The Reverberator (17 page)

“Oh, my dear, you’ll have news of him. Don’t be afraid!” laughed Mme. de Cliché.

“Did
he
send you the paper?” the girl went on, to Mr. Probert.

“It was not directed in his hand,” said M. de Brecourt. “There was some stamp on the band—it came from the office.”

“Mr. Flack—is that his hideous name?—must have seen to that,” Mme. de Brécourt suggested.

“Or perhaps Florine,” M. de Cliché interposed. “I should like to get hold of Florine.”

“I did—I did tell him so!” Francie repeated, with her innocent face, alluding to her statement of a moment before and speaking as if she thought the circumstance detracted from the offence.

“So did I—so did we all!” said Mme. de Cliché.

“And will he suffer—as you suffer?” Francie continued, appealing to Mr. Probert.

“Suffer, suffer? He’ll die!” cried the old man. “However, I won’t answer for him; he’ll tell you himself, when he returns.”

“He’ll die?” asked Francie, with expanded eyes.

“He’ll never return—how can he show himself?” said Mme. de Cliché.

“That’s not true—he’ll come back to stand by me!” the girl flashed out.

“How could you not feel that we were the last—the very last?” asked Mr. Probert, very gently. “How could you not feel that my son was the very last—?”

“
C’est un sens qui lui manque
!” commented Mme. de Cliché.

“Let her go, papa—do let her go home,” Mme. de Brécourt pleaded.

“Surely. That’s the only place for her to-day!” the elder sister continued.

“Yes, my child—you oughtn’t to be here. It’s your father—he ought to understand,” said Mr. Probert.

“For God’s sake don’t send for him—let it all stop!” Mme. de Cliché exclaimed.

Francie looked at her; then she said, “Goodbye, Mr. Probert—good-bye, Susan.”

“Give her your arm—take her to the carriage,” she heard Mme. de Brécourt say to her husband. She got to the door she hardly knew how—she was only conscious that Susan held her once more long enough to kiss her. Poor Susan wanted to comfort her; that showed how bad (feeling as she did) she believed the whole business would yet be. It would be bad because Gaston—Gaston: Francie did not complete that thought, yet only Gaston was in her mind as she hurried to the carriage. M. de Brécourt hurried beside her; she would not take his arm. But he opened the door for her and as she got in she heard him murmur strangely, “You are charming, mademoiselle—charming, charming!”

HER ABSENCE HAD NOT BEEN LONG AND WHEN she re-entered the familiar salon at the hotel she found her father and sister sitting there together as if they were timing her—a prey to curiosity and suspense. Mr. Dosson however gave no sign of impatience; he only looked at her in silence through the smoke of his cigar (he profaned the red satin splendour with perpetual fumes,) as she burst into the room. No other word than the one I use expresses the tell-tale character of poor Francie’s ingress. She rushed to one of the tables, flinging down her muff and gloves, and the next moment Delia, who had sprung up as she came in, had caught her in her arms and was glaring into her face with a “Francie Dosson—what
have
you been through?” Francie said nothing at first, only closing her eyes and letting her sister do what she would with her. “She has been crying, father—she
has
,” Delia went on, pulling her down upon a sofa and almost shaking her as she continued. “Will you please tell? I’ve been perfectly wild! Yes you have, you dreadful—!” the elder girl declared, kissing her on the eyes. They opened at this compassionate pressure and Francie rested them in their beautiful distress on her father, who had now risen to his feet and stood with his back to the fire.

“Why, daughter,” said Mr. Dosson, “you look as if you had had quite a worry.”

“I told you I should—I told you, I told you!” Francie broke out, with a trembling voice. “And now it’s come!”

“You don’t mean to say you’ve
done
anything?” cried Delia, very white.

“It’s all over—it’s all over!” Francie pursued, turning her eyes to her sister.

“Are you crazy, Francie?” this young lady asked. “I’m sure you look as if you were.”

“Ain’t you going to be married, my child?” asked Mr. Dosson, benevolently, coming nearer to her.

Francie sprang up, releasing herself from her sister, and threw her arms around him. “Will you take me away, father—will you take me right away?”

“Of course I will, my precious. I’ll take you anywhere. I don’t want anything—it wasn’t
my
idea!” And Mr. Dosson and Delia looked at each other while the girl pressed her face upon his shoulder.

“I never heard such trash—you can’t behave that way! Has he got engaged to some one else—in America?” Delia demanded.

“Why, if it’s over it’s over. I guess it’s all right,” said Mr. Dosson, kissing his younger daughter. “I’ll go back or I’ll go on. I’ll go anywhere you like!”

“You won’t have your daughters insulted, I presume!” Delia cried. “If you don’t tell me this moment what has happened I’ll drive straight round there and find out.”

“
Have
they insulted you, sweetie?” asked the old man, bending over the girl, who simply leaned upon him with her hidden face, with no sound of tears.

Francie raised her head, turning round upon her sister.
“Did I ever tell you anything else—did I ever believe in it for an hour?”

“Oh, well, if you’ve done it on purpose—to triumph over me—we might as well go home, certainly. But I think you had better wait till Gaston comes.”

“It will be worse when he comes—if he thinks the same as they do.”

“
Have
they insulted you—have they?” Mr. Dosson repeated; while the smoke of his cigar, curling round the question, gave him the air of asking it with placidity.

“They think I’ve insulted them—they’re in an awful state—they’re almost dead. Mr. Flack has put it into the paper—everything, I don’t know what—and they think it’s too fearful. They were all there together—all at me at once, groaning and carrying on. I never saw people so affected.”

Delia listened in bewilderment, staring. “So affected?”

“Ah, yes, there’s a good deal of that,” said Mr. Dosson.

“It’s too real—too terrible; you don’t understand. It’s all printed there—that they’re immoral, and everything about them; everything that’s private and dreadful.”

“Immoral, is that so?” Mr. Dosson asked.

“And about me too, and about Gaston and my marriage, and all sorts of personalities, and all the names, and Mme. de Villepreux, and everything. It’s all printed there and they’ve read it. It says that one of them steals.”

“Will you be so good as to tell me what you are talking about?” Delia inquired, sternly. “Where is it printed and what have we got to do with it?”

“Some one sent it, and I told Mr. Flack.”

“Do you mean
his
paper? Oh the horrid brute!” Delia cried, with passion.

“Do they mind so what they see in the papers?” asked Mr. Dosson. “I guess they haven’t seen what I’ve seen. Why, there used to be things about me—!”

“Well, it
is
about us too, about every one. They think it’s the same as if I wrote it.”

“Well, you know what you
could
do,” said Mr. Dosson, smiling at his daughter.

“Do you mean that piece about your picture—that you told me about when you went with him again to see it?” Delia asked.

“Oh, I don’t know what piece it is; I haven’t seen it.”

“Haven’t seen it? Didn’t they show it to you?”

“Yes—but I couldn’t read it. Mme. de Brécourt wanted me to take it—but I left it behind.”

“Well, that’s like you—like the Tauchnitzes littering up our track. I’ll be bound I’d see it,” said Delia. “Hasn’t it come, doesn’t it always come?”

“I guess we haven’t had the last—unless it’s somewhere round,” said Mr. Dosson.

“Father, go out and get it—you can buy it on the boulevard!” Delia continued. “Francie, what
did
you want to tell him?”

“I didn’t know; I was just conversing; he seemed to take so much interest.”

“Oh, he’s a deep one!” groaned Delia.

“Well, if folks are immoral you can’t keep it out of the papers—and I don’t know as you ought to want to,” Mr. Dosson remarked. “If they are I’m glad to know it, lovey.” And he gave his younger daughter a glance apparently intended to show that in this case he should know what to do.

But Francie was looking at her sister as if her attention
had been arrested. “How do you mean—‘a deep one’?”

“Why, he wanted to break it off, the wretch!”

Francie stared; then a deeper flush leapt to her face, in which already there was a look of fever. “To break off my engagement?”

“Yes, just that. But I’ll be hanged if he shall! Father, will you allow that?”

“Allow what?”

“Why Mr. Flack’s vile interference. You won’t let him do as he likes with us, I suppose, will you?”

“It’s all done—it’s all done!” said Francie. The tears had suddenly started into her eyes again.

“Well, he’s so smart that it
is
likely he’s too smart,” said Mr. Dosson. “But what did they want you to do about it?—that’s what I want to know.”

“They wanted me to say I knew nothing about it—but I couldn’t.”

“But you didn’t and you don’t—if you haven’t even read it!” Delia returned.

“Where
is
the d—d thing?” her father asked, looking helplessly about him.

“On the boulevard, at the very first of those kiosks you come to. That old woman has it—the one who speaks English—she always has it. Do go and get it—do!” And Delia pushed him, looked for his hat for him.

“I knew he wanted to print something and I can’t say I didn’t!” Francie said. “I thought he would praise my portrait and that Mr. Waterlow would like that, and Gaston and every one. And he talked to me about the paper—he is always doing that and always was—and I didn’t see the harm. But even just knowing him—they think that’s vile.”

“Well, I should hope we can know whom we like!”
Delia declared, jumping in her mystification and alarm from one point of view to another.

Mr. Dosson had put on his hat—he was going out for the paper. “Why, he kept us alive last year,” he said.

“Well, he seems to have killed us now!” Delia cried.

“Well, don’t give up an old friend,” said Mr. Dosson, with his hand on the door. “And don’t back down on anything you’ve done.”

“Lord, what a fuss about an old newspaper!” Delia went on, in her exasperation. “It must be about two weeks old, anyway. Didn’t they ever see a society-paper before?”

“They can’t have seen much,” said Mr. Dosson. He paused, still with his hand on the door. “Don’t you worry—Gaston will make it all right.”

“Gaston?—it will kill Gaston!”

“Is that what they say?” Delia demanded.

“Gaston will never look at me again.”

“Well, then, he’ll have to look at
me
,” said Mr. Dosson.

“Do you mean that he’ll give you up—that he’ll be so abject?” Delia went on.

“They say he’s just the one who will feel it most. But I’m the one who does that,” said Francie, with a strange smile.

“They’re stuffing you with lies—because
they
don’t like it. He’ll be tender and true,” answered Delia.

“When
they
hate me?—Never!” And Francie shook her head slowly, still with her touching smile. “That’s what he cared for most—to make them like me.”

“And isn’t he a gentleman, I should like to know?” asked Delia.

“Yes, and that’s why I won’t marry him—if I’ve injured him.”

“Pshaw! he has seen the papers over there. You wait till he comes,” Mr. Dosson enjoined, passing out of the room.

The girls remained there together and after a moment Delia exclaimed: “Well, he has got to fix it—that’s one thing I can tell you.”

“Who has got to fix it?”

“Why, that villainous man. He has got to publish another piece saying it’s all false or all a mistake.”

“Yes, you had better make him,” said Francie, with a weak laugh. “You had better go after him—down to Nice.”

“You don’t mean to say he has gone to Nice?”

“Didn’t he say he was going there as soon as he came back from London—going right through, without stopping?”

“I don’t know but he did,” said Delia. Then she added—“The coward!”

“Why do you say that? He can’t hide at Nice—they can find him there.”

“Are they going after him?”

“They want to shoot him—to stab him, I don’t know what—those men.”

“Well, I wish they would,” said Delia.

“They had better shoot me. I shall defend him. I shall protect him,” Francie went on.

“How can you protect him? You shall never speak to him again.”

Francie was silent a moment. “I can protect him without speaking to him. I can tell the simple truth—that he didn’t print a word but what I told him.”

“That can’t be so. He fixed it up. They always do, in the papers. Well now, he has got to bring out a piece praising
them up—praising them to the skies: that’s what he has got to do!” Delia declared, with decision.

“Praising them up? They’ll hate that worse,” Francie returned, musingly.

Delia stared. “What on earth do they want then?”

Francie had sunk upon the sofa; her eyes were fixed on the carpet. She made no reply to her sister’s question but presently she said, “We had better go to-morrow, the first hour that’s possible.”

“Go where? Do you mean to Nice?”

“I don’t care where. Anywhere, to get away.”

“Before Gaston comes—without seeing him?”

“I don’t want to see him. When they were all ranting and raving at me just now I wished he was there—I told them so. But now I feel differently—I can never see him again.”

“I don’t suppose you’re crazy, are you?” cried Delia.

“I can’t tell him it wasn’t me—I can’t, I can’t!” the younger girl pursued.

Delia planted herself in front of her. “Francie Dosson, if you’re going to tell him you’ve done anything wrong you might as well stop before you begin. Didn’t you hear what father said?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” Francie replied, listlessly.

“ ‘Don’t give up an old friend—there’s nothing on earth so mean.’ Now isn’t Gaston Probert an old friend?”