Besides, there are other reasons.

Our three heroes walked back to the boulevards, the only silent ones amid the throng that poured through the Rue St. Honore, as the Cirque des Bashibazoucks emptied itself of its over-excited audience.

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

just as in his old way.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But Little Billee knew better.

He knew that his old pa.s.sion for her had all come back, and was so overwhelming and immense that he could not feel it just yet, nor yet the hideous pangs of a jealousy so consuming that it would burn up his life.

He gave himself another twenty-four hours.

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

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

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND THE REMEMBRANCE OF THEM--HAND IN HAND"]

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

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

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

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

And then the grewsome physical jealousy, that miserable inheritance of all artistic sons of Adam, that plague and torment of the dramatic, plastic imagination, which can idealize so well, and yet realize, alas!

so keenly. After three or four hours spent like this, he could stand it no longer; madness was lying his way. So he hurried on a garment, and went and knocked at Taffy's door.

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

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

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

Suddenly Little Billee buried his face in the pillow and began to sob, and some instinct told Taffy this was the best thing that could happen.

The boy had always been a highly strung, emotional, over-excitable, over-sensitive, and quite uncontrolled mammy's-darling, a cry-baby sort of chap, who had never been to school. It was all a part of his genius, and also a part of his charm. It would do him good once more to have a good blub after five years! After a while Little Billee grew quieter, and then suddenly he said: "What a miserable a.s.s you must think me, what an unmanly duffer!"

"Why, my friend?"

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

"So have I."

"You? What for?"

"The very same reason."

"_What!_"

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

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

"I believe you, my boy!"

"In _love_ with her?"

"I believe you, my boy!"

"She never knew it, then!"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'I BELIEVE YOU, MY BOY!'"]

"Oh yes, she did."

"She never told me, then!"

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

"Well--I _am_ d.a.m.ned! When?"

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

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

"Apparently so."