* * * * *
"… And—these—were—the—great—things—you asked permission to tell me?" she said slowly, without raising her eyes.
The strange smile on her scarlet lips, and the lustrous pallor of her face, so wonderfully prevailed, that he caught her in his arms again. And they were quite alone in that mighty light, as if they had penetrated dragons-deep in an enchanted forest.
"I cannot help it. You are stronger!" she said in the same trailing, faery tone…. "And that distance—between us—that you always felt—in 'the cycle of Cathay'—you seem to have overcome that——"
"It was another century——"
"Oh——"
"And now to explore the wood!"
"But the horses, sir—"
"They will stand."
… She would not let him help, but loosened Clarendon's bridle, and
slipping out the bit, put the head-straps back. Bedient shook his head.
"It may slide askew that way, and worry him more than if the bit were in," he said.
"If you command, I shall put it back."
"Let me."
"No."
Smiling, he watched her. The frail left hand parted the huge foamy jaws, and held them apart—thumb and little finger—while the other hand, behind Clarendon's ears, drew the bit home. The big fellow decently bowed his head to take the steel from her. Then she patted the mouse-colored muzzle, and gave the reins to the man, who, much marvelling, tethered the two horses together.
Then they set forth into the wood.
TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER
A PARABLE OF TWO HORSES
They were nearing Dunstan on the way back. The light had flattened out, and the little town was stretching its shadows. They were silent…. Beth was trying to fit this day to days that had gone, but it was hard. This had a brightness apart from them, but it seemed to her now that the brightness was gone with the sun. She was tired—and alone. The thoughts in her mind had brought the sense of separateness.
She must soon know from him, if the day had served her end. She thought of her temptation in the studio—to hold him from the ocean, as a woman might, as a Wordling might. She had not needed quite to do that, merely to let herself go. The glorious lover in him had done more than she dreamed, in making her Beth of the bestowals, this day.
In the sunlight, she had been one with him. Rather startlingly it came to her now, that she could have asked anything then. But in those incomparable moments of the high day, there had been nothing to ask. How strange this was to her! How utterly had they put all commonness behind.
She trembled at the thought of another woman rousing that lover in him, looking upon the miracle she had evoked. She could not bear it, nor could she suffer him to know this thought of hers.
They were riding down into the town. Brightenings from the West were still upon the upper foliage of the trees, but vague dusk had fallen between their faces. His features were white and haggard…. She was afraid to ask him now. She would wait for the darkness. Had he heard a tremble in her voice, Bedient would have caught her bridle-rein and searched her face.
She clucked. Clarendon, with stables just ahead, was only too eager…. Bedient rejoined her after turning over his horse, and making the change of clothes. Beth met him at the gate of her mother's house and there was a smile in the evening light.
They did not sit opposite at supper. Bedient studied the little mother at the head of the table, but with a fear in his heart. A sense of disaster had come to him at the end of the ride. He knew nothing of what had formed about the short sea journey in Beth's mind; he could not have believed from her own lips that she had been tempted to hold him with passion. He would have expected faith from her, had some destroying tale come to her ears. He did not realize the effect upon others, of his aptness to ignore all explanation. Especially in this seagoing affair, he had nothing to say. It was not his way to discuss his adventures into the happiness of others…. Beth felt his reserve instinctively, a reason why it had been impossible for her to show him the document of disorder.
The talk at the supper table had to do with the portrait she had painted. Beth never forgot some of Bedient's sentences…. Then she told him about the new life of the Grey One; of the latter's call on Wednesday, with the great news about Torvin, and of the telephone message yesterday.
"More buyers have been to her studio," Beth said. "You see, Torvin can do anything. A whisper from him and they buy. The Grey One has disposed of several of her little things at her vogue prices——"
"I'm glad," said Bedient.
"It came in the nick of time. It means more than money or pictures.
Margie Grey has won her race."
"I understand," he added.
After supper, they walked together outside. With her whole heart Beth prayed that the day had changed him from going. She had put off until the last moment any talk that would bring his answer. And now walking with him in the darkness, she thought strangely of her parting with the Other. All was forgotten save that moment of parting; all the old intimacies had dropped from mind, banished by the sunlit god she had met this day…. Bedient's defect would be quite as intrinsic as the Other's—if he went to Wordling now. She could have forgiven a boyish carelessness in either, but Beth could not forgive in any man that unfinished humanity which has a love-token for the obviously common and sensuous…. She was ill with terror and tension. And how pitifully human she was! A greater faith or a lesser strength would have saved her. Beth failed in the first. It was her madness; her mortal enemy—this pride.
"I doubt if there could be such another day of June," she observed at last, wondering if he caught the hard note in her voice…. This would bring his word. She would cry aloud with happiness—if the day had changed him.
"To-morrow——" he answered. "Beth, is there anything to prevent to-morrow——?"
"Riding together?"
"Yes."
"Not to-morrow. The horses had better rest a day. We must have done twenty-five miles to-day…. But early next week——"
She had turned away, as one averts the face from disaster. Even had she not turned from him, it was too dark to see his queer troubled smile, as he said:
"Monday, I go away. It's that ocean matter. Three days will finish it,
I'm sure."
So this was her answer. Beth of the bestowals had not prevailed. This was the inner uprooting. Love-lady she had been—love-lady of thrilling arts this day—and yet his determination to go to the other was not altered…. She would not show him tears of rage and jealousy. She would not see him again. She meant to show him that the day had not stormed her heart of hearts. Her spirit was torn, and she was not above hurting him…. "Three days will finish it, I'm sure." To her the sentence had the clang of a prison door…. It was through the Other that she proceeded now…. How he had struck her through another!….
They had walked for some time through the evergreens. His listening had become like a furious draught, her brain burning intensely beneath it. It had been hard for her to begin, but that was over…. "It was not until to-day that there was any need to tell you," she was saying. "You were inspiring in other ways. I would have been stupid, indeed, not to have seen that, but somehow you seemed remote from everyday habiliments and workday New York—somehow inseparable from silences—until to-day—when you came singing Invictus. You did not let me tell you—out there—in the sunlight. You didn't let me think of telling you…. You mustn't judge me always so susceptible——"
She halted, lost for an instant in the emptiness.
"Please tell me about him," Bedient said.
"Why, he was only a working boy when he first came to our house—here," she went on. "I was just back from Paris—after years. I remember with what a shock of surprise I noted the perfection of his face. The angle was absolutely correct as the old Hellenic marbles, and to every curve was that final warmth which stone can only distantly suggest. Then he was tall, but so light and lithe——"
She knew he would not fail to see the flaw here—the artistic taint. She had heard him deplore the worship of empty line, saying that nature almost invariably travesties it.
"I was hasty, then, in my conclusion to-day," he said, questioning, "when I asked if there was any reason why I should not tell you how great you are to me?"
"It did not seem the time to tell you," she answered quickly. "I was wrong, but—it was not wrong to him! Please don't think that! I sent him away."
"Oh, I see better—thank you. And now go on, Beth, please——"
"You see, he was my work——"
Beth's mother now called from the front door. She was going upstairs and would say good-night to Mr. Bedient.
"Go to her," Beth whispered. "I shall see her later."
… And now she stood alone by the gate, her mind seething. Forces within falteringly implored her to go no further. She found in his few brief questions that old fidelity to truth that had been one of his first charms. This helped to unsteady her. Was she not wrong to judge this man by the standards the world had made her accept for others?… The day came back. Why had Wordling been so far from her mind out there in the sunlight? Radiant with health, thrilling with mysteries, in the summit of her womanhood, she had been above fear, and he above evil. The Shadowy Sister, too, had gone forth to meet him, majestic and unashamed. What spell was that which had come over her, a perfect vein-dilation in the brilliant light? Why, it had seemed to her that she could feel the pulse of flower-stems, and paint the nervous systems of the bees. Painting—what a pitiful transaction was art (in the divine stimulus at that hour) compared to the supernal happiness of evolved motherhood! And what exquisite homage had he shown her! And the long talk, his mind crowded with pictures like memories of a world-voyage! Again and again, there had come over her, some inner uplift, as if she were rising upon a wave…. She heard his tones now, as he spoke to her mother on the porch, and his gentleness throughout recurred.
The Other had gone from her world, and now he was going. Her mind shrank from the new and utter desolation…. The night seemed closing about her, as she stood beside the gate. Like some great foreign elemental, it was, until she was near to screaming, and perceived herself captive to madness—a broken-nerved creature in a strange place, stifling among aliens, undone in the torment of strange stars…. And, another, the ancient terror to strong women, now fell upon her, to show Beth Truba how mighty she was to suffer. The sense of her own fruitlessness drove home to her breast, of living without solution, realizing that all her fluent emotions, lovely ideals, all her sympathies, dreams and labors, should end with her own tired hands; that she must know the emptiness of every aspiration, while half-finished women everywhere were girdled with children…. He was coming toward her.
That instant, a merciful blankness fell upon her mind. Out of the fury and maiming, her consciousness seemed lifted to some cool blackness. There was just one vague, almost primal, instinct, such as a babe must feel—the need to be taken in his arms. The wall between them would have fallen had Bedient done that, but nothing was further from his thoughts. He, too, was groping in terrible darkness. Her spirit was lost to him…. There was no moonlight, so he could not discern the anguish of her face, and the sense of her suffering blended with his own…. A very wise woman has said that it isn't a woman's mysteries which dismay and mislead a man, but her contradictions.
"And now tell me the rest, Beth," he said quickly, looking down into the pale blur which was her face. "I must know."
She shivered slightly. She was dazed. Hatred for the moment, hatred for self and the world, for him, imperiously pinning her to the old sorrow; his failure to make a child of her, as a lover of less integrity might have done—it was all a sickening botch, about Wordling's pretty taunting face. She had not the strength of faculty to tear down and build again the better way.
"You were telling me that he was your work—of his face and all,"
Bedient whispered.
"Oh, yes…. Oh, yes, and you went away——"
"Yes," he said strangely.
"I must have been dreaming…. It hurt me so—he hurt me so. I remember——"
And now a cold gray light dawned in her brain, and the old story cleared—the old worn grooves were easily followed.
"Yes."
"But I—perhaps—I was inexorable." There was something eerie in that touch which held her for an instant.
"But you started to tell me more about him, I'm sure, at first,"
Bedient said. The idea in his brain needed this.
"I helped him in his studies," she answered angrily. There was something morbid to her in Bedient's intensity. "I helped him in the world, or friends of mine did. Yes, I made his way among men until he could stand alone. And he did, quickly. He was bright. Even his refinements of dress and manner and English—I undertook at the beginning."
Half-dead she had fallen into the old current, not comprehending a tithe of his suffering.
"Oh, I put love into it!" she said dully. "I thought it the most glorious work I ever did."
"You tell me wonderfully about yourself, Beth, with these few sentences…. There is nothing finer in my comprehension than the mother-spirit in the maid which makes her love the boy or the man whom she lifts and inspires."
The cool idealist had returned. Beth did not welcome him.
"I believe that every achievement which lifts a man above his fellows is energized by some woman's outpouring heart. She bestows brave and beautiful things of her own, working in the dark, until the hour of his test, as those fine straws of the Tropics are woven under water——"
"And what mockery to find," she finished coldly, "after you have woven and woven, that the fabric finally brought to light is streaky and imperfect."
Bedient's business of the moment was to learn if she were right in being as she said, "inexorable"; if she did not sometimes think that a finely-human heart might have come since to that flashing exterior, which had filled the girlish eyes. He could only draw from the whole savage darkness that the Other still lived in her heart.
"But he will not stay forgotten—is that it, Beth?"
Into the cold gray light of her mind, came a curious parable that had occurred to her, as they started out to ride this morning, before the great moments of high noon. And thus she related it to Bedient in the hatred which filled her, last of all from his imperturbable coolness:
"I saddled a great deal, even as a girl. In New York, years ago, the desire came to possess a horse of my own. I bought a beautiful bay colt, pure saddle-bred, rare to look upon; but something always went wrong with him. He galled, threw a shoe and went lame, stumbled, invariably did the unexpected, and often the dangerous, thing. Truly he was brand new every morning. I worried as if he were a child, but I wasn't the handler for him; he spoiled in my care; yet how I loved that colt—the first. He might have killed me, had I kept him…. It was over a year before I had the heart to buy again—Clarendon—big, courageous, swifter than the other, splendid in strength, yet absolutely reliable in temper. Day after day, in all roads and weathers, he never failed nor fell—until——"
Beth halted. The parable faltered here. She foresaw a dangerous question, and finished it true to Clarendon.
"Until——" Bedient repeated.
"Until now—and you have seen him to-day," she said hastily. "Always he seems to be aiming at improvement with eager, unabated energy. In many ways, it was hard for me to realize that a horse could be so noble…. And yet I gave to the first something that I didn't have for the second. Something that belonged to the second, was gone from me——"
A moment passed. Beth glanced into Bedient's face, but the darkness was too deep for her to see. When he spoke, it was as steadily as ever:
"I understand clearly, Beth. I should say, don't do the first an injustice. It was those very uncertainties of his, those coltish frights and tempers, that made you so perfect a mistress of the second, for you invariably bring forth the best from the second."
Something big came to her from the utterance. But nothing of the truth—that his heart had just received a death-thrust to its love-giving…. He had left his gloves in the house. He asked for a cup of water…. It was strange—his asking for anything. She could remember only, besides this, his wish expressed that she might ride with him. He had asked nothing this day. And it was a cup of water now…. They were in the lamplight, and he had drunk…. She was standing by the table, and he at the door waiting for her to lift her eyes…. Suddenly she felt, through the silence, his great strength pouring over her.
She looked up at last. There was a dazzling light in his eyes, as if some wonderful good to do had formed in his mind.
"Beth, was he the Other Man—who rested for one day on the mantel in the studio?"
"Yes."… The question shocked her. She could not have believed that it was harder for him to ask, than for her to answer….
He came nearer. Like a spirit he came…. He seemed very tall and tired and white…. Her hand was lifted to his lips, but when she turned, he was gone.
Beth did not shut the door…. The sound of a shut door must not be the last so strange a guest should hear. Beth was cold. She could hardly realize….
Bedient turned and saw the light streaming out upon the porch. She was not visible, but her shadow stood forth upon the boards, arms strangely uplifted. The mortal within him was outraged, because he did not turn back—into that open door.
III
EQUATORIA
Allegro Scherzo
TWENTY-FIFTH CHAPTER
BEDIENT FOR THE PLEIAD
Bedient dreamed:
He was sitting in the dark, in a high, still place; and at last (through a rift in the far mountains), a faint ghost appeared, waveringly white. Just a shimmering mist, at first, but it steadied and brightened, until the snowy breast of old God-Mother was configured in the midst of her lowly brethren on the borders of Kashmir…. And just as he was about to enter into the great peace, his consciousness beginning to wing with cosmic sweep, the rock upon which he sat started to creak and stir, and presently he was rolled about like a haversack in a heaving palanquin.
Thus he awoke, tossed in his berth aboard the Hatteras—and a gale was on. The ship, Southward bound, was far off the cape for which she was named, asking only wide sea-room, to take the big rollers with easy grace.
Bedient had not slept long. He had not slept for two consecutive hours during the past ten days. From the open door of her mother's house in Dunstan his whole life had felt the urge to India. But that could not be. It had the look of running away.
The little ocean matter had been happily ended…. The exact impulse to tell David Cairns of his intention to return to Equatoria, and the moment for it, had not offered, so Bedient had parted from his friend, as one going to a different room for the night. Nor had he seen Mrs. Wordling, the Grey One, Kate Wilkes or Vina Nettleton since the last ride; though for the latter, he left a page of writing she had asked.
Beth he had tried to see, four days after their parting in Dunstan, but she was not at her studio, nor with her mother. He did not seek further.
Bedient felt that he was needed in Equatoria, but there was another reason for his sudden return, than attention to the large financial interests. Though his home was there, Equatoria had no imperious call for him that his inner nature answered…. Only India had that. The very name was like water to a fevered throat. They would know in India. Old Gobind had always known:
"You will learn to look within for the woman. You would not find favor in finding her without. It is not for you—the red desire of love."
How he had rebelled against the authority of those sentences, but his respect for the deep vision of Gobind was complete. Moreover, the old Sannyasin had said he was not to return to India until he was ready to give up the body. No sense of the physical end had come to him, even in his darkest hour. There was much for him to do, and in New York, but the pith was gone from him. His desolation made the idea of returning to New York one of the hardest things he had ever faced. He had thought of Beth Truba in his every conception of service. She inspired a love which held him true to every ideal of woman, and kept the ideals flaming higher. And what form she had brought to his concepts! In expressing himself to her, direct world-values had attached to his thoughts. Through her he had seen the ways of work. Every hour, he blessed her in his heart—again and again; and every hour, the anguish deepened.
But work had a different look. Darkness covered his dreams of service. He was torn down; some great vitality was disintegrating. His projects would be carried out; he would continue to give, and continue to produce the things to give—but the heart, the love of giving, the spirit of outpouring to men—these were gone from him. There was a certain emptiness in following the old laws of his fuller nature. To give and serve now, was like obeying the commands of the dead. He had never turned to the past before. He would have been the first to tell another—that one who looks to his past for the sanction of some act of the present, has reached the end of growth.
Bedient could not lie to himself. He wanted to run away. He wanted to sit at the knees of some old Gobind. Never since the night his mother had taken him in her arms, had he so needed to lean…. Yes. he had failed to find favor—in finding the woman.
And now came to him the inevitable thought, and not without savagery to one of his nature: Was his high theme of uplift for women stimulated from the beginning by his need of a human mate? Was it a mere man-passion, which had charmed all his thoughts of women, from a boy? Was this the glow which had illuminated his work in the world, during the maturing silences of the Punjab? Was it physical, and not spiritual—this love of all women, until he had come into his love of one? And must he lose the broader love—in missing the love of one?
The answer lay dark in his consciousness. Ways to bring happiness to women had come to him, but to carry them out now was mere obedience to the old galvanism. He faced this realization with deadly shame….
"You will learn to look within for the woman." And what was left within? In a kind of desperation, Bedient turned to this inventory. The old faith of the soul in God, in the Son, and in the Blessed Mother-Spirit still stood, apart and above the wreckage, unassailed. This was Light.
In these furious days of disintegration Bedient's soul-faith was not brought to test. A woman's might have fallen with her love…. But the mighty passionate being, that was roused to commanding actions in that high sunlit hour, died slowly and with agonies untellable.
The Hatteras steamed out of the gale, as she had done out of many another, in the same riotous stretch of sea-water. Bedient had become known aboard from his association with Captain Carreras. It was during the first dinner of the voyage that certain interesting information transpired from the conversation of Captain Bloom.
"Insurrection was smoking down there when we left ten days ago. We expected to hear in New York that the shooting had begun. Celestino Rey very nearly got a body-blow over, while we were hung up in port before the last trip up. Jaffier, the old Dictator, had just stepped out of his dingy little capitol, when a rifle-ball tore through his sleeve, between his arm and ribs. His sentries clubbed the rifle-man to death in the street——"
"It's rather a peculiar situation as I understand it," Bedient said.
"The death of either leader——"
"Would mean an end to his party. That's it exactly," said Captain
Bloom.
A lively listener to this talk at the Captain's table was a dark-haired young woman with dancing brown eyes—Miss Adith Mallory. She was slender, and not tall, but spirited in manner; exhibited a fine freedom with her new acquaintances at the table, mostly gentlemen, but with an elegance which repelled familiarity. Miss Mallory seemed to find great fun in these revolutionary affairs, and a deep interest in Andrew Bedient, and his vast holdings on the Island. Her eyes quickly recalled to Bedient's mind a line of Tennyson's—"Sunset and evening star, and after that the dark."
He saw very little of her until the Hatteras emerged into the warm, blue Caribbean, and he no longer had the excuse of rough weather to keep away from the dining-saloon. Miss Mallory favored every chance for a talk with Bedient, and once or twice he caught her regarding him with a strange, half-humorous depth of glance. One evening, as the ship was passing the northern coast of Porto Rico, they met on the promenade. The Island was a heavy shadow, off in the moon-bright South.
"… They say, Mr. Bedient, that if the revolution succeeds, it will make a great difference to you."
"Perhaps it may," he replied.
Miss Mallory had heard from the ship's officers, something of his relations with Captain Carreras. He laughingly deprecated his adequacy as a money-master.
"That's quite extraordinary," she said thoughtfully. "New York has not taught me to expect such from a man. Then the American dollar is not the sign of the Holy of Holies—to you?"
… Her talk was blithe. Presently she chaffed him for absences from the saloon during the rough weather.
"And you are such an old sailor, too," she finished.
"But my sailing was largely—sailing," he said. "It's different under steam."
"But we have been nearly three days in a turquoise calm, and I have watched you. A goldfinch would pine away on the nourishment you have taken! How do you manage to live?"
"You see how well I am," he said.
"You're not nearly——" Miss Mallory checked herself, and swallowed several times, before venturing again: "Do you know what I thought?"
"No."
"That you were in the clutch of mortal fear, lest you lose your fortune in the fighting."
"That was a bit wide, Miss Mallory——"
"In reparation for that injustice, I am going to tell you—what takes me to Coral City. I haven't told anyone else…. It's the prospect of a war. I've always wanted a revolution. You can never know how much…. You see, I'm an every-day working woman, a newspaper woman, but out of routine work. Some big things have fallen to me, but never war. Equatoria, the name and everything about it, has enchanted me for years——"
Bedient liked her enthusiasm. He explained much about the Island, Jaffier, Celestino Rey, The Pleiad, and the manner of men who frequented this remarkable palace. He advised Miss Mallory not to be known as a newspaper woman, if she expected a welcome at The Pleiad.
The Hatteras finally made the coral passage, and was steaming into the inner harbor. Miss Mallory left Captain Bloom, who was pointing out the line of reefs, to join Bedient on the promenade-deck.
"I'm surprised and disappointed," she said. "I expected to hear shooting long before this."
"It may not be started," he suggested. "And now, Miss Mallory, we'd better not go ashore together. I'm known as a follower of Jaffier; and since you go to The Pleiad, the only really suitable place to live, you'd only complicate your standing in the community by being seen with me. If The Pleiad should happen to be invested in a siege, I'll see you comfortably quartered elsewhere. In any case, I am at your service."
Bedient was entirely unexpected at the hacienda, but a small caravan had come down to meet the steamer and carry back supplies. Coral City was feverish with excitement, although the revolutionists had not yet taken to gunning. Bedient dispatched a letter to Jaffier with greeting, a congratulation on his escape from death (regarded in the letter as a good omen), and among other matters, an inquiry in regard to the American Jim Framtree, whom he had met in Coral City, just before he embarked for New York. This done, Bedient procured a saddle-pony, and started alone up the trails to the hacienda.
He reached the great house in the early dusk. Such was the welcome Bedient met, that for a moment, he was unable to speak. It was spontaneous, too, for he was an hour ahead of the caravan. All was as he had left. Dozens of natives trooped in with flowers and fruits, and when he was alone upstairs, their singing came to him from the cabins…. Bedient did not realize how worn and near to breaking he was, until the outer door of his apartment was shut; and standing in the centre of the room, with a laugh on his lips, he had to wait two or three minutes, for the upheaval to subside in his breast…. A little later, he crossed to the Captain's quarters, opened the door, and stood in the dark for several moments, his head bowed. And a breath of that faint sweet perfume, which never wearied nor obtruded, came to his nostrils, as if one of the old silk handkerchiefs were softly waved in the darkness.
* * * * *
A convoy, in the charge of Dictator Jaffier's oldest and most trusted servant, reached the hacienda at noon the next day. Thus the reply to his letter was borne to Bedient. The cumbersome efficiency clothed an imperative need for money first of all. Bedient expected this and was prepared to assist…. A revolution was inevitable, the communication further divulged. The point in Dictator Jaffier's mind was just the hour to strike. He recognized the importance of striking first; but, he observed sententiously, there was an exact moment between preparedness and precipitation. Jaffier believed that Celestino Rey was looking for a shipload of rifles and ammunition; but the entire coast was guarded by the Defenders, especially The Pleiad inlet, where the Spaniard's rare yacht lay. A seizure of the contraband, it was naïvely stated, would be a most desirable stroke by the government…. The letter closed with the information Bedient had especially requested. The young American Jim Framtree, whose movements in part had been followed by Jaffier's agents, was at The Pleiad with his chief, Celestino Rey, and was doubtless an important member of the rebel staff….
Bedient read the letter carefully and glanced through it again.
Jaffier's reliable held out his hand for it.
"If the Señor has carefully digested the contents——" he began.
"Yes, I have it all——"
The other took the letter and touched a match to it, stepping upon the crisp, blackened shell of fibre that fell to the floor. He carried back a New York draft for a large amount.
Bedient slept; that is, his body lay moveless from mid-evening to broad daylight, that first night at the hacienda. His consciousness had taken long journeys to Beth, remarkable pilgrimages to India (and found Beth there in the tonic altitudes). Always she regarded him with some strange terror that would not let her speak. Home from these far flights, he would see his body lying still in the splendid, silent room, fanned by soft night-winds, and quickly depart again…. It must have been the beautiful welcome from Falk and the natives. He had broken down quite absurdly, all his furious sustaining force had relaxed. Perhaps it had been necessary for him to break down before he could sleep…. Many times before, he had seen his body lying asleep.
He was more than ever tired and torn this day. Every vista of the hills held poignant hurt, because Beth Truba could not see this beauty. He dared not touch the orchestrelle. Falk brought coffee and fruit after Jaffier's servant had departed. Coffee at the hacienda was a perfect achievement. Eight years of training under Captain Carreras, who had an ideal in the making, and who claimed the finest coffee in the world as the product of his own hills, had brought the beverage to a high point. Bedient drank with a relish almost forgotten, but instantly followed that crippling pang—that it was not for Beth; that she could not breathe the warm fragrant winds…. Bedient sprang up. Some hard, brain-filling, body-straining task was the cry of his mind. This was its first defensive activity against the tearing down of bitter loneliness. Until this moment, he had endured passively.
Bedient determined to go to The Pleiad. He had thought of various ways to get in contact with Jim Framtree, but there were obstacles in every path, from the point of view of one conceded by the whole Island to be Dictator Jaffier's right hand, as Captain Carreras had been. The idea appealed more every second. It would startle all concerned, Jaffier and Celestino Rey especially. But the former had just received a large financial assurance of his loyalty, and there was value in giving the ex-pirate something formidable to cope with. Moreover, to meet Jim Framtree again was Bedient's first reason for sudden return to Equatoria…. He called for a pony, and followed by a servant with a case of fresh clothing, rode down the trail to Coral City.
TWENTY-SIXTH CHAPTER
HOW STARTLING IS TRUTH
Bedient entered The Pleiad, and with relief breathed the coolness of the vast shadowed halls. One does not ride for pleasure on a June afternoon in Equatoria, and Bedient was far from fit…. There were no guests about. A pale, slender, sad-eyed gentleman appeared in a sort of throne of marble and mahogany, and perceiving the arrival, his look became fixed and glassy.
"Just give me your name, please, if you wish," the pale one said, clearing as dry a throat as ever gave passage to words. Indeed, Bedient could only think of some one stepping upon nut-shells to compare with that voice. The sentence was spoken in answer to his glance about for a register or something of the sort…. No questions were asked regarding price, baggage, nor the nature of the quarters desired. A Chinese servant appeared, and took the case from Bedient's man, who was sent down to quarter in the city. The guest followed the Oriental. The stillness and vast proportions of the structure; the endless darkened halls robed in tapestries and animate with oils; the heavy fragrance from the gardens, crushed out of blossoms by the fierce heat; rugs of all the world's weaving, from the golden fleeces of Persia to fire-lit Navajos; a glimpse to the left, of a room walled with books, and sunk into an Egypt of silence; an acreage of covered billiard-tables through a vast door to the right—a composite of such impressions made the moment memorable. Bedient could only think of a king's winter palace—in summer…. He left the servant to return a moment to the desk.
"Have you a list of the men-guests?" he asked.
The pale one looked disturbed; or possibly it was disappointment that his colorless features expressed, as if such affairs were for the lesser servants of the establishment, and not in the province of gentlemanly dealings.
"No, we have no such list," he said. "Later in the day, when it is cooler, however, most of our guests are abroad, and you will doubtless have little difficulty in finding him whom you seek. You will become familiar in a few hours with our little peculiarities of management. There is little to complain of in the way of service, I believe——"
Rejoining the Chinese, Bedient was led to an apartment, the elegance of detail and effect of which was imperial, no less. With relief he stepped out of his riding clothes, bathed in a deliciously tempered shower, and sat down to think. The chair folded about him like a cool soft arm. The whole atmosphere was to him embarrassingly sensuous. The city was below, shadowed in the swift-falling night; the harbor lay in purple silence, the sun had sunk in a blood-orange sky.
A smile came to his lips at the heavy seriousness of life all about him; vice clinging tenaciously to world-forms, and leaning upon the purchasable beauty of marble and figured walls, its hollowness sustained with the perfections of service. Then he looked across the dark harbor to the sweep of deep red which alone remained of the sunset, thinking of Beth and the dividing sea and the dividing world, and why it had happened so. He was ashamed because he could not think of the great work he had dreamed of doing for women, because Beth meant Women to him now, and he was not for her…. Would the visions of service ever come back?
This brought his mind to the thing he had come to The Pleiad to do, and the revolution all around it, in the very air. What a queer post—in the very fortress of insurrection. It was all boyish stuff. Many adventures might accrue. Would they be enough to keep his mind from realities?… He feared not. For an hour he sat there, regarding the lights of the city and harbor, until his thoughts grew too heavy, and the manacled lover within him was spent and blood-drawn from straining against his chains—the captive that would not die…. He arose wearily to find that a letter had been thrust beneath his door, and so silently that he had not been aroused from his thoughts. The paper was of palest blue and heavy-laid. His name was written with a blunt pen in an angular, eccentric hand, and the contents proved unique:
MR. ANDREW BEDIENT,
SIR: Many of my guests have caught the spirit of The Pleiad more readily and pleasurably, after making the acquaintance of one elsewhere designated, I believe, the proprietor. We do not use the word here, as we are friends together. The fact that my manager showed you apartments is enough to make me glad to welcome you. He makes few mistakes. Will you not dine with me at eight this evening in the Shield Room. If you have a previous engagement, pray do not permit me to disturb it, as I shall be ready at your good time.
With unwonted regard,
CELESTINO REY.
Bedient sat down again. The systems of the house moved him to amusement and marvelling. To think that the pale creature at the desk had weighed him from all angles of desirability; and like some more or less infallible Peter had allowed him to enter into the abiding peace of The Pleiad. It was rather a morsel, that he had not been turned away. Then to be invited to dine the first evening with the establishment's presiding individuality, who did not approve of the term, "proprietor." There was a tropic, an orient, delight about the affair.
"To think a stranger must lose or win caste in Equatoria, on the glance of that Tired-eyed," he mused. "I really must master this atmosphere."
Bedient thought of Treasure Island Inn, in the lower city, where a stranger would probably go, if denied entrance at The Pleiad. "Infested" was the word Captain Carreras had once used to depict its denizens…. A few minutes before eight Bedient left the room and descended. From the staircase, he perceived that the guests had, indeed, gathered at this hour. The company was not large, but rather distinguished at first glance. So various were the nationalities represented that Bedient thought the picture not unlike a court-ball with attachés present. The hum of voices was quickened with half the tongues of Europe, and now and then an intonation of Asia. There were more men than women, but this only accentuated the attractions of the latter, of which there were two or three sense-stirring blooms.
For just an instant on the staircase, Bedient stood among the punkah-blown palms to scan the faces below. Framtree was not there, but Miss Mallory appeared in a discussion with an elderly gentleman, and her usual animation was apparent. Bedient was struck with the fact that he had been singularly remiss. In the thirty hours which had passed since their parting, her likeness had not once entered his mind, and he had offered to see that she was comfortably ensconced. Her eyes turned to him now, but as quickly turned away. He had tried to bow…. And at this moment, Bedient perceived the languid eye of the man at the desk, cooling itself upon him. Crossing the tiles from the stairs toward this gentleman, moreover, he was covered with glances from the guests, eyes of swift, searching intensity. "How interested they are in a stranger," he thought. There was a sharpness of needles and acid in the air.
Low chimes from an indefinite source now struck the hour of eight. A
Chinese stepped up to the desk beside Bedient.
"You are dining with Señor Rey?" the manager inquired lazily.
Bedient nodded, and turned to greet Miss Mallory. She caught his eye and intent, and promptly turned her back. For the first time, Bedient felt himself a little inadequate to cope with the psychological activities of this establishment. Reverting to the desk, the manager appeared dazed and absent-minded as usual.
"The boy," he said, indicating the Chinese, "will show you to the
Shield Room."
Bedient trailed the soft-footed oriental through the bewildering hall, until he saw Señor Rey standing in a doorway—and behind him a low-lit arcanum of leather and metal…. The face of the Spaniard was startling, like the discovery of a crime. It was lean and livid as a cadaver. The pallor of the entire left cheek, including the corner of the lips, had the shine of an old burn, the pores run together in a sort of changeless glaze. In the haggard, bloodless face, eyes shone with black brilliance. The teeth were whole and prominent, as was the entire bony structure of the face and skull. Señor Rey had a tall, attenuated figure, with military shoulders. He moved with great difficulty, as if lacking control of his lower limbs, but in his hands was the contrast—long, white, swift and perfectly preserved. The scarred face and ruffled throat united to form in Bedient's mind the hideous suggestion that the Spaniard had once been tortured full-length—his flesh once thrawned in machinery of the devil…. Bedient's hand was grasped in a cold bony grip, and his eyes held for an instant in the bright unquiet gaze of the Spaniard.
"I welcome you, Mr. Bedient…. Do you plan to be with us some little time?" The Señor spoke in a low, monotonous way. His English was but little colored by native speech.
"I cannot tell yet," said Bedient. "I have long wanted to see your wonderful house, but this particular moment, I came to find a certain man——"
Bedient noted the yellow eyelids of the other droop a little. He understood perfectly that there were many men now at The Pleiad who were badly wanted.
"Don't mistake me, Señor Rey," he added. "The man I wish to talk with can only prosper for my coming."
"Frequently it happens that the one searched for in Equatoria—is the last found," the Spaniard observed.
Linen, silver, crystal and candle-radiance were superbly blended upon the small round table between them. Rey, as a talker, was artful and inspiriting. His disordered body seemed an ancient classic volume, done in scarred vellum—a book of perils, named Celestino Rey—and all things about, the spears, guns, skins, shields, even the grim shadows, were but references to the text. The dinner was perfect. A tray of wines and a sheaf of cheroots were placed upon the balcony, at length, with two chairs covered with puma skins. The Chinese assisted Rey thither, and when they were alone, he said:
"Do you feel at all like discussing the affair which really brings you to The Pleiad?… You neither eat nor drink nor smoke—perhaps you talk."
Bedient laughed. "Wouldn't it be the simplest way to believe me?" he asked. "I want to see Jim Framtree, and I heard he was here. The matter has nothing to do with Equatoria, the present unrest, nor with any relation of his or mine to the Island or to The Pleiad. You can make it possible for me to see him at once."
"Unfortunately, I cannot. My province in The Pleiad is to cut down tension to a minimum. So many gentlemen present are of a highly nervous temperament. My best procedure many times is to act negatively…. Doubtless Dictator Jaffier was very glad of your return to the dreamiest of climates——"
"Yes," said Bedient.
"I noted this morning that he dispatched a convoy to your hacienda, bearing doubtless the official welcome——"
"Yes, I met the party."
Bedient perceived that the Spaniard missed little that was going on in the city and Island; also that he believed Jaffier's convoy had something to do with his own presence at The Pleiad; and finally that Celestino Rey was not trained to truth. In fact, Bedient had done more to disconcert the master of the establishment by stating the exact facts, than by any strategy he might have evolved…. Bedient arose at length and took the cold hand. He could not forbear a laugh.
"I am flexible enough to appreciate your position," he said. "As an acknowledged resource of the government, I suppose it is rather hard to see me—at this particular moment in the history of Equatoria—as carrying anything so simple as a friendly token."
"You are very absorbing to me, Mr. Bedient," the Señor said delicately. "An old man may express his fondness…. I am glad The Pleiad pleases you. I have built it out of the clods that the world has hurled at me, and have preserved enough vitality to laugh at it all. I find it best to keep down the tension——"
The younger man assisted the Spaniard to his feet.
"Ah, thank you," said the Señor, bowing. "I am dead below the knees."
Bedient strolled a bit in the gardens. Framtree, if anywhere in the establishment, did not show himself outside, nor in the buffet, library, billiard-hall, nor lobby. The extent and grandeur of the house was astonishing, as well as the extreme efficiency of the service. A Chinese was within hand-clap momentarily. There seemed scores of them, fleet, silent, immaculate, full of understanding. Their presence did not bore one, as a plethora of white servants might have done. Bedient reflected that the Chinese have not auras of the obtruding sort…. In his room finally, he drew a chair up to the window, and sat down without turning on light.
He had never felt wider awake than now, and midnight struck. He could not keep his thoughts upon the different facets of the present adventure, but back they carried him through the studio-days, one after another, steadily, relentlessly toward the end. It was like the beating of the bass in one of those remorseless Russian symphonies…. The ride—the halt upon the highway at high noon—the kiss in that glorious light—her wonderful feminine spirit … and then the blank until they were at her mother's house. He never could drive his thoughts into that woodland path. From the first kiss to the tragedy and the open door, only glimpses returned, and they had nothing to do with his will … He felt his heart in an empty rapid activity, and his scalp prickled. The captive that would not die was full of insane energy that night….
Once Bedient went to the door, following an inexplicable impulse. At the far end of the hall, fully seventy yards away, stood Jim Framtree talking with a woman. A Chinese servant hurried forward to Bedient, as if risen from the floor…. Framtree and the woman separated. Bedient took a gold coin from his pocket, and thrust it hastily into the hand of the servant, saying: "Ask that gentleman to come here for a moment." The Chinese did not return, nor did Framtree call that night.
But even this slight development could not hold his thoughts…. Bedient wondered if the captive would ever die; and if he should die, would he not rise again at the memory of that first kiss in the June sunlight?… And so he sat, until the day. Then he noted another letter had been slipped under his door. It was of course from Señor Rey:
May I trouble you, my really delightful friend (it read), not to bestow any favors larger than a peso upon my servants? They are really very well paid, and do not expect it. Ten dollar gold-pieces for any slight service are disorganizing and increase the tension. I beg to be considered,
In a really mellowing friendship,
CELESTINO REY.
TWENTY-SEVENTH CHAPTER
THE ART OF MISS MALLORY
Bedient was not a student of disease. Perhaps he would have granted that destructive principles are pregnant with human interest in the abstract, but his intelligence certainly was not challenged by these dark systems of activity. He saw that even if his mind were not held in anguish, he lacked the equipment to cope with Pleiad affairs. As it was, his attention positively would not concentrate upon the rapid undercurrents, where the real energy of the habitues seemed to operate. It was all like a game of evil children, or rather of queer unfinished beings, a whirring everywhere of the topsy-turvy and the perverse—sick and insane to his weary brain.
It was clear that the Chinese had not carried the message to Framtree, but had consulted the Spaniard instead. Had Bedient told Rey that he had come to The Pleiad to find Jenkins, or Jones, or Judd, he would doubtless have been permitted to see Framtree at once.
None of the matters made the impression upon his mind as that one glimpse of Jim Framtree at the far-end of the hall. It was not that he was in the building, though this was of course important; but the magnificent figure of the man in evening wear was the formidable impression The Pleiad furnished. This concerned his real life; the rest was without vitality.
By this time, however, Bedient was willing to grant that The Pleiad, and even Coral City, formed a nervous system of which Celestino Rey was the brain…. He had given up hope of writing a note to Jim Framtree, realizing it would have no more chance of getting past the Spaniard than a clicking infernal-box.
Framtree was nowhere abroad when Bedient went below. The former moved apparently in a forbidden penetralia of this house of mystery. But surely he could not continue miraculously to disappear…. Bedient strolled down into the city. He sadly faced the fact that the hacienda had no call for him; little more than The Pleiad. He turned in Calle Real to look back at the great dome of the Spaniard's establishment. It was a gorgeous attraction of morning light…. A Chinese slipped into a fruit-shop—one of the house-servants. Bedient made his way to the water-front. The Hatteras was out there in the harbor, surrounded by lighters, preparing for the return voyage to New York. This was the lure. It came with a pang that disordered all other mental matters for a space.
Presently he found himself wandering along the water-front. With an exoteric eye (for the deeps of the man were in communion) he regarded the faces of all nations. Coral City held as complete a record of crime, cruelty, and debauchery as one could find in the human indices of any port. Many were closing their annals of error in decrepitude and beggary; others were well-knit studies of evil, with health still hanging on, more or less, and much deviltry to do. A blue blouse, or a bit of khaki; British puttees and a flare of crimson; Russian boots and a glimpse of sodden gray; or an American campaign-hat crowning a motley of many services,—explained that the soldiers of the world found Equatoria desirable in not a few cases for finishing enlistments. It was quite as evident, too, that the criminal riff-raff of this world and hour found lodging in the lower city, as did its aristocracy in The Pleiad.
"A couple of hundred such as these," Bedient reflected, "led by some cool devil of a humorist, could loot the Antilles and get away before the intervention of the States. What an army of incorrigibles—an industrious adventurer could recruit here!"
Then the truth came to his mind. These belonged to Señor Rey's army. Only the Spaniard could command this part of the city to desperate endeavor. His pesos and influence, like alcohol, penetrated and dominated the mass…. Signs vehemently proclaimed that American beer was important among the imports of Equatoria; and in a certain street he encountered pitiful smiles and furtive gestures from the upper balconies.
"Strange," he thought, "wherever lawless men gather, their mates fly after them from court and slum. It is not men alone who love to venture—and venture to love!"
Bedient was ascending Calle Real once more, when his cheek was flicked by a tiny wad of paper which fell at his feet. A carometa was toiling up the slope from the water-front. He observed Miss Mallory's profile in the seat. She had not deigned to look, but with the dexterity of a school-boy the pellet had been snapped from her direction. He pocketed the message and laughed at her innocent and unconcerned expression. A little later he managed to read at a glance:
Meet the old military man you saw me with last evening. Perhaps he'll introduce us.
How quick she had been to sense the profundities of the Spaniard's establishment! Bedient was glad that she held nothing against him, and a bit surprised again that he had forgotten all about her reversal of form at his approach the night before…. He had little difficulty in making the acquaintance of Colonel Rizzio during the day, and was formally presented to Miss Mallory at dinner that evening.
"I have heard it's quite the mode here to have names as well as costumes for the climate," she said. "My wardrobe is limited, and I am Miss Mallory—as in New York."
It was an hour before they were alone together.
"My friend," she said, "you are looking ill—more than ever ill…. Isn't there anything I can do? Isn't there something you might tell me?"
Bedient felt her real kindness. "You are good," he answered. "I'm all right, hardly know what it means not to be fit…. And now tell me how you find things."
They stood in the centre of the coffee-room, so no one could listen without being observed. Yet their voices were inaudible five feet away.
"It was clear to me at once," she said, "that I had better not meet you as a friend. They probably knew we both came down on the Hatteras, but that's no reason for our being acquainted."
"And now we must be casual acquaintances—if your work would prosper,"
Bedient said.
"I suppose so."
"The more I think of it, the plainer it becomes that I've sort of disorganized Rey and his intimates. It really is odd for me to be here——"
Miss Mallory searched his face in her keen, swift way.
"When I came to understand at all," she said, "I didn't expect to see you here…. It isn't about the war, is it?"
"No," he replied. Then it occurred to him that she might meet the man he wished to see, and he added: "I have a message for a man named Framtree. Señor Rey apparently thinks this man would not be safe in my hands. At least, I'm not allowed to see him alone——"
"And he's here?"
"Yes, I'm sure of that."
"I haven't met anyone of that name."
"You couldn't mistake. In my opinion, Miss Mallory, he's easily the best-looking man on the Island."
"I'm sure I haven't met him."… She hesitated, smiling-queerly. "But if I should, is there any way I can help you?"
"Not by speaking to him about me. That would yoke you with my fortunes."
"How, then?"
Her eagerness appealed to him. "If you could tell me at any time just where I might find this Framtree—yes, that would help," he said, with a laugh.
"I'd be proud to help you in any way…. It's the most fascinating place I've ever been in," she added with an effort. "I haven't heard a thing about war, but the whole establishment is buzzing with conspiracies and mystery. There isn't any rest. Everyone is afraid of his neighbor; no one trusts himself to fall asleep in peace, for fear someone will pry his secret away—a terrible atmosphere—but what an adventure if it breaks into war before my eyes…. And I've met the Glow-worm——"
Her whole manner changed for an instant. Miss Mallory was now an emancipated creature, living to the very rim of her being. She belonged to the tropics, and was playing a game all spiced with enchantments…. Bedient remembered what Captain Carreras had said about the Glow-worm, on the day of his first coming to Equatoria. The story attached was that Celestino Rey had found this woman among the red lights of Buenos Aires, and had forced her to come with him. Bedient was not particularly interested, but Miss Mallory's study of the hidden-flamed creature, Señora Rey, and what she told him, adjusted easily to what he had already heard of the woman from South America.
"She's pure mother-earth and nothing besides," Miss Mallory went on. "Olive skin, yellow eyes with languid lids, lazy gestures, and a regal head of yellow hair. Something about her suggests that she might turn into an explosive at certain contacts, but she's horribly afraid. It really gives one a thrill to hear her speak of South America. She fondles the syllables and points strangely over her shoulder, at every mention of her land. She's dying the slow terrible death of nostalgia——"
"But of what is she 'horribly afraid'?" Bedient asked.
"Of the Spaniard—her husband. Somehow he has managed to madden her with fear. She trembles at his name or approach like a horse that has been cruelly beaten."
Only for a moment had Miss Mallory revealed the depth of her interest in the affairs of The Pleiad. An observer would have taken the pair for the merest acquaintances. The coffee-room murmured with many undertones. They arranged to meet at luncheon the following day and quickly separated. Miss Mallory was now aware that her avenues of action would be closed, if it were noted that she had more than a casual interest in Andrew Bedient.
The latter saw nothing further of Señor Rey for two days, and did not catch even a second glimpse of Jim Framtree. His hours of darkness and daylight were given over to the old destructive monotony—the dark drifting of his mind, all the constellations of love and labor and life shut off by the black mass of nimbus. His identity became lost to all order; the forces of his being seemed in some process of fermentation. His hours alone were animate with psychic experiences, but he attached no significance to them, because he believed them the direct result of physical weakness. Again and again he turned upon himself fiercely, discovering that an hour had passed, while he had been tranced in strange attention for the recurrence of some voice in his brain. Angrily, he would brush the whole phantasmagoria away, force himself back into the world of Equatoria, stride out of his rooms, if it were day, and down into the city; but the pressure of the deeper activities of his mind would steal back and command him. His physical nature was sunk into a great ennui, and the other forces were the mightier.
Bedient comprehended this descent; even wondered how far down a man could go—and live. It was the first thing that ever mastered him. The temptation to leave Framtree and to take even a flying trip to India—since New York was not for him—this was tangible, and he whipped it, though the conflict used up all his power. He had nothing left to combat the vague psychic thrall that appeared to be destroying his life. An understanding friend, as David Cairns had come to be, would have perceived startling changes in Andrew Bedient, and forthwith would have contended with the enemy for every inch of advance. Bedient was a bit awed by his great weakness. His physical deterioration did not trouble him, but his anchorage in the great work of his time had given way. He had to stop and think hard, to recall the least and simplest of his conceptions of service. His sense of shame was consuming in that all the good within him was gone, because he was destined to be denied a human mate.
As to his exterior fortunes, there was substance in the matters pertaining to the Glow-worm, which Miss Mallory brought, but they hardly held him past the moments of their telling. They had met for luncheon. She was unable to speak for a moment. Bedient wondered if he looked so badly as that. The woman summoned all her powers to compel his mind with what was so absorbing to her. He was not a little impressed by her exceeding kindness. They were seated opposite at a small table in the very centre of the luncheon-room.
"It's all right," she said lightly. "Señor Rey knows I am to have luncheon with you. We had a long talk this morning, and I think I left him in excellent spirits…. Oh, yes, he's an artist with the probe. I didn't give him a chance to talk about you, because I asked the first questions."
Her resourcefulness was delightful. "A friend's fortunes are truly safe in your hands," he said. "And now please tell me all about it."
TWENTY-EIGHTH CHAPTER
A FURTHER NOTE FROM REY
"I had a long mental work-out this morning in the room before breakfast," she began. "I even thought about what brings you here, and about my long talk with the Glow-worm last night, which I'll get to—if you are a very interested listener. After breakfast, I walked for an hour in the grounds. Have you been over to the Inlet, where Señor Rey's beautiful sailing-yacht lies—the Savonarola?"
"I've seen it from the road," Bedient answered.
"A stairway goes down from the bluff under the road, a hundred steps or more to the water of the cove. In fact, the tall spars of the Savonarola aren't nearly so high as the level of the bluff. I love a sailing-ship, and on the way back I met Señor Rey in his wheel-chair, and told him how the wonderful little harbor and his thorough-bred, lying there, had appealed to me. He inclined his head benignly. His yacht, I said, had the effective lines of her namesake's profile—and that pleased him. Followed, a technical discussion of different sailing-ships that once swept the waters of the world, I furnishing enthusiasm and a text-book inquiry now and then. This brought not only an invitation to sail within a few days, but also an invitation to a private dinner this evening in the Flamingo Room, 'with Señora Rey and a few most cherished guests.' And—I must not forget—the Señor informed me that his wife was very fond of me….
"I observed that the 'Flamingo Room' had a most enticing sound. He hoped I would find it so; said the idea was his own, and that, to him, the tint of a flamingo feather was the fairest of all tints—save one, to be found in the cheeks of an American girl. I answered that it was very clear to me now whose sense of beauty had made The Pleiad and its gardens the rarest delight of my travels."
Miss Mallory regarded Bedient's amusement appreciatively for a moment, and went on swiftly:
"Then I walked beside his wheel-chair through the shadowy, scented paths, and presently I mentioned you and Colonel Rizzio among the interesting people I had met. He declared you were a true gentleman—spoke feelingly—a stranger at The Pleiad, though not to the Island. I explained how you had kept aloof on the ship coming down, how you seemed to be the prey of some devouring grief…. All that I said, he regarded with that terribly bright attention of his. It made me think of a pack of hounds tossing and tearing at a morsel, the way his faculties caught my sentences, hounds playing a hare at the end of a run. Oh, devious and winding are the ways of the Spaniard—and past finding out! But I frankly confessed my interest in you, and that you were absolutely self-contained; indeed, it was because of that I appealed to him. I am sure he found that my sayings balanced in the most sensitive scales of his mind; and decided I was too young to be artistic with the fine tools of untruth.
"Finally, I asked about war, told him the New York papers predicted another war in Equatoria, and that I had never seen one. The Señor declared he was very sorry if my trip to Equatoria proved a disappointment in any way, but he didn't see what there was to fight about; that no one deplored so much as he the recent attempt upon the life of Dictator Jaffier; and as for himself, he was identified with all the interests of Equatoria, which were moving forward exceedingly well…. Altogether it was an absorbing half-hour."
* * * * *
"And now I must tell you about Señora Key," Miss Mallory continued hurriedly, since they could not be seen talking together long…. "She asked me to come to her rooms, and I followed a servant. I couldn't find the place now alone. A small room in orange lamplight! The Glow-worm was lying upon a tiger-rug; very tall and silken she looked, and her great yellow eyes settled upon me. It seemed to me that her emotions had no outlet, but turned back to rend and devour each other. I couldn't help thinking that first moment, that some one must pay a big price for making her suffer. Queer, wasn't it? And pitiful—how she seemed to need me. It is true, she trusted me from the beginning, seemed dying to leap into some one's heart. And she told me her story in whispered fragments—heart-hunger, hatred, and mystery—these fragments. I've really been challenged to build a character out of her, and since I thought about her half the night, I ought to be able to make you see and feel her story. I wonder if I can? It came to me something like this:
"There had been a night—ah, long ago—in which Señor Rey summoned her from her companions. It was in a house in Buenos Aires. The Señor had come to that house before. The Señor was always feared. He was always obeyed. She, nor any of her companions, could taste the wine he bought for them. It did not make them laugh like other wine. Oh, yes, they drank it, but they could not taste the flavor—with him in the room!… On this night the Señor had bade her come with him. She could not answer, but obey only. She remembered how hushed her companions became when she went away with the Señor; how strangely they had looked at her—what helpless sorrow was in their eyes…. Even now she could see the faces of her companions gathered about; the Señor smiling at the door; his carriage with black, restless ponies and shining lights; the driver upon his seat, like to whom she quickly became—never answering the Señor, and always obeying!… Ah, yes, there had been a hush in her house as she left it, laughter in all the other houses about; and away they had driven, past the last of the lights——
"Such was the tale, whispered, overlapped with repetitions, a succession of touches like that, done lightly but with a passion—oh, you should have been there to understand! The meaning of a wild, sad life was in them. And her big yellow eyes were hungry upon me. I seemed to see the vast South American town, as old as Europe in sin and as new as Wyoming in heart."