第33章 TWO AMERICANS(8)
"You have a great career before you.Those who help you must do so without entangling you; a chain of roses may be as impeding as lead.Until you are independent, you--who may in time compass everything yourself--will need to be helped.You know," she added with a smile, "you have but one arm.""In your kindness and appreciation you have made me forget it," he stammered.Yet he had a swift vision of the little bench at Versailles where he had NOT forgotten it, and as he glanced around the empty terrace where they stood he was struck with a fateful resemblance to it.
"And I should not remind you now of it," she went on, "except to say that money can always take its place.As in the fairy story, the prince must have a new arm made of gold." She stopped, and then suddenly coming closer to him said, hurriedly and almost fiercely, "Can you not see that I am advising you against my interests,--against myself? Go, then, to Paris, and go quickly, before I change my mind.Only if you do not find your friends there, remember you have always ONE here." Before he could reply, or even understand that white face, she was gone.
He left for Paris that afternoon.He went directly to the Rue de Frivole; his old resolution to avoid Helen was blown to the winds in the prospect of losing her utterly.But the concierge only knew that mademoiselle had left a day or two after monsieur had accompanied her home.And, pointedly, there was another gentleman who had inquired eagerly--and bountifully as far as money went--for any trace of the young lady.It was a Russe.The concierge smiled to himself at Ostrander's flushed cheek.It served this one-armed, conceited American poseur right.Mademoiselle was wiser in this SECOND affair.
Ostrander did not finish his picture.The princess sent him a cheque, which he coldly returned.Nevertheless he had acquired through his Russian patronage a local fame which stood him well with the picture dealers,--in spite of the excitement of the war.
But his heart was no longer in his work; a fever of unrest seized him, which at another time might have wasted itself in mere dissipation.Some of his fellow artists had already gone into the army.After the first great reverses he offered his one arm and his military experience to that Paris which had given him a home.
The old fighting instinct returned to him with a certain desperation he had never known before.In the sorties from Paris the one-armed American became famous, until a few days before the capitulation, when he was struck down by a bullet through the lung, and left in a temporary hospital.Here in the whirl and terror of Commune days he was forgotten, and when Paris revived under the republic he had disappeared as completely as his compatriot Helen.
But Miss Helen Maynard had been only obscured and not extinguished.
At the first outbreak of hostilities a few Americans had still kept giddy state among the ruins of the tottering empire.A day or two after she left the Rue de Frivole she was invited by one of her wealthy former schoolmates to assist with her voice and talent at one of their extravagant entertainments."You will understand, dear," said Miss de Laine, with ingenious delicacy, as she eyed her old comrade's well-worn dress, "that Poppa expects to pay you professional prices, and it may be an opening for you among our other friends.""I should not come otherwise, dear," said Miss Helen with equal frankness.But she played and sang very charmingly to the fashionable assembly in the Champs Elysees,--so charmingly, indeed, that Miss de Laine patronizingly expatiated upon her worth and her better days in confidence to some of the guests.
"A most deserving creature," said Miss de Laine to the dowager duchess of Soho, who was passing through Paris on her way to England; "you would hardly believe that Poppa knew her father when he was one of the richest men in South Carolina.""Your father seems to have been very fortunate," said the duchess quietly, "and so are YOU.Introduce me."This not being exactly the reply that Miss de Laine expected, she momentarily hesitated: but the duchess profited by it to walk over to the piano and introduce herself.When she rose to go she invited Helen to luncheon with her the next day."Come early, my dear, and we'll have a long talk." Helen pointed out hesitatingly that she was practically a guest of the de Laines."Ah, well, that's true, my dear; then you may bring one of them with you."Helen went to the luncheon, but was unaccompanied.She had a long talk with the dowager."I am not rich, my dear, like your friends, and cannot afford to pay ten napoleons for a song.Like you I have seen 'better days.' But this is no place for you, child, and if you can bear with an old woman's company for a while I think I can find you something to do." That evening Helen left for England with the duchess, a piece of "ingratitude, indelicacy, and shameless snobbery," which Miss de Laine was never weary of dilating upon."And to think I introduced her, though she was a professional!"It was three years after.Paris, reviving under the republic, had forgotten Helen and the American colony; and the American colony, emigrating to more congenial courts, had forgotten Paris.
It was a bleak day of English summer when Helen, standing by the window of the breakfast-room at Hamley Court, and looking over the wonderful lawn, kept perennially green by humid English skies, heard the practical, masculine voice of the duchess in her ear at the same moment that she felt the gentle womanly touch of her hand on her shoulder.
"We are going to luncheon at Moreland Hall to-day, my dear.""Why, we were there only last week!" said Helen.
"Undoubtedly," returned the duchess dryly, "and we may luncheon there next week and the next following.And," she added, looking into her companion's gray eyes, "it rests with YOU to stay there if you choose."Helen stared at her protector.