*CHAPTER II*
*THE LADDER TO THE STARS*
Miss Benham was talking wearily to a strange fair youth with animpediment in his speech, and was wondering why the youth had been askedto this house, where in general one was sure of meeting only interestingpeople, when some one spoke her name, and she turned with a little sighof relief. It was Baron de Vries, the Belgian First Secretary ofLegation, an old friend of her grandfather's, a man made gentle andsweet by infinite sorrow. He bowed civilly to the fair youth and bentover the girl's hand.
"It is very good," he said, "to see you again in the world. We haveneed of you, _nous autres_. Madame your mother is well, I hope--and thebear?" He called old Mr. Stewart "the bear" in a sort of grave jest,and that fierce octogenarian rather liked it.
"Oh yes," the girl said, "we're all fairly well. My mother had one ofher headaches to-night and so didn't come here, but she's as well asusual, and 'the bear'--yes, he's well enough physically, I should think,but he has not been quite the same since--during the past month. It hastold upon him, you know. He grieves over it much more than he willadmit."
"Yes," said Baron de Vries gravely. "Yes, I know." He turned abouttowards the fair young man, but that youth had drifted away and joinedhimself to another group. Miss Benham looked after him and gave alittle exclamation of relief.
"That person was rather terrible," she said. "I can't think why he ishere. Marian so seldom has dull people."
"I believe," said the Belgian, "that he is some connexion of deSaulnes'. That explains his presence." He lowered his voice.
"You have heard no--news? They have found no trace?"
"No," said she. "Nothing. Nothing at all. I'm rather in despair. It'sall so hideously mysterious. I am sure, you know, that something hashappened to him. It's--very very hard. Sometimes I think I can't bearit. But I go on. We all go on."
Baron de Vries nodded his head strongly.
"That, my dear child, is just what you must do," said he. "You must goon. That is what needs the real courage and you have courage. I am notafraid for you. And sooner or later you will hear of him--from him. Itis impossible nowadays to disappear for very long. You will hear fromhim." He smiled at her, his slow grave smile that was not of mirth butof kindness and sympathy and cheer.
"And if I may say so," he said, "you are doing very wisely to come outonce more among your friends. You can accomplish no good by brooding athome. It is better to live one's normal life--even when it is not easyto do it. I say so who know."
The girl touched Baron de Vries' arm for an instant with her hand--alittle gesture that seemed to express thankfulness and trust andaffection.
"If all my friends were like you!" she said to him. And after that shedrew a quick breath as if to have done with these sad matters, and sheturned her eyes once more towards the broad room where the other guestsstood in little groups, all talking at once very rapidly and in loudvoices.
"What extraordinarily cosmopolitan affairs these dinner parties in newParis are!" she said. "They're like diplomatic parties, only we have abetter time and the men don't wear their orders. How many nationalitiesshould you say there are in this room now?"
"Without stopping to consider," said Baron de Vries, "I say ten." Theycounted, and out of fourteen people there were represented nine races.
"I don't see Richard Hartley," Miss Benham said. "I had an idea he wasto be here. Ah!" she broke off, looking towards the doorway.
"Here he comes now!" she said. "He's rather late. Who is theSpanish-looking man with him, I wonder? He's rather handsome, isn'the?"
Baron de Vries moved a little forward to look, and exclaimed in histurn. He said--
"Ah, I did not know he was returned to Paris. That is Ste. Marie." MissBenham's eyes followed the Spanish-looking young man as he made his waythrough the joyous greetings of friends towards his hostess.
"So that is Ste. Marie!" she said, still watching him. "The famous Ste.Marie!" She gave a little laugh.
"Well, I don't wonder at the reputation he bears for--gallantry and thatsort of thing. He looks the part, doesn't he?"
"Ye--es," admitted her friend. "Yes, he is sufficiently _beau garcon_.But--yes, well, that is not all, by any means. You must not get theidea that Ste. Marie is nothing but a genial and romantic youngsquire-of-dames. He is much more than that. He has very finequalities. To be sure he appears to possess no ambition in particular,but I should be glad if he were my son. He comes of a very old house,and there is no blot upon the history of that house--nothing butfaithfulness and gallantry and honour. And there is, I think, no blotupon Ste. Marie himself. He is fine gold."
The girl turned and stared at Baron de Vries with some astonishment.
"You speak very strongly," said she. "I have never heard you speak sostrongly of any one, I think."
The Belgian made a little deprecatory gesture with his two hands, and helaughed.
"Oh well, I like the boy. And I should hate to have you meet him forthe first time under a misconception. Listen, my child! When a youngman is loved equally by both men and women, by both old and young, thatyoung man is worthy of friendship and trust. Everybody likes Ste.Marie. In a sense that is his misfortune. The way is made too easy forhim. His friends stand so thick about him that they shut off his viewof the heights. To waken ambition in his soul he has need of solitudeor misfortune or grief.
"Or," said the elderly Belgian, laughing gently, "or perhaps the otherthing might do it best--the more obvious thing?"
The girl's raised eyebrows questioned him and, when he did not answer,she said--
"What thing then?"
"Why, love," said Baron de Vries. "Love, to be sure. Love is said towork miracles, and I believe that to be a perfectly true saying. Ah! heis coming here."
The Marquise de Saulnes, who was a very pretty little Englishwoman witha deceptively doll-like look, approached, dragging Ste. Marie in herwake. She said--
"My dearest dear, I give you of my best. Thank me, and cherish him! Ibelieve he is to lead you to the place where food is, isn't he?" Shebeamed over her shoulder, and departed, and Miss Benham found herselfconfronted by the Spanish-looking man.
Her first thought was that he was not as handsome as he had seemed at adistance but something much better. For a young man she thought hisface was rather oddly weather-beaten, as if he might have been very muchat sea, and it was too dark to be entirely pleasing. But she liked hiseyes, which were not brown or black, as she had expected, but a veryunusual dark grey--a sort of slate colour.
And she liked his mouth too. It was her habit--and it is not anunreliable habit--to judge people by their eyes and mouth. Ste. Marie'smouth pleased her because the lips were neither thin nor thick, theywere not drawn into an unpleasant line by unpleasant habits, they didnot pout as so many Latin lips do, and they had at one corner a humorousexpression which she found curiously agreeable.
"You are to cherish me," Ste. Marie said. "Orders from headquarters.How does one cherish people?" The corner of his very expressive mouthtwitched and he grinned at her. Miss Benham did not approve of youngmen who began an acquaintance in this very familiar manner. She thoughtthat there was a certain preliminary and more formal stage which oughtto be got through with first, but Ste. Marie's grin was irresistible.In spite of herself she found that she was laughing.
"I don't quite know," she said. "It sounds rather appalling, doesn'tit? Marian has such an extraordinary fashion of hurling people at eachother's heads. She takes my breath away at times."
"Ah well," said Ste. Marie, "perhaps we can settle upon something whenI've led you to the place where food is. And, by the way, what are wewaiting for? Are we not all here? There's an even number." He brokeoff with a sudden exclamation of pleasure, and, when Miss Benham turnedto look, she found Baron de Vries, who had been talking to some friends,had once more come up to where she stood. She watched the greetin
gbetween the two men, and its quiet affection impressed her very much.She knew Baron de Vries well, and she knew that it was not his habit toshow or to feel a strong liking for young and idle men. This young manmust be very worth while to have won the regard of that wise oldBelgian.
Just then Hartley, who had been barricaded behind a cordon of friends,came up to her in an abominable temper over his ill luck, and, a fewmoments later, the dinner procession was formed and they went in.
At table Miss Benham found herself between Ste. Marie and the samestrange fair youth who had afflicted her in the drawing-room. Shelooked upon him now with a sort of dismayed terror, but it developedthat there was nothing to fear from the fair youth. He had no attentionto waste upon social amenities. He fell upon his food with a wolfishpassion extraordinary to see and also, alas! to hear. Miss Benhamturned from him to meet Ste. Marie's delighted eye.
"Tell him for me," begged that gentleman, "that soup should be seen--notheard." But Miss Benham gave a little shiver of disgust.
"I shall tell him nothing whatever," she said. "He's quite too dreadfulreally. People shouldn't be exposed to that sort of thing. It's notonly the noises. Plenty of very charming and estimable Germans, forexample, make strange noises at table. But he behaves like a famisheddog over a bone. I refuse to have anything to do with him. You mustmake up the loss to me, M. Ste. Marie. You must be as amusing as twopeople." She smiled across at him in her gravely questioning fashion.
"I'm wondering," she said, "if I dare ask you a very personal question.I hesitate because I don't like people who presume too much upon a shortacquaintance--and our acquaintance has been very very short, hasn't it?even though we may have heard a great deal about each other beforehand.I wonder."
"Oh, I should ask it, if I were you!" said Ste. Marie at once. "I'm anextremely good-natured person. And besides I quite naturally feelflattered at your taking interest enough to ask anything about me."
"Well," said she, "it's this. Why does everybody call you just 'Ste.Marie'? Most people are spoken of as Monsieur this or that--if thereisn't a more august title--but they all call you Ste. Marie without anyMonsieur. It seems rather odd."
Ste. Marie looked puzzled.
"Why," he said, "I don't believe I know, just. I'd never thought ofthat. It's quite true, of course. They never do use a Monsieur oranything, do they? How cheeky of them! I wonder why it is. I'll askHartley."
He did ask Hartley later on and Hartley didn't know either. Miss Benhamasked some other people, who were vague about it, and in the end shebecame convinced that it was an odd and quite inexplicable form ofsomething like endearment. But nobody seemed to have formulated it tohimself.
"The name is really 'de Ste. Marie'," he went on, "and there's a titlethat I don't use, and a string of Christian names that one employs. Mypeople were Bearnais, and there's a heap of ruins on top of a hill inthe Pyrenees where they lived. It used to be Ste. Marie deMont-les-Roses, but afterwards, after the Revolution, they called itSte. Marie de Mont Perdu. My great-grandfather was killed there, butsome old servants smuggled his little son away and saved him."
He seemed to Miss Benham to say that in exactly the right manner, not inthe cheap and scoffing fashion which some young men affect in speakingof ancestral fortunes or misfortunes, nor with too much solemnity. Andwhen she allowed a little silence to occur at the end he did not go onwith his family history, but turned at once to another subject. Itpleased her curiously.
The fair youth at her other side continued to crouch over his food,making fierce and animal-like noises. He never spoke or seemed to wishto be spoken to, and Miss Benham found it easy to ignore him altogether.It occurred to her once or twice that Ste. Marie's other neighbour mightdesire an occasional word from him, but after all, she said to herself,that was his affair and beyond her control. So these two talked togetherthrough the entire dinner period, and the girl was aware that she wasbeing much more deeply affected by the simple magnetic charm of a manthan ever before in her life. It made her a little angry, because shewas unfamiliar with this sort of thing and distrusted it. She was arather perfect type of that phenomenon before which the British andContinental world stands in mingled delight and exasperation--theAmerican unmarried young woman, the creature of extraordinary beauty andstill more extraordinary poise, the virgin with the bearing and _savoirfaire_ of a woman of the world, the fresh-cheeked girl with the calmmind of a _savant_ and the cool judgment, in regard to men and things,of an ambassador. The European world says she is cold, and that may betrue; but it is well enough known that she can love very deeply. Itsays that, like most queens, and for precisely the same set of reasons,she later on makes a bad mother; but it is easy to point to queens whoare the best of mothers. In short, she remains an enigma, and like allother enigmas forever fascinating.
Miss Benham reflected that she knew almost nothing about Ste. Marie,save for his reputation as a carpet knight, and Baron de Vries' goodopinion, which could not be despised. And that made her the moredispleased when she realised how promptly she was surrendering to hischarm. In a moment of silence she gave a sudden little laugh whichseemed to express a half-angry astonishment.
"What was that for?" Ste. Marie demanded. The girl looked at him for aninstant and shook her head.
"I can't tell you," said she. "That's rude, isn't it, and I'm sorry.Perhaps I will tell you one day when we know each other better."
But inwardly she was saying: "Why, I suppose this is how they all begin:all these regiments of women who make fools of themselves about him! Isuppose this is exactly what he does to them all!"
It made her angry and she tried quite unfairly to shift the anger, as itwere, to Ste. Marie--to put him somehow in the wrong. But she was bynature very just and she could not quite do that, particularly as it wasevident that the man was using no cheap tricks. He did not try to flirtwith her and he did not attempt to pay her veiled compliments--thoughshe was often aware that when her attention was diverted for a fewmoments his eyes were always upon her, and that is a compliment that fewwomen can find it in their hearts to resent.
"You say," said Ste. Marie, "'when we know each other better.' May onetwist that into a permission to come and see you--I mean, really seeyou, not just leave a card at your door to-morrow by way of observingthe formalities?"
"Yes," she said. "Oh yes, one may twist it into something like thatwithout straining it unduly, I think. My mother and I shall be veryglad to see you. I'm sorry she is not here to-night to say it herself."
Then the hostess began to gather together her flock, and so the two hadno more speech. But when the women had gone and the men were left aboutthe dismantled table, Hartley moved up beside Ste. Marie and shook a sadhead at him. He said--
"You're a very lucky being. I was quietly hoping, on the way here, thatI should be the fortunate man, but you always have all the luck. I hopeyou're decently grateful."
"_Mon vieux_," said Ste. Marie, "my feet are upon the stars."
"No!" He shook his head as if the figure displeased him. "No, my feetare upon the ladder to the stars. Grateful? What does a foolish wordlike grateful mean? Don't talk to me. You are not worthy to trampleamong my magnificent thoughts. I am a god upon Olympus."
"You said just now," objected the other man practically, "that your feetwere on a ladder. There are no ladders from Olympus to the stars."
"Ho!" said Ste. Marie. "Ho! aren't there, though? There shall beladders all over Olympus if I like. What do you know about gods andstars? I shall be a god climbing to the heavens, and I shall be anangel of light, and I shall be a miserable worm grovelling in the nighthere below, and I shall be a poet, and I shall be anything else I happento think of, all of them at once, if I choose. And you, you shall be thetongue-tied son of perfidious Albion that you are, gaping at mysplendours from a fog bank--a November fog bank in May. Who is thedessicated gentleman bearing down upon us?"