a matter of fact he 
 was drunk : not so much with the wine, as with the warmth 
 and welcome extended to him, the unlimited chance the 
 boy's society offered him to be comfortable and foolish, 
 and, carelessly dropped in at the end, the sweet surprise 
 of this news, promising at once Antoine's glory, Ribiera's 
 discomfiture, and a new glimmering possibility in life for 
 him. Jacques' tongue had already been of use to him, and 
 he had not lived through so many vicissitudes without know- 
 ing how to turn any chance that came to his profit. If 
 nothing else came of the interview with Ribiera but a little 
 fun, it would be well worth it, considering how he had been 
 treated. 
 
 He stood now before the boy, aware of a reeling brain as 
 he recovered from his surfeit of mirth, aware of a thou- 
 sand prosaic difficulties waiting to attack him, as soon as 
 he passed beyond the magic circle of this room, aware lastly 
 of the boy's confidence, and the tacit trust of his regard. 
 
 " I'll go," said Jacques, frowning with narrowed eyes, 
 resting a hand for support upon the chair. " The jest's fin- 
 ished. There's little amusement in it, really. Just say 
 you're not vexed with me, little innocence." 
 
 " How vexed ? " asked Antoine, not shrinking from his 
 hand. "Will you take the violin?" 
 
 " No. It's yours — just like you. That's why I kept 
 it by me, really. Wh-what are those cigarettes? Paul's? 
 He touched a box. 
 
THE FETE 561 
 
 " Philippe's," said Antoinc, glancing drowsily, and M. 
 Charretteur helped himself. " Papa brought them, from 
 Egypt, once," he roused himself to explain. " Jacques." 
 
 "Hein?" Jacques, who still had a hand upon him, 
 though he was toying with the cigarette, turned his head. 
 
 " In February, when I am well, I am going with papa 
 to America." 
 
 A pause. " All right. So am I." 
 
 " You are not." 
 
 " I tell you, Fve often thought of it. I shall come." 
 
 " You will not. You stay here, in Paris, to play. I want 
 you to." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because you are French : a man to play French music, 
 in France; and I love those." 
 
 " You're French, every inch of you," said Jacques, nip- 
 ping the cold cigarette in his white teeth. " Curse your 
 father." 
 
 " Yes, I am. The music is. I — cannot help it." 
 
 " Your father ? No, you can't, you're right. Good-night, 
 baby. Go to by-by, hein? Pm going." The hand upon 
 Antoine dropped. " I shouldn't wonder if that thing was 
 good enough," said Jacques. 
 
 " It is," said Antoine, with serious, sleepy conviction. 
 He spoke to a friend and fellow-worker of his race, in 
 confidence ; so he may be forgiven, at least by those who 
 create. Jacques, who forgave him easily, departed smiling. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 savigny's task 
 
 When Philip came in, decidedly late, he found a young 
 man in the kitchen, smoking with Yvonne. The shock to 
 his British prejudices can easily be conceived. For Yvonne 
 v^as the pink of propriety, noted for her dainty fastidious- 
 ness in the matter of the society in which she mixed ; and 
 beyond this, she was in some sense the Edgells' property. 
 History would have to be followed to account for this 
 theory, as held by Philip ; but it may be sufficient to allude 
 to the facts that Yvonne's mother nursed him, when a deli- 
 cate baby, with notable success, and that he and Yvonne had 
 slapped one another and scuffled through their early years 
 in an almost intimate fashion. They had not done so very 
 recently, it must be admitted; and if a scuffle occurred, 
 Yvonne now invariably got the upper hand. Philip did 
 not commonly interfere with her; least of all did he think 
 of doing so in the innumerable incidents, all very brief, 
 connected with grooms, gardeners, electricians and the like, 
 which had proved Yvonne in the common judgment, for 
 three years past, to be fascinating but flinty-hearted. His 
 aunt, he knew, despaired of marrying her, she had shown 
 such a store of cynical indifference to the best chances the 
 district could provide. It seemed likely that she had fixed 
 her mind on dressing St Catherine's hair, and her ability 
 was such that no saint with a grain of coquetry left could 
 have refused her offices. She was admirably capable, thor- 
 oughly trained, resourceful and discreet; and she had in 
 addition to her natural cleverness a touch of art which her 
 562 
 
SAVIGNY'S TASK 563 
 
 mistress had let no chance slip of cultivating. She was a 
 maid among maids — but she was something better, as An- 
 toine's close confidence in her showed. She adored music, 
 and seized every opening a musical household afforded of 
 improving the taste. She was as keen a critic as Madame's 
 self, and even M. Lucien had recognised in her a consid- 
 erable capacity for his art, though it is doubtful if he 
 would ever have discovered it, had she happened to be 
 plain. 
 
 Now, behold, this star of prudence and purity had sunk. 
 Though it is well known that a short stay in Paris may 
 temporarily derange the equilibrium of the expatriated 
 Frenchwoman, Philip could not have credited such a com- 
 mon proceeding on Yvonne's part, had he not seen. On 
 the table before the young man, who was making himself 
 so comfortable in the absence of the heads of the house- 
 hold, stood a cup of excellent strong coffee, steaming. An- 
 other scent emanated from him too, a scent strangely like 
 that of Philip's choicest cigarettes, rashly left in Antoine's 
 room. Yvonne, smiling her prettiest, was half sitting on the 
 table, her idle hands clasped in her lap, Philip's half-darned 
 sock upon the chair she had deserted. Her fascinated eyes 
 were on the tempter's as he talked low and guardedly — 
 whispering almost. It was an awful situation. 
 
 " Er — Yvonne," said Philip coldly. " Here is Dr. Bronne. 
 I'd like my supper in the study, and you might bring a 
 cup of " 
 
 He was unexpectedly disturbed from the rear; for his 
 companion, who was en grande tenue and very elegant, 
 placed Philip gently aside and came past him. 
 
 " Pardon," said Bronne's soft tone. " How are you, 
 Jacques? A happy New Year." He laid a hand on 
 Yvonne's visitor's shoulder from behind. 
 
 The young man unwound his legs, grinned and replied 
 not inaptly, stammering a trifle. Philip recoiled and gazed 
 at him. Conviction entered him swiftly, but little reassur- 
 
564 SUCCESSION 
 
 ance. What was the fellow doing in his uncle's kitchen, 
 with his aunt's maid, anyhow? 
 
 " Aren't you smart," said the kitchen visitor, looking the 
 doctor up and down. " I s-say, we've had no correct in- 
 troduction. Informal a bit, that's what it was last time." 
 His thumb — a vulgar trick — indicated Philip. 
 
 " Pardon," said Bronne again, and introduced them beau- 
 tifully. 
 
 " You know my brother, I think," said Philip, disgusted, 
 looking away from Jacques and slightly down, 
 
 " Nearly missed him again, on my conscience," said 
 Jacques. " N-not quite, this time, thanks to Mademoiselle." 
 
 "You saw Antoine?" said Bronne. 
 
 " Yes. Apropos, you'd better trot and see how he's 
 bearing it. Get to your trade." 
 
 " I have no trade to-night. Nor have you, Jacques. 
 You're on holiday." 
 
 " Long holiday," said Jacques. " A bit prolonged, selon 
 moi." He tossed the end of Philip's cigarette into the fire. 
 
 "You're all right, though," said Bronne, the medical 
 eye running over him. 
 
 " Liberty suits me," retorted Jacques. " Equality, and 
 so forth. Why don't you follow me, eh ? " 
 
 "Out of the window?" Bronne laughed. "I'll think 
 about it, thanks. In a new year anything may happen, 
 mayn't it ? " Jacques gave him a sharp glance sidelong. 
 There was a contained vigour and confidence about the 
 gentle Bronne that had already surprised Philip, and which 
 made Jacques suspicious. He liked to assert that the young 
 superintendent was under Savigny's heel, but he had never 
 really thought so. On the contrary, he had envied his easy 
 independence of judgment, while mocking his docility. 
 
 "Come into my room, won't you?" said Philip, at this 
 point, in an ungracious mutter, and shouldered past the 
 pair. " Bring a light, Yvonne." 
 
 His guests followed him, though Jacques at least would 
 fain have s^tayed by the fire, with that pleasant girl whom 
 
SAVIGNY'STASK 565 
 
 Antoine's brother ordered about so carelessly. He glanced 
 at Yvonne in passing, but her eyes were cast down and 
 her hands busy. So he merely picked up the lamp she had 
 prepared, and carried it for her into the garret room. 
 
 Here he preserved the courtesies, according to his ideas, 
 by subjecting the place to a preliminary tour and scrutiny, 
 before he sat down. Jacques, in new quarters, had this 
 somewhat animal custom, to which his friends were used. 
 It seemed in origin to be more instinctive caution in life 
 than curiosity. 
 
 " Devout, by Jove," he said agreeably, as he spied about 
 the walls with his short-sighted eyes. He regarded a small 
 crucifix attached above the bed, a sprig of mistletoe stuck 
 through. The mistletoe was withered slightly ; the half-tar- 
 nished silver of the figure glittered faintly in the light from 
 the lamp by the door. It was not a thing the incurious 
 would have noticed, for it was shadowed and concealed 
 by one of the odd angles of the little apartment. 
 
 " That's Antoine's," said Philip. " This is his room." 
 
 " I b-beg his pardon," said Jacques, and sat down upon 
 the bed. The conversation seemed slain for a period ; then 
 Philip apologised to his own guest, whom he had placed in 
 the arm-chair, for the delay. 
 
 " It's you that are in need, I think," said Bronne. " If 
 you will excuse me, Edgell, I'll go to the little one a moment. 
 Better now than later. I shall not stay long." 
 
 Philip, supposing he had business for Savigny, could not 
 retain him. He and Jacques were in consequence left 
 tcte-a-tete, and stared past one another. From the kitchen 
 came a soft clatter, and light steps. Philip glanced frown- 
 ing in that direction, and a little formality omitted occurred 
 to Jacques. 
 
 " I ought to say I ate your supper," he remarked of a 
 sudden. " That might account for the delay." 
 
 " Oh," said Philip. " Well, I daresay she'll find some- 
 thing." 
 
566 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Hard on her, rather," said Jacques. " It might be 
 fairer, mightn't it, if I went to help." 
 
 With that, it suddenly struck Philip that he was being 
 " guyed " by this eccentric acquaintance of Antoine's, even 
 as Ribiera had guyed him. But Charretteur being more or 
 less of his own age, it would not do. Added to this, 
 Jacques' society manners were contagious, somehow. Philip 
 let go, tentatively, a portion of his dignity, and did not 
 regret its going. 
 
 " Did that fellow meet you — for the duel, I mean ? " he 
 said, with evident subdued eagerness. 
 
 " Never thought he would, but he did," said Jacques. 
 " Pity he did, for him." 
 
 " You didn't kill him, I say ? " said Philip. 
 
 " N-not quite. We couldn't finish, you see — ^they inter- 
 vened." 
 
 " The police? " 
 
 " Almost as bad," said Jacques. " The field we chose was 
 private property, and the local authorities disturbed us. 
 However, he'd had enough, more than he came out for. He 
 won't trouble Paris again for a bit. ... I s-say — ^how 
 did you know of it ? " 
 
 Philip explained. " On my honour, that's good," said 
 Jacques, giving his penetration its due. Philip, gratified, 
 let a little more dignity go. 
 
 " Beastly fools, the police? " he suggested. Jacques made 
 a shrugging gesture with his entire frame, outward to 
 the finger-tips, eminently expressive. The police of Paris 
 were thereby dismissed. 
 
 " Have a cigarette," said Philip. He carefully avoided 
 saying " another " ; but Charretteur took the trick by re- 
 marking that such things left about the rooms were a temp- 
 tation to the children. 
 
 " Good, they are," he added. " Your father's got taste. 
 Been pinking Ostrowski, the gosse tells me." Philip, re- 
 sponding at some length, implied Ostrowski was easy game ; 
 
SAVIGNY'STASK 567 
 
 and suggested, with an inward tremor of excitement, that 
 Jacques should meet him at the school. 
 
 " I've had to drop my subscription," said Jacques. 
 " Tant pis. It works the devil off a man, better than any- 
 thing." Philip was humiliated; and simultaneously liked 
 and respected him more. 
 
 "Extraordinary room, isn't it?" he said, observing the 
 persistent rambles of Jacques' eyes. 
 
 "Just like him," said Jacques. "Pious, is he? Of 
 course, I never thought of that." 
 
 " My grandfather w^as too," said Philip. 
 
 " Yes, he would be," said Charretteur ; and, in his mo- 
 mentary gravity, he seemed old. He did not condole with 
 Philip on his loss ; Philip did not observe the omission. He 
 may, at the moment, have felt Jacques too near. 
 
 " Well," said Jacques. " I must go, Edgell. You'll want 
 to talk to Bronne." 
 
 " Oh, stop and tell us about it," coaxed Philip. " We 
 can't put all the story together — my father and I were try- 
 ing to-day." 
 
 Jacques laughed pleasantly, though shortly, showing the 
 tips of his white teeth ; but he did not directly refuse, 
 though his eyes fixed the half-open kitchen door. 
 
 " There's the reward, too," said Philip. " You know, 
 you ought to clairn it." 
 
 " Go cadging to the police? Not I." 
 
 " Well, you found it, didn't you? " 
 
 " That's the question," said Jacques. He smoked, still 
 looking at the door. 
 
 " Bronne's just as keen as I am," said Philip, mistaking 
 the nature of his anxiety. " Antoine put him au courant, 
 one of the first." 
 
 In the end, Jacques was persuaded to recount his ad- 
 venture, while Philip ate his extemporised supper. It can- 
 not be denied that Jacques exaggerated grossly, in the mat- 
 ter of the complications and triumphs of the undertaking, 
 seeing his chance with such an inexperienced auditor, al- 
 
568 SUCCESSION 
 
 ready inclined to admire him. He made the best of his op- 
 portunities at least, until Dr Bronne slipped in and joined 
 them; whereupon he drew in his superfluous canvas with 
 remarkable skill and agility, and sailed less gallantly in con- 
 sequence. As it was, the doctor pulled him up several times 
 over details, and towards the end the formerly fluent ac- 
 count became rather of the nature of a sparring match be- 
 tween the pair. 
 
 " All right, if you know best," said Jacques, turning sulky 
 without warning. "Finish for M. Paul there, won't you? 
 — he's listening." 
 
 " You never stole a violin anyhow," he blurted at a later 
 stage. " You haven't the spunk." He seemed to turn 
 boyish rapidly, in manner and expression, when he sat thus 
 in congenial company. 
 
 There was a certain portion of the history, highly racy 
 and allusive on Jacques' part, concerning the lady, that 
 Philip did not fully understand. It was the more annoying 
 to him that Bronne obviously did, though he watched his 
 cigarette, with his demure, unmoved expression, while it 
 proceeded. It was evident even to Philip, however, that 
 the hero wished them to ascribe his success largely to his 
 experience and skill in the manipulation of this fair 
 Delilah, though the steps of the process were less clear to 
 follow. 
 
 "Women are useful, aren't they?" Bronne commented 
 softly once. 
 
 " There was nothing wrong with the bargain," ruffled 
 Jacques. 
 
 " Wasn't there ? Pardon, Charretteur ; go on." 
 
 Jacques went on, but the observation seemed to rankle. 
 Its immediate result was, that the lady, hitherto taking a 
 conspicuous part in the drama, dropped out of the story; 
 the events of which became in consequence a trifle mirac- 
 ulous, as though Providence lurked behind them, for 
 Jacques, at every stage. It had been thieving made easy, 
 though the hero made the best of his part in it. Bronne re- 
 
SAVIGNY'STASK 569 
 
 called the existence of the lady, with an astonishing failure 
 of tact, exactly when Yvonne happened to enter the room to 
 collect the plates. Dr Bronne seemed really dissatisfied in 
 his conscience as to what that person had gained by the 
 transaction. 
 
 " Look here," said Jacques, getting up, when Yvonne, 
 with a faintly disdainful expression on her charming 
 features, had departed. " Do you f-fight ? " 
 
 " Not now," said Bronne. " We decided it is good exer- 
 cise, but a bad example." 
 
 "Who decided?" gasped Jacques. 
 
 " Savigny and I, in conclave." 
 
 " Oho ! You caught it when the patron returned, did 
 you? " 
 
 " He conducted an inquiry. He could not see the neces- 
 sity." 
 
 Jacques was silent, looking sulky. " Wh-what do you 
 complain of?" he broke out. "She was a thorough bad 
 lot, anyhow." 
 
 " Injustice," Bronne said lightly. " The usual thing. I 
 know your point of view, though, very w'ell. Savigny " 
 
 " What point of view ? " 
 
 " Yours, and his. That women are there for us to make 
 what we can of them. The world's full of the assump- 
 tion." 
 
 " They make w^hat they can of us," growled Jacques. 
 
 " Oh yes. And w-ho has the advantage ? " 
 
 " She was playing false to the other man, anyhow. 
 She " 
 
 "Are you sure she owed him anything?" 
 
 Jacques shifted ground. " She knew I'd no money," he 
 said, adding, as Bronne was about to speak : " She — she'll 
 find someone else." 
 
 " Who, you hope, will pay your debt ? " 
 
 " Look here, Bronne," said Jacques. " What's come over 
 you I can't think, harping on all this, and nobody inter- 
 ested." His thumb indicated Philip again, who was far 
 
570 SUCCESSION 
 
 from uninterested, as his face showed. " It isn't," pro- 
 ceeded Jacques, " as if you knew what you were talking 
 about." 
 
 " Pardon, Edgell ; I'm a bore," said Bronne. " It may 
 be that Savigny and I were on the subject to-day." 
 
 " Theories ! " broke out Jacques, in triumph. " Talking 
 away, tucked safe out of action, just like two fat monks. 
 I know." He slid a shaft of scorn at the doctor sidelong, 
 for he was shy of facing him. 
 
 " Our profession " began Louis, who seemed to be 
 
 enjoying himself, where he lay in his half-dark chair. 
 
 "Curse your profession! Priests, that's what you are! 
 P-priests ! " 
 
 " Thanks, Charretteur : I'll tell him. Only, I assure you, 
 your point of view and his are one." 
 
 " I'm going," announced Jacques, getting up, disgusted. 
 " Anyhow, I haven't got much out of the business myself, 
 have I? " 
 
 " You've got a capital story," said Dr Bronne, in a con- 
 gratulatory manner, rising also, and holding out his hand. 
 He added easily : " Antoine is grateful, too." 
 
 " What do you know about it ? " said Jacques, his sallow 
 cheek reddening. 
 
 " Did you not want to be reminded ? I saw him a few 
 minutes since. He assured me he had had a very good 
 fete." 
 
 "He did? Assured you?" A pause. " Wh-what did 
 you say? " 
 
 " I said mine had been good also, since it seemed he 
 wished to know. He has an idea that Savigny allows me 
 no recreation, which is evidently not the case." 
 
 " What did he say after that? " said Jacques, avoiding his 
 eyes in a far more marked manner, now he was upright. 
 
 " Little. He was nearly asleep." 
 
 " Why did you stop so long then ? " said Jacques suspi- 
 ciously. 
 
SAVIGNY'STASK 571 
 
 " Details of the trade," said Louis, looking at him, with 
 singular intentness. " It could not amuse you to know." 
 
 " Why you should make such a blessed mystery of 
 it " Jacques burst out. " What do you think of him ? " 
 
 " It is not my case," said Bronne, ever more gentle. " I 
 act for Savigny simply, since he is engaged ; taking ob- 
 servations for him, do you see, of a delicate machine in 
 which we are all professionally interested." 
 
 " Was he bad, then ? " 
 
 " No. I really think he is better a little." 
 
 " Oh. Will you stop the night, Bronne ? " 
 
 " I cannot, no. There are plenty besides me to take care 
 of him." 
 
 " Savigny, for instance ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I w-wish it was you," said Jacques desperately, and 
 turned on his heel. " Good-night, Paul — Philippe." 
 
 Meanwhile, a talented company met by Savigny's fire- 
 side. They were so brilliant, indeed, that only the more 
 practical parts of the conversation can be dealt with, for the 
 scintillations of intimacy escape easily the most eager efforts 
 to portray. Savigny took the successive appearance of his 
 uninvited guests very calmly; the chairs were just suffi- 
 cient, and the lady patient so charming, that Duchatel was 
 led to give her by stages his almost undivided attention, and 
 Madame Lemaure had to fall back for her conversation 
 and contradiction upon the doctor. 
 
 " If I had the least rendered account to myself of what 
 
 I was disturbing " she preluded piteously, gazing at the 
 
 patient across the hearth. 
 
 " Never mind," said Savigny. " My main object was to 
 baffle Louis — and there's Victor kindly finishing the opera- 
 tion." 
 
 " Never," said Madame, deeply interested. " Is she 
 Bronne's patient, then?" 
 
572 SUCCESSION 
 
 " No — mine. That's the point. He's no earthly right 
 to her." 
 
 "And they will get together?" Madame gently shook 
 her head. " I have known it," she murmured. " Obstinate 
 cases." 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Attraction. Might I venture? — baffling is not the cure. 
 Nor competition." 
 
 Savigny grinned. " Bronne has no originality. I told 
 her. A mere chameleon, he is." 
 
 " Nor backbiting. My poor Raymond, you are lost. 
 Tell me, is Mademoiselle really well enough to go ? " 
 
 " Seems so, doesn't it? " said Savigny. " Do you suspect 
 her?" 
 
 " No — you. I do so feel with your anxiety." 
 
 " What are you talking about, Cecile ? " 
 
 " I have heard it remarked so often that you need a 
 woman here : in the sanatorium above all. There must be 
 so much that no man can really see to — though I admit 
 Bronne's adaptability." 
 
 " You think I'd let him stay in the place a week if he 
 took to that? I'd sooner " 
 
 " Less emphasis," Cecile murmured, touching him. " She 
 looks this way. Pretty eyes she has — I am eprise of that 
 almond form. ... As for him, no girl could resist 
 him seriously. As you have so often declared, he has all 
 the advantages — and some that women appreciate more. 
 How did you dispose of him? — tell me that." 
 
 " When you wouldn't have him " said Savigny. 
 
 " Ah," she murmured. " If you would but explain your 
 plots a little." 
 
 " — I sent him to dine with his aunt. Unmarried aunt, 
 wealthy, jealous: fond of Louis. He'd better keep in her 
 good graces, as he knows." 
 
 " In case you dismiss him, you mean," said Cecile. " But 
 old relations always come round. I'm sure you would 
 * doter ' that charming girl. How nice of you, Raymond." 
 
SAVIGNY'S TASK 573 
 
 Savigny turned to her husband, markedly. Cecile lay 
 in her low chair, her slim black skirt coiled round her feet, 
 the silver threads that looked like powder faintly glinting 
 in her beautifully ordered hair. She was turning grey, 
 successfully but rapidly, and pretty as her face and form 
 still were, she disdained any artificial concealment. She 
 was glad enough to rest after a trying day, and let Lucien 
 have the benefit of the change she had made for him. She 
 could not believe that moping at home was either necessary 
 or advisable in his case, and she suspected that Raymond 
 grasped her device, by his unmoved reception of the party. 
 So lying, she smiled across at the patient absently at inter- 
 vals, for she liked that kind of girl. Victor was launched 
 on musical gossip: proving two things, that his partner 
 was tactful, and that she had the taste. She would be 
 sweet as a doctor's wife ; and if there should be a child in 
 the house — in time — it was inevitable that the lonely chief, 
 grey-faced, grim and wild as he looked to-night, should 
 hold the centre of her thoughts, ousting her husband even. 
 Savigny had taken his friend's death very hard: he had 
 changed and aged in the week — he could barely look at 
 Lucien yet, she could see. The miserable jealousy of a 
 common loss was between them. And yet that morning, 
 when Savigny broke the truly crushing news about the boy, 
 he had been perfect with Lucien — wonderful. He was in- 
 teresting him now, in spite of himself. He was a noble 
 character. 
 
 The patient, seeing her sit so charming and unoccupied, 
 presently rose to leave. She chose her minute well, if her 
 object had been not to ofifend M. Duchatel, but merely to 
 disappoint him. She passed across the hearth, and standing 
 in front of Savigny, offered him her hand. 
 
 " I cannot say all I wish to say, Monsieur," she said, " in 
 this company " 
 
 " You've done pretty well," said Savigny, moving his 
 eyebrows. His patient laughed at him. 
 
 " I express myself imperfectly," she said, with perfect 
 
574 SUCCESSION 
 
 grace. " It is a simple thing to say one is grateful, but — and 
 I leave to-morrow early." 
 
 " Who has looked out the train ? " said Savigny. 
 
 " Dr Bronne did, very kindly. It is an all-day journey, 
 to my home." 
 
 " A journey hurts nobody/' said Savigny. " Stirs the 
 mind." 
 
 "Is he not pedantic?" said the patient to Madame. 
 " Even on New Year's evening, he says those things. Yet 
 if I began to tell you how kind he has been, and what a dif- 
 ferent life I look forward to now " 
 
 " You might never get off by the early train at all. And 
 then the superintendent would have to find you another — 
 the following day," Savigny rose, for he was not un- 
 courteous in action, however rough his words. " In the 
 first place," he said, " everyone has a right to the best life 
 possible. That is our commonplace, call it pedantry if you 
 like. Next, I help people only in condition of their helping 
 me, so there's no gratitude to be considered in the matter. 
 Thirdly, as you observe, these critics sitting round knock 
 rhetoric on the head. They'd say we had misplaced a sub- 
 junctive if we tried it." 
 
 " Finally " said the patient, looking up and laughing 
 
 through her pretty eyes. 
 
 " Finally — life is not long enough to talk when things 
 are done. Society wits like Victor there do that: people 
 of sense do not. If you tell your mother that to-morrow, 
 you'll do me a real service, and overbalance the obligation. 
 Look after yourself, my dear. Good-bye." 
 
 " — And she could, that's the bother of it," he finished 
 to the remaining company, dropping into his chair again, 
 when she was gone. " Only a fool of a female will insist 
 on looking after her, and upset all my work." 
 
 " Did you say a female ? " said Duchatel, from the dis- 
 tance where he sat deserted. 
 
SAVIGNY'S TASK 575 
 
 After that, Victor came nearer, and the exchange became 
 general. 
 
 " Why did you really come ? " said Savigny, casting his 
 eyes impartially among them. "Silly curiosity, was it? — 
 or a bet? " 
 
 " Lucien and I quarrel so persistently at home," Madame 
 began. 
 
 " Where does Victor come in ? " interrupted Savigny. 
 
 " I forget," said Victor. " What is my excuse, Cecile? " 
 
 " I forget," she retorted. " But at least you have not 
 vi^asted your time, so far. Those moments will be, for 
 Mademoiselle, an unforgettable experience." 
 
 " Hardly," Lucien stirred himself to observe. " Since 
 she had no idea who was diverting her. Raymond carefully 
 dodged his second name, as well as hers." 
 
 " I had forgotten hers," murmured Savigny. " Such a 
 lot of 'em — every day." 
 
 " Calm yourself, Victor," said Cecile. " At least she will 
 remember her Paris doctor has nice friends. I overheard 
 some expressions, while I attended lately, that did Raymond 
 the greatest credit." 
 
 " Whatever I left my mother's side for," said Victor, " it 
 was not for this." 
 
 " Was your mother anxious ? " said Savigny. 
 
 " I did not confess I was visiting you. I said I was call- 
 ing on the Lemaures." 
 
 " What did she say ? " 
 
 " She said — wait — must you really know ? — she said, 
 that of course the Lemaures had long given up listening to 
 her advice; and that she was a poor old woman." 
 
 " This becomes thrilling, Lucien," said Cecile. " Did 
 she go further, Victor ? " 
 
 " Much further, too far possibly. I need not pursue it." 
 An interval, all waiting. " Mamma, were she allowed a 
 voice, would opine that the only chance for that boy now 
 was to get him right away." 
 
 " Right away from what ? " 
 
576 SUCCESSION 
 
 " My dear Savigny — from the Lemaures." 
 
 " And to what ? " cried Cecile, 
 
 " That is more complicated. To a succession of ad- 
 dresses she has written on a card. To Bordighera for a 
 month. Mamma will be staying at the Hotel d'Europe; 
 but if Lucien prefers it there is a cheaper one close by. 
 After that they move to some baths she has had recom- 
 mended. Then she would see if it is advisable to have him 
 in Bourgogne. He will be perfectly managed all the 
 time " 
 
 " And you will get a holiday. My poor Victor, to think 
 we have to disappoint you, as well as her." 
 
 " Mamma expects to be disregarded," said Victor. " She 
 expects nothing but disappointment, of life. But she has 
 your welfare sincerely at heart in the proposal." 
 
 " It is a proposal, then," said Madame. " Serious, 
 Victor?" 
 
 " Mamma is never less than serious. I was directed to 
 feel the way." 
 
 There was a pause. " She is too amiable," said Lucien, 
 with an effort. " I will write." Duchatel's eyes turned on 
 him, and Savigny's. The refusal was as clear in his face 
 as if it had been spoken. That section of the conversation 
 closed. 
 
 Victor, talking alone, had been listened to without inter- 
 ruption, amazing in that society. Two at least were still 
 smiling when he rose. 
 
 " You need not go," Madame protested. " Need he, 
 Raymond? We shall fall back into the hospital if he does. 
 As it is, I scent disinfectants afar." 
 
 Savigny scowled at her, but was not roused to intervene. 
 
 " He may as well go," he said. " There's something arti- 
 ficial about him. He adds little to the comfort of his sur- 
 roundings, really." He looked slowly upward from Victor's 
 feet, with his haggard eyes. When the eyes reached his 
 face, Duchatel said, with pleading: 
 
SAVIGNY'STASK 577 
 
 "It is finished then? We are to lose M. Edgell? De- 
 cidedly? " 
 
 The doctor nodded. " Was he of use to you ? " he in- 
 quired. 
 
 "Of use? Since May, two of my sonatas are selling." 
 
 " What the devil " 
 
 " Antoine played Victor's works," said Cecile suavely, 
 " under his skilled direction. And destroyed his own." 
 
 " Hey? " said Savigny. Lucien looked up too. Duchatel 
 moved on a step, and faced her. 
 
 " I beg you," he said quietly, " not to-night. I can hardly 
 yet bear to reflect how far I may be answerable." 
 
 " Oh — voyons ! " she protested. " Not that." 
 
 " Why not? It is but a'part of the unconscious tyranny 
 he has suffered. At least, that part may be confessed." 
 
 " Not to me," she said. He bowed, and moved one step 
 more, still exquisitely graceful and composed. " I tell you, 
 he has been pressing forward all this year, and I devoting 
 all my talents, which are considerable, to crowding him 
 back. Sulky, if you will believe it, at his pretension. I 
 sulked still when he put this last piece of work in my 
 hands. And then to see him score in spite of me, and 
 drop." 
 
 " Tell him to be artificial again," Madame entreated the 
 doctor. " This will never do." 
 
 " My dear Victor," said Lucien, stirred also by his 
 fervour, " you go too far. You acted very naturally in 
 repressing the boy." 
 
 " Naturally ! " he caught up the word. " According to 
 my nature, hein? That is what I am saying. Antoine's 
 youth annoyed me: whom of us present has it not an- 
 noyed? We cannot permit it, evidently. He is not to 
 forestall our experience, our only advantage. Repress, then 
 — he is to be repressed. Hein?" 
 
 He glared the eyeglass upon them in succession. 
 
 " I plead guilty," said Savigny, scratching his chin. 
 
578 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Sans doute," said M. Lemaure. " It seems to me, he 
 speaks a commonplace." 
 
 " Just so," said Victor earnestly. " We are so coinmon- 
 place. We can barely, after thirty, admit the common 
 phenomenon of youth. Still less this — this indecent thing. 
 Oh, repress it — repress ! " With another wild glare round 
 the circle, he said peacefully : " I go." 
 
 " You have just begun to interest me," Savigny re- 
 marked. 
 
 " At most," said Lucien, tenaciously pursuing his own 
 thread, " we reproach you in the matter with some secretive- 
 ness. Secretive, Victor, you have been. It was our right 
 to be informed." 
 
 " My dear Lucien, could I imagine you were not 
 aware " 
 
 " Well, well. The boy was secretive then. I suppose it 
 comes to that." 
 
 " All production is secretive," remarked the doctor. 
 " Nothing in nature sits on a stage to produce. With chil- 
 dren's productions, it is a byword." 
 
 " Victor himself has two or three curtains," said Cecile. 
 
 " What I mean," said Lucien, annoyed with them, " is 
 that, by one means or another, I should have been saved 
 this irregularity. It is more than irregular — it is confus- 
 ing. Had it not been for Raymond there warning me just 
 in time, I should have learnt the whole thing from Ribiera 
 this morning." 
 
 " Does Ribiera intend to perform it ? " said Victor, lift- 
 ing his brows. 
 
 " He teased Raymond persistently to allow him the boy 
 for an hour any time, as soon as possible." 
 
 " Antoine with nothing in his hands," said Cecile pathet- 
 ically. " Antoine with merely his head, Victor. It does 
 confuse us naturally. We had been under the impression 
 that his head belonged to others, at present. Was it not 
 so ? " — to Lucien. 
 
 " Cecile, do not be so childish," was the answer she got. 
 
SAVIGNY'S TASK 579 
 
 " But it was amusing." she cried. " One had been so 
 amused. Antoine before the world was ' tordant,' — we 
 enjoyed him " 
 
 '" For whom do you speak? " snapped Lucicn. 
 
 " Your family — I assist their case. It is an excellent toy 
 that Raymond there has broken, our favourite. We hoped 
 
 to play with it all this year — and now " Very subtly, 
 
 and for an instant only, her features reflected Lucien's look 
 of rather rueful vacancy, really approaching to that of a 
 child in the situation she described. Victor bit his lip— 
 Savigny grinned discreetly. M. Lemaure glanced sharply 
 at her; but she faced him, a picture of languid sweetness 
 again. 
 
 " Why she is in this carnival mood, I cannot say," he 
 said, mastering his annoyance, turning to the most indif- 
 ferent member of the circle. " She will not see anything 
 as serious. It must be my brother-in-law's society, Victor, 
 that drives her to the opposite extreme." 
 
 " Is he serious ? " said Victor. 
 
 " Has Edgell been up ? " snapped Savigny simultane- 
 ously. 
 
 " He is more than serious — he is dull. He was with us 
 for an hour or so this evening, at his heaviest. Even Ce- 
 cile, who inclines to spoil him, could hardly tolerate him 
 to-day." 
 
 " Jem is getting restive," she commented quietly, " that 
 is all. He is on the verge of flight, and scents the space 
 afar. I told him one could see it in his face. He grows 
 impatient of our ways at such times, and absent rather." 
 
 " He took no trouble to pretend we did not bore him to 
 death," growled Lucien. 
 
 " C'est Qa, we do," she assented. " He is essentially un- 
 civilised, Jem." 
 
 " Odd he should own such a civilised product as the 
 child," said Duchatel. 
 
 Savigny broke out. " That is nothing but Lucien's var- 
 
58o SUCCESSION 
 
 nishing, and yours. It will soon drop off, when he gets 
 back to natural conditions." 
 
 " You refer to idleness ? " said Victor, having pondered. 
 
 " No, I do not, Victor. Nature is not idle. However, 
 since you can know nothing of it, I will not keep you." He 
 suddenly extended a hand to the young man. But before 
 Victor could move, Cecile caught the hand. 
 
 " Raymond," she cried impetuously. " I felt something 
 was wrong. You and Jem have not quarrelled, hein ? " 
 
 " No. He's in the right." Savigny looked wilder. " Let 
 me be," said he low, and glanced a second at Lucien. At 
 once withdrawing her hand she passed it to Duchatel, who 
 went with no disturbance or delay. 
 
 " I suspected this evening," she said quietly, when they 
 were alone, "that Jem had ceased to trust us. Is it so?" 
 
 " He trusts nobody. Why should he ? There are bounds 
 even to his patience, and we have reached its limit." 
 
 " We ? " said Lucien, 
 
 " I do not exempt myself. He is taking the boy with him 
 to the Western States in — well ? " 
 
 The present head of the Lemaures had risen. " This is 
 too much," he ejaculated. " Have I the right to know 
 nothing, until it is done? What far-fetched folly are you 
 speaking of, Raymond?" 
 
 Savigny eyed him, as though measuring. " It would be 
 for no more than a year or so," he said calmly. " Two at 
 most." 
 
 " Two years ! He would have forgotten everything." 
 
 " What then? " said Savigny, " Even if he had forgotten 
 all you had taught him by then — which is, I regret to think, 
 improbable — he would still have time to relearn the whole, 
 before he was twenty. Where's the hurry, eh? Where 
 has it ever been ? " 
 
 " You mean you countenance such a frantic proceed- 
 ing? " cried Lucien. " You? " 
 
 " To be sure I countenance it — push it even. Though I 
 own I doubt if I should have ventured to make the plan. 
 
SAVIGNY'STASK 581 
 
 That takes a brain bolder than mine. The man's a genius, 
 no less. On my honour, I begin to see where some of the 
 boy's resources come from." 
 
 " Antoine's resources — grand Dieu ! I should know 
 what they are. You imagine that — even granted he sur- 
 vives the first month of it — a boy like that will be content 
 with the kind of pack-mule life Jem revels in — sleep in a 
 shed, feed in a horse-box, trust to fortune for books and 
 society, not to mention the barest comforts we demand 
 here — incredible ! " Lucien paced about in his indignation. 
 
 " I do not see why he should not be content. At least 
 you admit he has never had the chance to try. The civilised 
 forces seized him early, earlier than the ordinary boy, 
 thanks to all of you. Also, the resources there may be more 
 than you think. As to books and so forth, they naturally 
 will not be in the desert all the time. Edgell himself, for 
 all our diatribes, is not a boor. There are chances for study 
 over there." 
 
 Lucien made a contemptuous sound, dismissing the 
 chances. Savigny gazed at him oddly under his hand. 
 
 " Do you know what Edgell says ? — that we Frenchmen 
 never really conceive life possible out of France. It may 
 be true — he has some knowledge of us. I admit to a weak- 
 ness there myself. The English are better in such matters — 
 they are not afraid to stride the world, and not surprised 
 at finding a passable life in the farther corners of it." 
 
 " And Antoine ? — who shies at crossing the Channel ! " 
 
 " He does not," said the doctor, a little roused from his 
 guarded calm. " He is tired for the moment, naturally. 
 But in all the essentials, he is a better traveller than I am. 
 I proved that, coming from Munich. I rather think," said 
 Savigny, scratching his chin, " he let me have the best seat, 
 all the way. His temper's delicious — ideal — always was. 
 Hey?" 
 
 His eye caught Madamc's, and she smiled. But, seeing 
 her husband's irritation and rather fearing too much teas- 
 ing for him, she leant forward to put an oar in. " Why 
 
582 SUCCESSION 
 
 such extremes, Raymond," she suggested. " Why not a 
 half course, if you want a change for him? Here is Ma- 
 dame Duchatel's proposal arriving apropos, surely as good 
 in its way, and less ' bouleversant ' to our ideas. Why not 
 take that ? " 
 
 " Because he would be dead in a year, if you want my 
 opinion, in the cursed languorous death-in-life of those 
 southern places. It's an affair of temperament, do you 
 grasp? Jem sees that." 
 
 " Jem's temperament," Lucien muttered. 
 
 " It is not only that it is the obvious, the consequent thing 
 to do, arising naturally with the need, though that has its 
 value. It is applicable to the case as well. That boy must 
 have real life all about him, even if he may not take part. 
 And he will take part, I believe." 
 
 " They had twenty minutes tete-a-tete this evening," 
 Cecile said. " The child was irritable and wretched, the 
 man full to the brim of emotion, anyone could see. They 
 talked of bridge-construction, I believe, till he went." 
 
 " There you are ! The fellow's a tonic in himself. He'll 
 watch like a lynx, I'll answer for him, and no one the 
 wiser." 
 
 " In fact " — Lucien would not be restrained — " you trust 
 him more than me. You have never trusted me a grain in 
 reality — no one but my father ever did. Now you would 
 take any side against me — even this ! " 
 
 " He is the father, that goes for something," the doctor 
 continued calmly. " And you're nervous, you can't deny it. 
 Cecile's nervous too, though I taught her a thing or two, 
 some time since. The boy himself is miserably tried by 
 inaction — he's feverish with it already ; and I let him figure 
 his little scales when he shouldn't on the precious strings 
 just to work off the irritation he had accumulated, lying 
 there. Well, think of the future an instant, if you had 
 your way — for I suppose this means you wish to keep 
 him? " Lucien jerked, though his back was turned. "You 
 couldn't do it, my little menage. I am older than either of 
 
SAVIGNY'STASK 583 
 
 you, and I tell you so. Let him go, and enjoy one another 
 as you ought. Lucien there needs peace." 
 
 The gentleman alluded to twisted, and cast an uncomfort- 
 able glance at his wife. It claimed assistance, evidently; 
 but the wifely helper sat silent, biting her fan. Unseen, 
 she was plunging into the depths of Savigny's soul, and 
 could barely attend to her natural duty. It was really too 
 fascinating a task. Lucien had to struggle alone. 
 
 "That you of all people should desert us, Raymond," 
 he said, growing almost piteous, " and support the acme of 
 unreason, the last course in which one could conceive your 
 sympathy, if unforced." 
 
 " No one has forced me, Lucien. Whom do you sus- 
 pect ? " 
 
 " You must know you are a kind of god to Jem. You 
 could arrest all this with a word." 
 
 " He told me so when he wrote," said Savigny. 
 
 " Wrote? You mean you have not seen him? " 
 
 " No. The only time he tried, he missed me. What 
 then ? " 
 
 " He must be an expert correspondent." 
 
 " He can say what he means on paper-^it's true, every- 
 one can't. He probably guessed I suffered from the hys- 
 terical type of correspondent, and shortened up." 
 
 " Did he abuse you? " said Lucien. 
 
 " No. If he had, I should not have attended to him. I 
 believe, even if I rejected his idea," said Savigny, " you 
 would find that he still admires me. These English are so 
 set in their opinions." 
 
 " He admired my father too," said Lucien, facing him 
 now. 
 
 " He did not omit that, my friend. It is what makes 
 him shy of you." 
 
 " He flattered you — twisted your interest — commissioned 
 you to attack me, did he ? " 
 
 " My interest ! What on earth do I gain by it ? " 
 
 "What do vou lose?" said Lucien bitterly. 
 
584 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Apropos," said Savigny, as though reminded. " The 
 fellow said nothing about my bill." 
 
 They went at last, very late. Savigny himself was the 
 weariest, and the younger man spared him little ; but his 
 ordinary brusquerie was wanting. He had prepared him- 
 self heedfully for the combat, Madame Lemaure could see. 
 He came nearer to managing than she would have thought 
 possible to him ; but he accomplished the heavier portion 
 of his task before they left, and by his parting look and 
 slight smile, left the remainder in her hands. Cecile's 
 glance in answer was pure admiration, for Lucien was a 
 different man at leaving, wakened, moved in a manner to 
 surprise both, restored to life by that steady, easy opposi- 
 tion, which is a tonic to some. 
 
 " Nothing personal in our Lucien, is there ? " Savigny 
 addressed the fire, when left solitary, he dropped exhausted 
 into his chair again. " Family duty, and no more, caused 
 him to glower like that. Mysterious, that captivating qual- 
 ity — inconvenient at times. . . . Oh, God send he 
 won't appeal to the boy, weak as he is, and upset it even 
 now ! He's got, in the dead hand, a weapon as strong as 
 ours. But he's a sense of justice too, once he is pulled out 
 of that bog of self-compassion. . . . It's that that is 
 the deuce." 
 
 So he watched the flames, a long grey, dreary figure, till 
 his young subaltern came in ; and then the glance Dr 
 Bronne encountered was far from genial. He happened 
 to look especially alert and pleasant entering, which aspect 
 clashed with Savigny's mood. It was disagreeably sug- 
 gestive too; for, as the doctor had hinted to Madame Le- 
 maure, Bronne had been for some time under suspicion of 
 nourishing thoughts and pretensions, concerned entirely 
 with his own interests, and leaving the tyrant, and the 
 tyrant's most cherished prejudices, out of account. It was 
 only natural, therefore, that Bronne should be made to 
 suffer for the strain his chief's temper and self-command 
 
SAVIGNY'STASK 585 
 
 had previously undergone. He advanced to the fire, a 
 sacrifice foredoomed to the gods of Destiny, against which 
 Savigny in iiis solitude had been contending. 
 
 The victim's first subject was equally ill chosen, and ill 
 received. The subject was Jacques Charretteur, whom, to 
 begin with, Louis had no business to meet without Savigny 's 
 approval ; and whom, to go on with, he had no business to 
 like without his countenance. Jacques was Savigny 's pa- 
 tient — Bronne had taken to poaching lately, at every point. 
 It was time he w^as punished for it, especially as he had 
 presumed to be in the right about Charretteur, when Sa- 
 vigny himself was in the wrong. 
 
 " It hurts nobody to starve a little,"' he said sourly. " We 
 should all be the better for it, once a year. Have you been 
 drinking, Louis ? " 
 
 " No," said Bronne, who knew that Savigny knew he 
 was an abstainer. 
 
 " You look it. I thought that fellow might have been 
 treating you." 
 
 " Jacques has little money to treat on, I should say," said 
 Bronne. 
 
 "Whose fault is that?" snapped Savigny. "I can't pay 
 up to a man who conceals his address — and gets it con- 
 cealed from me, can I ? " 
 
 " If I withheld it," said Bronne, " it was because I knew 
 he would not take your money." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 " He knows too well he has profited by your cure." 
 
 Savigny was put out, having expected another answer. 
 Pride he thought he could deal with ; but altering the issue 
 to justice was — well, just like Bronne. 
 
 " The soft answer," he jeered. " You're half a woman. 
 Cecile Lemaure was right. Do you think you can blarney 
 me?" Bronne faced him calmly, persistently contented. 
 " What's the young devil like to look at, eh ? " 
 
 " Well," said Bronne, " he's worried a bit, making both 
 ends meet, that's clear. But he's a healthy man. You can 
 
586 SUCCESSION 
 
 see it in his colour and his eyes, not to mention a new tone 
 he has in speaking." 
 
 " Scuffling is good for young stock," said Savigny. 
 " Hardens them. He was too high up for his years when I 
 knocked him off." 
 
 " He'll get back again," said Bronne, with confidence. 
 " Higher than ever. It has been a bad time, but he is 
 through it. He says he has hopes of one good engagement, 
 and perhaps another with luck." 
 
 "Rose-coloured, aren't we?" said Savigny, throwing his 
 partner another unpleasant glance. Cecile was in the right 
 of it — Bronne had every advantage, in externals at least. 
 Savigny had forgotten, for about a year, that he was so 
 good-looking. In the workshop, and an apron, it was not 
 so conspicuous. " You look like a fat cat, Louis," said his 
 superior. " Your aunt has been buttering you, I suppose." 
 
 " My aunt refused me, owing to migraine. It may be, 
 the warning I gave her was insufficient. I had dinner in 
 the town." 
 
 " And met this choice company afterwards, hey ? " 
 
 " I picked up young Edgell, who was with some friends. 
 We walked up the hill together. There is something in him, 
 don't you think? " 
 
 " Oh, plenty — to-night," jeered Savigny. " Phil Edgell 
 was born vain, and that crew are spoiling him. He should 
 have been at home, and knows it. Well, I suppose, with 
 these various diversions, you forgot my commission." 
 
 " No, sir. It was chez the Lemaures I encountered Char- 
 retteur." 
 
 "Ha! He's after the other two fiddles, is he? He didn't 
 get at the gosse ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Bronne. 
 
 " I absolutely forbade him to see anybody." 
 
 " I supposed so," said Bronne. " Antoine chuckled a 
 little when I mentioned you." 
 
 " Was he the worse for it? " 
 
 " Rather the better, I think. He felt he had done some- 
 
SAVIGNY'STASK 587 
 
 thing in spite of somebody, and went to sleep contented." 
 
 "He wants whipping," growled the doctor; and asked 
 for details, but absently. He was far more anxious, he 
 told himself, about Louis than about Antoinc. The young 
 man was in a dangerously inflated condition, and something 
 had got to be done. Among all surgical operations dealing 
 with the mind, in which Savigny was an expert, that of 
 pricking self-confidence was the finest and most fascinating 
 trick. He had practised it largely. Consequently, as soon 
 as Bronne proposed going to bed, he buckled to the task, 
 and teased him really brutally for half-an-hour on the sub- 
 ject of lady patients. Nearly every charge he produced 
 against him was unjust, but Bronne bore the cloud of ar- 
 rows without flinching, barely flushing indeed, as he faced 
 his tormentor. This saint-like demeanor was Savigny's 
 own fault, for he had trained him for the part of Sebastian 
 most sedulously. 
 
 Only in the last few minutes of the evening the tyrant 
 changed his tone. 
 
 " Do you mean to do this, Louis? " he said. 
 
 Bronne smiled at him: a quality of smile, firm in the 
 jaw, wath which again his patron was perfectly familiar. 
 It expressed, in an otherwise affable young man, unheard- 
 of obstinacy of purpose. None knew better than Savigny 
 of what force, in emergency, Bronne's will was capable. 
 
 " Since I am here now, sir," he observed, " I shall claim 
 a short holiday at Easter. I think you should be warned 
 in time, in case you wish to replace me." Now, Savigny 
 had believed his partner had forgone a holiday during the 
 Christmas week solely out of a desire for his society. Such 
 cunning is repugnant in youth. "You do not object?" 
 Bronne pressed him. 
 
 " Probably," said Savigny, considering. " Wouldn't it 
 save time, on the whole, to accompany Mademoiselle Made- 
 leine to-morrow? " 
 
 " Not unless you think it necessary." 
 
588 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Oh — not necessary. Advisable to take her opinion, 
 perhaps. Or are you sure without asking?" 
 
 Bronne did not reply. 
 
 " You can't leave the poor child hanging," scolded Sa- 
 vigny. " I never heard such selfish nonsense. She's not fit 
 to be played with, you ought to know. Have the position 
 clear, or I won't answer for the consequences." 
 
 " Our position is completely clear," Bronne reassured 
 him, " and has been for a week. I do not care to leave things 
 to chance, either." 
 
 Grim silence descended. " I shall find it hard to replace 
 you," said Savigny. " I mean, of course, at Easter." He 
 looked each side of Bronne. 
 
 " I should have found Madeleine harder to replace," said 
 he. 
 
 " You'd better go to bed," jeered Savigny, " or you won't 
 be up in time." 
 
 " I have no wish to sleep." 
 
 " Feverish, are you, Louis ? Here, let's see." 
 
 The younger man held out his hand, and the elder, with- 
 out touching the pulse, enclosed it in a clasp of steel. 
 
 " Merely alive," said Savigny. " Well, that's as I sup- 
 posed. Go along." 
 
 He sat for hours after Bronne's departure, an unresist- 
 ing prey to the past revived by the lover's look ; tormenting 
 himself with the irretrievable, in the manner so drastically 
 forbidden to his patients ; more hopeless and more grey as 
 the small hours dragged by; for Savigny, the saviour of 
 many, had never cured himself. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE LAST ASSAULT 
 
 DucHATEL, who had undertaken the Memoir, had some 
 friction with the son over the letters. It was inevitable to 
 have friction with him at this period, and Victor made 
 every allowance for the state of things; but having been 
 invited by Lucien in person to undertake the editing of this 
 correspondence, and with his own old, and his mother's 
 still older, acquaintance with the family, he considered that 
 he might have been allowed a freer hand. 
 
 " Lucien suspects me of a desire to be overflowing, evi- 
 dently," said Victor, with some natural annoyance. " He 
 does not seem to realise that the shorter the memoir, the 
 more necessary it is to choose only the best and most char- 
 acteristic passages. Edgell, who sent me that charming 
 note to his wife as a child, understands more the kind of 
 thing I want. I value Lemaure as a critic less — consider- 
 ably less — though I dare not repeat it to Lucien." 
 
 He pushed at the piles of letters rather testily. As let- 
 ters, they maintained a very high level of interest, and 
 some, even regarded as criticism, were excellent, however 
 much they might diverge from Victor's views. But he 
 wanted the man : naturally, having known him ; and though 
 sensitive in observation, and a clever writer, he was shy 
 of trusting too much to his own commentary and random 
 memories: or even to his mother's, since her opinions on 
 the subject, though crisp and amusing, were inclined to be 
 coloured by an ancient antagonism with M. Lemaure's 
 wife. 
 
 589 
 
590 SUCCESSION 
 
 Beyond these pin-pricks, Victor had enjoyed the task of 
 the past month extraordinarily, and looked forward to what 
 remained in front of him with complacency. He had 
 dropped most of his other current occupations for the pur- 
 pose of completing this ; and after the first inevitable 
 shrinking at any departure from his habits, he found the 
 literary labour attractive in itself, and a stimulating change. 
 Duchatel was nothing if not thorough ; and the records 
 of the long life, as he pursued them back, seemed to open 
 channels of forgotten interest in all directions, and awaken 
 him to the claims of that despised century which produced 
 his own. As with the passage of every day's reading he 
 admitted this impression more, Madame his mother arose 
 triumphant, and vaunted the ascendancy of her generation, 
 as though she had lain crushed beneath the heel of the 
 present one for long — which certainly was not the case. 
 She had shown immense interest in the work as it 
 progressed, and with it a new gentleness towards the au- 
 thor, who never failed in gentleness to her. For weeks past 
 now their enforced seclusion side by side had become an 
 almost agreeable intimacy, and both, while hardly admitting 
 the fact, were happier. 
 
 She was sitting with him in his own little sanctuary this 
 morning, occupied in knitting and talking at intervals to 
 the parrot, with whose company Victor could have dispensed 
 better than with hers ; but where Madame sat, her bird 
 sat also; and as her sudden reminiscences, suggested by 
 passages he read from time to time, were useful, he had 
 not yet accepted her reiterated proposal of removing her- 
 self and the cage beyond reach of his criticism. 
 
 " By the way," he said suddenly, " I had an invitation 
 yesterday." Madame laid her knitting down. It was not 
 unheard of, of course, for Victor to have an invitation, but 
 she expected to be informed at once, and have leisure to 
 prepare her mind. This invitation, he proceeded to explain, 
 might involve spending a night out of Paris, a thing not to 
 be spoken of lightly, since Madame had no pleasure in play- 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 591 
 
 ing her nightly patience alone. Looking severely upon her 
 son, she demanded explanations. Victor said he had been 
 honoured by a letter from a celebrated person, Dr Reuss, 
 on the subject he had in hand. He was about to explain 
 further, for his mother's memory was subject to lapses now, 
 when she cut him off. 
 
 " Reuss knew Lemaure, of course," she said. " I am 
 aware of that. What then? He does not expect you to go 
 to Germany ? " 
 
 Her son reassured her. " A relation of his is visiting in 
 this neighbourhood, that is all, at the chateau of the Comte 
 
 de L . The relation writes a fearful German scrawl, 
 
 and encloses a note from Reuss in French." 
 
 " Read it," his mother commanded. 
 
 Victor read obediently, correcting a word here and there ; 
 for the phrasing, though fluent, was not impeccable. It 
 had been far from Reuss's thoughts in writing that the 
 composition might be read to such a critic ; but, as chance 
 would have it, he opened with a compliment, rather over- 
 laden, to the young composer he addressed. 
 
 " That is well said, for a German," commented Madame, 
 " Continue, Victor." 
 
 " It has reached me," Reuss wrote, " that you have un- 
 dertaken, at Lucien Lemaure's request, the memoir of his 
 late father. Indeed I could desire for no writer, of what- 
 ever mark, a worthier subject. As we were in close cor- 
 respondence, Lemaure and I, for many years, and as the 
 letters cover a period practically untouched in the only ex- 
 isting biography, I seize the occasion of a short visit of my 
 brother-in-law to France, to place a selection of these at 
 your service. Lorbeer will have the packet with him at 
 this address, where he is to pass two days next week, in 
 the company of the Fiirst " He mentioned a connec- 
 tion of a German royal house, who was also aged, an invalid 
 and an amateur of note. " That is all Reuss says," Duchatel 
 finished, turning. 
 
592 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Humph," said Madame. " And the other letter invites 
 yon ? " 
 
 " The prince and the brother-in-law would think it an 
 honour to receive me, mamma, if I can spare the time from 
 my more weighty labours. Otherwise " 
 
 The parrot here interrupted with a whistle. 
 
 " Psst ! " said Madarrie reprovingly. " However, I quite 
 agree with him. You have no more weighty labour for the 
 moment than this book, which should appear as soon as 
 possible. You need not stay the night." 
 
 " The prince proposes a night," said Victor. " It is evi- 
 dently my duty to wait on his highness, not to mention M. 
 Lorbeer, where and when directed." 
 
 " Your duty is to Charles," snapped Madame, " not to 
 any German counts or conductors either." 
 
 " I have collected the facts," observed Victor, looking at 
 his notes. " I simply want the letters and remains from 
 such as possess them. It is the correspondent's business to 
 select them, naturally. This person has a manuscript as^ 
 well, he says." 
 
 " Humph," said Madame, who knew his shyness, and 
 could read disinclination in his face. " Well, what is the 
 alternative? " 
 
 " I have yet to see," said Victor. " I have not finished 
 my lesson." He picked up Lorbeer's letter again with a 
 sigh which was merely dramatic, for he read German 
 easily, though he disliked its appearance on the paper. " ' If 
 not,' " he pursued it, " ' the Lemaures send the little An- 
 toine to us for the night of Saturday, and I will make of 
 him my courier. With Reuss's contribution, I trust An- 
 toine will bring you his, which Reuss says is for beauty 
 and value unequalled, though again they must be rigorously 
 chosen. They have been in my brother-in-law's care since 
 
 May, and he entrusts me to return them' " Sapristi," 
 
 Duchatel interrupted himself. " It is true I had not thought 
 of that." 
 
 " You should have, then," snapped Madame, who was 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 593 
 
 equally surprised. " It was your business to think of the 
 possibility, and to demand them. A mere child would not 
 offer theni unprompted." 
 
 " That mere child does most things unprompted," said 
 Victor. 
 
 " Why did Reuss guard the packet? " said Madame. 
 
 " By the boy's request, this Lorbeer says — because he 
 feared rightly to lose them in his wanderings." 
 
 " Why not Lucien ? " said Madame. 
 
 " Well," said Victor, " I imagine because Antoine would 
 sooner have destroyed them outright than place them in 
 his uncle's hands." 
 
 " Absurd, Victor. I wish you would not make such in- 
 sinuations. Lucien was the natural person. He might at 
 least have reminded you of their existence, when he was 
 here the other night." 
 
 " Lucien ? He probably barely knew of them. You 
 really have no conception, mother, how that friendship 
 passed over his head." 
 
 " If so," said Madame, " it is the most unjust thing I 
 have heard of Charles. Lucien is an excellent and ad- 
 mirable person." 
 
 " Granted," said Victor. 
 
 " And Charles, when all is said, was fanciful and hot- 
 headed." 
 
 " I will mention it," sniiled Victor, " among your con- 
 tributions. I could barely have touched on that side of my 
 subject without your help." 
 
 He turned back to Lorbeer's invitation, and talked over 
 the situation a little longer, weighing the reasons for and 
 against the expedition, as though it had been a question of 
 visiting the Antipodes, instead of a house fifteen miles 
 away. Finally, no doubt a little biassed by her own inter- 
 ests, Madame Duchatel, after a close examination of the 
 letter, advised her son to decline. 
 
 " He does not press you sufficiently," said she, laying it 
 down and looking over her spectacles. " I should credit 
 
594 SUCCESSION 
 
 his compliments a trifle more if he seemed really anxious 
 for your society. He is only to be there two days at most ; 
 and if during that time he has a sick prince on his hands, 
 not to mention that chatterbox, they will be sufficient with- 
 out you." 
 
 " That is what I thought," said Victor. 
 
 " Have the boy here," said Madame, " and use his mem- 
 ory afterwards, is what I advise." 
 
 Victor seemed dubious. " I fear his memory is being 
 allowed to rust, as part of the regime, and he sees few 
 people at present. That he is allowed to make this visit is 
 remarkable. I suppose his uncle goes too," 
 
 " They would accept the carriage, possibly," said Ma- 
 dame, after another interval. " You had better telephone, 
 Victor, and offer it." 
 
 Victor did so. At lunch he reported the result. 
 
 " I am to go, Antoine says," he observed, looking down- 
 cast over his careful carving. 
 
 " What do you mean? " snapped his mother. 
 
 " When I rang them up, he answered me himself. He 
 had been on the point, it seems, of addressing me. He is 
 going on Saturday as a fact, but returns early on Sunday 
 to rest before his rehearsal." 
 
 " What is that about rehearsals ? " cried Madame. 
 
 " It will be no effort," explained Victor, " unless critical. 
 Theoretically, Monsieur sits with folded hands. It is true, 
 he will try to play all their instruments, but if he does he 
 will be arrested. Next day he leaves Paris in his father's 
 custody, if all is well." 
 
 " How is he? " said Madame. 
 
 " Very well," said Victor. " I asked him." 
 
 " How well do you gather he is ? " 
 
 " I found out towards the close of our conversation that 
 he was sitting with the concierge when the bell rang, be- 
 cause he might not walk up the stairs without assistance." 
 
 " He should not have been talking, probably," said Ma- 
 dame. 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 595 
 
 " He talked, mother." said Victor. " Luckily he lost his 
 breath occasionally and I protested steadily in all the 
 pauses. It seems his first plan had been to make the ex- 
 pedition alone ; or, rather, in the company of M. Lorbeer's 
 chauffeur, who will be sent to fetch him, and who is an old 
 and valued friend." 
 
 " Little giddy-pate," said IMadame, moved to a grim 
 smile. " But Lucien should not let him indulge these freaks. 
 It is absurd." 
 
 " So I told Antoine," said Victor. " He replied that there 
 was room in the car for me, and that the prince had a col- 
 lection of manuscripts that I should enormously enjoy look- 
 ing over. I shall not enjoy it in the least. I do not the 
 least wash to go. But it appears Antoine has already in- 
 formed the party that he is bringing me. He told Lorbeer 
 that I had nothing particular to do, and recommended me 
 to the prince's consideration as the best example of the 
 new school he could pick up at such short notice." 
 
 " Victor ! " 
 
 " I assure you that was the line adopted. Antoine is 
 worse since his illness ; the telephone company should not 
 allow it. He sent a message in addition to you, mother, 
 only he was giggling so much that I almost failed to grasp 
 it. I still hope I failed to grasp," said Victor. 
 
 " What was it ? " said Madame sharply. 
 
 " Antoine wished you to know that Madame Lorbeer had 
 promised to take care of me, if I went. Of course she said 
 no such thing," added Victor, in haste. 
 
 His mother was considering. " Who is Madame Lor- 
 beer?" she demanded. 
 
 " Well, she is Reuss's sister, to begin with." 
 
 " Which sister ? Not Carlotta ? " Madame's face had 
 altered. 
 
 \'ictor shrugged. " Perhaps." 
 
 " That was the man Carlotta married, was it ? Of course, 
 it must be she. Victor, you must certainly go. I can dine 
 and sleep one night without your aid." 
 
596 SUCCESSION 
 
 " It need not be the night," inserted Victor. 
 
 " It need, since I wish you to behave well. She is prob- 
 ably a remarkable woman." 
 
 " Probably ! " said Victor. 
 
 " I speak of what I know," said Madame. " Carlotta 
 Reuss was one of the most naturally sensible girls I ever 
 met, thoroughly well trained and modest. I remember her 
 when she stayed with Henriette. A most wise step I con- 
 sidered it on Charles's part to invite her as a friend for his 
 daughter, and a thousand pities she and Henriette parted 
 so soon." 
 
 " What happened ? " asked Victor, somewhat interested. 
 Duchatel had been forced to struggle against heavy odds, 
 not to write Henriette's biography instead of her father's, 
 so imbued was M. Lemaure's correspondence during the 
 middle period with his daughter's power and personality. 
 Victor, owing to his mother's prudence, had never known 
 Henriette in the flesh ; but even reading of her he had been, 
 as it were, retrospectively fascinated. 
 
 " Henriette loved her German friend passionately for a 
 week," said his mother grimly, " and then discovered that 
 her father was too fond of her. The end to the Paris visit 
 came rapidly. Carlotta, when roused, had a tongue as well 
 as she. Charles had to wait till his next visit to Germany 
 to renew the acquaintance ; but he did so. Certainly, if it 
 is only for his sake, you must go." 
 
 " I cannot speak German," said Victor, shrinking ever 
 more as the point was pressed. " She can send the things 
 by Antoine." 
 
 " Carlotta speaks French very prettily, or did. She had 
 twice Henriette's capacity and perseverance. She had an 
 intellect, young as she was " 
 
 " A German intellectual," Victor groaned. " The saints 
 preserve me." 
 
 " She had an intellect," resumed Madame severely, 
 " though she was clever enough to conceal it. With men, 
 her manner was absolutely conventional ; and she had in- 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 597 
 
 numerable chances in consequence. She was to have married 
 Albrecht the litteraire and philosopher, who died young. 
 I met him also. You remember the story? She nursed 
 him all through his illness, and was the real author of the 
 Life, so Charles informed me, though she concealed her 
 name. No one would imagine that a woman's book — ex- 
 cellent reading as it is," observed Madame, pursing her lips. 
 
 " Mamma, you make me tremble more and more. Why 
 should I see this person ? " 
 
 " Because she was closely connected with the best period 
 of Charles's life, and will know all her brother knows, and 
 more. Not to mention that her conversation has twice the 
 value of his. It is your duty simply as biographer, not to 
 miss so unusual an opportunity. I should like to go my- 
 self," said Madame. 
 
 " Well, why not? " her son cried. 
 
 " Well, for one thing your friend M. Edgell does not in- 
 vite me," said Madame, folding her bony hands. " And 
 for another, I am not writing your book. Do not be a shy 
 fool, Victor. Really, I do not know what men are be- 
 coming." 
 
 What Victor had become, she had made him. He lit- 
 erally did suffer in these days from breaking his fixed habits 
 and issuing from his guarded retirement. Short excursions 
 into society he accomplished and enjoyed, but to spend a 
 night from home, unless in a hotel, was now a rare occur- 
 rence. The more his name grew, the less he liked to be 
 obliged to support it. H taken by surprise by the world, 
 he acquitted himself admirably ; but the prospect of facing 
 an artistic coterie in a country house, even for a few hours, 
 daunted him. Yet the excursion proved, in the event, 
 singularly harmless. Victor sustained its trials without 
 accident, and returned on Sunday afternoon in a very good 
 humour with himself and all the world. 
 
 " Why," he attacked his mother, when he had repeated 
 Frau Lorbeer's messages, " why had you not mentioned the 
 little saint was so pretty?" 
 
598 SUCCESSION 
 
 Madame smiled grimly. " I thought she might have 
 grown fat," she said. " Saints in her country do. What 
 is the husband like, Victor, eh ? " 
 
 " Like a second choice," said Victor, after consideration. 
 " A saint has to devote herself for somebody. Lorbeer is 
 that somebody — he certainly exists. That is, I was oc- 
 casionally reminded by his chair creaking that he was in the 
 room." 
 
 " I hope you behaved properly," said Madame. 
 
 " I did," said Duchatel. " Antoine did not. Madame 
 Carlotta has evidently forgiven Antoine his mother's indis- 
 cretions." 
 
 " Ha ! " His mother leant forward interested. " What 
 does Carlotta think of Antoine?" 
 
 " She loves him," said Victor. 
 
 " Pish ! I mean, of his condition." 
 
 Victor lifted his brows. " I did not ask. One saw every- 
 thing necessary in her face, at the first moment of meeting, 
 and the last. She could barely let him go. She struck me 
 as the tranquil kind of angel that demands tragedy as a 
 background," said Victor, " and snatches any fragment of 
 it to her as her right. That, as nearly as I can render it, 
 is the effect of the group they made." 
 
 Madame eyed him in silence. She appreciated her son's 
 strokes of description more than she would admit aloud, 
 and endeavoured always to draw him on, while appearing 
 to discourage him. '' I thought you said the little one 
 amused you," she observed. 
 
 " He did. He amused the prince, who is apoplectic, 
 rather dangerously. The chauffeur had to beseech him to 
 be silent at awkward points of the road. He is living pas- 
 sionately, catching the moments as if they were counted. 
 You can conceive nothing more brilliant or pathetic," said 
 Victor. 
 
 " Does he complain ? " she asked sharply. 
 
 " Complain ? He says he is well, to every inquiry. He 
 is much amused by his own helplessness. He is full of chat- 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 599 
 
 ter about this American project, and what he means to do 
 with his father. II raille son sort." Victor turned, and 
 leant back against the chimney-piece, meeting his mother's 
 severe gaze. 
 
 " What curious nonsense to compare him with Marcel, 
 as they persist in doing," she said, folding her hands tightly 
 on the polished table. " Marcel had not that temperament 
 in the least. He was fastidious, over-anxious, easily de- 
 pressed. He was far liker you, on my word, than this 
 child." 
 
 " Lemaure said that." said Victor. " I often thought he 
 suffered me so kindly because of some resemblance that 
 he saw. Well, Antoine is not shy, at least. I could wish 
 he were more so. I cannot compete when he chooses to 
 exert himself. Fortunately, very little exertion finishes 
 him." 
 
 " Did you see him home? " 
 
 " No. He put me down at the Etoile. I gave the chauf- 
 feur sufficient," said Victor, " to indicate that I value his 
 life." 
 
 " You should have seen him home. Have you got the 
 letters? " 
 
 " Plenty, and a manuscript as well ; but not the boy's." 
 
 "Not?" 
 
 " Antoine did not offer them, and I did not open the sub- 
 ject. Reuss's sister passed his portion back to him with a 
 letter from her brother: that I know, because she men- 
 tioned it. There is some difficulty with Lucien, I gather. 
 Antoine thinks it necessary to ask his leave." 
 
 " Ha ! " said Madame, half approving and half curious. 
 " Go on." 
 
 " I cannot go on," said Victor. " I cannot understand 
 the situation. Lucien has chosen to block the domestic 
 understanding somehow, and the boy is half frightened, 
 half indignant at his behaviour. Even she, our little saint, 
 could not get him to talk freely of his grandfather, though 
 he listened to her wide-eyed. She is a beautiful talker. 
 
6oo SUCCESSION 
 
 as you said. When she asked, in Reuss's name, about the 
 end, the child only gazed in distress and shook his head. 
 The most natural questions of close friends like Reuss 
 can win no reply from Lucien, or only the most conven- 
 tional. He was present, of course, but he is strangely jeal- 
 ous of his information. His behaviour has driven the boy, 
 at all events, almost to the end of his tether. Antoine told 
 me he was glad to be leaving Paris, in a manner — well, you 
 should have seen it." 
 
 " Jealousy is the bane of that brood," said Madame 
 Duchatel. She added : " There is plenty, doubtless, to be 
 said both sides." 
 
 " Only one expects both sides of that brood to say it," 
 said Duchatel drily. " That is where our Lucien fails." 
 
 " That is true. He is probably ill," said Madame. 
 
 " As ill, in his way, as the boy. Cecile and Savigny both 
 treat him as a sick man — sick in mind. But if his wife can- 
 not win speech from him " 
 
 " Nobody else can. I am pleased, Victor, you give wives 
 so much credit." 
 
 " Merely that wife," said Victor. " I cannot forgive the 
 man for teasing Cecile so. It is sheer stupidity on his part 
 to undervalue her." 
 
 " The outsider is never wanting to say that," pronounced 
 Madame; but, within, she agreed with him again. 
 
 It so happened that Antoine arrived home towards three 
 o'clock that Sunday afternoon, with a surplus of good spirits 
 that needed spending. The origins of this happy condition 
 of mind were not far to seek ; indeed, the most immediate 
 were the sun on his bare head as he sat in the Lorbeers' 
 commodious car, and the pleasure of whirring softly through 
 the wide streets on a holiday afternoon, among cheerful 
 noises and the stir of humanity, which circumstances had 
 forbidden him for some weeks past to watch at ease. It 
 happened, in addition, that the emotion aroused by this visit 
 to old friends, and the country vistas and country air, had 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 6oi 
 
 warmed him in certain places to which the sun cannot at- 
 tain, and that he was enjoying an interhide of ph}sical 
 well-being and serenity of mind. The broad chauffeur's 
 manoeuvres to avoid the traffic entertained him, every absurd 
 trifle in the life of this Paris he was so soon to leave reached 
 a little deeper than diversion; and he suffered finally, on 
 arriving after his short absence at the familiar house now 
 shorn of its dearest meaning, an opening of heart to all its 
 inmates, from the trim and smiling concierge, who rose from 
 her seat at the door to help him out, to the severe and lonely 
 master, at his work in the study on the fourth floor. 
 
 Since Antoine's proceedings, at any given moment of his 
 life, depended on the precise mixture and temperature of 
 his feelings in the moment just previous, it is necessary to 
 sum up these slight causes, before the effects can be de- 
 tailed. It should be added to the account that Lucien, in 
 the peaceful after-dinner period, had allowed himself a 
 pause in the business of sorting and deciphering the dusty 
 pile of his father's manuscripts upon the table, and was 
 resting in his father's chair by the hearth, bowed and 
 changed, the back of his head with its view of whitening 
 hair towards the door, his hand lifted wearily to support 
 his brow. The door opened, and he turned with a start. 
 
 "You, my dear, already?" he said, by a mere chance, 
 exactly in his father's tone. 
 
 The boy stood a moment facing the level winter sun 
 through the high window, his eyes narrowed to exclude its 
 dazzle, motionless. His uncle had not had such a fair view 
 of him for weeks, and he told himself instantly, there was 
 little change. Nor was there an emphatic change anywhere 
 to be noted, for the family had often seen him pale. He 
 was controlling his disturbed breath just visibly, and though 
 not precisely stooping, and standing well as do those who 
 have been taught to stand, he carried himself now in a 
 fashion that suggested consciousness of a weak point in the 
 frame. Perturbation showed on his brow just for the sec- 
 onds while the sun still blinded him. When things came 
 
6o2 SUCCESSION 
 
 clear, and it was nobody after all but his uncle in the chair, 
 he laughed at himself, walked forward and flung his arms 
 about Lucien with as much violence and vivacity as though 
 his vision had led him right instead of wrong, and times 
 changed for ever inexorably were still untampered with, 
 
 " He carried me upstairs," he observed, still giggling. 
 " I said, he need not, but he said the gracious lady had told 
 him to. That is what he calls her in German. But to be 
 carried ! — and he is so fat ! " 
 
 " Thou art not," said Lucien. 
 
 The boy had sunk on the arm of his chair, and was lean- 
 ing upon him, as naturally as if he had done so every day 
 since that tragic Christmas. One thing led to another with 
 Antoine, and since he had begun in amicable confidence, the 
 action followed on the words. Both little efforts were so 
 neatly done as to draw Lucien under the spell. There was 
 no choice, it seemed, but to reply in kind, when he was 
 handed the cue by so excellent a performer. It crossed his 
 mind, of course, that the boy was acting — he always overdid 
 things sufficiently to admit that suspicion — and the first 
 laugh had rung unnaturally to his ear. It is quite doubtful 
 if Antoine himself could have told how far the emotion he 
 called out instantly to cover the inner pang was real. The 
 whole was an impulse, but a happy impulse: suited to the 
 place and hour, yet more closely to the situation and the 
 man. Lucien's strict nature not only demanded affection, 
 but needed a very free exhibition to believe in its exist- 
 ence. He was prone to doubt, by nature and habit — doubt 
 of his own blessings above all. He doubted everybody, 
 until they proved beyond question that doubt was an insult, 
 as his father and his wife had done, after no light struggle. 
 He had never believed that Antoine cared for him, nor 
 treated him as though he believed it. His position towards 
 his nephew w^as official simply as compared with his father's 
 — he seemed almost to vaunt the distinction. When the boy 
 would not regard the position, and snapped the strait official 
 bonds, as he had done a hundred times, by one means or 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 603 
 
 another, in the more generous flow of his existence, Lncien 
 accepted the overture half sniihng, as one accepts the caress 
 of an unmanageable puppy when training it for serious uses. 
 He did not believe that it was more than the overflowing 
 spirits of youth — he would not believe it. Why then now, 
 of a sudden on a February afternoon, should he change 
 his course? 
 
 He gave himself no reason for making a difference, only 
 he made, tacitly, as he clasped Antoine's light little frame 
 closely to his side. He did not want him to pass out of 
 sight, so much he knew. He would admit no excuse, how- 
 ever plausible, for Jem's presumption. Something in him 
 had altered, some layer had moved, when Savigny disclosed 
 that this boy he had called pupil was to be taken from him ; 
 but he refused to sort the issues in his confused resentment, 
 or to discover why he sufit'ered. He could not use him fur- 
 ther — his uses for the time were spent ; but he needed him 
 to look upon, to feel that, through him, the strong spirit of 
 the Lemaures had a hand upon the future still, and to prove 
 by the way Lucien's own value and that of his work. It was 
 impossible, absurdly impossible to picture the round of 
 common life again, without the light of the constant hope 
 he represented. 
 
 Not for a moment did he admit the greater need, or con- 
 fess that the real suffering he had been facing for weeks past 
 was that of the childless man : that some of his impatience 
 with an otherwise perfect wife was an impatience as old as 
 wedlock, and so as old as creation. Lucien would even less 
 think of admitting that in the selfishness of his suffering 
 he had let his wife's quick sensibility perceive his resent- 
 ment, and that he was aware, miserably and shamefully 
 aware, of having made her suffer too. While he possessed 
 his father, he had felt that other loss much less. To be a 
 son had contented him, in the definite degree to which it 
 contents his race. But he was not exempt from the natural 
 wish to be a father too ; and of late the society of his mar- 
 ried brothers, their talk of their children and children's 
 
6o4 SUCCESSION 
 
 futures, had entered and embittered him faintly unaware. 
 He had drawn ever further from Cecile, and further into his 
 shell. His pretence of an absorption in the records of his 
 father's fame, proffered as satisfaction and consolation, 
 had been a mere cloak for his personal misery. Nor would 
 he face his wife's supposition that he was ill, though he 
 felt so at times ; for that would have drawn more attention 
 upon him. 
 
 " You are breathless," he said, with reproach, doubtful 
 from the short rapid pants if the boy were not crying, for he 
 was reclining along the chair with his face concealed. " You 
 exaggerate things so absurdly. There is no need to half 
 crush your relations after an absence of thirty hours." 
 
 " Yes, there is need," the boy asserted, turning his head. 
 " I must, when one sits here on Sunday afternoon. I al- 
 ways did, I believe." He drew a long breath and lifted his 
 brows. " I expect this — is only — my heart." 
 
 " I should not wonder," said Lucien, smoothing back his 
 hair. " That has always been an uncomfortable com- 
 modity, now more than ever. Keep quiet now a little, and 
 be wise. You can practise signs as answer to my questions, 
 that will be quite sufficient. Were both the Lorbeers there ? 
 Good. Did you make my excuses nicely to Madame? Did 
 you behave properly with the prince ? " 
 
 Antoine became articulate suddenly. " He said he had 
 seen me before. I began to remember when he talked about 
 it." 
 
 " Tiens ! You have no business to forget princes." 
 
 " I was about six," said Antoine. 
 
 "Ah? Not a concert then." 
 
 " Yes, a concert. Grandpapa's concert at St Aviel, a 
 quantity of years ago. But I remember it." He squeezed up 
 his eyes, reflecting. 
 
 " Had you pleased him, at six?" said Lucien, smiling. 
 
 " I am not sure. I think he had not noticed me much. 
 Maman " 
 
 " Enough," said Lucien. " You are talking, which was 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 605 
 
 not permitted. To continue — had the Lorbeers come direct 
 from Reuss? Then Duchatel was content — did not regret 
 the journey ? Excellent. Will Reuss reach London in time 
 for thee next week? Thou wilt see him then, that is well. 
 What of the manuscript he discovered — did you have a sight 
 of it?" 
 
 Another vigorous nod, and then an outburst not to be 
 contained, " It was p^^rfectly easy to read, really, only 
 dirty at the edges, and torn in one place. It is not a sketch 
 for the concerto — they are all so stupid ! It is like it, the 
 shape, but a better thing — ^good. The key is different, too. 
 I found the place in the concerto, and made Lorbeer see — 
 he said I was right. I said I would copy it for Duchatel 
 — there will be time " 
 
 " And when, if you please ? " said Lucien. 
 
 " Oh, Tuesday. We only start at five to Amiens, selon 
 papa. He has to stay there for the night, he says. It is 
 extraordinarily slow how we get to England — silly." 
 
 " Good," said Lucien. " It is your father's turn to be 
 silly now." 
 
 " I did not tell him I thought so," said Antoine, with a 
 sliding glance. " I do, to you — hein ? " 
 
 " Oh, it will come in time," said his uncle. 
 
 "I think it will not. Papa is rather strong, do you see? 
 Enfin — this thing must be copied — I can always do the dirty 
 ones — yes." His eyes followed his uncle's to the pile of 
 manuscripts on the table, the majority transcribed in a 
 large rapid childish hand. " I can go quicker now," said 
 Antoine, " Mon Dieu, how slow I used to be — and afraid." 
 
 " Afraid of me?" 
 
 " No. . , . This one will not be long, for I have read 
 it carefully already. Grandpapa just wrote it quickly one 
 day — long before the concerto — and lost it, do you see? He 
 lost it among Fritz's things. It is Fritz's fault altogether. 
 I shall tell him about that in London." 
 
 " Thou art warm," said Lucien, amused. 
 
6o6 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Well, it is a beautiful thing. I could have played it. I 
 shall." 
 
 " Thou wilt not." 
 
 " Good — then nobody else is to. Not Lemonski. Not 
 you ! " He laughed his quick laugh, flashing another look 
 at his uncle. 
 
 " I could not," said Lucien, " if it is as intricate as the 
 second, which you played lately with Wurst." 
 
 " It is not quite so awful, but hard. They are all so hard 
 — but not all beautiful to hear." 
 
 " Antoine ! " 
 
 He laughed again, more naturally and triumphantly every 
 time. He was pleased by the marked success of his raid 
 on this troublesome relative. It had all gone better than he 
 hoped. " Voyons ! " he said, seizing Lucien's arm confiden- 
 tially. " I want to talk about something. May I — now ? " 
 
 " Have you not been talking ? My dear, you had better 
 wait ten minutes, and consider it, whatever it is. Waiting 
 hurts nobody." 
 
 " But it does ! I have considered for hours — all the way. 
 I cannot any more. You will let me talk and finish now, 
 it is not long." He sat up, and ran a hand inside his coat. 
 " It is only these letters," he said. " Mine. I am tired of 
 reflecting which to give that Victor — perhaps none, I do 
 not know. You had better read them all." He packed the 
 little bundle of papers into his uncle's hand, and then, quite 
 unconsciously, folded his arms. The coup was made — 
 nothing could be clearer. Long and really tormenting re- 
 flections had resulted in this. 
 
 Lucien looked from the letters to his face. The actor on 
 his chair was pale, and his eyes cast down. The effort had 
 not been without its penalty. " My dear," he began, em- 
 barrassed, and cleared his throat. 
 
 " Please," said the boy sharply. " It is better. There 
 are two he wrote there — short ones — about you. Do you 
 see ? " 
 
 " Only two ! " was Lucien's thought. " And short " 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 607 
 
 " Of course Victor will not have the short ones," said 
 Antoine, striving for clear and steady speech on this in- 
 credibly important matter. " I think there is only one of 
 the others he must have — not even all of that. It was when 
 I was very unhappy once in England. Shall I show you 
 that? " He grasped the packet and began to unstrap it with 
 restless fingers. " It is beautiful," he said gently, " for the 
 book." 
 
 Lucien did not move. " When were you unhappy — with 
 us?" 
 
 " No, no — before. The other house. Not one of the 
 school ones either, because then I was working with you, 
 and so he wrote differently to me." 
 
 " How differently? " 
 
 " Not so much — like he talked. Not so near to me 
 
 Mon Dieu, it is hard — will you not read? When I worked 
 with you, he was your father, do you see? In one of the 
 little letters — the angriest one — he says that." 
 
 " They are angry ? " said Lucien, ever more astonished. 
 "With whom?" 
 
 " W^ith zi'homf " He laughed briefly again. " I wonder," 
 said Antoine, pausing, " if you will find it funny, how he 
 writes to me. Fritz did. Fritz said he would not have be- 
 lieved those were his. He called him gentle. Grandpapa 
 gentle ! Do you think so ? " 
 
 " Invariably," declared the son. 
 
 Antoine sighed. " Good : then you will find the short ones 
 curious too. Of course I knew how it was ; he had not much 
 
 time for me then. I told Fritz — it was because " He 
 
 gasped. 
 
 " See, my child — make less effort," Lucien broke in. 
 " You had far better leave it. You ought not to tell me this, 
 in any case. That is the simple fact. I shall not read these 
 letters, Antoine. I refuse to." 
 
 " No, no, you do not refuse ! — not noiv. They are in your 
 hand." He shut the hand, and was silent perforce for some 
 
6o8 SUCCESSION 
 
 instants. " If I told Reuss," he resumed more steadily, 
 " you can hear the same things." 
 
 " It does not follow," said Lucien. But he was worsted, 
 for the boy had leant and kissed him, in his eagerness to be 
 relieved of the strain. 
 
 "It does follow, now, hein? Listen. I told Fritz, the 
 short letters were impatient like that, because I was not quite 
 — ever — what he liked in music. I was different." An im- 
 pressive pause. 
 
 '' He left you great independence," argued Lucien. " He 
 boasted of it. More than his own children ever had." 
 
 " No, he did not. Pardon," Antoine added hastily. " Of 
 course I said what I liked, everything that I thought of, 
 to him. Not in the music. He could not bear me to be dif- 
 ferent — only I zvas." After which passionate point he added 
 softly : " But often I liked to play according to him." 
 
 " According to him," Lucien muttered. 
 
 " Yes ; at the Central I did — you remember ? He liked 
 that. And at other times I have done it. It is a little amus- 
 ing." He added, with a sudden persuasive smile : " You 
 yourself liked me when I did." 
 
 " Did I ? I know you preferred to play according to your- 
 self." 
 
 " Yes — all the modern things. Grandpapa hated them 
 really." 
 
 " He did not hate you, my little one." 
 
 *' No — but I was different." He came back to that. " I 
 am not sure," he added lower, with a fearful frown, " grand- 
 papa would have liked — ever — how I really was." 
 
 " Antoine ! You imply he did not know you ? " 
 
 He shook his head, and was silent, biting his lip. " When 
 I was young, of course," he said lightly. 
 
 " Since when have you ceased to be young? " 
 
 " Please understand. I was careful, for instance, this 
 year: I thought I was. I played — I wrote carefully for 
 him. I showed him a few things. This one to-morrow he 
 would have liked." He bit his lip again. " But, you see," 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 609 
 
 he finished, " he did not hke nie so much." I lis grasp, and 
 intense gaze on Lucien, showed he had scored a point. 
 
 " I see! But I see no such thing. Of all the incredible — 
 what am I to say ? " It was done. The guardian was spurred 
 at last, and to a kind of indignation. He took the boy by 
 the arms, encountered his gaze firmly, though he felt curi- 
 ously desperate while he did so. " He loved you, my dear 
 child — more, not less, to the end. Had you doubted that 
 really? He needed you as well. He was longing for you, 
 nobody so much, throughout those last days. He was watch- 
 ing for you to enter — even when he could not speak." 
 
 The boy's lips parted : no spoken word came through. 
 But Lucien had his real attention, the core of his strange 
 little mind, wdiich he had so often manoeuvred to capture, 
 and failed. It w^as burning him like a point of fire — of light 
 rather, for he had with it the full stare of the wonderful 
 dark eyes : enveloping him, drinking him in, almost alarming 
 him by their intensity. It struck Lucien oddly that Antoine 
 had never looked at him fully before. He had never yet 
 managed to engage his interest sufficiently. 
 
 " Listen," he said quietly. " It is your turn to listen now, 
 and mine to speak. I have, and have had, several things to 
 say. First, it is necessary for you to know, my father was 
 not displeased by your last letter. He never received it." 
 
 That relieved him, certainly. His lips twitched into a 
 smile, though his eyes did not move. 
 
 " It is as though he admired me for speaking," thought 
 Lucien hopelessly, and laid a hand across the eyes. " That 
 will not do," he commented, smiling. " Thou are greedy, 
 and I have to choose. I will say what I can of it, and while 
 I can. Sit there on the stool." 
 
 He pushed him, and the boy slid down and obeyed, with 
 the most anxious docility. No more was said of the letter, 
 but the elder man continued speaking steadily, barely in- 
 terrupted, for an hour almost. At moments he had to stop, 
 but on the whole, speaking of those last conversations, to his 
 auditor, was easier than he could have imagined. The boy 
 
6io SUCCESSION 
 
 was closely attentive always, quiet and tearless, leaning on 
 his knee. 
 
 The odd thing was, he seemed on the defensive, while the 
 narrator attacked. He had guarded himself, Lucien found; 
 made in advance the whole case out for himself — not to his 
 satisfaction, but simply for his safety. It was the philosophy 
 of suffering, mature suffering: that necessary armour against 
 the sharp disappointment and grinding delays of our fate, 
 with which the majority are ill protected, when half their 
 lives are spent. So much for the experience of those two 
 months. It was that conception of age, which Antoine had 
 been driven to perfect and study, which he held with his 
 young hand like a shield, against a whole array of occur- 
 rences that had torn his heart, and tormented his understand- 
 ing. Lucien found himself defending his father, almost 
 angrily, against the charges implied. It was a position he 
 could not have credited, an hour before, had it been fore- 
 told him. Yet he realised one thing completely, through his 
 helpless indignation, how Cecile was amply justified in her 
 contention that it was necessary to this boy to understand. 
 To remain in darkness, or even dimness of mind upon these 
 central questions of living drove him frantic. It was that, 
 and that alone, which had threatened his equilibrium. He 
 had regained his balance completely, but with a struggle of 
 spirit that had almost worn out the protesting body attached. 
 He was mentally tired now ; ready to hear all ; eager a little 
 to hear certain things, to supplement and correct the struc- 
 ture he had originated. But it was late — how late Lucien 
 saw with astonished self-reproach. Antoine came back on 
 the road to meet him, out of kindness to hear his case. For 
 there was no doubt that at one point in the long strife of 
 mind Lucien's own proceedings had tried the boy's toler- 
 ance of life's puzzles too far, and he had been condemned 
 and cast aside. 
 
 Antoine gathered and sorted his uncle's statements now, 
 as though eager above all to keep the issues clear. " He did 
 not know I had rate," he murmured, " or that Jacques had 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 6ii 
 
 found my violin. He did not trouble about those hard con- 
 certs, only about Ribiera — yes. It was quite a few things 
 that he knew, because he was getting tired. He was tired 
 of all that, I believe." 
 
 " Will you kindly cease believing, on your own account," 
 snapped Lucien, " since I know. My father's mind was 
 not tired — or imperceptibly. It was clear to the end. You 
 and your future were his central interest, as for years past 
 you have been. You cannot feign not to know it, Antoine. 
 How could you imagine that would change ? " 
 
 Antoine dropped his eyes. " It was only — Philippe said — 
 he had forgotten us. He was thinking about your things — 
 before he was quite so old." 
 
 " He forgot nothing," retorted Lucien. " Philippe may 
 have escaped his attention occasionally — you could not. You 
 were the centre of it, since his interest was in music. You 
 represented that side and the future — the only important 
 thing." 
 
 It was useless. Antoine's reason was not persuaded com- 
 pletely, though he looked " polite " and receptive. " Je 
 croyais — a la fin — il se passait de ga," he murmured, with 
 gentle obstinacy. " He was very old." 
 
 Lucien was driven to be personal. " Your photograph 
 with the violin was before his eyes — under his hands, to the 
 end." 
 
 " That reminded him " said Antoine. 
 
 " It did not remind ! It replaced you — served him ill in- 
 stead of your presence. He wanted yourself, my little one, 
 how can you not believe it ? Only two months before he had 
 held you to his side. Yes, I had rather you cried " — as the 
 boy swerved away. " Do you think he did not love you 
 then — at parting, for instance?" 
 
 " I am not crying," he said, with almost equal impatience. 
 " I wish I had come with you — that is all." 
 
 " All of us will always wish it," said Lucien warmly, and, 
 what is strange, he believed that he had always wished. 
 There intruded nowhere amid the kindly regret of his tone. 
 
6i2 SUCCESSION 
 
 the vision of a deliberately delayed telegram, of a message 
 sufficient in itself to overset all the shadowy excuses, all 
 the visionary bonds that had held this boy far from that 
 death-bed that was his right. It is so easy, once we permit 
 a confusion of thought, to blur our fundamental motives. 
 Lucien's were successfully blurred now, even if they had 
 ever been quite clear. Occasionally he was attacked by dis- 
 comfort in this interview, by impatience more often : never 
 by shame. The generations guard their rights too valiantly 
 for shame to be frequent between them, even with the finest 
 minds. Lucien had a good working intelligence, but not 
 sufficiently fine to overthrow such a well-proven convention 
 as his essential superiority, in standing and dignity, to this 
 frail, thoughtful boy. 
 
 His impatience, cropping out as we have shown at in- 
 tervals, was soothed by the exercise of talking from this 
 platform in his own consciousness. He had barely any 
 impatience left, only a little amusement, when his auditor, 
 being tired, went to sleep. He went to sleep suddenly and 
 without warning, somewhat as his old father had done 
 during the latter days of his weakness, while Lucien's vigor- 
 ous mind, close at his side, was working along its accus- 
 tomed paths. There was an odd resemblance, recurring, 
 ever in these slight ways, between Antoine's natural habits, 
 and those of his grandfather. They took Lucien by sur- 
 prise, in the same fashion. The sensation of a little jolt in 
 his ideas was not unpleasant, and he had grown used to it 
 during the years past. He smiled now, when the phenom- 
 enon occurred, quite kindly, interrupting a speech that, for 
 fluency and reason combined, had pleased his own ear. He 
 turned the boy's head with his hand to make certain of the 
 fact, for Antoine's head had been resting on his knee dur- 
 ing the latter speeches, and his retorts had grown steadily 
 fewer, and less seriously to be regarded from Lucien's point 
 of view. Being convinced of the phenomenon, he raised 
 his nephew, with the exertion of very little effort, for he 
 was decidedly lighter to handle than to controvert; and 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 613 
 
 laid him, with the most benevolent attention, on the couch. 
 The boy only roused enough to curl himself comfortably in 
 his fashion, and uttered no thanks for the assistance. For 
 the moment, the moral effort of which he was capable, 
 which Frau Lorbeer's happy influence and the bright sun 
 had encouraged and formed, was spent. Nature, who 
 watches her nearest children kindly, supplied him with sleep 
 to fill the vacuum of energy. Antoine did not think of 
 refusing such a benefit, when it ffell from heaven unasked 
 upon him — that was all. 
 
 " He is tired easily," said Lucien to his wife, when she 
 entered later and stopped surprised near the couch. He 
 spoke in his full natural tone, and a manner of resentment 
 she recognised. " How anyone can imagine he is fit, in that 
 
 state, to support a long journey " He rustled a letter 
 
 sheet over sharply, to conclude the sentence. 
 
 Madame said nothing, but stood with her back to him, 
 stripping off her gloves. The miracle had been worked in 
 her absence, she saw that ; and she could guess who had 
 done it. She bent a little, when the gloves were off, and 
 took the boy's long fingers in hers, brushing her lips and 
 cheek lightly against them, and restoring them carefully to 
 their position by his side. 
 
 "What are you doing?" said Lucien, as she did not 
 move. 
 
 " Nothing," she said. " I respect the unconscious." Her 
 tone was odd, but he did not observe it, thinking of what 
 he held. 
 
 " Where have you been ? " said Lucien. 
 
 " I went on with Maman to pay a visit." 
 
 " I expected you sooner. Did you go far? " 
 
 " Only to Weber, at Neuilly." 
 
 His head turned sharply. " Cecile, why do you stand 
 there? Are you not well? " 
 
 " As you see," she said, and glanced at him just smiling. 
 She was worn and hollowed a trifle, and there were 
 
6i4 SUCCESSION 
 
 circles round her eyes ; but her tone in speaking was light 
 and crisp as ever. '' We had some conversation," she in- 
 formed him. " Weber's manner is singularly attractive, is 
 it not?" 
 
 That she had spent a guinea on her conversation, she 
 omitted to mention. She frequently omitted such trifles 
 with Lucien, having her own money, and being well used, 
 in her own affairs, to judging for herself. In his, when he 
 asked it, she gave him her judgment too, and she accepted 
 his unsolicited opinions on her own matters with ready 
 charm and sympathy. The other matter she left out of the 
 account was that Weber's attractive manner had snapped 
 in twain a hope she had been cherishing for long, despite 
 her mother's discreet discouragement. Very fortunately, 
 Lucien was interested and distracted by the happy inter- 
 vention of this boy, who had solved half the domestic 
 problem for her. She was profoundly grateful to Antoine. 
 She felt she could manage, now. 
 
 " Come and look at this," said Lucien. " He will not 
 wake at present. We may speak," 
 
 " More letters ? " she queried, turning. " Which are 
 these? " 
 
 " Read that," he said, and handed it. 
 
 " Ah — the baby has given you his ? But that is charm- 
 ing, Lucien." 
 
 " Very charming. Read it, and tell me the author." 
 
 "But — whose could it be but one? It is not signed?" 
 She turned it, for it was a mere half-sheet of notepaper, 
 carelessly torn off. No signature, indeed, unless a scrawl 
 stood for an L, at the close. She turned back the page, 
 and glanced up doubtfully. " Do you think I had really 
 better, Lucien? " 
 
 " He offered it to me. You and I are the same. It is — 
 to me — a singular thing." He walked slowly away from 
 her, back turned, towards the window. 
 
 Madame read the short letter, which bore every sign of 
 hasty writing, her delicate brows rising all the way. She 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 615 
 
 reached the end, looked at Lucien's back, and read it again. 
 Then she tossed it aside with a little laugh. 
 
 " A general's directions on the field," she said, " that is 
 all. Those are often sharp, of necessity." 
 
 " But — look there." He nodded, and she followed his 
 look to the boy on the couch. 
 
 " It is true," she said, " it would not have struck me to 
 be sharp to that — had I not known what it contained. But 
 remember, what it contains was the essential of life to your 
 father." 
 
 "But it is cutting — unkind. Is it not?" 
 
 " In a fashion," she agreed. " It is amazingly intimate." 
 
 "Intimate?" 
 
 " But yes. Evidently, they had a language. The child 
 understood, receiving it, probably. Are the rest the same ? " 
 
 " What he calls the short ones, without exception. Know- 
 ing what he was, and that boy's susceptibility, I could often 
 call the phrases unfeeling." 
 
 Cecile was thinking rapidly, fingering the sheets, though 
 she read no more. " Good heavens," she murmured, *' how 
 anxious he must have been." 
 
 " Anxious ? About the boy ? " 
 
 " Yes. I suppose — he was the last." 
 
 " And we had all failed him, hey ? " said Lucien, 
 
 " Well, be honest — had you not ? Think of Marcel, cut 
 off at that age. Henriette, with her extraordinary child- 
 hood, and its conventional close. Bernard and Andre — 
 the excellent folk. Yourself — most excellent and hopeless." 
 She kissed him, having reached his side. " It seems to me 
 very simple, Lucien. He had raised, perfected a standard 
 all that long life, and this child had got to touch it, that 
 was all," 
 
 " It troubles me, personally," explained Lucien. " I was 
 severe in my methods, you observe, Cecile, to counteract 
 my father. He spoilt the boy — I always said so. I had 
 every reason to think it. His actions and these letters do 
 
6i6 SUCCESSION 
 
 I 
 
 not agree. If you had ever seen him with that baby — in 
 this room ! It is another man." 
 
 "And one you had not known? But, my dear Lucien, 
 you quarrel with the essence of genius — that is what it is. 
 It is never a changeless shield — it alters with every breath 
 of life. I mean — heaven save my images! — it represents 
 growth, not stability. His treatment of you was old habit. 
 His treatment of Antoine started at a later date — do you 
 imagine his ideas had wearied ? By that time, he demanded 
 more." 
 
 " He demanded what he could get perhaps," muttered 
 Lucien. " But I do not like it." His eyes dwelt on the 
 boy. " It seems unjust." 
 
 " Not that," she retorted. " Anything but that. Look at 
 the return, this child's feeling for him. That is the lasting 
 thing, the sufficient answer. Lucien — forgive my curiosity 
 — where are the companions to these? " 
 
 " The companions ? " 
 
 " Antoine's — to your father." 
 
 " Mon Dieu, I do not know. Torn, probably. Father 
 never apologised, beyond the first, for tearing. He could 
 not bear an accumulation of paper, or whatever else. He 
 would probably have been vexed with us for preserving 
 these. Why do you ask?" 
 
 " It is interesting," she said gently. " This is dated while 
 he was with us, you see — the first summer. The period also 
 of his fiercest battles with you, my friend." 
 
 " There are others," said Lucien suddenly, " some a good 
 deal more elaborate. There is this above all which Antoine 
 indicated as suitable to the Memoir. He is right, and I 
 have extracted it for Duchatel. This is my father's self, 
 delicate, discerning, cordial ; as we knew him, in youth ; as 
 he must have been sometimes, to this child in exile — I can- 
 not, I will not believe he did not wish to be." Lucien was 
 singularly disturbed by the fragmentary letters. He was 
 clinging to the other now, as for protection. 
 
 " What date does that one belong to? " his wife asked. 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 617 
 
 "This? His first months in England. I always guessed 
 he was wretched with his father's people. This is addressed 
 to him by name, and signed; it is a letter in short. Those 
 are " 
 
 " Enclosures, hein ? " she said. " Sent under cover to 
 you." 
 
 " That is what pains me. To think he could have shrunk, 
 ever, when I handed him his share." 
 
 " I have no doubt he shrank," she said drily. " The sheet 
 you gave me read like an answer to one of yours." 
 
 "Do not!" he said quite vivaciously; and she lifted a 
 hand, for the sleeper stirred. 
 
 " We had better discuss elsewhere," said Cecile, her dry 
 tone softening. " Sometimes I think we have spoken of it 
 all enough. A quoi bon, after all, so long as one living holds 
 the clue? In two days we shall be free of it, and all such 
 mysteries." 
 
 " You sound heartless," said he, with his customary sober 
 sharpness, though he was holding her closely to him while 
 he spoke. 
 
 " Perhaps I am — Dieu sait." She gazed up at him, 
 leaning her head back. "Do you want Antoine to stay? 
 He is a nice boy — kind. He has never failed to consider us, 
 and it is a great trouble to him. It was amiable to lend you 
 these letters — charming, as I said : and brave. Why should 
 he do it, Lucien? We are not his affair," 
 
 " Psst ! " he said, laughing low as though enjoying it. 
 She was speaking in the aloof, cool manner, with the snow- 
 soft tone, that was most flattering to his ears when she was 
 in his arms. The little pretence of distance he found de- 
 licious — Cecile's self — when his senses and strong arm 
 proved that she was close. He was wondering, with the 
 wonder of one awakened, how he could ever have let the 
 distance become more than a pretence — when she disturbed 
 him. 
 
 "Let him go, hein?" she said, on a last light breath. 
 " He is not ours." 
 
6i8 SUCCESSION ] 
 
 " How dare you ? " he muttered almost furiously. 
 " Daring " was the question, for she had evidently defied 
 herself as well as him to speak. Lucien seized her instantly, 
 for he felt her muscles failing, held her so for a second, 
 and then laid her in his chair. That Cecile, with her keen, 
 careless pride, should have spoken it — that was what stirred 
 him, and this time to real shame. It was sheer valour, the 
 courage that slays pride, and which between intimates is 
 the more notable. 
 
 His dog-like attentions to her during the next few minutes 
 made Madame laugh, though her lips were white, and 
 though she made no attempt to answer his incoherent mut- 
 ters of reproach. It was the last of her devices to end a 
 misunderstanding she felt to be ridiculous, this one of 
 speaking out: a desperate one rather, for, after all, she 
 was not a man. She had hurt herself somewhat more than 
 she expected in the process, but, judging by the lines of 
 Lucien's face bent to her, she supposed she had done well 
 to be direct. She smiled, gaily almost, but she was quite 
 tired of him; and, like Antoine, she could have sought 
 relief in sleep. Instead she remained where he had put her, 
 her wise little head supported on one hand, and let him 
 fondle the other, kneeling by her, and waited till she was 
 better to dismiss the crisis lightly. It would be simple 
 enough, of course, to explain away, for Lucien was accus- 
 tomed to her fragility; and he had seen her collapse for 
 very little reason, before now. She intended to persuade 
 him the reason was negligible — presently. But an interval, 
 a pause for spiritual breath-taking, might always be al- 
 lowed. 
 
 " Imbecile, I am very well," she said, smiling at him 
 when the interval was passed. " But I feel capricious, Lu- 
 cien. Two requests." 
 
 She waited long enough for him to imply that the whole 
 earth was at her service: he would naturally do that, since 
 the one thing essential to her happiness was not on earth. 
 
THE LAST ASSAULT 619 
 
 " I wish to be alone with Antoine when he wakes. And I 
 wish to read that letter," 
 
 "Which letter, my dear?" He fumbled anxiously. 
 
 " The one written to the little boy in his loneliness. 
 Wild, was he not — at bay — among those hideous people. 
 Your father took account of such states. It would be — 
 diverting, probably." 
 
 Lucien laid the letter on her knee and, having petted her 
 a little longer, went. She did not stir from her attitude, 
 or touch the sheets, till he was gone. 
 
FINALE 
 
 Jacques had done business with Ribiera to some effect. 
 It is true, he had fallen out with him three times since the 
 occasion when he appeared in his elegant salon as Antoine's 
 ambassador, but he had played his cards deftly, and in 
 every quarrel he had scored something to satisfy, materially 
 or otherwise. He had got about half the money due to him 
 to begin with, and so found courage to fight for the rest. 
 He had said a number of things to Ribiera which had re- 
 mained, to use the phrase of his nation, " on his heart " ; 
 and he had proved to his own contentment that the 
 Spaniard, owing to past imprudences, was really at his wit's 
 end for an adequate leader to his stringed detachment. 
 After a few preliminary skirmishes, Jacques was now en- 
 gaged to appear at the two last concerts in February, in the 
 place that should have been Antoine's, with slightly adapted 
 programmes. For his " style " and the boy's were by no 
 means identical ; and though Ribiera disliked Jacques fer- 
 vently, snarling and spitting cat-like over every gold piece 
 he extracted from his clutches, he made ample allowance 
 for his personality in his musical proposals ; and even ad- 
 mitted twice — in involuntary soliloquy during a perform- 
 ance — that the beast had improved. 
 
 Over the youthful quintet, for which Ribiera invented 
 a new disparaging pet name every day, and which, when he 
 brought it out at the close of a rehearsal, he called " our 
 little recreation," he and his first violin were at one another's 
 throats most constantly. Indeed the little recreation turned 
 into particular recrimination so frequently that the re- 
 mainder of the performers began to weary of the struggle 
 620 
 
FINALE 621 
 
 — the more so that the technical work of it was taxing. 
 The main point at issue between the principals actually 
 was, that M. Charretteur could play his part, and Senor 
 Ribiera could — or, rather, would — not. When he grew 
 tired of Jacques' really brilliant rendering behind him, he 
 began to improvise, with a smile under his little moustache, 
 and his fijie eyes on the ceiling; and the practice ended 
 forthwith in an exhibition of vituperative fireworks from 
 one or both together. It was owing to the first violin's flat 
 declaration to the composer, that unless he agreed to attend, 
 and soon, the whole thing would come to an untimely end, 
 that Antoine had attacked his father, and his father Sa- 
 vigny, and the doctor had capitulated grumbling; granting 
 his patient leave to spend one hour, strictly limited, with 
 the disputant artists, on his last day in the town. 
 
 Antoine went ; and behold — Ribiera w^as lamb-like ; re- 
 ceived him in the beautiful private concert- room like a duke 
 in his own domain ; offered him a chair at his side, with 
 strings of silken oratory ; and played not only divinely, but 
 correctly, from first to last. He must either have put him- 
 self out, for weeks past, to act imperfection at all the crit- 
 ical points, or spent the whole of the preceding night in 
 practice, which Jacques thought the more probable. The 
 occasion w^as a notable one, not only for the astonishing 
 performance, but for the evident fact that, for all the freely 
 bestowed nicknames, every single member of the little com- 
 pany had forgotten during the arduous months of studying 
 the work, that it was a child's production. They stared 
 him up and down, when he first entered, till even Antoine 
 began to feel uncomfortably shy ; especially as the fact that 
 he had nothing to do already discomposed him. His host's 
 fashion of greeting him was discomposing too. 
 
 "You will play for us, hein. Monsieur?" said Ribiera, 
 in delicate tones, looking at the violin he carried. 
 
 " No, no — that is for M. Charretteur, if he likes. I am 
 sorry," he added, putting it down and dusting his long 
 fingers nervously. " I thought you had understood." 
 
622 SUCCESSION 
 
 But Ribiera had not understood, or did not choose, for 
 the moment, to understand. He drew his handsome languid 
 eyes slowly across Antoine, taking in every detail of his 
 altered appearance with the unerring precision of a pho- 
 tographic camera. In so doing he had to abandon the last 
 remnant of hope he had been cherishing, that the whole of 
 the disorder was a studied farce, and that he might still 
 have a chance of humiliating Jacques before the world, and 
 so providing a worthy denouement to the series of theatrical 
 incidents in which that young man had assisted. There- 
 with, he sat down in a huff upon the gilded stool before his 
 instrument, crashed a couple of glittering chords upon it, 
 and looked to either side with exactly the air of a peacock 
 on a wall. 
 
 Jacques' contingent, who had been chatting low together, 
 moved hastily to their seats at the hint, and settled their 
 strings with few further words among themselves. Down 
 the long room, soft-footed servants, in equal haste, moved 
 chairs into position with many a glance of excuse toward 
 their monarch above. 
 
 " Who are those? " said Ribiera, whirring a delicate scale 
 or two, and addressing nobody. 
 
 " My father," said Antoine, " and M. Savigny." 
 
 "Which is your father?" said Ribiera, who recollected 
 Savigny perfectly. " The ugly one or the other ? " 
 
 " The other," said Antoine, equally audible to the end of 
 the room. 
 
 " He is not like you," said Ribiera, looking not at Jem, 
 but about the walls. " He looks like an Alsatian, a stupid 
 race. Well, we had better begin this comedy. How is one 
 expected to finger that ? " 
 
 Antoine swung across to look. His manuscript had been 
 exquisitely copied, doubtless by some poor scribe on the 
 skirts of the palace staff. He was quite dazzled by the 
 beauty of its appearance on the paper. 
 
 " I thought it might amuse you," he ventured, one brow 
 a little raised. 
 
FINALE 623 
 
 " It is child's play," said Ribicra haughtily. " Triviality." 
 
 " Yes," the boy assented. *' It does not matter so much, 
 since there they have the themes." 
 
 The pianist frowned at the full score a moment. I le had 
 been actually in danger of wasting his efforts, for he found 
 the passage amusing, as the child said. 
 
 " Good," he said drily. " Messieurs, when you have 
 quite concluded, I attend you." 
 
 " Thank you very much," said Antoine, lifting his brow 
 out of his hands at the end of the movement. " I am sorry 
 I forgot to turn the last time. That is — more beautiful 
 than I had meant." 
 
 Ribiera ilicked over the leaves of music. 
 
 " It is playable," he observed. " We had better take the 
 repeat, since the reading showed, in two places, such de- 
 grading stupidity." In the two places named, his own ef- 
 fects had been slightly obscured by the leading strings. 
 
 " Jacques was too loud," agreed Antoine. " That is al- 
 most a solo opening for you, if it is right." 
 
 " Evidently the child had better lead," said Ribiera to 
 no one. 
 
 " It is difficult, rather, to be quiet there," explained An- 
 toine. " That is why. Wait — I am going to talk to him." 
 
 He talked to his strings, most earnestly ; and Jacques, 
 when appealed to, nodded, and gave him a cat-like smile. 
 He also disturbed the lecturer by passing the violin, and An- 
 toine was forced to draw back, shake his head vigorously 
 twice, shrug to his ears, and grip his two hands behind him, 
 to convey beyond further question his incapacity to demon- 
 strate. He could, naturally, since a little trick of Moricz's 
 invention would suit the occasion very nicely — he longed 
 to ; but he dared not, with Savigny's eyes like two red-hot 
 needles in his back. Nor could he waste minutes, for time 
 was short, and his father's watch in his hand beyond a 
 doubt. Artistic work becomes awkward, with such an au- 
 dience. To get it done within the limits fixed needed con- 
 
624 SUCCESSION 
 
 centration of every fibre of nerve and brain ; but he suc- 
 ceeded, before the hour struck, in obtaining the more im- 
 portant things. When it was over, Antoine was rather 
 thankful, chiefly to escape from the eyes of the three silent 
 men, who watched his expressive antics grimly, while they 
 obeyed his directions. The remaining pair he could handle, 
 since they were at least articulate. Jacques behaved very 
 well, though he did not address Ribiera at all. Nor of 
 course did Ribiera address Jacques directly. He insulted 
 the piano rack and the candlesticks, and echoes came round 
 to Jacques behind. Antoine, however, made things equal 
 by thanking the leader first, at the end, with glistening eyes, 
 and a fervour unmistakable. Then he turned to the silent 
 gentlemen, and last to Ribiera at the piano. 
 
 " It is finished, I am afraid," he said. " They want me 
 below there; and I leave Paris to-morrow. If there were 
 any more things before " 
 
 " I was about to say it," said Ribiera. " If there were 
 any more things — before you are grown up, for instance — 
 I should be gratified to consider them, any time. But you 
 had better take ten years' study before you write for the 
 pianoforte again. A mere tour-de-force like that — are you 
 listening? " 
 
 " Yes," said Antoine, who was flushed a trifle, as he 
 pulled the violin-straps firm. " And during the ten years, 
 if you please " 
 
 " Oh, but could you doubt me ? Play the violin." 
 
 " I am not permitted to play at present," said Antoine, 
 pronouncing his consonants with care. 
 
 " Tiens ! " said Ribiera, as though he heard it for the first 
 time. " What do you do then — ^go to school ? " 
 
 " Psst! " said Antoine quietly. He caught Ribiera's eyes, 
 which were straying as usual under heavy lids, gave him a 
 direct look in them, and offered his hand. 
 
 " Farewell, sir, and my thanks," he said in Spanish, and 
 pronouncing as a Spaniard had taught him. The pianist's 
 splendid eyes shot fire, and he rose. The four men behind 
 
FINALE 625 
 
 him rose too, immcdiLilely : that is the worst of courts. 
 Ribiera gave them one glance. 
 
 " Au revoir, petit incendiaire," he said, in his pretty 
 French. " Bon voyage, et heureux retour. Nous vous at- 
 tendons, — tous." 
 
 " One gets too easily into a groove, my dear," said Jem, 
 at a certain stage of the solemn comedy enacted in Savigny's 
 ugly dining-room, where the boy had been induced to rest. 
 " Your plan is, to give us a shock once a year, and knock 
 us off the rails. Well, that's all very well when you are of 
 an age to stand it. The doctor and I should like to be 
 warned of the next move, that's all." 
 
 " But " — Antoine was really tired of them — " there is all 
 the move: just the music. I thought it was understood 
 between us, really, about that. I tried to show you — do 
 you remember ? — that old night in England ; and you ap- 
 peared to understand." 
 
 " I'm slow, I expect," said Jem. " The old night, you 
 were too much for me, probably. You don't make enough 
 allowance for our minds. Music — I think of a street organ 
 at once — don't you, Savigny? Something to pay a penny 
 for, with a monkey; not a lot of paper." 
 
 " The monkey is apropos," said Savigny. " But some- 
 times the playing's the other way. Do justice to your 
 monkeys, Edgell." 
 
 " Oh, he's not paid me badly," said Jem. " That's another 
 drawback to this new departure. I'm not half sure I ap- 
 prove." 
 
 " I am the other half sure I don't," murmured Savigny. 
 
 " Didn't you like it ? " said Antoine, teasing his fingers. 
 
 " This ? — oh " James and Savigny looked at one 
 
 another. 
 
 " When any of them played alone " began Jem, with 
 
 caution. 
 
 " But they constantly interrupted one another," said 
 Savigny. 
 
626 SUCCESSION 
 
 " The lowest seemed to me the steadiest worker," said 
 Jem. " He earned his money, that fellow. Good big instru- 
 ment too, must have bothered him a bit. The second young 
 man from the front was always stopping ; sneaked it quietly 
 off his shoulder as soon as your eye was off him. The front 
 one looked a cheeky fellow, I should change him if I were 
 you. As for the swell at the piano, I saw him twice with 
 his hands in his pockets " 
 
 " And once in his hair," called Savigny. " If it is, as I 
 suspect, Edgell, merely a question of noise, it would have 
 been fairer to keep his lid shut, since he already — hey? 
 What now ? " 
 
 He looked at Antoine. The boy, lying full length as had 
 been ordained, had frowned, shut his eyes, and half cov- 
 ered his ears with his fingers. 
 
 " Go on," said Antoine. " Talk alone. I understand it 
 better when you do." 
 
 "Which of us shall talk?" 
 
 " Papa," said Antoine. " He is quieter." 
 
 " What I said, Savigny," said Jem. " His ears have suf- 
 fered, poor little kid. We might have foreseen it, five to 
 one as they were." He obeyed Savigny's jerk of hand, and 
 went to the boy's side. "What's the matter, donkey?" 
 he said, in a tone low enough. " Have we offended you ? 
 Good Lord, you never thought we were serious ? " 
 
 " No — I did not. It is only," he explained, " I cannot 
 understand common things so well, when I have been listen- 
 ing to music. When I have to listen, like that, it remains 
 in my ears — and I hear that first. It is stupid, but we 
 can't help it." 
 
 " We ! " laughed Jem, and bending, swung him up with 
 an ease the doctor envied and admired, and took his own 
 seat on the sofa where he had been lying, grasping him 
 securely. " Now then," he proposed, " you tell us all about 
 it: the motives and majors and minims, and all the shop. 
 We don't know, that's what's wrong with us — and what 
 has been, right through. We want instructing, like that 
 
F 1 N iV L E 627 
 
 long- young- fellow with the smallest fiddle you talked to so 
 nicely." 
 
 " That was Jacques, papa. 1 wanted to present you to 
 him, but he went away. It was my own little fiddle he had. 
 Did you hear it ? " 
 
 " Yes. That's what I listened to. It might have been 
 you playing, when I shut my eyes." 
 
 " Oh, my dear papa, it might not — how impossible to 
 think of that ! " He laughed, still with his own eyes tightly 
 shut. " Keep quiet," he said. " I am hearing better now. 
 It is only after remaining so long without real music, prob- 
 ably. I have heard a lot of the other sort — but quietly, do 
 you see? ATost quietly of all, in that way." 
 
 " We entirely comprehend," said Savigny definitely from 
 the distance, where he was walking slowly to and fro. 
 
 " He's a good lecturer," said Jem. " Always was. He 
 lectured to me at four, very competently. Bright idea, 
 Bebe: why not take to that next year? He'd draw big 
 audiences in the States, Raymond, and that's a fact." 
 
 " Vulgar," said Savigny briefly. " Leave him here." 
 
 " No role for him here, you've treated him so badly. 
 He's coming with me instead — now listen." 
 
 Jem talked for some time, about what he expected of 
 Antoine in his new capacity. He talked nonsense as well 
 as Philip, when he was put to it ; and he found it a suitable 
 occasion. The farewell to Savigny, of course, had to be 
 made before they left ; he had settled that. It was de- 
 cidedly too great a strain for the boy to go through this 
 kind of interview twice, with the emotion behind of which 
 all were equally conscious. The question was, how it could 
 best be done. Jem and Savigny had met twice, and come 
 to an end of all business for the time. Jem had been over 
 the plans of the unfinished institute, and even once over the 
 ground, and had proved of inestimable service in a quiet 
 way ; supporting some of the doctor's health-saving schemes 
 with sound advice, and smashing others completely and 
 finally with a timely word. He had in return all Savigny's 
 
628 SUCCESSION 
 
 ideas as to his son's treatment, and had checked them off 
 with ideas gleaned from Weber, who had treated him with 
 extraordinary kindness and patience, and heard out his own 
 modest views with flattering attention. Jem saw that, al- 
 lowing for the difference of temperament in the men, their 
 apparently divergent methods came to much the same re- 
 sult in the end, and were not so very far distinguished from 
 his own observation of the boy, and common-sense. He 
 was fairly at ease in consequence, and prepared a campaign, 
 of a nature new to his experience but not devoid of interest, 
 at leisure ; guarding his mind deliberately against doubt, 
 disappointment and despair, since his own sane outlook, 
 cool judgment and easy manner were reckoned as essentials 
 in the case. Jem " guessed " now that he was prepared for 
 the worst that could happen, and was not without faint hope 
 for the best. 
 
 While he soothed and played with the boy, practising all 
 the fatherly tricks unconsciously — for one soon returned 
 to old habits with Antoine — Savigny continued to pace 
 slowly to and fro, holding a certain distance from them, 
 glancing at them rarely, though he inserted a remark in the 
 discourse at intervals. Meanwhile the shadows in the cor- 
 ners of the large dreary room spread claw-like towards the 
 centre, where they sat, the small oil-lamp on the doctor's 
 table having no power whatever to combat them and the 
 images they raised; and James, still chaffing, was perfectly 
 aware of his son's strong grasp tightening on his wrist. 
 Antoine always turned imaginative when he was tired ; the 
 place was permanently haunted to his mind ; the doctor, 
 moving from shadow to light with that mechanical progress, 
 looked hardly human. Jem did not wonder the least that 
 a young thing should be frightened, that was hardly his 
 concern, so greatly the other necessity weighed upon him. 
 That man, his old rival, who would not take a penny of his 
 money, still less his gratitude, and who had shown such 
 bitterness, remorse and misery when he approached the 
 subject, that he could only recoil from it again in all haste 
 
FINALE 629 
 
 — Savigny had got to be repaid. Jem felt keenly his in- 
 capacity, shrank almost from his impossible position ; nor 
 could he now, as in the former case, shift the task upon his 
 father-in-law's shoulders, in the full certainty it would be 
 well performed. It was a deadlock, unless the boy he held 
 would undertake it ; and yet he, the principal victim, could 
 hardly be expected to feel the full necessity. He was jarred 
 and nervous already, as his father knew well enough 
 through the veils of dusk, by the intellectual efifort of the 
 afternoon, and none could wish to tax him further; yet 
 try it every way he would, the engineer saw no escape. 
 
 A servant entered with a pile of ledgers for Savigny, and 
 a message about them from M. Bronne. Savigny gave the 
 servant a basilisk glare and no reply ; but his hand began 
 mechanically to jerk the books about, and arrange them on 
 the table. 
 
 " I should like a word with Bronne before I leave," said 
 James, sighting a good excuse. " Is he there in his room? " 
 " No," said the doctor. " Bronne's away for the day. 
 Gone to meet a girl." 
 
 This, it should be mentioned, was the first warning Jem 
 had received of the engagement ; though Antoine, who learnt 
 things from Jacques, remained unmoved. 
 
 " Good for him," James said softly. " That's rather good. 
 But say — he doesn't leave you all his work?" 
 
 " He's done most of it," said Savigny. who had sat down, 
 glaring at the books. " I hate accounts." 
 " What are they ? " Jem inquired. 
 
 " The books of the pension for the year— more than a 
 month behind. I went through 'em once last night — totals 
 wrong in three places. So much for love in the office. Oh, 
 Lord, these boys." He scowled round at Antoine, who 
 giggled. 
 
 " Perhaps yourself you added wrong," he murmured. 
 " There you are, Raymond," said Jem, calmly catching 
 at a new idea. " I'll lend you this kid for a time, he's not 
 so bad at figures. Accurate and pretty quick— I'll give him 
 
630 SUCCESSION 
 
 a good character. I'd take the job over myself wkh pleas- 
 ure, only I have some books to pack up there before I leave." 
 
 Antoine darted a look hastily. " You won't remember all 
 the ones," he began. *' I think " 
 
 " I don't," said Jem. " You'll have to put up with what 
 I've room for. I can't take half a library. Folks who make 
 up things never read, anyway. You stop with the doctor, 
 and follow me when he's^Jiad enough of you. See? " 
 
 He drew his arms round the boy suddenly while he spoke, 
 looked in his eyes, and, detaching the grasp on him, rose. 
 
 " There you are," he said, shunting him gently with one 
 hand to Savigny, who sat before the books, singularly rigid, 
 more fate-like than ever, with the grey tints on his face 
 beneath the fixed eyes, which seemed to be burning Dr 
 Bronne's neat pages full of figures. He did not move on 
 his side, or touch Antoine, though he was close. 
 
 " You'd better take him ofif," he said. " He can't be of 
 assistance really. It's work for one alone." 
 
 " Give him a trial," said Jem, with significant gentleness. 
 " It's my job, really, but I put him in. It's nothing but 
 adding up a few things from last year, and balancing at the 
 end. Only needs a little attention." He smiled at his own 
 words, and tapped the boy's head. " Comprehend ? " he 
 said. " When I give you a character in business, you should 
 back me up, not look so solemn over it." 
 
 Savigny leant back suddenly. " It's out of hours," he 
 observed. " Look at the chart." 
 
 Jem did so willingly. He took a nicely ruled card from 
 his breast-pocket, and held it under Antoine's eyes. It 
 was good for him to study it from time to time, Jem con- 
 sidered, and take notice how thoroughly his days were 
 regulated for him, owing to their kind care. Antoine had 
 ruled the red lines himself, under supervision. His eyes 
 moved along them now, with his customary thoughtful de- 
 tachment. Five to seven — yes — his father had filled an 
 empty space with the words " social and domestic uses." 
 He paused over the words, but did not smile. He slipped 
 
FINALE 631 
 
 a glance at Savigny under his lashes. Savigny was looking 
 at him, and his basilisk eyes were not terrible at all. An- 
 toine drew a breath, sat down on his knee, leant back, and 
 planted four delicate fingers, slightly spread, at the base of 
 the figure column. 
 
 ' We will finish this," he observed to Jem, in reassur- 
 ance. " I expect it is all right, really. M, Bronne is so 
 careful — but I will see." 
 
 Jem took occasion to inquire after the household accounts 
 of Savigny's sanatorium later. 
 
 '' They were perfectly right," said Antoine, with em- 
 phasis, " except where Savigny himself had corrected them 
 with a red pencil. And that was exceedingly difficult to 
 scrub out again, he had corrected it so hard. I was care- 
 fully scrubbing most of the time I was there. But a la fin, 
 the page looked clean." 
 
 " I am glad it's clean," said Jem, with feeling. " Did he 
 apologise for the trouble he had given, while you scrubbed ? " 
 
 ''' He ? — oh no. I had to add the wrong pages three times 
 because he would not even look at them. Then I asked him 
 to sign them, politely. But no, he sat there. > So I put my 
 hand round his with a pen in it, to make him write. But 
 his was heavy to move, so that the S became rather curious. 
 So I told him it was sufficient like that, and he dropped the 
 pen immediately. That is how he was — lazy. And his 
 face — like you saw." ^ 
 
 "Did he lecture you?" inquired Jem. 
 
 "But no! He did nat speak at all of his things. His 
 mouth would not move. I expect he was tired because he 
 has too much to do without M. Bronne. I talked a little," 
 said Antoine modestly. 
 
 His father sat upon him. " I didn't intend you to talk. 
 , I thought you grasped that." 
 
 " Well — M. Raymond would not really let me do any- 
 thing else, because I might not lift my arms. He simply 
 held them down — pinching me ; which I am sure hurt my 
 heart much more, because I felt it." 
 
632 SUCCESSION 
 
 "Did you betray the feeling?" 
 
 " No. I didn't cry at all. It is altogether too serious, 
 how he looked, how he feels without grandpapa, and with- 
 out M. Bronne, and not wanting that young lady, and 
 afraid of a new matron " 
 
 "Afraid?" said Jem. 
 
 " Terribly afraid. I saw his eyes. I did not mind them 
 to-night. I am sure to keep M. Bronne would be better, 
 even if Madame Bronne had to " 
 
 " Say, Bebe, how did you collect this information, if the 
 doctor did not speak ? " 
 
 " He moved his head," explained Antoine, " and made 
 little growls to my observations. And his eyes at me were 
 like grandpapa's when it amused him, several times." 
 
 " I guess you worried him," said Jem, after a pause. 
 
 " No," said Antoine, having considered it. " He was bet- 
 ter afterwards than before. He ' boudait ' not so much. 
 Besides, I was thinking a lot for him. I have been. Be- 
 cause I cannot remain myself to be his secretary, though 
 he proposed that suddenly. His sudden voice is rather 
 frightening, in that room. Yourself, you have engaged me 
 for these years, I said ; because that is how I like to imagine 
 it." An interval in the account ensued. " I found it ex- 
 traordinary of Savigny to ask me, when he approved me to 
 go, and had made that card for you, all so correctly." 
 
 Jem agreed. " It must have been the scrubbing processes 
 impressed him," he suggested. 
 
 " I think," said Antoine, " he believes — that if you take 
 me away — I sha'n't ever come back to Paris, like " 
 
 " Just so," said Jem. " I supposed you had arrived there, 
 confound you ! It's a hard fate for Raymond, to lose three 
 of you in turn. Did that enter your reflections ? " 
 
 " I — don't know," he stammered. " Three ? Oh no — I 
 cannot think so well as that." His eyes moved to his 
 father, awestruck. " But I shall come back," he murmured 
 uncertainly. Then : " It is impossible how things arrange* 
 
FINALE 633 
 
 themselves!" he flaslied forth in impatience, turned on his 
 heel and departed from the room. 
 
 He appeared no more that evening, and failed to be of any 
 assistance with the book-packing, or to wish his father 
 good-night before he left. It is possible he thought there 
 was time enough before him in two years for such atten- 
 tion. It is possible he had spent his small change of affec- 
 tion on Savigny already. Nothing he had said gave his 
 father reason to think that the parting interview had been 
 in its fashion less finished or faultless than the pages he had 
 " scrubbed " and signed. And Jem, who knew too much 
 of Antoine's resources, when his feelings were in flood, to 
 suspect that the current of love and gratitude could be 
 impeded by the mere holding down of his arms, was quite 
 content with the equity of the arrangement. 
 
 Of the single remaining creditor, his sister-in-law, Jem 
 spoke in the close confidence of parting to his elder son. He 
 spoke earnestly too, on the station platform, under the 
 shadow of his train. 
 
 " You look after her," said Jem. " She's fond of you, 
 likes to have you about, and luckily you're bright enough 
 to be worth her trouble. She'll need somebody now more 
 than she ever did — I'm safe to tell you this. That bit of a 
 girl Yvonne put me on the track last night, and I got a 
 question in with Weber this morning. I thought there was 
 a chance, but no such luck. She's had the idea, too, which 
 makes it worse. It's bad for women, and she's one in a 
 hundred. Weber says her courage has always been superb, 
 simply incapable of complaining. She's served us too, and 
 deserves all we can do, though that's little enough." 
 
 " I'll do what I can," said Philip, looking away down the 
 gloomy vistas of the Nord. 
 
 " She'll advise you too," said his father. " It's not as if 
 you would lose by it. I'd sooner myself you had a woman 
 in reach, when I'm away out there. She's a first-class 
 friend — was to your mother before. She'll never fail you. 
 
634 SUCCESSION ^ 
 
 if you are decently good to her, and keep her little laws. 
 I expect you know all this without my telling you. Of 
 course she'll talk you inside out afterwards, but never in 
 a bad way. I'm sure she'd be welcome to tear me limb 
 from limb, anyway, if talking made her any happier. But 
 she won't be happy now." 
 
 He slipped to other subjects, understanding and liking 
 Philip's shyness of the feminine at present. He did not 
 doubt his fealty to his little aunt, and he went the right 
 way to work to plant in him what is more fruitful than 
 admiration. He had all he wanted himself of Philip's con- 
 fidence as it was, and he had a reassurance of old date that 
 it did not lose by being set on paper. Indeed this son invari- 
 ably told him more by letter than in life, a trait which had 
 often amused Jem privately, though he admitted its ad- 
 vantages, in the life he was driven to lead. He alluded to 
 it now. 
 
 " We shall live on your news," he said, " both of us ; but 
 I won't go shares with the kid unless I'm told to, eh?" 
 
 " He's pretty well forward," remarked Philip, his lip 
 curving. 
 
 " That may be. I sha'n't have any nonsense," said Jem. 
 " He's going to be his own age out there. If he hands me 
 any cheek he'll get his ears cuffed. He knows that too." 
 
 " He remembers it now and then," said Philip. " Tony 
 has a remarkable idea of you, papa — always had. Some- 
 thing between a chief-inspector — and a chucker-out — and a 
 church. Whatever nonsense he may be after at the minute, 
 he turns grave when you are mentioned. It rather im- 
 presses the fellows when he does it, I'm a bit impressed 
 myself." 
 
 Jem's appreciation was slight but sufficient. Both his 
 sons were able to amuse him, which is a real asset to a 
 hard-worked father. 
 
 " It's something, in a matter like this, to be obedient," he 
 said, when his turn came to be serious. " I've got a nice 
 list of little rules written down, and if he doesn't feel in- 
 
FINALE 635 
 
 dined to obey Savigiiy and Co. on paper, he'll obey nie in 
 life. He's a good deal too careless about sonic things, 1 
 consider. It's regular living and sea air I count on most, 
 and we shall have a week on shipboard to give it a trial first. 
 I wish it was not reckoned necessary to stick three days in 
 London, but that he's set on — won't be turned." 
 
 " That's Reuss," said Philip. " If you pick up friends on 
 the way, you see, Antoine doesn't see why he should not. I 
 can tell you, papa, you had better lie low in London, and 
 have someone sharp to watch the door. He has probably 
 made appointments with six of the very latest, the first 
 evening." 
 
 " It's time he got away from friends, late or early," said 
 Jem. " They're a bit extravagant in their requirements. 
 Who has he got down there, now ? " He glanced towards 
 a group, circled with smoke, farther up the platform. It 
 was small but noisy, and in it the boy himself was not con- 
 spicuous. 
 
 " Hullo," said Philip. " Jespersen's decided to come, 
 though he swore he was too busy. That's the celebrated 
 Charretteur with Paul ; you can only see half his nose, but I 
 know the way he stands. And Axel — don't you know Axel ? 
 Antoine told him the truth in London, and expected never to 
 see him again. I didn't let on that Axel asks nothing better 
 than to be walked over, which is the fact." 
 
 " What truth did he tell him ? " said Jem. 
 
 " He never said. But I supposed, that he was no artist. 
 That's what they all feel most." 
 
 " What's Charretteur," asked Jem, with discretion, 
 "really?" 
 
 " Rather a caution," replied his son. " I think — well^ 
 he'll not do the kid any harm." 
 
 " That's not the tense we're concerned with," said Jem. 
 " The point is, wdiat he has done." 
 
 Philip made an effort of mind. " I think he has taken it 
 over," he explained. " What's that word they use of shift- 
 ing concerns? — goodwill. Antoine's given him the goodwill 
 
636 SUCCESSION 
 
 of his playing connection for a couple of years, do you see? 
 That's the understanding. He would have handed over the 
 extra violin too, only my uncle turned rather dangerous. 
 I see you are carrying off your own property, papa. Jolly 
 wise of you," 
 
 James glanced down at the violin-case he held. " No 
 use," he said. " They will not be separated. I'll have to 
 keep his hands off it, though. Look here, Phil." He 
 showed his son in private a little silver chain, with a swivel 
 on his button-hole, and a key attached. " Bebe has worn 
 that since your grandfather put it round his neck at seven 
 years old, never left it even in illness. Savigny told me the 
 worst row they had in hospital was when his nurse 
 tried to remove it." 
 
 "And he has invested you? That's one to you," said 
 Philip kindly. " Only, I say, that belongs to the lost case, 
 doesn't it?" 
 
 " That's not the point," said his father, with a smile. 
 " The ceremony was the point, if you had seen his eyes. 
 Ceremonies are bound to be." 
 
 " Well, I'll let my uncle know that, when he next gets 
 on the question of your authority." Turning, Philip added, 
 " Hullo, Jesp, you look serious." 
 
 The artist, crumpling his soft hat, had moved to their 
 side. 
 
 " I am," he said. " Excuse me, Mr. Edgell, but it's past a 
 joke. Antoine has given that young rip the key of Le- 
 maure's front door, which he brought off by mistake." 
 
 " Jacques ? My — aunt ! " The two Englislimen and the 
 Swede looked at one another. 
 
 " He has full information as to where the fiddle is kept — 
 the unimportant fiddle of the three, you know ; and your 
 uncle's hours, Phil, and a scribbled introduction to the 
 concierge. If that's not complete — what do you think? " 
 
 " They're only skylarking," said Philip, having gazed at 
 what was visible of Jacques during the pause. " What do 
 you say. Papa?" 
 
FINALE 637 
 
 "Depends what the national notion of a skylark is," sai<l 
 Jem. 
 
 " Just so, Mr. Edgell," said Jesperscn earnestly. " W^ell 
 now, I can tell you, as it happens. Ostrowski's a mixture, 
 chiefly Russian and Pole. Axel's a London Jew. Char- 
 retteur, I should say, is a French gipsy. Antoine is — well, 
 I leave his origin to you — I only know he's off his head. I 
 should suggest, between them all, you're in for losing a 
 thousand pounds before the week's out." 
 
 "Who's the ringleader?" said Jem, the usual pause be- 
 tween Northerners having elapsed. 
 
 " Jacques, of course. He's the quietest, too — young fer- 
 ret." 
 
 " Bother." Jem glanced once at his watch, once at the 
 distant Charretteur. " Well, I'm inclined to trust him, to 
 tell the truth. But if you like, I'll tackle Tony." 
 
 "If I like!" said Jespersen, laughing. 
 
 " En voiture ! " the guard interrupted, shouldering down 
 the train. 
 
 " I'm related to one of the gang, you see," said Edgell, 
 giving the young artist his hand. " Of course he's no right 
 to be handing keys about ; but I have a notion — now — this 
 one hasn't much value. You're the eldest of these young 
 fellows, aren't you? — and enjoy a quiet life. Well, I know 
 what it is." He turned his head of a sudden. " Catch 
 that kid for me, will you, Phil? He means to be left, after 
 all. Con — found " 
 
 It was a close thing; for Antoine, at the last, seemed to 
 lose all objection to being left. He embraced most of his 
 circle, and got a cuff from two of them for attempting it, 
 including his brother. Philip took him by the scruff, and his 
 father scooped him in and upward with a long arm, just in 
 time. It was a beautiful exhibition of sleight of hand, much 
 like a capable " pass " at football, and it left the ring of 
 Frenchmen laughing. Fortunately, also, Antoine emerged 
 from it with his breath quite unimpaired ; so that he was 
 
638 SUCCESSION 
 
 able to shout a last insult to Ostrowski from the platform 
 of the train. 
 
 When the little company of friends, having watched the 
 train out of sight, gathered to depart, they naturally looked 
 about for Philip, whom it would be necessary to protect 
 and console in the noisiest fashion possible, for the re- 
 mainder of the evening. But they were too late, for the 
 object of their kind intentions had already vanished, with- 
 out ostentation or apology, among the shadows of the 
 sparsely lighted platform. 
 
 " Jacques wants to marry Yvonne," Antoine broke silence 
 in the train, having gazed for a pensive period at the sunset 
 sky, when they had left the station glooms behind them 
 finally. 
 
 " Good Lord," said Jem, disturbed. " You might give 
 us more warning, Tony." 
 
 " I couldn't, you see," said Antoine, " because that was all 
 a secret." 
 
 " There's nothing in it, anyway," said his father, having 
 considered. " I was talking to the girl only last night, and 
 she didn't seem " 
 
 " Hein ? " said Antoine. 
 
 " It's no evidence," Jem admitted. " You can go on 
 talking for the present." 
 
 Antoine obliged him. " I said," he proceeded, " that I 
 thought Yvonne would not mind marrying him ; but, of 
 course, we are not sure if my aunt would let her." 
 
 " What did Jacques reply to that ? " 
 
 " He said No, I won't," decided Antoine. " He 
 
 oughtn't to say those things, about my aunt." 
 
 Jem still pondered, for he felt a responsibility. " The 
 girl's too young," he said. 
 
 " Oh," said Antoine, surprised. " I thought Yvonne 
 was rather old. But I told Jacques she must stay a little at 
 Brackenhall, because la petite Vivette could not go there 
 till the spring." 
 
FINALE 639 
 
 " And who may that be ? " 
 
 " You remember, papa,'' said Antoine, rather shocked. 
 " The little sister of Yvonne at Porslanec — la toute petite. 
 Yvonne said she could teach her if she had her a month in 
 the house." 
 
 " Ah." Jem regarded him fixedly. " Does she commonly 
 consult you on her affairs ? " he demanded. 
 
 " I know about some of them," said Antoine, looking 
 pleasantly back. " There was the electric man — very clever 
 — you would have liked him, papa. But Yvonne said he 
 was not distingue, do you see? Jacques is different, of 
 course. Jacques is distingue — very." His expression be- 
 came pensive and affectionate again. Jem was silent, think- 
 ing of the doorkey. He had an idea that the question of 
 distinction was one on which he and Antoine could never 
 agree, so he did not pursue the subject. 
 
 " Only he does have some horrible expressions," added 
 Antoine, after the pause. 
 
 His father had quite an uncomfortable curiosity to know 
 what the one about Madame had been. He had himself 
 an acquaintance with various layers of Paris slang; but he 
 had little doubt Antoine's distinguished friend's repertoire 
 was wider and deeper too. 
 
 "Don't you like him, papa?" said Antoine, wriggling a 
 little in order to face his father, who sat opposite. 
 
 " I might with an effort," said Jem. " But why should I 
 try?" 
 
 " Because he is a kind man — and a beautiful artist — and 
 he has been my friend." 
 
 " Has been." James commented on the tense. " Has 
 Mademoiselle Yvonne knocked you out? " 
 
 " No, no — I did not mean that. Beautiful sun there — 
 look." 
 
 " I want to know about ' has been.' " 
 
 "It is not English?" Antoine queried, shyly rather, as 
 he looked aside. 
 
640 SUCCESSION 
 
 " Yes. But what does it mean in your little French 
 mind? " 
 
 " Certainly I had an idea when I said it," the boy said. 
 He flung himself at the view again. " Look at those win- 
 dows shining," he cried. " That is Paris — I love that town." 
 
 " The sun shines on as good," observed Jem. 
 
 " You think it is too old," said the boy, catching the 
 implication on the instant. " You could have made Paris 
 better yourself, papa." He screwed a look at him, laughing 
 with dazzled eyes, and leant out to see the last of the tall 
 sunlit houses, where he had let his affections dwell so long. 
 " It is so beautiful that it hurts my eyes," he gasped, fall- 
 ing back into his place when the last swung out of sight. 
 
 " Your mistake for looking back at old things," Jem 
 moralised. " Let's see your eyes," he added, after an in- 
 terval. 
 
 " I am sorry," said Antoine, showing them. " I thought 
 that was finished last night, but it was not. I know — with- 
 out grandpapa in the Avenue — it does not really matter. I 
 am really quite glad to come with you " 
 
 " Either cry or talk," Jem advised. " Not both at once." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Well, you won't have steam enough to work the car." 
 
 " But there is something I wanted to tell you — amusing." 
 
 " That's it. I don't care to be amused, while you suffer." 
 
 " Don't you ? " A clutch. " I like how you say that, 
 papa. But this is a curious thing that happened yesterday, 
 about old things, do you see? And when I have" — he 
 paused to blow his nose — " done that, I will tell you. I 
 forgot the word for blowing just then, that was why I 
 stopped." 
 
 " Stop altogether," said Jem, taking a firm hold of his 
 wrists. " There are two years ahead for you to tell me 
 everything, remember that." 
 
 " I remember it — tant mieux. Only this, I might forget. 
 . . . For days and days before Ribiera's rehearsal, I 
 had believed my quintet was all right. When I gave it to 
 
 ^ 
 
FINALE 641 
 
 Victor, I found it beautiful — extremely. But when I heard 
 it played at that house " — a gesture — " no longer so good." 
 
 " Performance not up to the mark? " queried Jem. 
 
 " Papa ! But you were there ! " Antoine flashed him a 
 look in reproach. " It is only the ideas were not so good — as 
 I had thought. Altogether, I believe, they are better in 
 the overture." He patted his pocket absently. *' But it will 
 need a big orchestra to play that, and perhaps two." 
 
 " I can't think of anywhere we can pick up two orches- 
 tras for the moment," said Jem, having pondered, " but I'll 
 see." 
 
 " I don't want them yet," explained Antoine. " You see 
 it is not written at present. Only it was extraordinary, 
 wasn't it, about Ribiera's quintet? You see, my idea had 
 been quite wrong. Just reading it again, instead of having 
 it played in that beautiful way — I might have thrown it 
 away. Perhaps even yesterday ! — if Ribiera had not rather 
 — rather held to playing it." 
 
 " Awful," said Jem, with sympathy. " Makes you quite 
 nervous thinking of it." Antoine's eyes, having rested on 
 the fading sky a little, came to his. " Any other old thing 
 you'd like to throw away, my dear? There's that violin 
 — or me. We're neither of us exactly up to date." 
 
 " Cher papa," Antoine murmured. His smile was in 
 polite protest. It expressed quite a measure of toleration 
 for " old things " and Jem's outworked generation. But 
 he was evidently not attending very closely, and his hand 
 was over his heart, where the notebook also was. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 BERKELEY 
 
 Return to desk from which borrowed. 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 25Jan'5lAt^ 
 
 REC^D L^ 
 
 OCT 2 3 li^b; 
 
 fiECDLD JUL 
 
 . iy/2 
 
 if 
 
 .•> 
 
 <Si^ 
 
 .-< 
 
 'JUL 6 WTO 8 
 
 1070 -2PM 6 
 
 <9 
 
 \ 
 
 LD 21-100m-ll,'49(B7146sl6)476 
 
 
Q^Lll^l 
 
 4 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY