Chapter IX: Part 9

They went arm in arm, as usual; but this time Little Billee was in the middle. He wished to feel on each side of him the warm and genial contact of his two beloved old friends. It seemed as if they had suddenly been restored to him, after five long years of separation; his heart was overflowing with affection for them, too full to speak just yet! Overflowing, indeed, with the love of love, the love of life, the love of death--the love of all that is, and ever was, and ever will be! just as in his old way.

He could have hugged them both in the open street, before the whole world; and the delight of it was that this was no dream; about that there was no mistake. He was himself again at last, after five years, and wide awake; and he owed it all to Trilby!

And what did he feel for Trilby? He couldn't tell yet. It was too vast as yet to be measured; and, alas! it was weighted with such a burden of sorrow and regret that he might well put off the thought of it a little while longer, and gather in what bliss he might: like the man whose hearing has been restored after long years, he would revel in the mere physical delight of hearing for a space, and not go out of his way as yet to listen for the bad news that was already in the air, and would come to roost quite soon enough.

Taffy and the Laird were silent also; Trilby's voice was still in their ears and hearts, her image in their eyes, and utter bewilderment still oppressed them and kept them dumb.

It was a warm and balmy night, almost like mid-summer; and they stopped at the first café they met on the Boulevard de la Madeleine (_comme autrefois_), and ordered bocks of beer, and sat at a little table on the pavement, the only one unoccupied; for the café was already crowded, the hum of lively talk was great, and "la Svengali" was in every mouth.

The Laird was the first to speak. He emptied his bock at a draught, and called for another, and lit a cigar, and said, "I don't believe it was Trilby, after all!" It was the first time her name had been mentioned between them that evening--and for five years!

"Good heavens!" said Taffy. "Can you doubt it?"

"Oh yes! that was Trilby," said Little Billee.

Then the Laird proceeded to explain that, putting aside the impossibility of Trilby's ever being taught to sing in tune, and her well-remembered loathing for Svengali, he had narrowly scanned her face through his opera-glass, and found that in spite of a likeness quite marvellous there were well-marked differences. Her face was narrower and longer, her eyes larger, and their expression not the same; then she seemed taller and stouter, and her shoulders broader and more drooping, and so forth.

But the others wouldn't hear of it, and voted him cracked, and declared they even recognized the peculiar twang of her old speaking voice in the voice she now sang with, especially when she sang low down. And they all three fell to discussing the wonders of her performance like everybody else all round; Little Billee leading, with an eloquence and a seeming of technical musical knowledge that quite impressed them, and made them feel happy and at ease; for they were anxious for his sake about the effect this sudden and so unexpected sight of her would have upon him after all that had passed.

He seemed transcendently happy and elate--incomprehensibly so, in fact--and looked at them both with quite a new light in his eyes, as if all the music he had heard had trebled not only his joy in being alive, but his pleasure at being with them. Evidently he had quite outgrown his old passion for her, and that was a comfort indeed!

But Little Billee knew better.

He knew that his old passion for her had all come back, and was so overwhelming and immense that he could not feel it just yet, nor yet the hideous pangs of a jealousy so consuming that it would burn up his life. He gave himself another twenty-four hours.

But he had not to wait so long. He woke up after a short, uneasy sleep that very night, to find that the flood was over him; and he realized how hopelessly, desperately, wickedly, insanely he loved this woman, who might have been his, but was now the wife of another man; a greater than he, and one to whom she owed it that she was more glorious than any other woman on earth--a queen among queens--a goddess! for what was any earthly throne compared to that she established in the hearts and souls of all who came within the sight and hearing of her! beautiful as she was besides--beautiful, beautiful! And what must be her love for the man who had taught her and trained her, and revealed her towering genius to herself and to the world!--a man resplendent also, handsome and tall and commanding--a great artist from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot!

And the remembrance of them--hand in hand, master and pupil, husband and wife--smiling and bowing in the face of all that splendid tumult they had called forth and could not quell, stung and tortured and maddened him so that he could not lie still, but got up and raged and rampaged up and down his hot, narrow, stuffy bedroom, and longed for his old familiar brain-disease to come back and narcotize his trouble, and be his friend, and stay with him till he died!

Where was he to fly for relief from such new memories as these, which would never cease; and the old memories, and all the glamour and grace of them that had been so suddenly called out of the grave? And how could he escape, now that he felt the sight of her face and the sound of her voice would be a craving--a daily want--like that of some poor starving outcast for warmth and meat and drink?

And little innocent, pathetic, ineffable, well-remembered sweetnesses of her changing face kept painting themselves on his retina; and incomparable tones of this new thing, her voice, her infinite voice, went ringing in his head, till he all but shrieked aloud in his agony.

And then the poisoned and delirious sweetness of those mad kisses,

"by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others"!

And then the grewsome physical jealousy, that miserable inheritance of all artistic sons of Adam, that plague and torment of the dramatic, plastic imagination, which can idealize so well, and yet realize, alas! so keenly. After three or four hours spent like this, he could stand it no longer; madness was lying his way. So he hurried on a garment, and went and knocked at Taffy's door.

"Good God! what's the matter with you?" exclaimed the good Taffy, as Little Billee tumbled into his room, calling out:

"Oh, Taffy, Taffy, I've g-g-gone mad, I think!" And then, shivering all over, and stammering incoherently, he tried to tell his friend what was the matter with him, with great simplicity.

Taffy, in much alarm, slipped on his trousers and made Little Billee get into his bed, and sat by his side holding his hand. He was greatly perplexed, fearing the recurrence of another attack like that of five years back. He didn't dare leave him for an instant to wake the Laird and send for a doctor.

Suddenly Little Billee buried his face in the pillow and began to sob, and some instinct told Taffy this was the best thing that could happen. The boy had always been a highly strung, emotional, over-excitable, over-sensitive, and quite uncontrolled mammy's-darling, a cry-baby sort of chap, who had never been to school. It was all a part of his genius, and also a part of his charm. It would do him good once more to have a good blub after five years! After a while Little Billee grew quieter, and then suddenly he said: "What a miserable ass you must think me, what an unmanly duffer!"

"Why, my friend?"

"Why, for going on in this idiotic way. I really couldn't help it. I went mad, I tell you. I've been walking up and down my room all night, till everything seemed to go round."

"So have I."

"You? What for?"

"The very same reason."

"_What!_"

"I was just as fond of Trilby as you were. Only she happened to prefer _you_."

"_What!_" cried Little Billee again. "_You_ were fond of Trilby?"

"I believe you, my boy!"

"In _love_ with her?"

"I believe you, my boy!"

"She never knew it, then!"

"Oh yes, she did."

"She never told me, then!"

"Didn't she? That's like her. _I_ told _her_, at all events. I asked her to marry me."

"Well--I _am_ damned! When?"

"That day we took her to Meudon, with Jeannot, and dined at the Garde Champêtre's, and she danced the cancan with Sandy."

"Well--I _am_--And she _refused_ you?"

"Apparently so."

"Well, I--Why on earth did she refuse you?"

"Oh, I suppose she'd already begun to fancy _you_, my friend. _Il y en a toujours un autre!_"

"Fancy _me_--prefer _me_--to _you_?"

"Well, yes. It _does_ seem odd--eh, old fellow? But there's no accounting for tastes, you know. She's built on such an ample scale herself, I suppose, that she likes little uns--contrast, you see. She's very maternal, I think. Besides, you're a smart little chap; and you ain't half bad; and you've got brains and talent, and lots of cheek, and all that. I'm rather a _ponderous_ kind of party."

"Well--I _am_ damned!"

"_C'est comme ça!_ I took it lying down, you see."

"Does the Laird know?"

"No; and I don't want him to--nor anybody else."

"Taffy, what a regular downright old trump you are!"

"Glad you think so; anyhow, we're both in the same boat, and we've got to make the best of it. She's another man's wife, and probably she's very fond of him. I'm sure she ought to be, cad as he is, after all he's done for her. So there's an end of it."

"Ah! there'll never be an end of it for _me_--never--never--oh, never, my God! She would have married me but for my mother's meddling, and that stupid old ass, my uncle. What a wife! Think of all she must have in her heart and brain, only to _sing_ like that! And, O Lord! how beautiful she is--a goddess! Oh, the brow and cheek and chin, and the way her head's put on! did you _ever_ see anything like it! Oh, if only I hadn't written and told my mother I was going to marry her! why, we should have been man and wife for five years by this time--living at Barbizon--painting away like mad! Oh, what a heavenly life! Oh, curse all officious meddling with other people's affairs! Oh! oh!..."

"There you go again! What's the good? and where do _I_ come in, my friend? _I_ should have been no better off, old fellow--worse than ever, I think."

Then there was a long silence.

At length Little Billee said:

"Taffy, I can't tell you what a trump you are. All I've ever thought of you--and God knows that's enough--will be nothing to what I shall always think of you after this."

"All right, old chap."

"And now I think _I_'m all right again, for a time--and I shall cut back to bed. Good-night! Thanks more than I can ever express!" And Little Billee, restored to his balance, cut back to his own bed just as the day was breaking.

Part Seventh

"The moon made thy lips pale, beloved;
The wind made thy bosom chill;
The night did shed
On thy dear head
Its frozen dew, and thou didst lie
Where the bitter breath of the naked sky
Might visit thee at will."

Next morning our three friends lay late abed, and breakfasted in their rooms.

They had all three passed "white nights"--even the Laird, who had tossed about and pressed a sleepless pillow till dawn, so excited had he been by the wonder of Trilby's reincarnation, so perplexed by his own doubts as to whether it was really Trilby or not.

And certain haunting tones of her voice, that voice so cruelly sweet (which clove the stillness with a clang so utterly new, so strangely heart-piercing and seductive, that the desire to hear it once more became nostalgic--almost an ache!), certain bits and bars and phrases of the music she had sung, unspeakable felicities and facilities of execution; sudden exotic warmths, fragrances, tendernesses, graces, depths, and breadths; quick changes from grave to gay, from rough to smooth, from great metallic brazen clangors to soft golden suavities; all the varied modes of sound we try so vainly to borrow from vocal nature by means of wind and reed and string--all this new "Trilbyness" kept echoing in his brain all night (for he was of a nature deeply musical), and sleep had been impossible to him.

"As when we dwell upon a word we know,
Repeating, till the word we know so well
Becomes a wonder, and we know not why,"

so dwelt the Laird upon the poor old tune "Ben Bolt," which kept singing itself over and over again in his tired consciousness, and maddened him with novel, strange, unhackneyed, unsuspected beauties such as he had never dreamed of in any earthly music.

It had become a wonder, and he knew not why!

They spent what was left of the morning at the Louvre, and tried to interest themselves in the "Marriage of Cana," and the "Woman at the Well," and Vandyck's man with the glove, and the little princess of Velasquez, and Lisa Gioconda's smile: it was of no use trying. There was no sight worth looking at in all Paris but Trilby in her golden raiment; no other princess in the world; no smile but hers, when through her parted lips came bubbling Chopin's Impromptu. They had not long to stay in Paris, and they must drink of that bubbling fountain once more--_coûte que coûte!_ They went to the Salle des Bashibazoucks, and found that all seats all over the house had been taken for days and weeks; and the "queue" at the door had already begun! and they had to give up all hopes of slaking this particular thirst.

Then they went and lunched perfunctorily, and talked desultorily over lunch, and read criticisms of la Svengali's début in the morning papers--a chorus of journalistic acclamation gone mad, a frenzied eulogy in every key--but nothing was good enough for them! Brand-new words were wanted--another language!

Then they wanted a long walk, and could think of nowhere to go in all Paris--that immense Paris, where they had promised themselves to see so much that the week they were to spend there had seemed too short!

Looking in a paper, they saw it announced that the band of the Imperial Guides would play that afternoon in the Pré Catelan, Bois de Boulogne, and thought they might as well walk there as anywhere else, and walk back again in time to dine with the Passefils--a prandial function which did not promise to be very amusing; but still it was something to kill the evening with, since they couldn't go and hear Trilby again.

Outside the Pré Catelan they found a crowd of cabs and carriages, saddle-horses and grooms. One might have thought one's self in the height of the Paris season. They went in, and strolled about here and there, and listened to the band, which was famous (it has performed in London at the Crystal Palace), and they looked about and studied life, or tried to.

Suddenly they saw, sitting with three ladies (one of whom, the eldest, was in black), a very smart young officer, a guide, all red and green and gold, and recognized their old friend Zouzou. They bowed, and he knew them at once, and jumped up and came to them and greeted them warmly, especially his old friend Taffy, whom he took to his mother--the lady in black--and introduced to the other ladies, the younger of whom, strangely unlike the rest of her countrywomen, was so lamentably, so pathetically plain that it would be brutal to attempt the cheap and easy task of describing her. It was Miss Lavinia Hunks, the famous American millionairess, and her mother. Then the good Zouzou came back and talked to the Laird and Little Billee.

Zouzou, in some subtle and indescribable way, had become very ducal indeed.

He looked extremely distinguished, for one thing, in his beautiful guide's uniform, and was most gracefully and winningly polite. He inquired warmly after Mrs. and Miss Bagot, and begged Little Billee would recall him to their amiable remembrance when he saw them again. He expressed most sympathetically his delight to see Little Billee looking so strong and so well (Little Billee looked like a pallid little washed-out ghost, after his white night).

They talked of Dodor. He said how attached he was to Dodor, and always should be; but Dodor, it seemed, had made a great mistake in leaving the army and going into a retail business (_petit commerce_). He had done for himself--_dégringolé!_ He should have stuck to the _dragons_--with a little patience and good conduct he would have "won his epaulet"--and then one might have arranged for him a good little marriage--_un parti convenable_--for he was "très joli garçon, Dodor! bonne tournure--et très gentiment né! C'est très ancien, les Rigolot--dans le Poitou, je crois--Lafarce, et tout ça; tout à fait bien!"

It was difficult to realize that this polished and discreet and somewhat patronizing young man of the world was the jolly dog who had gone after Little Billee's hat on all fours in the Rue Vieille des Mauvais Ladres and brought it back in his mouth--the Caryhatide!

Little Billee little knew that Monsieur le Duc de la Rochemartel-Boisségur had quite recently delighted a very small and select and most august imperial supper-party at Compiègne with this very story, not blinking a single detail of his own share in it--and had given a most touching and sympathetic description of "le joli petit peintre anglais qui s'appelait Litrebili, et ne pouvait pas se tenir sur ses jambes--et qui pleurait d'amour fraternel dans les bras de mon copain Dodor!"

"Ah! Monsieur Gontran, ce que je donnerais pour avoir vu ça!" had said the greatest lady in France; "un de mes zouaves--à quatre pattes--dans la rue--un chapeau dans la bouche--oh--c'est impayable!"

Zouzou kept these blackguard bohemian reminiscences for the imperial circle alone--to which it was suspected that he was secretly rallying himself. Among all outsiders--especially within the narrow precincts of the cream of the noble Faubourg (which remained aloof from the Tuileries)--he was a very proper and gentlemanlike person indeed, as his brother had been--and, in his mother's fond belief, "très bien pensant, très bien vu, à Frohsdorf et à Rome."

_On lui aurait donné le bon Dieu sans confession_--as Madame Vinard had said of Little Billee--they would have shriven him at sight, and admitted him to the holy communion on trust!

He did not present Little Billee and the Laird to his mother, nor to Mrs. and Miss Hunks; that honor was reserved for "the Man of Blood" alone; nor did he ask where they were staying, nor invite them to call on him. But in parting he expressed the immense pleasure it had given him to meet them again, and the hope he had of some day shaking their hands in London.

As the friends walked back to Paris together, it transpired that "the Man of Blood" had been invited by Madame Duchesse Mère (Maman Duchesse, as Zouzou called her) to dine with her next day, and meet the Hunkses at a furnished apartment she had taken in the Place Vendôme; for they had let (to the Hunkses) the Hôtel de la Rochemartel in the Rue de Lille; they had also been obliged to let their place in the country, le château de Boisségur (to Monsieur Despoires, or "des Poires," as he chose to spell himself on his visiting-cards--the famous soap-manufacturer--"Un très brave homme, à ce qu'on dit!" and whose only son, by-the-way, soon after married Mademoiselle Jeanne-Adélaïde d'Amaury-Brissac de Roncesvaulx de Boisségur de la Rochemartel).

"Il ne fait pas gras chez nous à présent--je vous assure!" Madame Duchesse Mère had pathetically said to Taffy--but had given him to understand that things would be very much better for her son, in the event of his marriage with Miss Hunks.

"Good heavens!" said Little Billee, on hearing this; "that grotesque little bogy in blue? Why, she's deformed--she squints--she's a dwarf, and looks like an idiot! Millions or no millions, the man who marries her is a felon! As long as there are stones to break and a road to break them on, the able-bodied man who marries a woman like that for anything but pity and kindness--and even then--dishonors himself, insults his ancestry, and inflicts on his descendants a wrong that nothing will ever redeem--he nips them in the bud--he blasts them forever! He ought to be cut by his fellow-men--sent to Coventry--to jail--to penal servitude for life! He ought to have a separate hell to himself when he dies. He ought to--"

"Shut up, you little blaspheming ruffian!" said the Laird. "Where do _you_ expect to go to, yourself, with such frightful sentiments? And what would become of your beautiful old twelfth-century dukedoms, with a hundred yards of back-frontage opposite the Louvre, on a beautiful historic river, and a dozen beautiful historic names, and no money--if _you_ had your way?" and the Laird wunk his historic wink.

"Twelfth-century dukedoms be damned!" said Taffy _au grand sérieux_, as usual. "Little Billee's quite right, and Zouzou makes me sick! Besides, what does she marry _him_ for--not for his beauty either, I guess! She's his fellow-criminal, his deliberate accomplice, _particeps delicti_, accessory before the act and after! She has no right to marry at all! tar and feathers and a rail for both of them--and for Maman Duchesse too--and I suppose that's why I refused her invitation to dinner! and now let's go and dine with Dodor--...anyhow Dodor's young woman doesn't marry him for a dukedom--or even his 'de'--_mais bien pour ses beaux yeux!_ and if the Rigolots of the future turn out less nice to look at than their sire, and not quite so amusing, they will probably be a great improvement on him in many other ways. There's room enough--and to spare!"

"'Ear! 'ear!" said Little Billee (who always grew flippant when Taffy got on his high horse). "Your 'ealth and song, sir--them's my sentiments to a T! What shall we 'ave the pleasure of drinkin', after that wery nice 'armony?"

After which they walked on in silence, each, no doubt, musing on the general contrariness of things, and imagining what splendid little Wynnes, or Bagots, or McAlisters might have been ushered into a decadent world for its regeneration if fate had so willed it that a certain magnificent and singularly gifted grisette, etc., etc., etc....

Mrs. and Miss Hunks passed them as they walked along, in a beautiful blue barouche with C springs--_un "huit-ressorts"_; Maman Duchesse passed them in a hired fly; Zouzou passed them on horseback; "tout Paris" passed them; but they were none the wiser, and agreed that the show was not a patch on that in Hyde Park during the London season.

When they reached the Place de la Concorde it was that lovely hour of a fine autumn day in beautiful bright cities when all the lamps are lit in the shops and streets and under the trees, and it is still daylight--a quickly fleeting joy; and as a special treat on this particular occasion the sun set, and up rose the yellow moon over eastern Paris, and floated above the chimney-pots of the Tuileries.

They stopped to gaze at the homeward procession of cabs and carriages, as they used to do in the old times. Tout Paris was still passing; tout Paris is very long.

They stood among a little crowd of sight-seers like themselves, Little Billee right in front--in the road.

Presently a magnificent open carriage came by--more magnificent than even the Hunkses', with liveries and harness quite vulgarly resplendent--almost Napoleonic.

Lolling back in it lay Monsieur et Madame Svengali--he with his broad-brimmed felt sombrero over his long black curls, wrapped in costly furs, smoking his big cigar of the Havana.

By his side la Svengali--also in sables--with a large black velvet hat on, her light brown hair done up in a huge knot on the nape of her neck. She was rouged and pearl-powdered, and her eyes were blackened beneath, and thus made to look twice their size; but in spite of all such disfigurements she was a most splendid vision, and caused quite a little sensation in the crowd as she came slowly by.

Little Billee's heart was in his mouth. He caught Svengali's eye, and saw him speak to her. She turned her head and looked at him standing there--they both did. Little Billee bowed. She stared at him with a cold stare of disdain, and cut him dead--so did Svengali. And as they passed he heard them both snigger--she with a little high-pitched, flippant snigger worthy of a London bar-maid.

Little Billee was utterly crushed, and everything seemed turning round.

The Laird and Taffy had seen it all without losing a detail. The Svengalis had not even looked their way. The Laird said:

"It's not Trilby--I swear! She could _never_ have done that--it's not _in_ her! and it's another face altogether--I'm sure of it!"

Taffy was also staggered and in doubt. They caught hold of Little Billee, each by an arm, and walked him off to the boulevards. He was quite demoralized, and wanted not to dine at the Passefils'. He wanted to go straight home at once. He longed for his mother as he used to long for her when he was in trouble as a small boy and she was away from home--longed for her desperately--to hug her and hold her and fondle her, and be fondled, for his own sake and hers; all his old love for her had come back in full--with what arrears! all his old love for his sister, for his old home.

When they went back to the hotel to dress (for Dodor had begged them to put on their best evening war-paint, so as to impress his future mother-in-law), Little Billee became fractious and intractable. And it was only on Taffy's promising that he would go all the way to Devonshire with him on the morrow, and stay with him there, that he could be got to dress and dine.

The huge Taffy lived entirely by his affections, and he hadn't many to live by--the Laird, Trilby, and Little Billee.

Trilby was unattainable, the Laird was quite strong and independent enough to get on by himself, and Taffy had concentrated all his faculties of protection and affection on Little Billee, and was equal to any burden or responsibility all this instinctive young fathering might involve.

In the first place, Little Billee had always been able to do quite easily, and better than any one else in the world, the very things Taffy most longed to do himself and couldn't, and this inspired the good Taffy with a chronic reverence and wonder he could not have expressed in words.

Then Little Billee was physically small and weak, and incapable of self-control. Then he was generous, amiable, affectionate, transparent as crystal, without an atom of either egotism or conceit; and had a gift of amusing you and interesting you by his talk (and its complete sincerity) that never palled; and even his silence was charming--one felt so sure of him--so there was hardly any sacrifice, little or big, that big Taffy was not ready and glad to make for Little Billee. On the other hand, there lay deep down under Taffy's surface irascibility and earnestness about trifles (and beneath his harmless vanity of the strong man), a long-suffering patience, a real humility, a robustness of judgment, a sincerity and all-roundness, a completeness of sympathy, that made him very good to trust and safe to lean upon. Then his powerful, impressive aspect, his great stature, the gladiatorlike poise of his small round head on his big neck and shoulders, his huge deltoids and deep chest and slender loins, his clean-cut ankles and wrists, all the long and bold and highly-finished athletic shapes of him, that easy grace of strength that made all his movements a pleasure to watch, and any garment look well when he wore it--all this was a perpetual feast to the quick, prehensile, æsthetic eye. And then he had such a solemn, earnest, lovable way of bending pokers round his neck, and breaking them on his arm, and jumping his own height (or near it), and lifting up arm-chairs by one leg with one hand, and what not else!

So that there was hardly any sacrifice, little or big, that Little Billee would not accept from big Taffy as a mere matter of course--a fitting and proper tribute rendered by bodily strength to genius.

_Par nobile fratrum_--well met and well mated for fast and long-enduring friendship.

* * * * *

The family banquet at Monsieur Passefil's would have been dull but for the irrepressible Dodor, and still more for the Laird of Cockpen, who rose to the occasion, and surpassed himself in geniality, drollery, and eccentricity of French grammar and accent. Monsieur Passefil was also a droll in his way, and had the quickly familiar, jocose facetiousness that seems to belong to the successful middle-aged bourgeois all over the world, when he's not pompous instead (he can even be both sometimes).

Madame Passefil was not jocose. She was much impressed by the aristocratic splendor of Taffy, the romantic melancholy and refinement of Little Billee, and their quiet and dignified politeness. She always spoke of Dodor as Monsieur de Lafarce, though the rest of the family (and one or two friends who had been invited) always called him Monsieur Théodore, and he was officially known as Monsieur Rigolot.

Whenever Madame Passefil addressed him or spoke of him in this aristocratic manner (which happened very often), Dodor would wink at his friends, with his tongue in his cheek. It seemed to amuse him beyond measure.

Mademoiselle Ernestine was evidently too much in love to say anything, and seldom took her eyes off Monsieur Théodore, whom she had never seen in evening dress before. It must be owned that he looked very nice--more ducal than even Zouzou--and to be Madame de Lafarce _en perspective_, and the future owner of such a brilliant husband as Dodor, was enough to turn a stronger little bourgeois head than Mademoiselle Ernestine's.

She was not beautiful, but healthy, well grown, well brought up, and presumably of a sweet, kind, and amiable disposition--an _ingénue_ fresh from her convent--innocent as a child, no doubt; and it was felt that Dodor had done better for himself (and for his race) than Monsieur le Duc. Little Dodors need have no fear.

After dinner the ladies and gentlemen left the dining-room together, and sat in a pretty salon overlooking the boulevard, where cigarettes were allowed, and there was music. Mademoiselle Ernestine laboriously played "Les Cloches du Monastère" (by Monsieur Lefébure-Wély, if I'm not mistaken). It's the most bourgeois piece of music I know.

"PETIT ENFANT, J'AIMAIS D'UN AMOUR TENDRE
MA MÈRE ET DIEU--SAINTES AFFECTIONS!
PUIS MON AMOUR AUX FLEURS SE FIT ENTENDRE,
PUIS AUX OISEAUX, ET PUIS AUX PAPILLONS!"]

Then Dodor, with his sweet high voice, so strangely pathetic and true, sang goody-goody little French songs of innocence (of which he seemed to have an endless répertoire) to his future wife's conscientious accompaniment--to the immense delight, also, of all his future family, who were almost in tears--and to the great amusement of the Laird, at whom he winked in the most pathetic parts, putting his forefinger to the side of his nose, like Noah Claypole in _Oliver Twist_.

The wonder of the hour, la Svengali, was discussed, of course; it was unavoidable. But our friends did not think it necessary to reveal that she was "la grande Trilby." That would soon transpire by itself.

And, indeed, before the month was a week older the papers were full of nothing else.

Madame Svengali--"la grande Trilby"--was the only daughter of the honorable and reverend Sir Lord O'Ferrall.

She had run away from the primeval forests and lonely marshes of le Dublin, to lead a free-and-easy life among the artists of the quartier latin of Paris--_une vie de bohème!_

She was the Venus Anadyomene from top to toe.

She was _blanche comme neige, avec un volcan dans le cœur_.

Casts of her alabaster feet could be had at Brucciani's, in the Rue de la Souricière St. Denis. (He made a fortune.)

Monsieur Ingres had painted her left foot on the wall of a studio in the Place St. Anatole des Arts; and an eccentric Scotch milord (le Comte de Pencock) had bought the house containing the flat containing the studio containing the wall on which it was painted, had had the house pulled down, and the wall framed and glazed and sent to his castle of Édimbourg.

(This, unfortunately, was in excess of the truth. It was found impossible to execute the Laird's wish, on account of the material the wall was made of. So the Lord Count of Pencock--such was Madame Vinard's version of Sandy's nickname--had to forego his purchase.)

* * * * *

Next morning our friends were in readiness to leave Paris; even the Laird had had enough of it, and longed to get back to his work again--a "Hari-kari in Yokohama." (He had never been to Japan; but no more had any one else in those early days.)

They had just finished breakfast, and were sitting in the court-yard of the hotel, which was crowded, as usual.

Little Billee went into the hotel post-office to despatch a note to his mother. Sitting sideways there at a small table and reading letters was Svengali--of all people in the world. But for these two and a couple of clerks the room was empty.

Svengali looked up; they were quite close together.

Little Billee, in his nervousness, began to shake, and half put out his hand, and drew it back again, seeing the look of hate on Svengali's face.

Svengali jumped up, put his letters together, and passing by Little Billee on his way to the door, called him "verfluchter Schweinhund," and deliberately spat in his face.

Little Billee was paralyzed for a second or two; then he ran after Svengali, and caught him just at the top of the marble stairs, and kicked him, and knocked off his hat, and made him drop all his letters. Svengali turned round and struck him over the mouth and made it bleed, and Little Billee hit out like a fury, but with no effect: he couldn't reach high enough, for Svengali was well over six feet.

There was a crowd round them in a minute, including the beautiful old man in the court suit and gold chain, who called out:

"Vite! vite! un commissaire de police!"--a cry that was echoed all over the place.

Taffy saw the row, and shouted, "Bravo, little un!" and jumping up from his table, jostled his way through the crowd; and Little Billee, bleeding and gasping and perspiring and stammering, said:

"He spat in my face, Taffy--damn him! I'd never even spoken to him--not a word, I swear!"

Svengali had not reckoned on Taffy's being there; he recognized him at once, and turned white.

Taffy, who had dog-skin gloves on, put out his right hand, and deftly seized Svengali's nose between his fore and middle fingers and nearly pulled it off, and swung his head two or three times backward and forward by it, and then from side to side, Svengali holding on to his wrist; and then, letting him go, gave him a sounding open-handed smack on his right cheek--and a smack on the face from Taffy (even in play) was no joke, I'm told; it made one smell brimstone, and see and hear things that didn't exist.

Svengali gasped worse than Little Billee, and couldn't speak for a while. Then he said,

"Lâche--grand lâche! che fous enferrai mes témoins!"

"At your orders!" said Taffy, in beautiful French, and drew out his card-case, and gave him his card in quite the orthodox French manner, adding: "I shall be here till to-morrow at twelve--but that is my London address, in case I don't hear from you before I leave. I'm sorry, but you really mustn't spit, you know--it's not done. I will come to you whenever you send for me--even if I have to come from the end of the world."

"Très bien! très bien!" said a military-looking old gentleman close by, who gave Taffy _his_ card, in case he might be of any service--and who seemed quite delighted at the row--and indeed it was really pleasant to note with what a smooth, flowing, rhythmical spontaneity the good Taffy could always improvise these swift little acts of summary retributive justice: no hurry or scurry or flurry whatever--not an inharmonious gesture, not an infelicitous line--the very poetry of violence, and its only excuse!

Whatever it was worth, this was Taffy's special gift, and it never failed him at a pinch.

When the commissaire de police arrived, all was over. Svengali had gone away in a cab, and Taffy put himself at the disposition of the commissaire.

They went into the post-office and discussed it all with the old military gentleman, and the major-domo in velvet, and the two clerks who had seen the original insult. And all that was required of Taffy and his friends for the present was "their names, prenames, titles, qualities, age, address, nationality, occupation," etc.

"C'est une affaire qui s'arrangera autrement, et autre part!" had said the military gentleman--monsieur le général Comte de la Tour-aux-Loups.

So it blew over quite simply; and all that day a fierce unholy joy burned in Taffy's choleric blue eye.

Not, indeed, that he had any wish to injure Trilby's husband, or meant to do him any grievous bodily harm, whatever happened. But he was glad to have given Svengali a lesson in manners.

That Svengali should injure _him_ never entered into his calculations for a moment. Besides, he didn't believe Svengali would show fight; and in this he was not mistaken.

But he had, for hours, the feel of that long, thick, shapely Hebrew nose being kneaded between his gloved knuckles, and a pleasing sense of the effectiveness of the tweak he had given it. So he went about chewing the cud of that heavenly remembrance all day, till reflection brought remorse, and he felt sorry; for he was really the mildest-mannered man that ever broke a head!

Only the sight of Little Billee's blood (which had been made to flow by such an unequal antagonist) had roused the old Adam.

No message came from Svengali to ask for the names and addresses of Taffy's seconds; so Dodor and Zouzou (not to mention Mister the general Count of the Tooraloorals, as the Laird called him) were left undisturbed; and our three musketeers went back to London clean of blood, whole of limb, and heartily sick of Paris.

Little Billee stayed with his mother and sister in Devonshire till Christmas, Taffy staying at the village inn.

It was Taffy who told Mrs. Bagot about la Svengali's all but certain identity with Trilby, after Little Billee had gone to bed, tired and worn out, the night of their arrival.

"Good heavens!" said poor Mrs. Bagot. "Why, that's the new singing woman who's coming over here! There's an article about her in to-day's _Times_. It says she's a wonder, and that there's no one like her! Surely that can't be the Miss O'Ferrall I saw in Paris!"

"It seems impossible--but I'm almost certain it is--and Willy has no doubts in the matter. On the other hand, McAlister declares it isn't."

"Oh, what trouble! So _that's_ why poor Willy looks so ill and miserable! It's all come back again. Could she sing at all then, when you knew her in Paris?"

"Not a note--her attempts at singing were quite grotesque."

"Is she still very beautiful?"

"Oh yes; there's no doubt about that; more than ever!"

"And her singing--is that so very wonderful? I remember that she had a beautiful voice in speaking."

"Wonderful? Ah, yes; I never heard or dreamed the like of it. Grisi, Alboni, Patti--not one of them to be mentioned in the same breath!"

"Good heavens! Why, she must be simply irresistible! I wonder you're not in love with her yourself. How dreadful these sirens are, wrecking the peace of families!"

"You mustn't forget that she gave way at once at a word from you, Mrs. Bagot; and she was very fond of Willy. She wasn't a siren then."

"Oh yes--oh yes! that's true--she behaved very well--she did her duty--I can't deny that! You must try and forgive me, Mr. Wynne--although I can't forgive _her_!--that dreadful illness of poor Willy's--that bitter time in Paris...."

And Mrs. Bagot began to cry, and Taffy forgave. "Oh, Mr. Wynne--let us still hope that there's some mistake--that it's only somebody like her! Why, she's coming to sing in London after Christmas! My poor boy's infatuation will only increase. What _shall_ I do?

"Well--she's another man's wife, you see. So Willy's infatuation is bound to burn itself out as soon as he fully recognizes that important fact. Besides, she cut him dead in the Champs Élysées--and her husband and Willy had a row next day at the hotel, and cuffed and kicked each other--that's rather a bar to any future intimacy, I think."

"Oh, Mr. Wynne! my son cuffing and kicking a man whose wife he's in love with! Good heavens!"

"Oh, it was all right--the man had grossly insulted him--and Willy behaved like a brick, and got the best of it in the end, and nothing came of it. I saw it all."

"Oh, Mr. Wynne--and you didn't interfere?'

"Oh yes, I interfered--everybody interfered. It was all right, I assure you. No bones were broken on either side, and there was no nonsense about calling out, or swords or pistols, and all that."

"Thank Heaven!"

In a week or two Little Billee grew more like himself again, and painted endless studies of rocks and cliffs and sea--and Taffy painted with him, and was very content. The vicar and Little Billee patched up their feud. The vicar also took an immense fancy to Taffy, whose cousin, Sir Oscar Wynne, he had known at college, and lost no opportunity of being hospitable and civil to him. And his daughter was away in Algiers.

And all "the nobility and gentry" of the neighborhood, including "the poor dear marquis" (one of whose sons was in Taffy's old regiment), were civil and hospitable also to the two painters--and Taffy got as much sport as he wanted, and became immensely popular. And they had, on the whole, a very good time till Christmas, and a very pleasant Christmas, if not an exuberantly merry one.

After Christmas Little Billee insisted on going back to London--to paint a picture for the Royal Academy; and Taffy went with him; and there was dulness in the house of Bagot--and many misgivings in the maternal heart of its mistress.

And people of all kinds, high and low, from the family at the Court to the fishermen on the little pier and their wives and children, missed the two genial painters, who were the friends of everybody, and made such beautiful sketches of their beautiful coast.

* * * * *

La Svengali has arrived in London. Her name is in every mouth. Her photograph is in the shop-windows. She is to sing at J----'s monster concerts next week. She was to have sung sooner, but it seems some hitch has occurred--a quarrel between Monsieur Svengali and his first violin, who is a very important person.

A crowd of people as usual, only bigger, is assembled in front of the windows of the Stereoscopic Company in Regent Street, gazing at presentments of Madame Svengali in all sizes and costumes. She is very beautiful--there is no doubt of that; and the expression of her face is sweet and kind and sad, and of such a distinction that one feels an imperial crown would become her even better than her modest little coronet of golden stars. One of the photographs represents her in classical dress, with her left foot on a little stool, in something of the attitude of the Venus of Milo, except that her hands are clasped behind her back; and the foot is bare but for a Greek sandal, and so smooth and delicate and charming, and with so rhythmical a set and curl of the five slender toes (the big one slightly tip-tilted and well apart from its longer and slighter and more aquiline neighbor), that this presentment of her sells quicker than all the rest.

And a little man who, with two bigger men, has just forced his way in front says to one of his friends: "Look, Sandy, look--_the foot!_ _Now_ have you got any doubts?"

"Oh yes--those are Trilby's toes, sure enough!" says Sandy. And they all go in and purchase largely.

As far as I have been able to discover, the row between Svengali and his first violin had occurred at a rehearsal in Drury Lane Theatre.

Svengali, it seems, had never been quite the same since the 15th of October previous, and that was the day he had got his face slapped and his nose tweaked by Taffy in Paris. He had become short-tempered and irritable, especially with his wife (if she _was_ his wife). Svengali, it seems, had reasons for passionately hating Little Billee.

He had not seen him for five years--not since the Christmas festivity in the Place St. Anatole, when they had sparred together after supper, and Svengali's nose had got in the way on this occasion, and had been made to bleed; but that was not why he hated Little Billee.

When he caught sight of him standing on the curb in the Place de la Concorde and watching the procession of "tout Paris," he knew him directly, and all his hate flared up; he cut him dead, and made his wife do the same.

Next morning he saw him again in the hotel post-office, looking small and weak and flurried, and apparently alone; and being an Oriental Israelite Hebrew Jew, he had not been able to resist the temptation of spitting in his face, since he must not throttle him to death.

The minute he had done this he had regretted the folly of it. Little Billee had run after him, and kicked and struck him, and he had returned the blow and drawn blood; and then, suddenly and quite unexpectedly, had come upon the scene that apparition so loathed and dreaded of old--the pig-headed Yorkshireman--the huge British philistine, the irresponsible bull, the junker, the ex-Crimean, Front-de-Bœuf, who had always reminded him of the brutal and contemptuous sword-clanking, spur-jingling aristocrats of his own country--ruffians that treated Jews like dogs. Callous as he was to the woes of others, the self-indulgent and highly-strung musician was extra sensitive about himself--a very bundle of nerves--and especially sensitive to pain and rough usage, and by no means physically brave. The stern, choleric, invincible blue eye of the hated Northern gentile had cowed him at once. And that violent tweaking of his nose, that heavy open-handed blow on his face, had so shaken and demoralized him that he had never recovered from it.

He was thinking about it always--night and day--and constantly dreaming at night that he was being tweaked and slapped over again by a colossal nightmare Taffy, and waking up in agonies of terror, rage, and shame. All healthy sleep had forsaken him.

Moreover, he was much older than he looked--nearly fifty--and far from sound. His life had been a long, hard struggle.

He had for his wife, slave, and pupil a fierce, jealous kind of affection that was a source of endless torment to him; for indelibly graven in her heart, which he wished to occupy alone, was the never-fading image of the little English painter, and of this she made no secret.

Gecko no longer cared for the master. All Gecko's doglike devotion was concentrated on the slave and pupil, whom he worshipped with a fierce but pure and unselfish passion. The only living soul that Svengali could trust was the old Jewess who lived with them--his relative--but even she had come to love the pupil as much as the master.

On the occasion of this rehearsal at Drury Lane he (Svengali) was conducting and Madame Svengali was singing. He interrupted her several times, angrily and most unjustly, and told her she was singing out of tune, "like a verfluchter tomcat," which was quite untrue. She was singing beautifully, "Home, Sweet Home."

Finally he struck her two or three smart blows on her knuckles with his little bâton, and she fell on her knees, weeping and crying out:

"Oh! oh! Svengali! ne me battez pas, mon ami--je fais tout ce que je peux!"

On which little Gecko had suddenly jumped up and struck Svengali on the neck near the collar-bone, and then it was seen that he had a little bloody knife in his hand, and blood flowed from Svengali's neck, and at the sight of it Svengali had fainted; and Madame Svengali had taken his head on her lap, looking dazed and stupefied, as in a waking dream.

Gecko had been disarmed, but as Svengali recovered from his faint and was taken home, the police had not been sent for, and the affair was hushed up, and a public scandal avoided. But la Svengali's first appearance, to Monsieur J----'s despair, had to be put off for a week. For Svengali would not allow her to sing without him; nor, indeed, would he be parted from her for a minute, or trust her out of his sight.

The wound was a slight one. The doctor who attended Svengali described the wife as being quite imbecile, no doubt from grief and anxiety. But she never left her husband's bedside for a moment, and had the obedience and devotion of a dog.

When the night came round for the postponed début, Svengali was allowed by the doctor to go to the theatre, but he was absolutely forbidden to conduct.

His grief and anxiety at this were uncontrollable; he raved like a madman; and Monsieur J---- was almost as bad.

Monsieur J---- had been conducting the Svengali band at rehearsals during the week, in the absence of its master--an easy task. It had been so thoroughly drilled and knew its business so well that it could almost conduct itself, and it had played all the music it had to play (much of which consisted of accompaniments to la Svengali's songs) many times before. Her répertoire was immense, and Svengali had written these orchestral scores with great care and felicity.

On the famous night it was arranged that Svengali should sit in a box alone, exactly opposite his wife's place on the platform, where she could see him well; and a code of simple signals was arranged between him and Monsieur J---- and the band, so that virtually he might conduct, himself, from his box should any hesitation or hitch occur. This arrangement was rehearsed the day before (a Sunday) and had turned out quite successfully, and la Svengali had sung in perfection in the empty theatre.

When Monday evening arrived everything seemed to be going smoothly; the house was soon crammed to suffocation, all but the middle box on the grand tier. It was not a promenade concert, and the pit was turned into guinea stalls (the promenade concerts were to be given a week later).

Right in the middle of these stalls sat the Laird and Taffy and Little Billee.

The band came in by degrees and tuned their instruments.

Eyes were constantly being turned to the empty box, and people wondered what royal personages would appear.

Monsieur J---- took his place amid immense applause, and bowed in his inimitable way, looking often at the empty box.

Then he tapped and waved his bâton, and the band played its Hungarian dance music with immense success; when this was over there was a pause, and soon some signs of impatience from the gallery. Monsieur J---- had disappeared.

Taffy stood up, his back to the orchestra, looking round.

Some one came into the empty box, and stood for a moment in front, gazing at the house. A tall man, deathly pale, with long black hair and a beard.

It was Svengali.

He caught sight of Taffy and met his eyes, and Taffy said: "Good God! Look! look!"

Then Little Billee and the Laird got up and looked.

And Svengali for a moment glared at them. And the expression of his face was so terrible with wonder, rage, and fear that they were quite appalled--and then he sat down, still glaring at Taffy, the whites of his eyes showing at the top, and his teeth bared in a spasmodic grin of hate.