“An ode to importunate friends, especially composed for the occasion. They took it from me-Paul and Louis-oh, and Henri de Chatelin! They do not like my verse.” Sir Maurice lay back in his seat and laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks. “Gad, Philip, but I wish I’d been there! To hear you declaim an ode of your own making! Faith, is it really my blunt, brusque, impossible Philip?”
“Not at all! It is your elegant, smooth, and wholly possible Philip!” Sir Maurice sat up again.
“Ah! And does this Philip contemplate marriage?” “That,” said his son, “is on the knees of the gods.” “I see. Is it woe unto him who seeks to interfere?” “Parfaitement!” bowed Philip. “I play now-a little game.” “And Cleone?”
“Cleone … I don’t know. It is what I wish to find out. Lady Malmerstoke stands my friend.” “Trust Sally,” said Tom.
Philip’s eyes sparkled.
“Ah, Tom, Tom, art a rogue! Father, he is in love with her ladyship!” “He always has been,” answered Sir Maurice. “Even before old Malmerstoke died.” Tom cleared his throat.
“Then why do you not wed her?” demanded Philip.
“She will not. Now she says-perhaps. We are very good friends,” he added contentedly. “I doubt neither of us is at the age when one loves with heat.”
“Philip, how do you like Paris?” interrupted Sir Maurice.
“I cannot tell you, sir! My feeling for Paris and my Paris friends is beyond all words.” “Ay. I thought the same. But in the end one is glad to come home.”
“May it please heaven, then, to make the end far, far away,” said Philip. “When I go back, you will go with me, Father.”
“Ah, I am too old for that now,” answered Sir Maurice. He smiled reminiscently.
“Too old? Quelle absurdité! M. de Chateau-Banvau has made me swear to bring you. M. de Richelieu asked when he was to see your face again. A score-”
“De Richelieu? Where did you meet him, boy?”
“At Versailles. He was very kind to me for your sake.” “Ay, he would be. So you went to Versailles, then!” “Often.”
“Philip, I begin to think you are somewhat of a rake. What attracted you to Versailles?” “Many things,” parried Philip.
“Female things?”
“What curiosity! Sometimes, yes, but not au sérieux.” “Little Philip without a heart, eh?”
“Who told you that?” Philip leaned forward. “Satterthwaite wrote it, or something like it.”
“Le Petit Philippe au Coeur Perdu. Most of them would give their eyes to know who the fair unknown may be!”
“Is it still Cleone?” Sir Maurice looked sharply across at him. “It has-never been anyone else,” answered Philip simply. “I am glad. I want you to marry her, Philip.”
“Sir,” said Philip superbly, “I have every intention of so doing.”
Chapter XIV. The Strange Behaviour of Mistress Cleone
“François, there is one below who desires m’sieur.”
François shook out a fine lace ruffle.
“Qu’est-ce?”
“Le père de m’sieur,” answered Jacques gloomily. François cast the ruffle aside.
“Le père de m’sieur! I go at once.” He vanished out of the door and scuttled downstairs to the library. Sir Maurice was startled by his sudden entrance, and raised his eyeglass the better to observe this very abrupt, diminutive creature.
François bowed very low.
“M’sieu’, eet ees zat my mastaire ’e ees wiz hees barbier. Eef m’sieu’ would come up to ze chamber of my mastaire?”
Sir Maurice smiled.
“Assurement. Vous allez marcher en tête?” François’ face broke into a delighted smile. “Ah, m’sieur parle français! Si m’sieur veut me suivre?”
“M’sieur veut bien,” nodded Sir Maurice. He followed François upstairs to Philip’s luxurious bedroom. François put forward a chair.
“M’sieur will be graciously pleased to seat himself? M’sieur Philippe will come very soon. It is the visit of the barber, you understand.”
“A serious matter,” agreed Sir Maurice.
“M’sieur understands well. Me, I am valet of M’sieur Philippe.” “I had guessed it. You are François?”
“Yes, m’sieur. It is perhaps that M’sieur Philippe has spoken of me?” He looked anxiously at Sir Maurice.
“Certainly he has spoken of you,” smiled Sir Maurice. “It is perhaps-that he tell you I am un petit singe?”
“No, he said no such thing,” answered Sir Maurice gravely. “He told me he possessed a veritable treasure for valet.”
“Ah!” François clapped his hands. “It is true, m’sieur. I am a very good valet-oh, but very good!” He skipped to the bed and picked up an embroidered satin vest. This he laid over a chair-back.
“The vest of M’sieur Philippe,” he said reverently.
“So I see,” said Sir Maurice. “What’s he doing lying abed so late?” “Ah, non, m’sieur! He does not lie abed late! Oh, but never, never. It is that the barber is here, and the tailor-imbeciles, both! They put M’sieur Philippe in a bad humour with their so terrible stupidity. He spends an hour explaining what it is that he wishes.” François cast up his eyes. “And they do not understand, no! They are of so great a density! M’sieur Philippe he become much enraged, naturally.”
“Monsieur Philippe is very particular, eh?”
François beamed. He was opening various pots in readiness for his master. “Yes, m’sieur. M’sieur Philippe must have everything just as he likes it.” At that moment Philip walked in, wrapped in a gorgeous silk robe, and looking thunderous. When he saw his father his brow cleared.
“You, sir? Have you waited long?”
“No, only ten minutes or so. Have you strangled the tailor?” Philip laughed.
“De près! François, I will be alone with m’sieur.” François bowed. He went out with his usual hurried gait. Philip sat down before his dressing-table.
“What do you think of the incomparable François?” he asked. “He startled me at first,” smiled Sir Maurice. “A droll little creature.” “But quite inimitable. You’re out early this morning, sir?” “My dear Philip, it is close on noon! I have been to see Cleone.”
Philip picked up a nail-polisher and passed it gently across his fingers. “Ah?”
“Philip, I am worried.”
“Yes?” Philip was intent on his nails. “And why?”
“I don’t understand the child! I could have sworn she was dying for you to return!” Philip glanced up quickly.
“That is true?”
“I thought so. At home-yes, I am certain of it! But now she seems a changed being.” He frowned, looking at his son. Philip was again occupied with his hands. “She is in excellent spirits; she tells me that she enjoys every moment of every day. While I was there three posies arrived from admirers. She was in ecstasies! I spoke of you and she was quite indifferent. What have you done to make her so, Philip?”
“I do not quite know. I have become what she would have had me. To test her, I aped the mincing extravagance of the typical town-gallant. She was surprised at first, and then angry. That pleased me. I thought: Cleone does not like the thing I am; she would prefer the real me. Then I waited on Lady Malmerstoke. Cleone was there. She was, as you say, quite changed. I suppose she was charming; it did not seem so to me. She laughed and flirted with her fan; she encouraged me to praise her beauty; she demanded the madrigal I had promised her. When I read it she was delighted. She asked her aunt if I were not a dreadful, flattering creature. Then came young Winton, who is, I take it, amoureux à en perdre la tête. To him she was all smiles, behaving like some Court miss. Since then she has always been the same. She is kind to every man who comes her way, and to me. You say you do not understand? Nor do I; She is not the Cleone I knew, and not the Cleone I love. She makes herself as-Clothilde de Chaucheron. Charmante, spirituelle, one to whom a man makes trifling love, but not the one a man will wed.” He spoke quietly, and with none of his usual sparkle.