He turned upon her with her letter in his hand; with fierce upbraidings
struggling for utterance at his twisted lips; with a heart full of
bitter hatred ready to outpour upon her. She quelled his madness--she
struck him speechless--he tried to curse her, but could find no voice.
For a nameless, awe-inspiring change, had crept over her. The
shell-white features were now pinched and drawn. Beneath the broad
white brow the partly-open, coldly-glittering eyes were sunk in caves
of bluish tinting. Hollows had appeared beneath the cheekbones; while
about the mouth, whose drawn, livid, parted lips revealed the little
clenched pearly teeth, that disquieting shadow, cruelly suggestive of
dissolution and corruption, showed in a broad band; and beneath the
swelling curves of her bosom a deep, abdominal depression now sharply
marked the edges of the lower ribs. And thus Dunoisse, familiar with
Death as a soldier may be who has met the grim King of Terrors on the
battle-field, and in the camp, and on the pallets of field-hospitals,
told himself that beyond all doubt Death was here.
And so it was that he could not curse her for a harlot. She was dead,
and Death is pure.... She was dead, and Death is meek and helpless; at
the mercy of the smallest, most despicable, weakest thing that walks or
crawls or flies.
Looking upon Henriette, you would never have guessed that here lay a
wanton, stricken down at the height of a delirious orgy of forbidden
pleasure. Rather you thought of a snow-white seagull, lying stiff
and frozen on a stretch of sunset-dyed seashore, or a frail white
butterfly, dead in the heart of a pink, overblown rose.
So the madness burned itself out in the brain of Dunoisse as he stood
looking at her. The blood in his veins ran less like liquid fire, the
cold sweat dried upon his skin, the roaring in his ears lessened--he
could now control the twitching of his muscles that had ached with
the desire to kill with naked hands a man abhorred--to batter out all
semblance of its luring beauty from the white, white face against the
rose-hued background. If the prone figure had given sign of life!--but
its pallor as of snow--its rigidity and breathlessness remained
unaltered. And presently, looking upon her, lying there; laughter and
tears, love and anger, forever quenched in her; disarmed of her panoply
of conquering gifts and graces by pitiless Death, a bitter spasm
took him by the throat and a mist of tears came before his eyes. He
trembled, and for lack of power to stand, sat down upon the foot of the
sofa, near where the stiff little feet he had so often kissed peeped
out beyond the border of her robe of lawn and laces. His haggard eyes
were fixed upon the cold and speechless mouth. And in its rigid silence
it was eloquent.
* * * * *
“Dear friend,” the dumb voice seemed to say ... “sweet friend, whose
pleadings won me to deceive--and whom I have in turn deceived--the
heroic virtue of Fidelity having no part in the pliable, silken web of
my nature--listen to me, and be, not pardoning--but pitiful!...”
“God knows,” said Dunoisse sorrowfully, “how I pity you, Henriette!”
“Born with the fatal gift of maddening beauty--endowed with the deadly
heritage of irresistible fascination,” went on the silent voice, “ask
yourself how it was possible for your Henriette to pass through life
untainted by the desires--unbranded by the scorching lusts of men? Be
fair to me, dear friend. Question--and give answer.”
Dunoisse asked himself the question. There was but one reply.
“Look around,” said the voice, “and you will see my prototype in
liberal Nature. The bird that builds too low; the rose that does not
hang her clusters high enough; the fruit whose very ripeness calls the
wasps to settle and feast. Yet who says to the bird, ‘Build higher!
Another year you will not lose your eggs so!’ Does anyone bid the rose
change her nature and lift her perfumed blossoms far out of reach of
plundering hands? What if one cried to the peach, ‘Do not ripen, stay
crude and sour because thus you will not tempt the yellow-and-black
marauder.’ Would not the pious tell us that to expect Heaven-taught
Nature to alter her ways at our bidding were to be guilty of mortal
sin? Then, what of us Henriettes--born to yield and submit, give and
grant and lavish? Are we much more to blame, do you think, than the
bird, than the rose, than the peach?”
“Oh, my poor, frail, false love!” said Dunoisse, “how wise Death has
made you!” For his bitter anger and resentment were vanishing as the
silent voice talked on:
“We drink in the sunshine of admiring glances at every pore,” said the
voice. “We thrive on smiles and compliments. All young and handsome
men--even those who are neither young nor handsome--are our comrades or
servants--until the moment arrives when the comrade becomes tyrant, and
the servant commands! Then, what tears we shed!--for our dearest dream
is always of pure passion--unrewarded fidelity. We are continually
planting the gardens of our hearts with these fragrant, homely flowers,
and Man is always tearing them up, and setting in their stead the
vine of nightshade, deadly briony, sad rosemary, bitter wormwood and
sorrowful rue. And as long as the world shall last, the cruel play goes
on....”
The half-open, glassy eyes were dry, but the silent voice had sobs in
it. And it said:
“We give all we have for love, and the love is never real, only
pinchbeck of flattery and kisses; or the cruel love of an urchin for a
kitten--of a baby for a tame bird.... You who sit by me to-night, dear
friend, have never loved me!... Have you ever sought to find my Soul
within the house of flesh that caged it? Have I not seen you smile in
mockery when I knelt down to pray?”
“You are wrong--absolutely wrong, Henriette!” he wished to say to her.
But a scalding wave of guilty consciousness broke over him. He dropped
his shamed face into his hands and groaned.
What had he ever sought of her but sensuous pleasure? She spoke
truth--their intercourse had never risen for an instant above the
commerce of the flesh, to the plane of things spiritual--he had never
even thought about her Soul. Now he seemed to see it, a wandering
flame no bigger than a firefly’s lamp, or the phosphorescent spark
the glow-worm carries--wandering through the illimitable spaces of
Eternity,--looking in vain for God. Whose very greatness made it
impossible for the tiny, flitting thing to find Him....
* * * * *
“Forgive me, Henriette!” he faltered, pierced to the quick.
“There is more to forgive,” the still voice rejoined, “even than you
believe. When you found me lying cold and stark in the midst of toys
and trifles--when you read the letter that proved me treacherous and
vile--think! was it genuine grief that you felt, or the savage wrath of
baffled appetite? And even now----”
“Have mercy! Spare me that at least!” he begged. For he knew that in
another instant she would bare his own mean, petty self before him--she
would tell him that even then a strife was going on in him between a
cowardly cur who wanted to steal away and leave her ... and a man of
common honor and ordinary decency who said: “_It is my part to stay!_”
For both of these men knew, fatally well, that when the morrow’s
sunshine should find her lying there--when the outcries of her
terrified maids should summon eager, curious strangers to gather
about and stare at their dead mistress; when the scandal of the
manner of her death should leak out; the world and Society, that had
so good-naturedly blinked at her liaison with Dunoisse, would not
spare him his well-earned wage of contumely. There could not fail to
be a Medical Inquiry ... the Police would be called in to clear up
suspicious mysteries.... Also, de Roux would be recalled from Algeria
... there would be a duel ... consequences much more unpleasant than
a duel.... For Monseigneur would not look with complacency upon the
return of an emissary proceeding to the East upon a special mission....
Worse still, that stealthy return from Joigny might be held to have
been prompted by a sinister motive. Men had been imprisoned--men
had been hugged headless by that Red Widow the Guillotine upon less
suspicion than Dunoisse had tagged to himself by the mere fact of his
secret return.
* * * * *
The porcelain clock upon the mantelshelf struck one and the half-hour,
as Dunoisse sat thrashing the question out--to go or stay with her? And
presently he raised his wrung and ravaged face, and got up and stood
beside the sofa, looking down at Henriette....
“Poor soul!” he said. “You knew me better than I knew myself. I am a
purblind idiot, Henriette, who, having profited by your unfaith--looked
to you to be faithful. Now I am paid in my own coin--it is my pride
that suffers--not my love. For as you say, and rightly!--I have never
loved you. Yet, love or none, because that other man has fled and left
you, and because that viler self that lurks within counsels me to
follow--I stay beside you here.”