The Tiger Lily

“Well. What did he say?”

“And I ask him to come for an hour to the Vivarium to see the new ballet.”

“I asked you what he said.”

“He say – ‘Go to the devil.’”

“Well, did you go?”

“Yes. I come on here at once.”

Pacey glowered at him, but his French friend was innocent of any double entendre; and at that moment there was a sharp knock at the outer door – the well-worn oak on the staircase of Number 9 Bolt Inn.

“Aha! Vive la compagnie!” cried Leronde.

“Humph! Some one for money,” muttered Pacey. “Who can it be? Well, it doesn’t matter: I’ve got none. – Here, dandy,” he said aloud, “open the door. Shut the other first, and tell whoever it is that I cannot see him. Engaged – ill – anything you like.”

“Yes, I see. I am a fly,” said the young Frenchman, and, passing through the inner door, he closed it after him and opened the outer, to return in a minute with two cards.

“Who was it?” growled Pacey.

“A lady and gentleman. I told them you could not see any one, and they are gone.”

Pacey snatched the cards, glanced at them, uttered an ejaculation, and springing up, he threw down his pipe, and nearly did the same by his companion as he rushed to the door, passed out on to the landing, and began to run down the stairs.

“My faith, but he is a droll of a man,” muttered Leronde, pointing his moustache; “but I love him. Aha! always the woman. How he run as soon as he read the name. We are all alike, we men. What was it? Mees Torpe and – faith of a man – she was pretty. Mees! I thought it was her husband at first. H’m! The lover perhaps.”

The door flew open again and Pacey returned, showing in Cornel Thorpe and her brother.

“Here, Leronde,” cried Pacey excitedly. “Excuse me – very particular business, old fellow.”

“You wish me to go?” said Leronde stiffly, as he waited for an introduction.

“If you wouldn’t mind, and – look here,” continued Pacey, drawing him outside. “Don’t be hurt, old fellow – this is very particular. You saw the names on the cards?”

“Oh yes.”

“Not a word then to Armstrong.”

“I do not tiddle-taddle,” said Leronde stiffly. “That’s right. I trust you, old fellow. Come back at six, and we’ll go and dine in Soho.”

“But – the lady?”

“Bah! Nonsense, man! This is business. Au revoir – till six.”

Pacey hurried back and closed both doors, to find his visitors standing in the middle of the room, Cornel pale and anxious, and her brother stern, distant, and angry of eye.

“I did not expect you, Miss Thorpe,” cried Pacey warmly. “Pray sit down.”

“I think my sister and I can finish our interview without sitting down, sir. You are Mr Joseph Pacey?”

“I am,” said the artist, as coldly now as the speaker.

“And you wrote to my sister – ”

“Michael, dear, I will speak to Mr Pacey, please,” said Cornel, and she turned to the artist and held out her hand. “Thank you for writing to me, Mr Pacey,” she continued. “I thought it better, as my brother was coming to England, to accompany him and see you myself.”

She sank into the chair Pacey had placed for her, and after a contemptuous look round at the shabby surroundings, the doctor followed her example.

“My brother is angry, Mr Pacey; he is indignant on my behalf. He thinks me foolish and obstinate in coming here to see you, and that I am lowering myself, and not displaying proper pride.”

“I do,” said the doctor firmly.

“Out of his tender love for me, Mr Pacey,” Cornel continued, with her sweet pathetic voice seeming to ring and find an echo in the old artist’s heart; “but I felt it to be my duty to come to know the truth.”

“You have done wisely, madam,” said Pacey. “When I wrote you it was in the hope that you would come and save a man whom I have liked – there, call it sentimentality if you please – loved as a brother – I ought to say, I suppose, as a son.”

“Your letter, sir, suggested that my old schoolfellow – the man who was betrothed to my sister – has in some way gone wrong.”

Pacey bowed his head.

“Cornel, dear, you hear this. It is sufficient. We do not wish to pry into Armstrong Dale’s affairs. We know enough. Now, are you satisfied?”

“No. – Mr Pacey, your words have formed a bond between us greater than existed before. I have heard of you so often from Armstrong, and come to you as our friend, in obedience to your letter. I ask you then to keep nothing back, but to speak to me plainly. Please remember that I am an American girl. I think we are different from your ladies here. Not bolder, but firm, plain-spoken, honest and true. We feel a true shame as keenly as the proudest of your patrician maidens; but we crush down false, and that is why I come to you instead of writing to and making appeals to the man whom I have known from childhood – the man who was betrothed to me, and who loved me dearly, as I loved him, only so short a time ago. There, you see how simply and plainly I speak, the more so that I know you have Armstrong Dale’s welfare at heart.”

“God knows I have,” said Pacey fervently.

“Then tell me plainly, Mr Pacey.”

“Cornel!”

“I will speak, Michael,” she said gently. “His happiness and mine depend upon my knowing the truth. – Mr Pacey, I am waiting.”

Pacey gazed at her with his face full of reverence for the woman before whom he stood, but no words left his lips.

“You are silent,” she said calmly. “You fear to tell me the worst. He is not ill: you said so. He cannot be in want of money. Then it is as I gathered from your letter: he has been led into some terrible temptation.”

Pacey bowed his head gravely.

“Now, are you satisfied?” said Thorpe earnestly. “I knew that it was so.”

“And I clung so fondly to the hope that it was not,” said Cornel, gazing straight before her, and as if she were thinking aloud. Then, turning to Pacey – “He was becoming famous, was he not?”

“Yes.”

“Succeeding wonderfully with his art?”

“Grandly.”