"What is it?"

But abruptly the man turned back into the room and came across to where she sat. It seemed to her that his face had a new look—a very strange exaltation which she had never before seen there. He said:

"Listen! I do not know if anything can be done that has not been done already, but if there is anything I shall do it, you may be sure."

"You, Ste. Marie?" she cried, in a sharp voice. "You?"

"And why not I?" he demanded.

"Oh, my friend," said she, "you could do nothing! You wouldn't know where to turn, how to set to work. Remember that a score of men who are skilled in this kind of thing have been searching for two months. What could you do that they haven't done?"

"I do not know, my Queen," said Ste. Marie, "but I shall do what I can. Who knows? Sometimes the fool who rushes in where angels have feared to tread succeeds where they have failed. Oh, let me do this!" he cried out. "Let me do it for both our sakes—for yours and for mine! It is for your sake most. I swear that! It is to set you at peace again, bring back the happiness you have lost. But it is for my sake, too, a little. It will be a test of me, a trial. If I can succeed here where so many have failed, if I bring back your brother to you—or, at least, discover what has become of him—I shall be able to come to you with less shame for my—unworthiness."

He looked down upon her with eager, burning eyes, and, after a little, the girl rose to face him. She was very white, and she stared at him silently.

"When I came to you to-day," he went on, "I knew that I had nothing to offer you but my faithful love and my life, which has been a life without value. In exchange for that I asked too much. I knew it, and you knew it, too. I know well enough what sort of man you ought to marry, and what a brilliant career you could make for yourself in the proper place—what great influence you could wield. But I asked you to give that all up, and I hadn't anything to offer in its place—nothing but love. My Queen, give me a chance now to offer you more! If I can bring back your brother or news of him, I can come to you without shame and ask you to marry me, because if I can succeed in that you will know that I can succeed in other things. You will be able to trust me. You'll know that I can climb. It shall be a sort of symbol. Let me go!"

The girl broke into a sort of sobbing laughter.

"Oh, divine madman!" she cried. "Are you all mad, you Ste. Maries, that you must be forever leading forlorn hopes? Oh, how you are, after all, a Ste. Marie! Now, at last, I know why one cannot but love you. You're the knight of old. You're chivalry come down to us. You're a ghost out of the past when men rode in armor with pure hearts seeking the Great Adventure. Oh, my friend," she said, "be wise. Give this up in time. It is a beautiful thought, and I love you for it, but it is madness—yes, yes, a sweet madness, but mad, nevertheless! What possible chance would you have of success? And think—think how failure would hurt you—and me! You must not do it, Ste. Marie."

"Failure will never hurt me, my Queen," said he, "because there are no hurts in the grave, and I shall never give over searching until I succeed or until I am dead." His face was uplifted, and there was a sort of splendid fervor upon it. It was as if it shone.

The girl stared at him dumbly. She began to realize that the knightly spirit of those gallant, long dead gentlemen was indeed descended upon the last of their house, that he burnt with the same pure fire which had long ago lighted them through quest and adventure, and she was a little afraid with an almost superstitious fear. She put out her hands upon the man's shoulders, and she moved a little closer to him, holding him.

"Oh, madness, madness!" she said, watching his face.

"Let me do it!" said Ste. Marie.

And after a silence that seemed to endure for a long time, she sighed, shaking her head, and said she:

"Oh, my friend, there is no strength in me to stop you. I think we are both a little mad, and I know that you are very mad, but I cannot say no. You seem to have come out of another century to take up this quest. How can I prevent you? But listen to one thing. If I accept this sacrifice, if I let you give your time and your strength to this almost hopeless attempt, it must be understood that it is to be within certain limits. I will not accept any indefinite thing. You may give your efforts to trying to find trace of my brother for a month if you like, or for three months, or six, or even a year, but not for more than that. If he is not found in a year's time we shall know that—we shall know that he is dead, and that—further search is useless. I cannot say how I—Oh, Ste. Marie, Ste. Marie, this is a proof of you, indeed! And I have called you idle. I have said hard things of you. It is very bitter to me to think that I have said those things."

"They were true, my Queen," said he, smiling. "They were quite, quite true. It is for me to prove now that they shall be true no longer." He took the girl's hand in his rather ceremoniously, and bent his head and kissed it. As he did so he was aware that she stirred, all at once, uneasily, and when he had raised his head he looked at her in question.

"I thought some one was coming into the room," she explained, looking beyond him. "I thought some one started to come in between the portieres yonder. It must have been a servant."

"Then it is understood," said Ste. Marie. "To bring you back your happiness, and to prove myself in some way worthy of your love, I am to devote myself with all my effort and all my strength to finding your brother or some trace of him, and until I succeed I will not see your face again, my Queen."

"Oh, that!" she cried—"that, too?"

"I will not see you," said he, "until I bring you news of him, or until my year is passed and I have failed utterly. I know what risk I run. If I fail, I lose you. That is understood, too. But if I succeed—"

"Then?" she said, breathing quickly. "Then?"

"Then," said he, "I shall come to you, and I shall feel no shame in asking you to marry me, because then you will know that there is in me some little worthiness, and that in our lives together you need not be buried in obscurity—lost to the world."

"I cannot find any words to say," said she. "I am feeling just now very humble and very ashamed. It seems that I haven't known you at all. Oh yes, I am ashamed."

The girl's face, habitually so cool and composed, was flushed with a beautiful flush, and it had softened, and it seemed to quiver between a smile and a tear. With a swift movement she leaned close to him, holding by his shoulder, and for an instant her cheek was against his. She whispered to him:

"Oh, find him quickly, my dear! Find him quickly, and come back to me!"

Ste. Marie began to tremble, and she stood away from him. Once he looked up, but the flush was gone from Miss Benham's cheeks and she was pale again. She stood with her hands tight clasped over her breast. So he bowed to her very low, and turned and went out of the room and out of the house.

So quickly did he move at this last that a man who had been, for some moments, standing just outside the portieres of the doorway had barely time to step aside into the shadows of the dim hall. As it was, Ste. Marie, in a more normal moment, must have seen that the man was there; but his eyes were blind, and he saw nothing. He groped for his hat and stick as if the place were a place of gloom, and, because the footman who should have been at the door was in regions unknown, he let himself out, and so went away.

Then the man who stood apart in the shadows crossed the hall to a small room which was furnished as a library, but not often used. He closed the door behind him, and went to one of the windows which gave upon the street. And he stood there for a long time, drawing absurd invisible pictures upon the glass with one finger and staring thoughtfully out into the late June afternoon.

* * * * *



VI

A BRAVE GENTLEMAN RECEIVES A HURT, BUT VOLUNTEERS IN A GOOD CAUSE

When Ste. Marie had gone, Miss Benham sat alone in the drawing-room for almost an hour. She had been stirred that afternoon more deeply than she thought she had ever been stirred before, and she needed time to regain that cool poise, that mental equilibrium, which was normal to her and necessary for coherent thought.

She was still in a sort of fever of bewilderment and exaltation, still all aglow with the man's own high fervor; but the second self which so often sat apart from her, and looked on with critical, mocking eyes, whispered that to-morrow, the fever past, the fervor cooled, she must see the thing in its true light—a glorious lunacy born of a moment of enthusiasm. It was finely romantic of him, this mocking second self whispered to her—picturesque beyond criticism—but, setting aside the practical folly of it, could even the mood last?

The girl rose to her feet with an angry exclamation. She found herself intolerable at such times as this.

"If there's a heaven," she cried out, "and by chance I ever go there, I suppose I shall walk sneering through the streets and saying to myself: 'Oh yes, it's pretty enough, but how absurd and unpractical!'"

She passed before one of the small, narrow mirrors which were let into the walls of the room in gilt Louis Seize frames with candles beside them, and she turned and stared at her very beautiful reflection with a resentful wonder.

"Shall I always drag along so far behind him?" she said. "Shall I never rise to him, save in the moods of an hour?"

She began suddenly to realize what the man's going away meant—that she might not see him again for weeks, months, even a year. For was it at all likely that he could succeed in what he had undertaken?

"Why did I let him go?" she cried. "Oh, fool, fool, to let him go!" But even as she said it she knew that she could not have held him back.

She began to be afraid, not for him, but of herself. He had taught her what it might be to love. For the first time love's premonitory thrill—promise of unspeakable, uncomprehended mysteries—had wrung her, and the echo of that thrill stirred in her yet; but what might not happen in his long absence? She was afraid of that critical and analyzing power of mind which she had so long trained to attack all that came to her. What might it not work with the new thing that had come? To what pitiful shreds might it not be rent while he who only could renew it was away? She looked ahead at the weeks and months to come, and she was terribly afraid.

She went out of the room and up to her grandfather's chamber and knocked there. The admirable Peters, who opened to her, said that his master had not been very well, and was just then asleep, but as they spoke together in low tones the old gentleman cried, testily, from within:

"Well? Well? Who's there? Who wants to see me? Who is it?"

Miss Benham went into the dim, shaded room, and when old David saw who it was he sank back upon his pillows with a pacified growl. He certainly looked ill, and he had grown thinner and whiter within the past month, and the lines in his waxlike face seemed to be deeper scored.

The girl went up beside the bed and stood there a moment, after she had bent over and kissed her grandfather's cheek, stroking with her hand the absurdly gorgeous mandarin's jacket—an imperial yellow one this time.

"Isn't this new?" she asked. "I seem never to have seen this one before. It's quite wonderful."

The old gentleman looked down at it with the pride of a little girl over her first party frock. He came as near simpering as a fierce person of eighty-six, with a square white beard, can come.

"Rather good—what? What?" said he. "Yes, it's new. De Vries sent it me. It is my best one. Imperial yellow. Did you notice the little Show medallions with the swastika? Young Ste. Marie was here this afternoon." He introduced the name with no pause or change of expression, as if Ste. Marie were a part of the decoration of the mandarin's jacket. "I told him he was a damned fool."

"Yes," said Miss Benham, "I know. He said you did. I suppose," she said, "that in a sort of very informal fashion I am engaged to him. Well, no, perhaps not quite that; but he seems to consider himself engaged to me, and when he has finished something very important that he has undertaken to do he is coming to ask me definitely to marry him. No, I suppose we aren't engaged yet; at least, I'm not. But it's almost the same, because I suppose I shall accept him whether he fails or succeeds in what he is doing."

"If he fails in it, whatever it may be," said old David, "he won't give you a chance to accept him; he won't come back. I know him well enough for that. He's a romantic fool, but he's a thoroughgoing fool. He plays the game." The old man looked up to his granddaughter, scowling a little. "You two are absurdly unsuited to each other," said he, "and I told Ste. Marie so. I suppose you think you're in love with him."

"Yes," said the girl, "I suppose I do."

"Idleness and all? You were rather severe on idleness at one time."

"He isn't idle any more," said she. "He has undertaken—of his own accord—to find Arthur. He has some theory about it; and he is not going to see me again until he has succeeded—or until a year is past. If he fails, I fancy he won't come back."

Old David gave a sudden hoarse exclamation, and his withered hands shook and stirred before him. Afterward he fell to half-inarticulate muttering.

"The young romantic fool!—Don Quixote—like all the rest of them—those Ste. Maries. The fool and the angels. The angels and the fool."

The girl distinguished words from time to time. For the most part, he mumbled under his breath. But when he had been silent a long time, he said, suddenly:

"It would be ridiculously like him to succeed."

The girl gave a little sigh.

"I wish I dared hope for it," said she. "I wish I dared hope for it."

She had left a book that she wanted in the drawing-room, and, when presently her grandfather fell asleep in his fitful manner, she went down after it. In crossing the hall she came upon Captain Stewart, who was dressed for the street and had his hat and stick in his hands. He did not live in his father's house, for he had a little flat in the rue du Faubourg St. Honore, but he was in and out a good deal. He paused when he saw his niece, and smiled upon her a benignant smile which she rather disliked, because she disliked benignant people. The two really saw very little of each other, though Captain Stewart often sat for hours together with his sister, up in a little boudoir which she had furnished in the execrable taste which to her meant comfort, while that timid and colorless lady embroidered strange tea cloths with stranger flora, and prattled about the heathen, in whom she had an academic interest.

He said: "Ah, my dear! It's you?"

Indisputably it was, and there seemed to be no use of denying it, so Miss Benham said nothing, but waited for the man to go on if he had more to say.

"I dropped in," he continued, "to see my father, but they told me he was asleep, and so I didn't disturb him. I talked a little while with your mother instead."

"I have just come from him," said Miss Benham. "He dozed off again as I left. Still, if you had anything in particular to tell him, he'd be glad to be wakened, I fancy. There's no news?"

"No," said Captain Stewart, sadly—"no, nothing. I do not give up hope, but I am, I confess, a little discouraged."

"We are all that, I should think," said Miss Benham, briefly.

She gave him a little nod and turned away into the drawing-room. Her uncle's peculiar dry manner irritated her at times beyond bearing, and she felt that this was one of the times. She had never had any reason for doubting that he Was a good and kindly soul, but she disliked him because he bored her. Her mother bored her, too—the poor woman bored everybody—but the sense of filial obligation was strong enough in the girl to prevent her from acknowledging this even to herself. In regard to her uncle she had no sense of obligation whatever, except to be as civil to him as possible, and so she kept out of his way. She heard the heavy front door close, and gave a little sigh of relief.

"If he had come in here and tried to talk to me," she said, "I should have screamed."

* * * * *

Meanwhile Ste. Marie, a man moving in a dream, uplifted, cloud-enwrapped, made his way homeward. He walked all the long distance—that is, looking backward upon it, later, he thought he must have walked, but the half-hour was a blank to him, an indeterminate, a chaotic whirl of things and emotions.

In the little flat in the rue d'Assas he came upon Richard Hartley, who, having found the door unlocked and the master of the place absent, had sat comfortably down, with a pipe and a stack of Couriers Francais, to wait. Ste. Marie burst into the doorway of the room where his friend sat at ease. Hat, gloves, and stick fell away from him in a sort of shower. He extended his arms high in the air. His face was, as it were, luminous. The Englishman regarded him morosely. He said:

"You look as if somebody had died and left you money. What the devil you looking like that for?"

"He!" cried Ste. Marie, in a great voice. "He, the world is mine! Embrace me, my infant! Sacred name of a pig, why do you sit there? Embrace me!"

He began to stride about the room, his head between his hands. Speech lofty and ridiculous burst from him in a sort of splutter of fireworks, but the Englishman sat still in his chair, and a gray, bleak look came upon him, for he began to understand. He was more or less used to these outbursts, and he bore them as patiently as he could, but though seven times out of the ten they were no more than spasms of pure joy of living, and meant, "It's a fine spring day," or "I've just seen two beautiful princesses of milliners in the street," an inner voice told him that this time it meant another thing. Quite suddenly he realized that he had been waiting for this—bracing himself against its onslaught. He had not been altogether blind through the past month. Ste. Marie seized him and dragged him from his chair.

"Dance, lump of flesh! Dance, sacred English rosbif that you are! Sing, gros polisson! Sing!" Abruptly, as usual, the mania departed from him, but not the glory; his eyes shone bright and triumphant. "Ah, my old," said he, "I am near the stars at last. My feet are on the top rungs of the ladder. Tell me that you are glad!"

The Englishman drew a long breath.

"I take it," said he, "that means that you're—that she has accepted you, eh?" He held out his hand. He was a brave and honest man. Even in pain he was incapable of jealousy. He said: "I ought to want to murder you, but I don't. I congratulate you. You're an undeserving beggar, but so were the rest of us. It was an open field, and you've won quite honestly. My best wishes!"

Then at last Ste. Marie understood, and in a flash the glory went out of his face. He cried: "Ah, mon cher ami! Pig that I am to forget. Pig! Pig! Animal!"

The other man saw that tears had sprung to his eyes, and was horribly embarrassed to the very bottom of his good British soul.

"Yes! Yes!" he said, gruffly. "Quite so, quite so! No consequence!" He dragged his hands away from Ste. Marie's grasp, stuck them in his pockets, and turned to the window beside which he had been sitting. It looked out over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens, with their winding paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their flaming flower-beds, their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth in laborer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled along under the high palings; one arm was about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the youth's senior, but, as ever, love was blind. The youth carolled in a high, clear voice, "Vous etes si jolie," a song of abundant sentiment, and the woman put up one hand and patted his cheek. So they strolled on and turned up into the rue Vavin.

Ste. Marie, across the room, looked at his friend's square back, and knew that in his silent way the man was suffering. A great sadness, the recoil from his trembling heights of bliss, came upon him and enveloped him. Was it true that one man's joy must inevitably be another's pain? He tried to imagine himself in Hartley's place, Hartley in his, and he gave a little shiver. He knew that if that bouleversement were actually to take place he would be as glad for his friend's sake as poor Hartley was now for his, but he knew also that the smile of congratulation would be a grimace of almost intolerable pain, and so he knew what Hartley's black hour must be like.

"You must forgive me," he said. "I had forgotten. I don't know why. Well, yes, happiness is a very selfish state of mind, I suppose. One thinks of nothing but one's self—and one other. I—during this past month I've been in the clouds. You must forgive me."

The Englishman turned back into the room. Ste. Marie saw that his face was as completely devoid of expression as it usually was, that his hands, when he chose and lighted a cigarette, were quite steady, and he marvelled. That would have been impossible for him under such circumstances.

"She has accepted you, I take it?" said Hartley again.

"Not quite that," said he. "Sit down and I'll tell you about it." So he told him about his hour with Miss Benham, and about what had been agreed upon between them, and about what he had undertaken to do. "Apart from wishing to do everything in this world that I can do to make her happy," he said—"and she will never be at peace again until she knows the truth about her brother—apart from that, I'm purely selfish in the thing. I've got to win her respect, as well as—the rest. I want her to respect me, and she has never quite done that. I'm an idler. So are you, but you have a perfectly good excuse. I have not. I've been an idler because it suited me, because nothing turned up, and because I have enough to eat without working for my living. I know how she has felt about all that. Well, she shall feel it no longer."

"You're taking on a big order," said the other man.

"The bigger the better," said Ste. Marie. "And I shall succeed in it or never see her again. I've sworn that."

The odd look of exaltation that Miss Benham had seen in his face, the look of knightly fervor, came there again, and Hartley saw it, and knew that the man was stirred by no transient whim. Oddly enough he thought, as had the girl earlier in the day, of those elder Ste. Maries, who had taken sword and lance and gone out into a strange world—a place of unknown terrors—afire for the Great Adventure. And this was one of their blood.

"I'm afraid you don't realize," he went on, "the difficulties you've got to face. Better men than you have failed over this thing, you know."

"A worse might nevertheless succeed," said Ste. Marie. And the other said:

"Yes. Oh yes. And there's always luck to be considered, of course. You might stumble on some trace." He threw away his cigarette and lighted another, and he smoked it down almost to the end before he spoke. At last he said: "I want to tell you something. The reason why I want to tell it comes a little later. A few weeks before you returned to Paris I asked Miss Benham to marry me."

Ste. Marie looked up with a quick sympathy. "Ah," said he. "I have sometimes thought—wondered. I have wondered if it went as far as that. Of course, I could see that you had known her well, though you seldom go there nowadays."

"Yes," said Hartley, "it went as far as that, but no farther. She—well, she didn't care for me—not in that way. So I stiffened my back and shut my mouth, and got used to the fact that what I'd hoped for was impossible. And now comes the reason for telling you what I've told. I want you to let me help you in what you're going to do—if you think you can, that is. Remember, I—cared for her, too. I'd like to do something for her. It would never have occurred to me to do this until you thought of it, but I should like very much to lend a hand—do some of the work. D'you think you could let me in?"

Ste. Marie stared at him in open astonishment, and, for an instant, something like dismay.

"Yes, yes! I know what you're thinking," said the Englishman. "You'd hoped to do it all yourself. It's your game. I know. Well, it's your game even if you let me come in. I'm just a helper. Some one to run errands. Some one, perhaps, to take counsel with now and then. Look at it on the practical side. Two heads are certainly better than one. Certainly I could be of use to you. And besides—well, I want to do something for her. I—cared, too, you see. D'you think you could take me in?"

It was the man's love that made his appeal irresistible. No one could appeal to Ste. Marie on that score in vain. It was true that he had hoped to work alone—to win or lose alone; to stand, in this matter, quite on his own feet; but he could not deny the man who had loved her and lost her. Ste. Marie thrust out his hand.

"You love her, too!" he said. "That is enough. We work together. I have a possibly foolish idea that if we can find a certain man we will learn something about Arthur Benham. I'll tell you about it."

But before he could begin the door-bell jangled.

* * * * *



VII

CAPTAIN STEWART MAKES A KINDLY OFFER

Ste. Marie scowled.

"A caller would come singularly malapropos just now," said he. "I've half a mind not to go to the door. I want to talk this thing over with you."

"Whoever it is," objected Hartley, "has been told by the concierge that you're at home. It may not be a caller, anyhow. It may be a parcel or something. You'd best go."

So Ste. Marie went out into the little passage, blaspheming fluently the while. The Englishman heard him open the outer door of the flat. He heard him exclaim, in great surprise:

"Ah, Captain Stewart! A great pleasure! Come in! Come in!"

And he permitted himself a little blaspheming on his own account, for the visitor, as Ste. Marie had said, came most malapropos, and, besides, he disliked Miss Benham's uncle. He heard the American say:

"I have been hoping for some weeks to give myself the pleasure of calling here, and to-day such an excellent pretext presented itself that I came straightaway."

Hartley heard him emit his mewing little laugh, and heard him say, with the elephantine archness affected by certain dry and middle-aged gentlemen:

"I come with congratulations. My niece has told me all about it. Lucky young man! Ah—"

He reached the door of the inner room and saw Richard Hartley standing by the window, and he began to apologize profusely, saying that he had had no idea that Ste. Marie was not alone. But Ste. Marie said:

"It doesn't in the least matter. I have no secrets from Hartley. Indeed, I have just been talking with him about this very thing."

But for all that he looked curiously at the elder man, and it struck him as very odd that Miss Benham should have gone straight to her uncle and told him all this. It did not seem in the least like her, especially as he knew the two were on no terms of intimacy. He decided that she must have gone up to her grandfather's room to discuss it with that old gentleman—a reasonable enough hypothesis—and that Captain Stewart must have come in during the discussion. Quite evidently he had wasted no time in setting out upon his errand of congratulation.

"Then," said Captain Stewart, "if I am to be good-naturedly forgiven for my stupidity, let me go on and say, in my capacity as a member of the family, that the news pleased me very much. I was glad to hear it."

He shook Ste. Marie's hand, looking very benignant indeed, and Ste. Marie was quite overcome with pleasure and gratitude; it seemed to him such a very kindly act in the elder man. He produced things to smoke and drink, and Captain Stewart accepted a cigarette and mixed himself a rather stiff glass of absinthe—it was between five and six o'clock.

"And now," said he, when he was at ease in the most comfortable of the low cane chairs, and the glass of opalescent liquor was properly curdled and set at hand—"now, having congratulated you and—ah, welcomed you, if I may put it so, as a probable future member of the family—I turn to the other feature of the affair."

He had an odd trick of lowering his head and gazing benevolently upon an auditor as if over the top of spectacles. It was one of his elderly ways. He beamed now upon Ste. Marie in this manner, and, after a moment, turned and beamed upon Richard Hartley, who gazed stolidly back at him without expression.

"You have determined, I hear," said he, "to join us in our search for poor Arthur. Good! Good! I welcome you there, also."

Ste. Marie stirred uneasily in his chair.

"Well," said he, "in a sense, yes. That is, I've determined to devote myself to the search, and Hartley is good enough to offer to go in with me; but I think, if you don't mind—of course, I know it's very presumptuous and doubtless idiotic of us—but, if you don't mind, I think we'll work independently. You see—well, I can't quite put it into words, but it's our idea to succeed or fail quite by our own efforts. I dare say we shall fail, but it won't be for lack of trying."

Captain Stewart looked disappointed.

"Oh, I think—" said he. "Pardon me for saying it, but I think you're rather foolish to do that." He waved an apologetic hand. "Of course, I comprehend your excellent motive. Yes, as you say, you want to succeed quite on your own. But look at the practical side! You'll have to go over all the weary weeks of useless labor we have gone over. We could save you that. We have examined and followed up, and at last given over, a hundred clews that on the surface looked quite possible of success. You'll be doing that all over again. In short, my dear friend, you will merely be following along a couple of months behind us. It seems to me a pity. I sha'n't like to see you wasting your time and efforts."

He dropped his eyes to the glass of Pernod which stood beside him, and he took it in his hand and turned it slowly and watched the light gleam in strange pearl colors upon it. He glanced up again with a little smile which the two younger men found oddly pathetic.

"I should like to see you succeed," said Captain Stewart. "I like to see youth and courage and high hope succeed." He said: "I am past the age of romance, though I am not so very old in years. Romance has passed me by, but—I love it still. It still stirs me surprisingly when I see it in other people—young people who are simple and earnest, and who—and who are in love." He laughed gently, still turning the glass in his hand. "I am afraid you will call me a sentimentalist," he said, "and an elderly sentimentalist is, as a rule, a ridiculous person. Ridiculous or not, though, I have rather set my heart on your success in this undertaking. Who knows? You may succeed where we others have failed. Youth has such a way of charging in and carrying all before it by assault—such a way of overleaping barriers that look unsurmountable to older eyes! Youth! Youth! Eh, my God," said he, "to be young again, just for a little while! To feel the blood beat strong and eager! Never to be tired! Eh, to be like one of you youngsters! You, Ste. Marie, or you, Hartley! There's so little left for people when youth is gone!"

He bent his head again, staring down upon the glass before him, and for a while there was a silence which neither of the younger men cared to break.

"Don't refuse a helping hand," said Captain Stewart, looking up once more. "Don't be over-proud. I may be able to set you upon the right path. Not that I have anything definite to work upon—I haven't, alas! But each day new clews turn up. One day we shall find the real one, and that may be one that I have turned over to you to follow out. One never knows."

Ste. Marie looked across at Richard Hartley, but that gentleman was blowing smoke-rings and to all outward appearance giving them his entire attention. He looked back to Captain Stewart, and Stewart's eyes regarded him, smiling a little wistfully, he thought. Ste. Marie scowled out of the window at the trees of the Luxembourg Gardens.

"I hardly know," said he. "Of course, I sound a braying ass in hesitating even a moment; but, in a way, you understand, I'm so anxious to do this or to fail in it quite on my own. You're—so tremendously kind about it that I don't know what to say. I must seem very ungrateful, I know; but I'm not."

"No," said the elder man, "you don't seem ungrateful at all. I understand exactly how you feel about it, and I applaud your feeling—but not your judgment. I am afraid that for the sake of a sentiment you're taking unnecessary risks of failure."

For the first time Richard Hartley spoke.

"I've an idea, you know," said he, "that it's going to be a matter chiefly of luck. One day somebody will stumble on the right trail, and that might as well be Ste. Marie or I as your trained detectives. If you don't mind my saying so, sir—I don't want to seem rude—your trained detectives do not seem to accomplish much in two months, do they?"

Captain Stewart looked thoughtfully at the younger man.

"No," he said, at last. "I am sorry to say they don't seem to have accomplished much—except to prove that there are a great many places poor Arthur has not been to and a great many people who have not seen him. After all, that is something—the elimination of ground that need not be worked over again." He set down the glass from which he had been drinking. "I cannot agree with your theory," he said. "I cannot agree that such work as this is best left to an accidental solution. Accidents are too rare. We have tried to go at it in as scientific a way as could be managed—by covering large areas of territory, by keeping the police everywhere on the alert, by watching the boy's old friends and searching his favorite haunts. Personally, I am inclined to think that he managed to slip away to America very early in the course of events, before we began to search for him, and, of course, I am having a careful watch kept there as well as here. But no trace has appeared as yet—nothing at all trustworthy. Meanwhile, I continue to hope and to work, but I grow a little discouraged. In any case, though, we shall hear of him in three months more if he is alive."

"Why three months?" asked Ste. Marie. "What do you mean by that?"

"In three months," said Captain Stewart, "Arthur will be of age, and he can demand the money left him by his father. If he is alive he will turn up for that. I have thought, from the first, that he is merely hiding somewhere until this time should be past. He—you must know that he went away very angry, after a quarrel with his grandfather? My father is not a patient man. He may have been very harsh with the boy."

"Ah, yes," said Hartley; "but no boy, however young or angry, would be foolish enough to risk an absolute break with the man who is going to leave him a large fortune. Young Benham must know that his grandfather would never forgive him for staying away all this time if he stayed away of his own accord. He must know that he'd be taking tremendous risks of being cut off altogether."

"And besides," added Ste. Marie, "it is quite possible that your father, sir, may die at any time—any hour. And he's very angry at his grandson. He may have cut him off already."

Captain Stewart's eyes sharpened suddenly, but he dropped them to the glass in his hand.

"Have you any reason for thinking that?" he asked.

"No," said Ste. Marie. "I beg your pardon. I shouldn't have said it. That is a matter which concerns your family alone. I forgot myself. The possibility occurred to me suddenly for the first time."

But the elder man looked up at him with a smile.

"Pray don't apologize," said he. "Surely we three can speak frankly together! And, frankly, I know nothing of my father's will. But I don't think he would cut poor Arthur off, though he is, of course, very angry about the boy's leaving in the manner he did. No, I am sure he wouldn't cut him off. He was fond of the lad, very fond—as we all were."

Captain Stewart glanced at his watch and rose with a little sigh.

"I must be off," said he. "I have to dine out this evening, and I must get home to change. There is a cabstand near you?" He looked out of the window. "Ah, yes! Just at the corner of the Gardens."

He turned about to Ste. Marie, and held out his hand with a smile. He said:

"You refuse to join forces with us, then? Well, I'm sorry. But, for all that, I wish you luck. Go your own way, and I hope you'll succeed. I honestly hope that, even though your success may show me up for an incompetent bungler."

He gave a little kindly laugh, and Ste. Marie tried to protest.

"Still," said the elder man, "don't throw me over altogether. If I can help you in any way, little or big, let me know. If I can give you any hints, any advice, anything at all, I want to do it. And if you happen upon what seems to be a promising clew come and talk it over with me. Oh, don't be afraid! I'll leave it to you to work out. I sha'n't spoil your game."

"Ah, now, that's very good of you," said Ste. Marie. "Only you make me seem more than ever an ungrateful fool. Thanks, I will come to you with my troubles if I may. I have a foolish idea that I want to follow out a little first, but doubtless I shall be running to you soon for information."

The elder man's eyes sharpened again with keen interest.

"An idea!" he said, quickly. "You have an idea? What—May I ask what sort of an idea?"

"Oh, it's nothing," declared Ste. Marie. "You have already laughed at it. I just want to find that man O'Hara, that's all. I've a feeling that I should learn something from him."

"Ah!" said Captain Stewart, slowly. "Yes, the man O'Hara. There's nothing in that, I'm afraid. I've made inquiries about O'Hara. It seems he left Paris six months ago, saying he was off for America. An old friend of his told me that. So you must have been mistaken when you thought you saw him in the Champs-Elysees; and he couldn't very well have had anything to do with poor Arthur. I'm afraid that idea is hardly worth following up."

"Perhaps not," said Ste. Marie. "I seem to start badly, don't I? Ah, well, I'll have to come to you all the sooner, then."

"You'll be welcome," promised Captain Stewart. "Good-bye to you! Good-day, Hartley. Come and see me, both of you. You know where I live."

He took his leave then, and Hartley, standing beside the window, watched him turn down the street, and at the corner get into one of the fiacres there and drive away.

Ste. Marie laughed aloud.

"There's the second time," said he, "that I've had him about O'Hara. If he is as careless as that about everything, I don't wonder he hasn't found Arthur Benham. O'Hara disappeared from Paris—publicly, that is—at about the time young Benham disappeared. As a matter of fact, he remains, or at least for a time remained, in the city without letting his friends know, because I made no mistake about seeing him in the Champs-Elysees. All that looks to me suspicious enough to be worth investigation. Of course," he admitted, doubtfully—"of course, I'm no detective; but that's how it looks to me."

"I don't believe Stewart is any detective, either," said Richard Hartley. "He's altogether too cocksure. That sort of man would rather die than admit he is wrong about anything. He's a good old chap, though, isn't he? I liked him to-day better than ever before. I thought he was rather pathetic when he went on about his age."

"He has a good heart," said Ste. Marie. "Very few men under the circumstances would come here and be as decent as he was. Most men would have thought I was a presumptuous ass, and would have behaved accordingly."

Ste. Marie took a turn about the room, and his face began to light up with its new excitement and exaltation.

"And to-morrow!" he cried—"to-morrow we begin! To-morrow we set out into the world and the Adventure is on foot! God send it success!"

He laughed across at the other man; but it was a laugh of eagerness, not of mirth.

"I feel," said he, "like Jason. I feel as if we were to set sail to-morrow for Colchis and the Golden Fleece."

"Y-e-s," said the other man, a little dryly—"yes, perhaps. I don't want to seem critical, but isn't your figure somewhat ill chosen?"

"'Ill chosen'?" cried Ste. Marie. "What d'you mean? Why ill chosen?"

"I was thinking of Medea," said Richard Hartley.

* * * * *



VIII

JASON MEETS WITH A MISADVENTURE AND DREAMS A DREAM

So on the next day these two rode forth upon their quest, and no quest was ever undertaken with a stouter courage or with a grimmer determination to succeed. To put it fancifully, they burned their tower behind them, for to one of them, at least—to him who led—there was no going back.

But, after all, they set forth under a cloud, and Ste. Marie took a heavy heart with him. On the evening before an odd and painful incident had befallen—a singularly unfortunate incident.

It chanced that neither of the two men had a dinner engagement that evening, and so, after their old habit, they dined together. There was some wrangling over where they should go, Hartley insisting upon Armenonville or the Madrid, in the Bois, Ste. Marie objecting that these would be full of tourists so late in June, and urging the claims of some quiet place in the Quarter, where they could talk instead of listening perforce to loud music. In the end, for no particular reason, they compromised on the little Spanish restaurant in the rue Helder. They went there about eight o'clock, without dressing, for it is a very quiet place which the world does not visit, and they had a sopa de yerbas, and some langostinos, which are shrimps, and a heavenly arroz, with fowl in it, and many tender, succulent strips of red pepper. They had a salad made out of a little of everything that grows green, with the true Spanish oil, which has a tang and a bouquet unappreciated by the Philistine; and then they had a strange pastry and some cheese and green almonds. And to make then glad, they drank a bottle of old red Valdepenas, and afterward a glass each of a special Manzanilla, upon which the restaurant very justly prides itself.

It was a simple dinner and a little stodgy for that time of the year, but the two men were hungry and sat at table, almost alone in the upper room, for a long time, saying how good everything was, and from time to time despatching the saturnine waiter, a Madrileno, for more peppers. When at last they came out into the narrow street, and thence to the thronged Boulevard des Italiens, it was nearly eleven o'clock. They stood for a little time in the shelter of a kiosk, looking down the boulevard to where the Place de l'Opera opened wide and the lights of the Cafe de la Paix shone garish in the night. And Ste. Marie said:

"There's a street fete in Montmartre. We might drive home that way."

"An excellent idea," said the other man. "The fact that Montmartre lies in an opposite direction from home makes the plan all the better. And after that we might drive home through the Bois. That's much farther in the wrong direction. Lead on!"

So they sprang into a waiting fiacre, and were dragged up the steep, stone-paved hill to the heights, where La Boheme still reigns, though the glory of Moulin Rouge has departed and the trail of the tourist is over all. They found Montmartre very much en fete. In the Place Blanche were two of the enormous and brilliantly lighted merry-go-rounds, which only Paris knows—one furnished with stolid cattle, theatrical-looking horses, and Russian sleighs; the other with the ever-popular galloping pigs. When these dreadful machines were in rotation, mechanical organs, concealed somewhere in their bowels, emitted hideous brays and shrieks which mingled with the shrieks of the ladies mounted upon the galloping pigs, and together insulted a peaceful sky.

The square was filled with that extremely heterogeneous throng which the Parisian street fete gathers together, but it was, for the most part, a well-dressed throng, largely recruited from the boulevards, and it was quite determined to have a very good time in the cheerful, harmless Latin fashion. The two men got down from their fiacre and elbowed a way through the good-natured crowd to a place near the more popular of the merry-go-rounds. The machine was in rotation. Its garish lights shone and glittered, its hidden mechanical organ blared a German waltz tune, the huge, pink-varnished pigs galloped gravely up and down as the platform upon which they were mounted whirled round and round. A little group of American trippers, sight-seeing with a guide, stood near by, and one of the group, a pretty girl with red hair, demanded plaintively of the friend upon whose arm she hung: "Do you think momma would be shocked if we took a ride? Wouldn't I love to!"

Hartley turned, laughing, from this distressed maiden to Ste. Marie. He was wondering, with mild amusement, why anybody should wish to do such a foolish thing; but Ste. Marie's eyes were fixed upon the galloping pigs, and the eyes shone with a wistful excitement. To tell the truth, it was impossible for him to look on at any form of active amusement without thirsting to join it. A joyous and carefree lady in a blue hat, who was mounted astride upon one of the pigs, hurled a paper serpentine at him and shrieked with delight when it knocked his hat off.

"That's the second time she has hit me with one of those things," he said, groping about his feet for the hat. "Here, stop that boy with the basket!"

A vendor of the little rolls of paper ribbon was shouting his wares through the crowd. Ste. Marie filled his pockets with the things, and when the lady with the blue hat came round, on the next turn, lassoed her neatly about the neck and held the end of the ribbon till it broke. Then he caught a fat gentleman, who was holding himself on by his steed's neck, in the ear, and the red-haired American girl laughed aloud.

"When the thing stops," said Ste. Marie, "I'm going to take a ride—just one ride. I haven't ridden a pig for many years."

Hartley jeered at him, calling him an infant, but Ste. Marie bought more serpentines, and when the platform came to a stop clambered up to it and mounted the only unoccupied pig he could find. His friend still scoffed at him and called him names, but Ste. Marie tucked his long legs round the pig's neck and smiled back, and presently the machine began again to revolve.

At the end of the first revolution Hartley gave a shout of delight, for he saw that the lady with the blue hat had left her mount and was making her way along the platform toward where Ste. Marie sat hurling serpentines in the face of the world. By the next time round she had come to where he was, mounted astride behind him, and was holding herself with one very shapely arm round his neck, while with the other she rifled his pockets for ammunition. Ste. Marie grinned, and the public, loud in its acclaims, began to pelt the two with serpentines until they were hung with many-colored ribbons like a Christmas-tree. Even Richard Hartley was so far moved out of the self-consciousness with which his race is cursed as to buy a handful of the common missiles, and the lady in the blue hat returned his attention with skill and despatch.

But as the machine began to slacken its pace, and the hideous wail and blare of the concealed organ died mercifully down, Hartley saw that his friend's manner had all at once altered, that he sat leaning forward away from the enthusiastic lady with the blue hat, and that the paper serpentines had dropped from his hands. Hartley thought that the rapid motion must have made him a little giddy, but presently, before the merry-go-round had quite stopped, he saw the man leap down and hurry toward him through the crowd. Ste. Marie's face was grave and pale. He caught Hartley's arm in his hand and turned him round, crying, in a low voice:

"Come out of this as quickly as you can! No, in the other direction. I want to get away at once!"

"What's the matter?" Hartley demanded. "Lady in the blue hat too friendly? Well, if you're going to play this kind of game you might as well play it."

"Helen Benham was down there in the crowd," said Ste. Marie. "On the opposite side from you. She was with a party of people who got out of two motor-cars to look on. They were in evening things, so they had come from dinner somewhere, I suppose. She saw me."

"The devil!" said Hartley, under his breath. Then he gave a shout of laughter, demanding: "Well, what of it? You weren't committing any crime, were you? There's no harm in riding a silly pig in a silly merry-go-round. Everybody does it in these fete things." But even as he spoke he knew how extremely unfortunate the meeting was, and the laughter went out of his voice.

"I'm afraid," said Ste. Marie, "she won't see the humor of it. Good God, what a thing to happen! You know well enough what she'll think of me. At five o'clock this afternoon," he said, bitterly, "I left her with a great many fine, high-sounding words about the quest I was to give my days and nights to—for her sake. I went away from her like a—knight going into battle—consecrated. I tell you, there were tears in her eyes when I went. And now—now, at midnight—she sees me riding a galloping pig in a street fete with a girl from the boulevards sitting on the pig with me and holding me round the neck before a thousand people. What will she think of me? What but one thing can she possibly think? Oh, I know well enough! I saw her face before she turned away. And," he cried, "I can't even go to her and explain—if there's anything to explain, and I suppose there is not. I can't even go to her. I've sworn not to see her."

"Oh, I'll do that," said the other man. "I'll explain it to her, if any explanation's necessary. I think you'll find that she will laugh at it."

But Ste. Marie shook his head.

"No, she won't," said he.

And Hartley could say no more; for he knew Miss Benham, and he was very much afraid that she would not laugh.

They found a fiacre at the side of the square and drove home at once. They were almost entirely silent all the long way, for Ste. Marie was buried in gloom, and the Englishman, after trying once or twice to cheer him up, realized that he was best left to himself just then, and so held his tongue. But in the rue d'Assas, as Ste. Marie was getting down—Hartley kept the fiacre to go on to his rooms in the Avenue de l'Observatoire—he made a last attempt to lighten the man's depression. He said:

"Don't you be a silly ass about this! You're making much too much of it, you know. I'll go to her to-morrow or next day and explain, and she'll laugh—-if she hasn't already done so. You know," he said, almost believing it himself, "you are paying her a dashed poor compliment in thinking she's so dull as to misunderstand a little thing of this kind. Yes, by Jove, you are!"

Ste. Marie looked up at him, and his face, in the light of the cab lamp, showed a first faint gleam of hope.

"Do you think so?" he demanded. "Do you really think that? Maybe I am. But—Oh, Lord, who would understand such an idiocy? Sacred imbecile that I am! Why was I ever born? I ask you."

He turned abruptly, and began to ring at the door, casting a brief "Good-night" over his shoulder. And after a moment Hartley gave it up and drove away.

Above, in the long, shallow front room of his flat, with the three windows overlooking the Gardens, Ste. Marie made lights, and after much rummaging unearthed a box of cigarettes of a peculiarly delectable flavor which had been sent him by a friend in the Khedivial household. He allowed himself one or two of them now and then, usually in sorrowful moments, as an especial treat; and this seemed to him to be the moment for smoking all that were left. Surely his need had never been greater. In England he had, of course, learned to smoke a pipe, but pipe-smoking always remained with him a species of accomplishment; it never brought him the deep and ruminative peace with which it enfolds the Anglo-Saxon heart. The "vieux Jacob" of old-fashioned Parisian Bohemia inspired in him unconcealed horror, of cigars he was suspicious because, he said, most of the unpleasant people he knew smoked cigars, so he soothed his soul with cigarettes, and he was usually to be found with one between his fingers.

He lighted one of the precious Egyptians, and after a first ecstatic inhalation went across to one of the long windows, which was open, and stood there with his back to the room, his face to the peaceful, fragrant night. A sudden recollection came to him of that other night a month before when he had stood on the Pont des Invalides with his eyes upon the stars, his feet upon the ladder thereunto. His heart gave a sudden exultant leap within him when he thought how far and high he had climbed, but after the leap it shivered and stood still when this evening's misadventure came before him.

Would she ever understand? He had no fear that Hartley would not do his best with her. Hartley was as honest and as faithful as ever a friend was in this world. He would do his best. But even then—It was the girl's inflexible nature that made the matter so dangerous. He knew that she was inflexible, and he took a curious pride in it. He admired it. So must have been those calm-eyed, ancient ladies for whom other Ste. Maries went out to do battle. It was well-nigh impossible to imagine them lowering their eyes to silly revelry. They could not stoop to such as that. It was beneath their high dignity. And it was beneath hers also. As for himself, he was a thing of patches. Here a patch of exalted chivalry—a noble patch—there a patch of bourgeois, childlike love of fun; here a patch of melancholic asceticism, there one of something quite the reverse. A hopeless patchwork he was. Must she not shrink from him when she knew? He could not quite imagine her understanding the wholly trivial and meaningless impulse that had prompted him to ride a galloping pig and cast paper serpentines at the assembled world.

Apart from her view of the affair, he felt no shame in it. The moment of childish gayety had been but a passing mood. It had in no way slackened his tense enthusiasm, dulled the keenness of his spirit, lowered his high flight. He knew that well enough. But he wondered if she would understand, and he could not believe it possible. The mood of exaltation in which they had parted that afternoon came to him, and then the sight of her shocked face as he had seen it in the laughing crowd in the Place Blanche.

"What must she think of me?" he cried, aloud. "What must she think of me?"

So, for an hour or more, he stood in the open window staring into the fragrant night, or tramped up and down the long room, his hands behind his back, kicking out of his way the chairs and things which impeded him, torturing himself with fears and regrets and fancies, until at last, in a calmer moment, he realized that he was working himself up into an absurd state of nerves over something which was done and could not now be helped. The man had an odd streak of fatalism in his nature—that will have come of his Southern blood—and it came to him now in his need. For the work upon which he was to enter with the morrow he had need of clear wits, not scattered ones; a calm judgment, not disordered nerves. So he took himself in hand, and it would have been amazing to any one unfamiliar with the abrupt changes of the Latin temperament to see how suddenly Ste. Marie became quiet and cool and master of himself.

"It is done," he said, with a little shrug, and if his face was for a moment bitter it quickly enough became impassive. "It is done, and it cannot be undone—unless Hartley can undo it. And now, revenons a nos moutons! Or, at least," said he, looking at his watch—and it was between one and two—"at least, to our beds!"

So he went to bed, and, so well had he recovered from his fit of excitement, he fell asleep almost at once. But for all that the jangled nerves had their revenge. He who commonly slept like the dead, without the slightest disturbance, dreamed a strange dream. It seemed to him that he stood spent and weary in a twilight place—a waste place at the foot of a high hill. At the top of the hill She sat upon a sort of throne, golden in a beam of light from heaven—serene, very beautiful, the end and crown of his weary labors. His feet were set to the ascent of the height whereon she waited, but he was withheld. From the shadows at the hill's foot a voice called to him in distress, anguish of spirit—a voice he knew; but he could not say whose voice. It besought him out of utter need, and he could not turn away from it.

Then from those shadows eyes looked upon him, very great and dark eyes, and they besought him, too; he did not know what they asked, but they called to him like the low voice, and he could not turn away.

He looked to the far height, and with all his power he strove to set his feet toward it—the goal of long labor and desire; but the eyes and the piteous voice held him motionless—for they needed him.

From this anguish he awoke trembling. And after a long time, when he was composed, he fell asleep once more, and once more he dreamed the dream.

So morning found him pallid and unrefreshed. But by daylight he knew whose eyes had besought him, and he wondered and was a little afraid.

* * * * *



IX

JASON GOES UPON A JOURNEY, AND RICHARD HARTLEY PLEADS FOR HIM

It may as well be admitted at the outset that neither Ste. Marie nor Richard Hartley proved themselves to be geniuses, hitherto undeveloped, in the detective science. They entered upon their self-appointed task with a fine fervor, but, as Miss Benham had suggested, with no other qualifications in particular. Ste. Marie had a theory that, when engaged in work of this nature, you went into questionable parts of the city, ate and drank cheek by jowl with questionable people—if possible, got them drunk while you remained sober (difficult feat), and sooner or later they said things which put you on the right road to your goal, or else confessed to you that they themselves had committed the particular crime in which you were interested. He argued that this was the way it happened in books, and that surely people didn't write books about things of which they were ignorant.

Hartley, on the other hand, preferred the newer, or scientific, methods. You sat at home with a pipe and a whiskey-and-water—if possible, in a long dressing-gown with a cord round its middle. You reviewed all the known facts of the case, and you did mathematics about them with Xs and Ys and many other symbols, and in the end, by a system of elimination, you proved that a certain thing must infallibly be true. The chief difficulty for him in this was, he said, that he had been at Oxford instead of at Cambridge, and so the mathematics were rather beyond him.

In practice, however, they combined the two methods, which was doubtless as well as if they hadn't, because for some time they accomplished nothing whatever, and so neither one was able to sneer at the other's stupidity.

This is not to say that they found nothing in the way of clews. They found an embarrassment of them, and for some days went about in a fever of excitement over these; but the fever cooled when clew after clew turned out to be misleading. Of course, Ste. Marie's first efforts were directed toward tracing the movements of the Irishman O'Hara, but the efforts were altogether unavailing. The man seemed to have disappeared as noiselessly and completely as had young Arthur Benham himself. He was unable even to settle with any definiteness the time of the man's departure from Paris. Some of O'Hara's old acquaintances maintained that they had seen the last of him two months before, but a shifty-eyed person in rather cheaply smart clothes came up to Ste. Marie one evening in Maxim's and said he had heard that Ste. Marie was making inquiries about M. O'Hara. Ste. Marie said he was, and that it was an affair of money; whereupon the cheaply smart individual declared that M. O'Hara had left Paris six months before to go to the United States of America, and that he had had a picture postal-card from him, some weeks since, from New York. The informant accepted an expensive cigar and a Dubonnet by way of reward, but presently departed into the night, and Ste. Marie was left in some discouragement, his theory badly damaged.

He spoke of this encounter to Richard Hartley, who came on later to join him, and Hartley, after an interval of silence and smoke, said: "That was a lie! The man lied!"

"Name of a dog, why?" demanded Ste. Marie; but the Englishman shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know," he said. "But I believe it was a lie. The man came to you—sought you out to tell his story, didn't he? And all the others have given a different date? Well, there you are! For some reason, this man or some one behind him—O'Hara himself, probably—wants you to believe that O'Hara is in America. I dare say he's in Paris all the while."

"I hope you're right," said the other. "And I mean to make sure, too. It certainly was odd, this strange being hunting me out to tell me that. I wonder, by-the-way, how he knew I'd been making inquiries about O'Hara. I've questioned only two or three people, and then in the most casual way. Yes, it's odd."

It was about a week after this—a fruitless week, full of the alternate brightness of hope and the gloom of disappointment—that he met Captain Stewart, to whom he had been, more than once, on the point of appealing. He happened upon him quite by chance one morning in the rue Royale. Captain Stewart was coming out of a shop, a very smart-looking shop, devoted, as Ste. Marie, with some surprise and much amusement, observed, to ladies' hats, and the price of hats must have depressed him, for he looked in an ill humor, and older and more yellow than usual. But his face altered suddenly when he saw the younger man, and he stopped and shook Ste. Marie's hand with every evidence of pleasure.

"Well met! Well met!" he exclaimed. "If you are not in a hurry, come and sit down somewhere and tell me about yourself."

They picked their way across the street to the terrace of the Taverne Royale, which was almost deserted at that hour, and sat down at one of the little tables, well back from the pavement, in a corner.

"Is it fair," queried Captain Stewart—"is it fair, as a rival investigator, to ask you what success you have had?"

Ste. Marie laughed rather ruefully, and confessed that he had as yet no success at all.

"I've just come," said he, "from pricking one bubble that promised well, and Hartley is up in Montmartre destroying another, I fancy. Oh, well, we didn't expect it to be child's play."

Captain Stewart raised his little glass of dry vermouth in an old-fashioned salute and drank it.

"You," said he—"you were—ah, full of some idea of connecting this man, this Irishman O'Hara, with poor Arthur's disappearance. You've found that not so promising as you went on, I take it."

"Well, I've been unable to trace O'Hara," said Ste. Marie. "He seems to have disappeared as completely as your nephew. I suppose you have no clews to spare? I confess I'm out of them at the moment."

"Oh, I have plenty," said the elder man. "A hundred. More than I can possibly look after." He gave a little chuckling laugh. "I've been waiting for you to come to me," he said. "It was a little ungenerous, perhaps, but we all love to say, 'I told you so.' Yes, I have a great quantity of clews, and of course they all seem to be of the greatest and most exciting importance. That's a way clews have."

He took an envelope from an inner pocket of his coat, and sorted several folded papers which were in it.

"I have here," said he, "memoranda of two—chances, shall I call them?—which seem to me very good, though, as I have already said, every clew seems good. That is the maddening, the heart-breaking, part of such an investigation. I have made these brief notes from letters received, one yesterday, one the day before, from an agent of mine who has been searching the bains de mer of the north coast. This agent writes that some one very much resembling poor Arthur has been seen at Dinard and also at Deauville, and he urges me to come there or to send a man there at once to look into the matter. You will ask, of course, why this agent himself does not pursue the clew he has found. Unfortunately, he has been called to London upon some pressing family matter of his own; he is an Englishman."

"Why haven't you gone yourself?" asked Ste. Marie.

But the elder man shrugged his shoulders and smiled a tired, deprecatory smile.

"Oh, my friend," said he, "if I should attempt personally to investigate one-half of these things, I should be compelled to divide myself into twenty parts. No, I must stay here. There must be, alas! the spider at the centre of the web. I cannot go; but if you think it worth while, I will gladly turn over the memoranda of these last clews to you. They may be the true clews, they may not. At any rate, some one must look into them. Why not you and your partner—or shall I say assistant?"

"Why, thank you!" cried Ste. Marie. "A thousand thanks! Of course, I shall be—we shall be glad to try this chance. On the face of it, it sounds very reasonable. Your nephew, from what I remember of him, is much more apt to be in some place that is amusing, some place of gayety, than hiding away where it is merely dull, if he has his choice in the matter—that is, if he is free. And yet—" He turned and frowned thoughtfully at the elder man. "What I want to know," said he, "is how the boy is supporting himself all this time? You say he had no money, or very little, when he went away. How is he managing to live if your theory is correct—that he is staying away of his own accord? It costs a lot of money to live as he likes to live."

Captain Stewart nodded.

"Oh, that," said he—"that is a question I have often proposed to myself. Frankly, it's beyond me. I can only surmise that poor Arthur, who had scattered a small fortune about in foolish loans, managed, before he actually disappeared (mind you, we didn't begin to look for him until a week had gone by)—managed to collect some of this money, and so went away with something in pocket. That, of course, is only a guess."

"It is possible," said Ste. Marie, doubtfully, "but—I don't know. It is not very easy to raise money from the sort of people I imagine your nephew to have lent it to. They borrow, but they don't repay." He glanced up with a half-laughing, half-defiant air. "I can't," said he, "rid myself of a belief that the boy is here in Paris, and that he is not free to come or go. It's only a feeling, but it is very strong in me. Of course, I shall follow out these clews you've been so kind as to give me. I shall go to Dinard and Deauville, and Hartley, I imagine, will go with me, but I haven't great confidence in them."

Captain Stewart regarded him reflectively for a time, and in the end he smiled.

"If you will pardon my saying it," he said, "your attitude is just a little womanlike. You put away reason for something vaguely intuitive. I always distrust intuition myself."

Ste. Marie frowned a little and looked uncomfortable. He did not relish being called womanlike—few men do; but he was bound to admit that the elder man's criticism was more or less just.

"Moreover," pursued Captain Stewart, "you altogether ignore the point of motive—as I may have suggested to you before. There could be no possible motive, so far as I am aware, for kidnapping or detaining, or in any way harming, my nephew except the desire for money; but, as you know, he had no large sum of money with him, and no demand has been made upon us since his disappearance. I'm afraid you can't get round that."

"No," said Ste. Marie, "I'm afraid I can't. Indeed, leaving that aside—and it can't be left aside—I still have almost nothing with which to prop up my theory. I told you it was only a feeling."

He took up the memoranda which Captain Stewart had laid upon the marble-topped table between them, and read the notes through.

"Please," said he, "don't think I am ungrateful for this chance. I am not. I shall do my best with it, and I hope it may turn out to be important." He gave a little wry smile. "I have all sorts of reasons," he said, "for wishing to succeed as soon as possible. You may be sure that there won't be any delays on my part. And now I must be going on. I am to meet Hartley for lunch on the other side of the river, and, if we can manage it, I should like to start north this afternoon or evening."

"Good!" said Captain Stewart, smiling. "Good! That is what I call true promptness. You lose no time at all. Go to Dinard and Deauville, by all means, and look into this thing thoroughly. Don't be discouraged if you meet with ill success at first. Take Mr. Hartley with you, and do your best."

He paid for the two glasses of aperitif, and Ste. Marie could not help observing that he left on the table a very small tip. The waiter cursed him audibly as the two walked away.

"If you have returned by a week from to-morrow," he said, as they shook hands, "I should like to have you keep that evening—Thursday—for me. I am having a very informal little party in my rooms. There will be two or three of the opera people there, and they will sing for us, and the others will be amusing enough. All young—all young. I like young people about me." He gave his odd little mewing chuckle. "And the ladies must be beautiful as well as young. Come if you are here! I'll drop a line to Mr. Hartley also."

He shook Ste. Marie's hand, and went away down the street toward the rue du Faubourg St. Honore where he lived.

Ste. Marie met Hartley as he expected to do, at lunch, and they talked over the possibilities of the Dinard and Deauville expedition. In the end they decided that Ste. Marie should go alone, but that he was to telegraph, later on, if the clew looked promising. Hartley had two or three investigations on foot in Paris, and stayed on to complete these. Also he wished, as soon as possible, to see Helen Benham and explain Ste. Marie's ride on the galloping pigs. Ten days had elapsed since that evening, but Miss Benham had gone into the country the next day to make a visit at the De Saulnes' chateau on the Oise.

So Ste. Marie packed a portmanteau with clothes and things, and departed by a mid-afternoon train to Dinard, and toward five Richard Hartley walked down to the rue de I'Universite. He thought it just possible that Miss Benham might by now have returned to town, but if not he meant to have half an hour's chat with old David Stewart, whom he had not seen for some weeks.

At the door he learned that mademoiselle was that very day returned and was at home. So he went in to the drawing-room, reserving his visit to old David until later. He found the room divided into two camps. At one side Mrs. Benham conversed in melancholic monotones with two elderly French ladies who were clad in depressing black of a dowdiness surpassed only in English provincial towns. It was as if the three mourned together over the remains of some dear one who lay dead among them. Hartley bowed low, with an uncontrollable shiver, and turned to the tea-table, where Miss Benham sat in the seat of authority, flanked by a young American lady whom he had met before, and by Baron de Vries, whom he had not seen since the evening of the De Saulnes' dinner-party.

Miss Benham greeted him with evident pleasure, and to his great delight remembered just how he liked his tea—three pieces of sugar and no milk. It always flatters a man when his little tastes of this sort are remembered. The four fell at once into conversation together, and the young American lady asked Hartley why Ste. Marie was not with him.

"I thought you two always went about together," she said—"were never seen apart and all that—a sort of modern Damon and Phidias."

Hartley caught Baron de Vries' eye, and looked away again hastily.

"My—ah, Phidias," said he, resisting an irritable desire to correct the lady, "got mislaid to-day. It sha'n't happen again, I promise you. He's a very busy person just now, though. He hasn't time for social dissipation. I'm the butterfly of the pair."

The lady gave a sudden laugh.

"He was busy enough the last time I saw him," she said, crinkling her eyelids. She turned to Miss Benham. "Do you remember that evening we were going home from the Madrid and motored round by Montmartre to see the fete?"

"Yes," said Miss Benham, unsmiling, "I remember."

"Your friend Ste. Marie," said the American lady to Hartley, "was distinctly the lion of the fete—at the moment we arrived, anyhow. He was riding a galloping pig and throwing those paper streamer things—what do you call them?—with both hands, and a genial lady in a blue hat was riding the same pig and helping him out. It was just like the Vie de Boheme and the other books. I found it charming."

Baron de Vries emitted an amused chuckle.

"That was very like Ste. Marie," he said. "Ste. Marie is a very exceptional young man. He can be an angel one moment, a child playing with toys the next, and—well, a rather commonplace social favorite the third. It all comes of being romantic—imaginative. Ste. Marie—I know nothing about this evening of which you speak, but Ste. Marie is quite capable of stopping on his way to a funeral to ride a galloping pig—or on his way to his own wedding. And the pleasant part of it is," said Baron de Vries, "that the lad would turn up at either of these two ceremonies not a bit the worse, outside or in, for his ride."

"Ah, now, that's an oddly close shot," said Hartley. He paused a moment, looking toward Miss Benham, and said: "I beg pardon! Were you going to speak?"

"No," said Miss Benham, moving the things about on the tea-table before her, and looking down at them. "No, not at all!"

"You came oddly close to the truth," the man went on, turning back to Baron de Vries.

He was speaking for Helen Benham's ears, and he knew she would understand that, but he did not wish to seem to be watching her.

"I was with Ste. Marie on that evening," he said. "No, I wasn't riding a pig, but I was standing down in the crowd throwing serpentines at the people who were. And I happen to know that he—that Ste. Marie was on that day, that evening, more deeply concerned about something, more absolutely wrapped up in it, devoted to it, than I have ever known him to be about anything since I first knew him. The galloping pig was an incident that made, except for the moment, no impression whatever upon him." Hartley nodded his head. "Yes," said he, "Ste. Marie can be an angel one moment and a child playing with toys the next. When he sees toys he always plays with them, and he plays hard, but when he drops them they go completely out of his mind."

The American lady laughed.

"Gracious me!" she cried. "You two are emphatic enough about him, aren't you?"

"We know him," said Baron de Vries.

Hartley rose to replace his empty cup on the tea-table. Miss Benham did not meet his eyes, and as he moved away again she spoke to her friend about something they were going to do on the next day, so Hartley went across to where Baron de Vries sat at a little distance, and took a place beside him on the chaise lounge. The Belgian greeted him with raised eyebrows and the little, half-sad, half-humorous smile which was characteristic of him in his gentler moments.

"You were defending our friend with a purpose," he said, in a low voice. "Good! I am afraid he needs it—here."

The younger man hesitated a moment. Then he said:

"I came on purpose to do that. Ste. Marie knows that she saw him on that confounded pig. He was half wild with distress over it, because—well, the meeting was singularly unfortunate just then. I can't explain—"

"You needn't explain," said the Belgian, gravely. "I know. Helen told me some days ago, though she did not mention this encounter. Yes, defend him with all your power, if you will. Stay after we others have gone and—have it out with her. The Phidias lady (I must remember that mot, by-the-way) is preparing to take her leave now, and I will follow her at once. She shall believe that I am enamoured, that I sigh for her. Eh!" said he, shaking his head—and the lines in the kindly old face seemed to deepen, but in a sort of grave tenderness—"eh, so love has come to the dear lad at last! Ah, of course, the hundred other affairs! Yes, yes. But they were light. No seriousness in them. The ladies may have loved. He didn't—very much. This time, I'm afraid—"

Baron de Vries paused as if he did not mean to finish his sentence, and Hartley said:

"You say 'afraid'! Why afraid?"

The Belgian looked up at him reflectively.

"Did I say 'afraid'?" he asked. "Well, perhaps it was the word I wanted. I wonder if these two are fitted for each other. I am fond of them both. I think you know that, but—she's not very flexible, this child. And she hasn't much humor. I love her, but I know those things are true. I wonder if one ought to marry Ste. Marie without flexibility and without humor."

"If they love each other," said Richard Hartley, "I expect the other things don't count. Do they?"

Baron de Vries rose to his feet, for he saw that the Phidias lady was going.

"Perhaps not," said he; "I hope not. In any case, do your best for him with Helen. Make her comprehend if you can. I am afraid she is unhappy over the affair."

He made his adieus, and went away with the American lady, to that young person's obvious excitement. And after a moment the three ladies across the room departed also, Mrs. Benham explaining that she was taking her two friends up to her own sitting-room, to show them something vaguely related to the heathen. So Hartley was left alone with Helen Benham.

It was not his way to beat about the bush, and he gave battle at once. He said, standing, to say it more easily:

"You know why I came here to-day? It was the first chance I've had since that—unfortunate evening. I came on Ste. Marie's account."

Miss Benham said a weak "Oh!" And because she was nervous and overwrought, and because the thing meant so much to her, she said, cheaply: "He owes me no apologies. He has a perfect right to act as he pleases, you know."

The Englishman frowned across at her. "I didn't come to make apologies," said he. "I came to explain. Well, I have explained—Baron de Vries and I together. That's just how it happened. And that's just how Ste. Marie takes things. The point is that you've got to understand it. I've got to make you."

The girl smiled up at him dolefully. "You look," she said, "as if you were going to beat me if necessary. You look very warlike."

"I feel warlike," the man said, nodding. He said: "I'm fighting for a friend to whom you are doing, in your mind, an injustice. I know him better than you do, and I tell you you're doing him a grave injustice. You're failing altogether to understand him."

"I wonder," the girl said, looking very thoughtfully down at the table before her.

"I know," said he.

Quite suddenly she gave a little overwrought cry, and she put up her hands over her face. "Oh, Richard!" she said, "that day when he was here! He left me—oh, I cannot tell you at what a height he left me! It was something new and beautiful. He swept me to the clouds with him. And I might—perhaps I might have lived on there. Who knows? But then that hideous evening! Ah, it was too sickening: the fall back to common earth again!"

"I know," said the man, gently—"I know. And he knew, too. Directly he'd seen you he knew how you would feel about it. I'm not pretending that it was of no consequence. It was unfortunate, of course. But the point is, it did not mean in him any slackening, any stooping, any letting go. It was a moment's incident. We went to the wretched place by accident after dinner. Ste. Marie saw those childish lunatics at play, and for about two minutes he played with them. The lady in the blue hat made it appear a little more extreme, and that's all."

Miss Benham rose to her feet and moved restlessly back and forth. "Oh, Richard," she said, "the golden spell is broken—the enchantment he laid upon me that day. I'm not like him, you know. Oh, I wish I were! I wish I were! I can't change from hour to hour. I can't rise to the clouds again after my fall to earth. It has all—become something different. Don't misunderstand me!" she cried. "I don't mean that I've ceased to care for him. No, far from that! But I was in such an exalted heaven, and now I'm not there any more. Perhaps he can lift me to it again. Oh yes, I'm sure he can, when I see him once more; but I wanted to go on living there so happily while he was away! Do you understand at all?"

"I think I do," the man said, but he looked at her very curiously and a little sadly, for it was the first time he had ever seen her swept from her superb poise by any emotion, and he hardly recognized her. It was very bitter to him to realize that he could never have stirred her to this—never, under any conceivable circumstances.

The girl came to him where he stood, and touched his arm with her hand. "He is waiting to hear how I feel about it all, isn't he?" she said. "He is waiting to know that I understand. Will you tell him a little lie for me, Richard? No, you needn't tell a lie. I will tell it. Tell him that I said I understood perfectly. Tell him that I was shocked for a moment, but that afterward I understood and thought no more about it. Will you tell him I said that? It won't be a lie from you, because I did say it. Oh, I will not grieve him or hamper him now while he is working in my cause! I'll tell him a lie rather than have him grieve."

"Need it be a lie?" said Richard Hartley. "Can't you truly believe what you've said?"

She shook her head slowly.

"I'll try," said she, "but—my golden spell is broken and I can't mend it alone. I'm sorry."

He turned with a little sigh to leave her, but Miss Benham followed him toward the door of the drawing-room.

"You're a good friend, Richard," she said, when she had come near—"you're a good friend to him."

"He deserves good friends," said the young man, stoutly. "And besides," said he, "we're brothers in arms nowadays. We've enlisted together to fight for the same cause." The girl fell back with a little cry.

"Do you mean," she said, after a moment—"do you mean that you are working with him—to find Arthur?"

Hartley nodded.

"But—" said she, stammering. "But, Richard—"

The man checked her.

"Oh, I know what I'm doing," said he. "My eyes are open. I know that I'm not—well, in the running. I work for no reward except a desire to help you and Ste. Marie. That's all. It pleases me to be useful."

He went away with that, not waiting for an answer, and the girl stood where he had left her, staring after him.

* * * * *



X

CAPTAIN STEWART ENTERTAINS

Ste. Marie returned, after three days, from Dinard in a depressed and somewhat puzzled frame of mind. He had found no trace whatever of Arthur Benham, either at Dinard or at Deauville, and, what was more, he was unable to discover that any one even remotely resembling that youth had been seen at either place. The matter of identification, it seemed to him, should be a rather simple one. In the first place, the boy's appearance was not at all French, nor, for that matter, English; it was very American. Also, he spoke French—so Ste. Marie had been told—very badly, having for the language that scornful contempt peculiar to Anglo-Saxons of a certain type. His speech, it seemed, was, like his appearance, ultra-American—full of strange idioms and oddly pronounced. In short, such a youth would be rather sure to be remembered by any hotel management and staff with which he might have come in contact.

At first Ste. Marie pursued his investigations quietly and, as it were, casually; but after his initial failure he went to the managements of the various hotels and lodging-houses, and to the cafes and bathing establishments, and told them, with all frankness, a part of the truth—that he was searching for a young man whose disappearance had caused great distress to his family. He was not long in discovering that no such young man could have been either in Dinard or Deauville.

The thing which puzzled him was that, apart from finding no trace of the missing boy, he also found no trace of Captain Stewart's agent—the man who had been first on the ground. No one seemed able to recollect that such a person had been making inquiries, and Ste. Marie began to suspect that his friend was being imposed upon. He determined to warn Stewart that his agents were earning their fees too easily.

So he returned to Paris more than a little dejected, and sore over this waste of time and effort. He arrived by a noon train, and drove across the city in a fiacre to the rue d'Assas. But as he was in the midst of unpacking his portmanteau—for he kept no servant; a woman came in once a day to "do" the rooms—the door-bell rang. It was Baron de Vries, and Ste. Marie admitted him with an exclamation of surprise and pleasure.

"You passed me in the street just now," explained the Belgian, "and as I was a few minutes early for a lunch engagement I followed you up." He pointed with his stick at the open bag. "Ah, you have been on a journey! Detective work?"

Ste. Marie pushed his guest into a chair, gave him cigarettes, and told him about the fruitless expedition to Dinard. He spoke, also, of his belief that Captain Stewart's agent had never really found a clew at all; and at that Baron de Vries nodded his gray head and said, "Ah!" in a tone of some significance. Afterward he smoked a little while in silence, but presently he said, as if with some hesitation: "May I be permitted to offer a word of advice?"

"But surely!" cried Ste. Marie, kicking away the half-empty portmanteau. "Why not?"

"Do whatever you are going to do in this matter according to your own judgment," said the elder man, "or according to Mr. Hartley's and your combined judgments. Make your investigations without reference to our friend Captain Stewart." He halted there as if that were all he had meant to say, but when he saw Ste. Marie's raised eyebrows he frowned and went on, slowly, as if picking his words with some care. "I should be sorry," he said, "to have Captain Stewart at the head of any investigation of this nature in which I was deeply interested—just now, at any rate. I am afraid—it is difficult to say; I do not wish to say too much—I am afraid he is not quite the man for the position."