DREXLEY SPEAKS OUT
Douglas halted in the middle of the room. He knew Drexley but slightly,
and his appearance was forbidding. Drexley waved him to a chair and
looked up. His eyes were bloodshot, but his tone was steady enough.
"They told me downstairs that you were inquiring for me," Douglas said.
Drexley nodded.
"Yes. Sit down, will you. I have a sort of message, and there is
something I wanted to say."
A waiter brought Douglas his coffee, and being in an extravagant mood he
ordered a liqueur.
"What'll you have?" he asked.
Drexley hesitated, but finally shook his head.
"No more," he said. "A cigar, if you like."
Even then Drexley shrank from his task. Their chairs were close
together and the room empty--yet for the first ten minutes they spoke of
alien subjects, till a suggestive pause from Douglas and a glance at his
watch made postponement no longer possible. Then, blowing out fierce
clouds of tobacco smoke, he plunged into his subject.
"I've come," he said, "from Emily de Reuss. No, don't interrupt me.
I've a sort of message for you which isn't to be delivered as a message
at all. I'm to drop a hint to you that she would like you to go and see
her, that your refusal to do so would be a little ungracious, because
she came and saw you when you were ill. I'm to let you think that she's
feeling a little hurt at your behaviour, and finally to work you up into
going. Do you see?"
"Not altogether," Douglas answered, laughing.
"Well, it isn't altogether a laughing matter," Drexley said, grimly.
"I've got rid of my message. Now I'm going to speak to you on my own
account. You're young and you haven't seen much of life. You are no
more capable of understanding a woman like Emily de Reuss than you are
of talking Hindustanee. For the matter of that neither am I, nor any of
us. Any ordinary words which I could use about her must sound
ridiculous because of their inadequacy. However, to make myself
understood I must try. She is not only a beautiful woman of unlimited
wealth and social position, but she has, when she chooses to use them,
the most extraordinary powers of attracting people to her. She might
exercise these gifts upon men of her own social rank who are, as a rule,
of slighter character, and whose experience of the best of her sex is of
course larger than ours. She prefers, however, to stoop into another
world for her victims--into our world."
"Why victims?" Douglas asked. "Isn't that rather an extreme view of the
case?"
"It is a mild view," Drexley said. "I will justify it afterwards. In
the first place, I believe that she has genuine literary tastes, and a
delight for the original in any shape or form. The men in her own rank
of life would neither afford her any pleasure nor would they be for a
moment content with the return which she is prepared to offer for their
devotion. So she has chosen her victims, or, as you would say, friends,
from amongst our men--at least with a more robust virility and more
limited expectation. You will admit that so far I have spoken without
bias."
"In the main, yes," Douglas answered.
"There are women," Drexley said, "who are very beautiful and very
attractive, who admit at times to their friendship men with whom
anything but friendship would be impossible, and who contrive to
insinuate in some subtle way that their personality is for themselves
alone, or for some other chosen one. How it's done, I don't know, but I
believe there are plenty of women who do know, and who are able to
preserve unbroken friendships with men who, but for the exercise of that
gift, must inevitably fall in love with them. And there are also
women," Drexley continued, with voice not quite so steady, "who have the
opposite gift, who are absolutely heartless, wholly unscrupulous, as
cold as adders, and who are continually promising with their eyes, and
lips, and their cursed manner what they never intend to give. They will
take a strong man and break him upon the wheel, the wreck of whose life
is a glorification to their vanity. And of this type is Emily de
Reuss."
Douglas was embarrassed--vaguely uneasy. The memory of Rice's words
came flooding back to him. Whatever else was true, this man's
sufferings were real indeed. To him she had never been anything but a
most charming benefactor. In a momentary fit of introspection he told
himself, then, that her sex had scarcely ever troubled him.
"I think I know, Mr. Drexley," he said, "why you have spoken to me like
this, and I can assure you that I am grateful. If Emily de Reuss is
what you say, I am very sorry, for I have never received anything but
kindness from her. So far as regards anything else, I do not think that
I am in any sort of danger. I will confess to you that I am ambitious.
I have not the slightest intention of falling a victim to Emily de
Reuss, or any other woman."
Drexley took up his cigar and relit it.
"You speak," he said, "exactly as I should have done years ago. Yet you
are fortunate--so far."
"With regard to next Thursday," Douglas added, "I could not go, in any
case, as I have an engagement."
"I may tell her that?" Drexley said, looking at him keenly. "I may tell
her that you cannot come on Thursday because you have an engagement?"
"Certainly. You may add, if you like, that I have drifted so far into
Bohemianism that I am not a fit subject for social civilities. She was
very kind to me indeed, and if ever she wishes me to go and see her I
will go, of course. But fashionable life, as a whole, has no
attractions for me. I am happier where I am."
Drexley stood up and held out his hand.
"I congratulate you," he said. "Don't think I'm an absolute driveller,
but don't forget what I've said, if even at present the need for a
warning doesn't exist. I'm one of her literary _proteges_, you see--and
there have been others--and I am what you see me."
Douglas hesitated.
"Surely with you," he said, "it isn't too late?"
Drexley looked up. There was the dull hopelessness of despair in his
bloodshot eyes. Douglas, who had never seen anything like it before,
felt an unaccountable sense of depression sweep in upon him.
"I am her bondman," he said, "body and soul. I could not tell you at
this moment whether I hate her or love her the more; but I could not
live without seeing her."
Douglas passed upstairs to his billiards with a grim vision before his
eyes. Drexley was a broken man--of that there was no doubt. He knew
that his warning was kindly meant, but many times, both during that
evening and afterwards, he regretted that he had ever heard it. He had
come into the club almost lighthearted, thinking only of Cicely and of
the pleasant days of companionship which might still be theirs. He left
it at midnight vaguely restless and disturbed, with the work of weeks
destroyed. Emily de Reuss had regained her old place without the
slightest effort. Surely it was a hopeless struggle.