The Greatest Works of Marie Belloc Lowndes. Marie Belloc Lowndes
will excuse the question, is she a nice lady? It will make a great difference to me--"
"Yes, yes--she is very charming, very pretty."
He could not bring himself to inform the good woman that the lady who had come with him, and who was now waiting outside the house, claimed to be Mrs. Dampier. It would be too--too unpleasant if it turned out to be--well, a mistake!
The Senator was telling himself ruefully that though there was now ample evidence of the existence of John Dampier, there was not evidence at all as yet that the artist had ever been at the Hôtel Saint Ange: still less that the young Englishwoman who had just now refused to accompany him into the studio was John Dampier's wife. However, that fact, as she had herself pointed out rather piteously, could very soon be put to the proof.
Slowly Senator Burton left the studio and made his way into the open air, where Nancy was waiting for him.
"Well?" he said questioningly. "Well, Mrs. Dampier, what is it that you would like to do now?"
"I don't know what I ought to do," said Nancy helplessly. She had again become very pale and she looked bewildered, as well as distressed. "You see I felt so sure that we should find Jack here!"
"The only thing I can suggest your doing," the American spoke kindly, if a little coldly, "is to come back with me to the Hôtel Saint Ange. It is probable that we shall find Mr. Dampier there, waiting for you. A dozen things may have happened to him, none of which need give you any cause for anxiety." He pulled out his watch. "Hum! It's close on twelve--yes, the only thing to do is to go back to the hotel. It's almost certain we shall find him there--" it was on his lips to add, "if he really did come with you last night," but he checked himself in time.
"But Mr. Burton? Suppose Jack is not there?"
"If he doesn't return within the next two or three hours, then I will consult with my son, who, young though he be, has a very good head on his shoulders, as to what will be the best step for you to take. But don't let's meet trouble half-way! I have little doubt that we shall find Mr. Dampier waiting for you, vowing vengeance against the bold man who has eloped, even with the best of motives, with his wife!" he smiled, and poor Nancy gave a quivering smile in return.
"I should so much have preferred not to go back to that hotel," she said, in a low voice. "I do hope Jack won't make me stay on there for the next two or three days."
And with the remembrance of what she had considered to be the gross insult put upon her by Madame Poulain, Nancy Dampier reddened deeply, while her new friend felt more and more bewildered and puzzled.
On the one hand Senator Burton had the testimony of three trustworthy persons that the young Englishwoman had arrived alone at the hotel the night before; and against this positive testimony there was nothing but her bare word.
Very, very reluctantly, he felt compelled to believe the Poulains' version of what had happened. He could think of no motive--in fact there was no motive--which could prompt a false assertion on their part.
As they were driving back, each silent, each full of painful misgivings, the kindly American began to wonder whether he had not met with that, if rare yet undoubted, condition known as entire loss of memory.
If, as Madame Poulain had suggested, Mr. Dampier had left his wife just before their arrival at the hotel, was it not conceivable that by some kind of kink in Mrs. Dampier's brain--the kind of kink which brings men and women to entertain, when otherwise sane, certain strange delusions--she had imagined the story she now told with so much circumstantial detail and clearness?
When they were nearing the hotel, Nancy put her hand nervously on her companion's arm.
"Mr. Burton," she whispered, "I'm horribly afraid of the Poulains! I keep thinking of such dreadful things."
"Now look here, Mrs. Dampier--" Senator Burton turned, and looking down into her agitated face, spoke gently and kindly--"though I quite admit to you these people's conduct must seem inexplicable, I feel sure you are wronging the Poulains. They are very worthy, respectable folk--I've known them long enough to vouch for that fact. This extraordinary misunderstanding, this mistake--for it must be either a misunderstanding or a mistake on some one's part--will soon be cleared up, so much is certain: till then I beg you not to treat them as enemies."
And yet even Senator Burton felt taken aback when he saw the undisguised annoyance, the keen irritation with which their return to the Hôtel Saint Ange was greeted by the woman to whom he had just given so good a certificate of character.
Madame Poulain was standing on the street side of the open porte cochère, as the carriage drove down the narrow street, and the American was astonished to see the change which came over her face.
An angry, vindictive, even a cruel expression swept over it, and instead of waiting to greet them as the carriage drew up at the door she turned abruptly away, and shuffled out of sight.
"Wait a moment," he said, as the fiacre drew up, "don't get out of the carriage yet, Mrs. Dampier--"
And meekly Nancy obeyed him.
The Senator hurried through into the courtyard. Much would he have given, and he was a careful man, to have seen the image he had formed of Jack Dampier standing on the sun-flecked flagstones. But the broad space stretching before him was empty, deserted; during the daylight hours of each day the Exhibition drew every one away much as a honey cask might have done a hive of bees.
Madame Poulain did not come out of her kitchen as was her usual hospitable wont when she heard footsteps echoing under the vaulted porte cochère, and so her American guest had to go across, and walk right into her special domain.
"We did not find the gentleman at his studio," he said shortly, "and I presume, Madame Poulain, that he has not yet been here?"
She shook her head sullenly, and then, with none of her usual suavity, exclaimed, "I do not think, Monsieur le Sénateur, that you should have brought that demoiselle back here!"
She gave him so odd--some would have said, so insolent a look, that the Senator realised for the first time what he was to realise yet further in connection with this strange business, namely, that the many who go through life refusing to act the part of good Samaritans have at any rate excellent reasons for their abstention.
It was disagreeably dear that Madame Poulain thought him a foolish old man who had been caught by an adventuress's pretty face....
To their joint relief Monsieur Poulain came strolling into his wife's kitchen.
"I've been telling Monsieur le Sénateur," exclaimed Madame Poulain, "that we do not wish to have anything more to do with that young person who asserts that she arrived here with a man last night. Monsieur le Sénateur has too good a heart: he is being deceived."
The hotel-keeper looked awkwardly, deprecatingly, at his valued American client. "Paris is so full of queer people just now," he muttered. "They keep mostly to the other side of the river, to the Opera quarter, but we are troubled with them here too, during an Exhibition Year!"
"There is nothing at all queer about this poor young lady," said Senator Burton sharply--somehow the cruel insinuation roused him to chivalrous defence. But soon he changed his tone, "Now look here, my good friends"--he glanced from the husband to the wife--"surely you have both heard of people who have suddenly lost their memory, even to the knowledge of who they were and where they came from? Now I fear--I very much fear--that something of the kind has happened to this Mrs. Dampier! I am as sure that she is not consciously telling a lie as I am that you are telling me the truth. For one thing, I have ascertained that this lady's statement as to Mr. John Dampier having a studio in Paris, where he was expected this morning, is true. As to who she is herself that question can and will be soon set at rest. Meanwhile my daughter and myself"--and then he hesitated, for, well as he knew French, Senator Burton did not quite know how to convey his meaning, namely, that they, he and his daughter, meant to see her through. "My daughter and myself," he repeated firmly, "are going to do the best we can to help her."
Madame Poulain opened her lips--then she shut them tight again. She longed to tell "Monsieur