must tell me!"
"I thought it was the beautiful lady who was with you the first time you saw the battlement garden at Beaucaire, who ruined your life?"
"Beautiful lady—battlement garden? Good heavens, what extraordinary things we seem to have been thinking about each other: I with my man in England; you with your beautiful lady—"
"She's a different thing. You talked to me about her," I insisted. "Surely you must remember?"
"I remember the conversation perfectly. I didn't explain my meaning as a professor demonstrates a rule in higher mathematics, but I thought you couldn't help understanding well enough, especially a vain little thing like you."
"I, vain? Oh!"
"You are, aren't you?"
"I—well, I'm afraid I am, a little."
"You could never have looked in the glass if you weren't. Didn't you see, or guess, that I was talking about an Ideal whom I had conjured into being, as a desirable companion in that garden? I can't understand from the way the conversation ran, how you could have helped it. When I first went to the battlement garden I was several years younger, steeped with the spirit of Provence and full of thoughts of Nicolete. I was just sentimental enough to imagine that such a girl as Nicolete was with me there, and always afterward I associated the vision of the Ideal with that garden. I said to myself, that I should like to come there again with that Ideal in the flesh. And then—then I did come again—with you."
"But you said—you thought of her always—that because you couldn't have her—or something of the sort—"
"Well, all that was no surprise to you, was it? You must have known perfectly well—ever since that night at Avignon when you let your hair down, anyhow, if not before, that I was trying desperately hard not to be an idiot about you—and not exactly radiant with joy in the thought that whoever the man was who would get you, it couldn't be I?"
"O-oh!" I breathed a long, heavenly breath, that seemed to let all the sorrows and worries pour out of my heart, as the air rushed out of my lungs. "O-oh, you can't mean, truly and really, that you're in love with Me, can you?"
"Surely it isn't news to you."
"I should think it was!" I exclaimed, rapturously. "Oh, I'm so happy!"
"Another scalp—though a humble one?"
"Don't be a beast. I'm so horribly in love with you, you know. It's been hurting so dreadfully."
Then I rather think he said "My darling!" but I'm not quite sure, for I was so busy falling into his arms, and he was holding me so very, very tightly.
We stayed like that for a long time, not saying anything, and not even thinking, but feeling—feeling. And the couriers' dining-room was a princess's boudoir in an enchanted palace. The grease spots were stars and moons that had rolled out of heaven to see how two poor mortals looked when they were perfectly happy. Just a poor chauffeur and a motor maid: but the world was theirs.
Chapter XXXII
After a while we talked again, and explained all the cross-purposes to each other, with the most interesting pauses in between the explanations. And Jack told me about himself, and Miss Paget.
It seems that her only sister was his mother, and she had been in love with his father before he met the sister. The father's name was Claud, and Jack was named after him. It was Miss Paget's favourite name, because of the man she had loved. But the first Claud wasn't very lucky. He lost all his own money and most of his wife's, and died in South America, where he'd gone in the hope of making more. Then the wife, Jack's mother, died too, while he was at Eton. After that Miss Paget's house was his home. Whenever he was extravagant at Oxford, as he was sometimes, she would pay his debts quite happily, and tell him that everything she had would be his some day, so he was not to bother about money. Accordingly, he didn't bother, but lived rather a lazy life—so he said—and enjoyed himself. A couple of years before I met him he got interested, through a friend, in a newly invented motor, which they both thought would be a wonderful success. Jack tried to get his aunt interested, too, but she didn't like the friend who had invented it—seemed jealous of Jack's affection for him—and refused to have anything to do with the affair. Jack had gone so far, however, while taking her consent for granted, that he felt bound to go on; and when Miss Paget would have nothing to do with floating the new invention, Jack sold out the investments of his own little fortune (all that was left of his mother's money), putting everything at his friend's disposal. Miss Paget was disgusted with him for doing this, and when the motor wouldn't mote and the invention wouldn't float, she just said, "I told you so!"
It was at this time, Jack went on to tell me, that Miss Paget bought Beau. She had had another dog, given her by Jack, which died, and she collected Beau herself. Only a few days after Beau's arrival, Jack went down into the country to see his aunt and talk things over; for she had brought him up to expect to be her heir; and as she wanted him with her continually, as if he had been her son, she had objected to his taking up any profession. Now that he'd lost his own money in this unfortunate speculation, he felt he ought to do something not to be dependent upon her, his income of two hundred a year having been sunk with the unfloatable motor invention. He meant to ask Miss Paget to lend him enough to go in as partner with another friend, who had a very thriving motor business, and to suggest paying her back so much a year. But everything was against him on that visit to his aunt's country house.
In the first place, she was in a very bad humour with him, because he had gone against her wishes, and she didn't want to hear anything more about motors or motor business. Then, there was Beau, as a tertium quid.
Beau had been bought from a dreadful man who had probably stolen, and certainly ill-treated him. The dog was very young, and owing to his late owner's cruelty, feared and hated the sight of a man. Since she had had him Miss Paget had done her very best to spoil the poor animal, encouraging him to growl at the men-servants, and laughing when he frightened away any male creature who had come about the place. While she and Jack were arguing over money and motors, who should stroll in but Beau, who at sight of a stranger—a man—closeted with his indulgent mistress, flew into a rage. He seized Jack by the trouser-leg and began to worry it, and Jack had to choke him before the dog would let go his grip.
The sight of this dreadful deed threw Miss Paget into hysterics. She shrieked that her nephew was cruel, ungrateful—that he had never loved her, that he cared only for her money, and now that he grudged her the affection of a dog with which he had had nothing to do; that the dog's dislike for him was a warning to her, and made her see him in his true light at last. "Go—go—out of my sight—or I'll set my poor darling at you!" she cried, and Jack went, after saying several rather frank things.
At heart he was fond of his aunt, in spite of her eccentricities, and believed that she was of him, therefore he expected a letter of apology for her injustice and a request to come back. But no such letter ever arrived. Perhaps Miss Paget thought it was his place to apologize, and was waiting for him to do so. In any case, they had never seen each other again; and after a few weeks, Jack received a formal note from his aunt's solicitor saying that, as she realized now he had "no real affection for her or hers" he need look for no future advantages from her, but was at liberty to take up any line of business he chose. Miss Paget would "no longer attempt to interfere with his wishes or direct his affairs."
This must have been a pleasant letter for a penniless young man, just robbed of all his future prospects. His own money gone, and no hope of any to put into a profession or business! Jack lived as he could for some months, trying for all sorts of positions, making a few guineas by sketches and motoring articles for newspapers, and somehow contriving to keep out of debt. He went to France to "write up" a great automobile race, as a special commission; but the paper which had given the commission—a new one devoted to the interests of motoring—suddenly failed. Jack found himself stranded; advertised