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"Don't fret yourself, ma chère!" he said. "I know all there is to know all about Rozelle all about Larpent all about Spentoli." "You you don't know this," said Toby. "You you you don't know why I ran away from you in Paris!" "Don't I?" he said, and she heard the irony of his voice. "I have an agile brain, my child. I can generally jump the gaps pretty successfully."
"Who who is it from?" Larpent's far-seeing eyes came gravely to meet her own. "From Rozelle Daubeni," he said. "Ah!" A quick shiver went through Toby. She averted her look. "I don't want to hear it," she said. "I've got to deliver it," said Larpent, with a hint of doggedness. "And you've got to listen. But you needn't be afraid. It isn't going to make any difference to you.
Very late that night when all the crowds who had assembled to watch Rozelle Daubeni had dispersed with awe-struck whisperings, two men came down the great staircase into the empty vestibule and paused at the foot. "You are leaving Paris again?" said Saltash. The other nodded, his face perfectly emotionless, his eyes the eyes of a sailor who searches the far horizon.
"Good God!" said Toby under her breath. He went on, grimly monotonous. "I never knew of the child's existence. If I had known, it might have made a difference. But it's too late now. She wanted me to find and protect the child. I promised to do my best. And when I found her, I was to tell her one thing. Rozelle prayed for her child's forgiveness every day."
"Rozelle Daubeni is expected," said Saltash. "Who?" Toby stopped short in the act of descending. Her face shone white in the glare. A moment before she had been laughing but the laugh went into her question with a little choked sound. "Who did you say?" she questioned more coherently. "Mademoiselle Daubeni the idol of Paris. Never heard of her?" Saltash handed her lightly down.
He paused a moment, and an odd tremor went through him. "After twenty years," he said, as if in wonder at himself. Saltash's look came swiftly upwards. "I've heard that before," he said. "Those she caught she kept always. No other woman was ever worth while after Rozelle." Larpent's hand clenched instinctively, but he said nothing. Saltash went on in the same casual tone.
But I went to Rozelle because she was dying, and because once long ago she was my wife." A faint sound came from Toby, but still she did not speak or lift her face. Larpent went on steadily, unemotionally. "She went wrong ran away while I was at sea. She was too young to be left alone. Afterwards too late a child was born. She told me the night before she died that the child was mine."
"Our turn so seldom comes," said Saltash lazily, his eyes wandering to the door. "Mademoiselle Rozelle for instance would hold her own against any of us." "Ah! Rozelle!" Spentoli's face changed magically. "But she is beautiful and without venom a rose without a thorn!" Saltash's mouth twitched mockingly. "And without a heart also?" he suggested.
Before the bulk of diners had finished, she rose to go. Her cavalier rose with her, flinging her gauzy wrap of blue and gold over his arm. It was the signal for a demonstration. In a moment a youth with eyes ablaze with adoration sprang on to a table in the centre of the vast room with a glass of red wine held high. "A Rozelle! A Rozelle!"
He raves about her. He may be a genius. He is certainly mad. He wanted the child for a model, and Rozelle could not prevent it. So she told me. I believe she was dependent upon him at the time. She had been ill. She has been ill for years with heart trouble. And so he had the child, but only for a time. The girl had a will of her own and broke away, joined a circus in California.
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