The Little French Girl
PART II

CHAPTER VII

He had mounted the steps, head bent, hands thrust deeply into his pockets, and had actually cast himself into a garden-chair before he saw that he was not alone. Over there in the corner near the little table where the reviews and newspapers were laid, and the fluttering vines tempered the sunlight, sat monsieur de Maubert, a book upon his knee and his eyeglasses on his nose. He was looking above them, across at Giles, and the young man was terribly disconcerted in seeing him.

“I beg your pardon,” he muttered; “I didn’t know anybody was here.”

“I have only just returned,” said monsieur de Maubert in his Olympian tones, “and there is no occasion for apology. You were coming fast and you were thinking deep. You seem disturbed, Monsieur. Has anything occurred to incommode you?”

Giles had pulled his chair around a little so that he faced monsieur de Maubert and as he heard the suave question he suddenly determined to answer it. Whatever monsieur de Maubert’s past relation to madame Vervier, he felt assured from what he had observed that his present one was based on a disinterested devotion. If he must try to persuade madame Vervier to give Alix up to them, it would assuredly be as well to gain monsieur de Maubert’s sympathy.

“To tell you the truth, I am incommoded,” he said. “I’ve had a very nasty shock. Is that right? Un mauvais coup?—Well, you understand, I’m sure. We’re so fond of Alix, all of us, my mother and brothers and sisters; she almost seems to belong to us; and I’ve just been hearing two women talking at the tennis about her, and her mother; and about her future. Nice women. And they seemed to think there wasn’t any future for her except the theatre.”

“Well?” monsieur de Maubert removed his glasses as if for a more unimpeded observation of his companion. “And what is amiss with the theatre? You did not, evidently, suppose that they narrowed the opportunities of a young girl such as Alix to that career only; but it will suffice for the argument. What is amiss with it? It may be a great career for a woman of talent. Our friend mademoiselle Fontaine, for example, has made for herself a distinguished name.”

Giles felt that his face was hot, but he went doggedly on: “I know. I’m not belittling it. But, from the way they spoke, I infer it’s not what it is with us.”

“A playground for pretty amateurs? A display of dressmakers’ mannequins? No; it is not. We are a more serious people than you when it comes to art.”

Giles was not to be abashed. “With us it is one honourable alternative among others. It’s a career any young girl can follow, except among old-fashioned, prejudiced people. And I mean young girls of good character; of good standing.”

“What you mean, I think,” said monsieur de Maubert, “is that with us it is not seen as a suitable career for a jeune fille du monde. Alix is not a jeune fille du monde.”

“No; I don’t mean only that,” said Giles.

“Or perhaps that it is not with us a career pour une vierge,” monsieur de Maubert further defined. “There you are right. I do not easily imagine a great actress who is not also a woman of experience. That is all that it comes to, is it not?”

Giles wondered for a moment if this, indeed, was all that it came to for him. He had not thought of it in those terms, and it gave him an added chill to find that monsieur de Maubert did. “What it comes to for me,” he said, “is that I don’t think it a suitable career for Alix;—precisely because of what you say; and what’s more, I don’t believe her mother does, either.”

At this monsieur de Maubert was silent for some moments, and in the silence Giles felt anew that, ambiguous, even sinister as he might be, his sympathy could be counted upon where any interest of madame Vervier’s was in question. If he reflected thus carefully, it was, Giles felt, because from Alix they had passed to madame Vervier.

“You are right. Her mother is with you,” he said at last, surprisingly. “It is because she is with you that she sent the child last winter. She sees the difficulties that you see. She would prefer, to any artistic career in France, that Alix should marry in England. Marriage is what she intends for her. She would, I am sure, be glad to talk of any possibilities for Alix with you.”

“I hope she’ll let me have a talk with her; I’m glad of what you tell me,” Giles muttered, though bewildered by monsieur de Maubert’s calm assumptions.

And he was going on as calmly: “For myself, I do not know that I am in agreement with her. Where her child is concerned, she shows, at times, for a woman so gifted and so sagacious, a certain conventionality of outlook. She who, for herself, has chosen the path of freedom, should have more courage for her child.”

“Isn’t it something of a criticism of the path of freedom that she doesn’t choose it for her child?” Giles felt himself impelled to comment. “Aren’t all mothers conventional when it comes to their daughters? Isn’t convention, in that sense, only another name for safety?”

“Ah; you are a shrewd young man,” said monsieur de Maubert with a smile. “Perhaps it is. Personally I feel that for our little friend the free life of the artist would be a happier one than the life of the English country lady. That life, for a vivid, vigorous nature such as hers, would be, I should imagine, bornée; fade.”

“I don’t see why it should,” said Giles. “But I wasn’t thinking of country ladies, or of marriage at all. We don’t think of marriage like that. I thought of Alix making her living in England. I thought of a life where she would have love and respect about her and be useful and happy.”

“I do not think that such a prospect would at all attract her mother,” monsieur de Maubert remarked. “I do not see what more advantage it offers than a similar life in France. Do you consider, then, that madame Vervier has not love and respect about her and is not useful and happy?”

Giles at this, struck to silence, sat staring at monsieur de Maubert.

“You have doubtless,” monsieur de Maubert continued—and Giles saw that it was not through any inadvertence that he had thus placed the situation of madame Vervier squarely between them; without any embarrassment, without any hesitation, he calmly selected the theme—“you have doubtless heard those women speaking of our hostess as if they did not respect her.”

“Not quite that,” Giles muttered. “They spoke merely as if she didn’t count with them at all.”

“And do you imagine,” monsieur de Maubert inquired, “that they count with her?”

In spite of his confusion Giles could answer this question immediately. “They count with her for Alix,” he said.

“For Alix?” monsieur de Maubert mildly, yet perhaps not quite ingenuously, questioned.

“You’ve owned to it yourself,” said Giles. “It’s their life she’d want for Alix. The safe life. The respected life. She’d rather that Alix should marry one of their sons than be the most wonderful of actresses.”

“It may be so. Gifted and sagacious people have their weaknesses. You speak again of respect,” said monsieur de Maubert. “All those who are honoured with her friendship respect madame Vervier. You speak of marriage. What wife can hope for adoration? Madame Vervier is adored as well as respected.”

“I should have said that a wife could hope for adoration—and for fidelity as well,” Giles returned.

“Very rarely,” monsieur de Maubert smiled. “And I do not imagine that our hostess—of whom I speak thus openly because I see that between us there is nothing to conceal—has ever had to fear infidelity. She is in the fortunate position of a woman free to choose. She gives happiness when and to whom she wishes.”

Giles sat battling with a confusion of thoughts. He had not meant to discuss madame Vervier with anybody. It was horrible to him that he and monsieur de Maubert should thus be discussing her. But without implying her present it was impossible to discuss Alix’s future. “I don’t call it fortunate,” he said. “I don’t call it happiness.”

“You do not call it happiness to love and to be loved?” monsieur de Maubert inquired. “You have, perhaps, mystic consolations, monsieur Giles; but to the majority of our poor humanity this will always remain the one authentic happiness of life.”

“We have different ideas,” said Giles. “I don’t see love like that. When you speak of her giving happiness, you mean, I suppose, that she has had a great many lovers. That is what those women said. I think that a tragic life, you see; and the more tragic, the more lovely the woman is who leads it.”

“A great many?” monsieur de Maubert weighed it. “Hardly that. She is a serious, not a frivolous woman; and beauty accompanies her always.”

“You see, we have different ideas,” Giles heavily repeated, looking down and tugging at the wicker of his chair. “A love that can be repeated over and over, I don’t call love.”

“Bonté divine!” monsieur de Maubert laughed suddenly among the vines. “A fountain cannot throw itself into the air repeatedly and remain itself? Spring cannot return to us again and again? It is with our hearts as with nature; a renewal; a discovery of fresh beauty. And since we are all different, with each new love there is the discovery of new beauty.”

“Love to me means nothing—worse than nothing—unless it means dedication; permanence; unity,” said Giles.

“Ah, but then it ceases to be love,” said monsieur de Maubert, “and becomes duty, affection, the joys and cares of the foyer; what the wives—if they are fortunate—may count on. A young man like you is surely aware of the difference between love the passion, and love the affection. We feel the latter for our wives and mothers; we feel something very different for our mistresses.—You will agree to that, I think.”

“I’ve never had a mistress,” said Giles.

“Tiens!” It was an exclamation of blended amusement, astonishment and most courteous respect for a strange idiosyncrasy, and Giles saw monsieur de Maubert in his dappled sunlight opening large eyes.

“What I’d like to ask you, if I may,” said Giles, “is what you feel for mistress number one when mistress number two has deposed her; and what you feel for number two when you are devoting yourself to number three. You can’t feel passion for them all, at the same time, I suppose. The present lady preoccupies you. What of the others, then? Have they ceased to arouse any solicitude or interest?”

“From the fact that they are gone, far less,” monsieur de Maubert owned, shifting himself now in his chair the better to contemplate his companion. “One may think of them with gratitude or regret; with pain or indifference. One may have been abandoned, or one may have found oneself ceasing to desire. A man of honour will do all in his power for the woman who has been dear to him; who may still be dear. Affection and trust may still be there, though passion has burned itself away.”

“That must fill your time,” Giles muttered, “pretty considerably.”

“Ah, it might”—if monsieur de Maubert felt the dryness of the young man’s tone he did not stoop to any retaliation; he was all kindliness—“but charming women are rarely in need of consolation. Is not the fact you will not face, my idealistic young friend, the fact, simply, that passion, the flame, does burn out? That is a law of life. You will not alter it with all your ascetic moralities. And shall we turn from the flame, its ardour and beauty, because it cannot burn for ever? That would be an anchorite’s error. Let us burn with it and rejoice, until it sinks. Unfortunately, the time of renewal passes,” monsieur de Maubert sighed. “Spring goes, and Summer goes, and even of Autumn there is little left. Winter approaches and one grows old.”

Giles sat silent looking out to sea. The things he held to be of infinite value were invisible to monsieur de Maubert. The things monsieur de Maubert held to be of value were clearly visible to him. He saw the beauty of flame and fountain and the old paganism in his human heart echoed to the thought of love the passion. But he saw something else, that underlay them all, not contradicting, as monsieur de Maubert imagined, but completing them. What that something was it would be useless to describe. If one had come to life asking only of each moment what it gave and never what it meant, one became blinded to the meaning.

Sadness fell between them sitting there, and presently monsieur de Maubert said, showing that he felt it, “Well, the sun is setting; I will go in. You are sorry for me and I am sorry for you.—Do we terminate our discussion in a mutual sympathy?”

He had risen from his chair with a rather porpoise-like roll of his stout white body and stood, complete, assured, benevolent, looking down at Giles; and Giles wondered, looking up at him, whether the price one paid for such completeness was just that blindness.

“I suppose there is sympathy,” he vaguely murmured. “I’m afraid it’s true, though. I think you quite as wrong as you think me.”

“Ah, when you are as old as I am,” said monsieur de Maubert, unperturbed, “you will think differently. You will by then, assuredly, intelligent as you are, have learned to make a better use of your time. You will have learned to round out your life by a richer experience.”

Giles, too, had risen, and he could almost have laughed as he listened; it struck him as so comic, with its sadness, that the traditional rôles of youth and age should be thus reversed. “You will have learned,” monsieur de Maubert was going on, “to accept the full gamut of our human nature. There remains nothing, nothing, for the anchorite in his desert—let me assure you of it—but the handful of sand his dying hand clutches at. He has had, you will say, his mirage with which to console himself. That is a sorry consolation at the end. Accept reality, my young friend. Accept the full gamut. Neglect none of the strings of your violin. It is broken all too soon. And what more sad than to have stopped your ears against its sweetest melody?”

“What, indeed?” said Giles. There was hardly irony in his voice. It was contemplative rather. And smiling at monsieur de Maubert as they stood there in the sunset, he added: “We want different things.” That simile of the unheard melody summed it up.

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