On alighting at the perron, Leilah had as always to endure the
ceremonial of two footmen assiduously assisting her.
“Emmanuel,” she said to one of them. “Is Monsieur Barouffski at home?”
“No, madame la comtesse.”
Leilah passed on and up. For a moment, in the hall above, she
hesitated. Then, pushing a portière aside, she entered a salon, went to
the window, and looked out. Crossing the court was Verplank.
Fear and the fear of it, the throttling sensation which children know
when pursued, enveloped her. With an idea of telling the servants that
she was out, that she was ill, that she could see no one, she turned.
On a table near the entrance was a service of Sevrès. Its tender hues
were repeated on the ceiling. Beneath was the mirror of a waxed and
polished floor. On the glistening wood work her foot slipped. She
staggered, recovered herself, got to the door.
Already Verplank had entered. She could hear him. He was not asking,
he was demanding to see her. The form of the order mounted violently.
“Tell your mistress that I am here.”
Even then, with the idea that she might still deny herself, Leilah drew
back into the room. Mentally she was framing a phrase when Emmanuel
entered.
With that air domestics have when tidying something objectionable, the
footman reconstructed Verplank’s command:
“There is a monsieur who inquires whether madame la comtesse receives?”
“Tell him----”
But the injunction, as yet not wholly formed, was never completed.
Verplank, brushing the man aside, strode in.
Leilah, retreating before him, motioned at Emmanuel, and the servant,
with an affronted air of personal grievance, vacated this room that was
charged now with the vibrations of hostilities begun.
Retreating yet farther, her eyes on the foe, Leilah stared at him, and,
as she retreated, Verplank, staring, too, advanced. In his stare were
threats so voluble that she thought: “He will kill me.” At the thought,
there appeared before her Death’s liberating face, the mysteriously
consoling visage which it reveals to those alone who have reached the
depth of human woe.
Beyond, from the church, came the music of an organ. A requiem was
being held. Leilah felt as though it were her own.
Verplank, his hands clenched, the look of an executioner about him,
threw at her:
“For six months I have been looking for you. I am come to have you tell
me why I have had to look at all.”
“_Dies irae, dies illa_,” admirably, in a clear contralto, a woman’s
voice rang out.
Neither heard it. At the menace of the man, Leilah shrank, and in an
effort at defense cried pitiably:
“Gulian! I left a letter for you.”
Angrily he tossed his head.
“I received none, nor did I need any to tell me that there are women on
the street, others in jail, that are less vile than you.”
“_Teste David cum Sibylla_,” clearly and beautifully the voice resumed.
“Gulian!” Leilah cried again.
With whips in his words, he added:
“No harlot could have acted more infamously than you.”
At the lash of the outrage, Leilah, joining her hands, held them to
him. “Gulian! You are killing me!”
“It is what you deserve. There are no penalties now for such turpitudes
as yours. But, when there were, women like you were beaten with rods,
they were lapidated, stoned to death, and death was too good for them;
they should have been made to go about, as they afterward were, as you
should be, in a yellow wig, in a yellow gown, that even children might
point and cry: ‘Shame!’”
The words, which he tore from his mouth, he hurled at her. She cowered
before them. On a chair near by she had put her bag. Her wrap had
fallen from her. In the church now the hymn had ceased. The ringing of
the Elevation was beginning.
“Gulian! As if shame had not cried at me! Gulian, I have been scourged,
I have been stoned. If I live, it is to implore of you mercy.”
Her hands, still joined, were still extended, and in her face was an
expression of absolute despair. But this martyr attitude seemed to him
the most abominable of hypocrisies, and it was with anger refreshed
that he lashed her again.
“Mercy? Yes, you want mercy, you, who were merciless in your treachery
to me. A sweep would have had more decency, a scullion more heart. I
put in your hands my trust, my love, my honour, and you who want mercy
dragged them in dirt.”
“Gulian!” Within her now was that invincible need of justice which
impels the weakest to protest against the savagery of wrong. “Gulian!
When you know!”
“I do know. I know you and your lies, and the infamy of them too well.
At Coronado----”
“Gulian! You are not killing me merely, you torture my very soul.”
He sneered.
“Do I? Do I, indeed! No, you compliment yourself. It is what I want to
do, but you cheat me even there. No woman with a soul could have done
this soulless thing.”
The brutality of the arraignment shook her. She leaned against the
chair for support. She felt hopeless, helpless, defenseless, and it was
because the need for justice still impelled her, that she protested
anew.
“Gulian, if only you knew! If only you had had that letter! Had it
reached you, you would know that there was no deceit, that I left you
for your sake as well as my own. Gulian, if I had not gone you would
have seen and made me tell you, and then it may be you would have taken
me and thrown me with you from the yacht.”
There were tears in her words. With one hand she held to the chair,
the other she raised to her head. It pained her. She felt bruised and
looked it.
“_Ecce panis Angelorum
Factus cibus viatorum----_”
Beyond, sustained by the arpeggios of the organ, the voice of a singer
mounted sheerly like a thread of gold. It lowered and heightened.
Presently, on a note, as if abruptly snapped, it ceased. The organ
continued. It renewed the canticle. It projected a scale that ascended
slowly, as though upward and onward, over the limitless steps of
eternity, it were lifting the soul of the dead.
Leilah wished it were her own. Sadly she added:
“God knows it would have been better. Anything would be better than
that you should speak to me as you do.”
There is an innocence that appeals, a sincerity that disarms, a
candour that outfaces every proof, and Verplank, who had been bent on
overwhelming this woman with a contempt which he felt wholly deserved,
was impressed, in spite of himself, by the evident ingenuousness, by
the evident wretchedness, too, of her words.
He moved back.
“You say I would have made you tell me?”
“Yes. Yes. You would have.”
“But made you tell me what?”
Leilah, still holding one hand to her head, raised the other from the
chair, and with it made a gesture slight, yet desolate.
“What was it?” he asked.
Before replying, she looked away.
“What I hid from you rather than repeat.”
“But repeat what?”
Her face still turned from him, she answered:
“Something, my--something Mr. Ogston sent me.”
“Mr. Ogston!” Verplank exclaimed. The formality of the statement
astounded him. “Do you mean your father? What did he send you?”
But Leilah would not or could not speak. Her mouth contracted as though
she were choking, and she put a hand to her throat.
“Tell me,” he insisted.
She turned, and beseechingly she looked at him.
“Gulian, I cannot.”
At that Verplank moved nearer, and so dominatingly that again she
extended her hands.
“Gulian, I will get some one else to tell you. I had intended to.
Believe me, it is better so.”
“It concerns me?”
“Yes, you.”
“And you?”
“Yes, both of us.”
“Then you shall tell me, and tell me now. Do you hear?”
“Gulian!” she cried. She raised her clasped hands to him. “Gulian!”
But Verplank, his jaw ominously square, confronted her.
“I say you shall.”
“Don’t look at me then,” she pleaded. “Bend your head, bend it lower.
One second, then I will. One second--one. Ah, God! I cannot.”
Verplank, who at her bidding had stooped, straightened himself, and
caught at her.
“I say you shall.”
“Gulian, a moment. Give me a moment. Now bend your head again. One
moment, Gulian; your father, your father---- My mother loved him.”
“Your mother loved my father!”
“Gulian, I am his daughter.”
“You are what?”
“I am your sister.”
As she whispered it, she covered her face. Verplank started,
straightened again, raised his arm, and, with a gesture wide,
elemental, absurd, and human, struck at the empty air.
Savagely he turned to her.
“And you believe this?”
Leilah, her head bowed, her face covered, shook with sobs.
“You believe it?” he repeated.
“There were letters,” she stammered. “Three letters. No one could read
them and not--and not----”
“And it was for this you left me?”
A fresh access seized her. He could not see her tears, he heard them.
“And it was for this you got a divorce?”
On the chair beside her was her bag. She felt in it, and got out a
handkerchief.
“And it was for this you took that cad?”
Slowly, with infinite hesitations, the bit of cambric held to a face
that was wet and white, she turned to him.
“I thought you would forget. I thought you would marry. I thought
you would be happy. I hoped so that you would. But my leaving you,
the divorce, the marriage, these things were done with no idea of
happiness. They were to serve as barriers between us.”
Impotently he stamped a foot. He was furious still. But his anger had
deflected. He was enraged less at her than at circumstances.
“Rubbish! That’s what your barriers are.”
Leilah, wiping her eyes, turned from him. The barriers, however
fragile, were not rubbish to her.
Violently he continued:
“As for Barouffski----”
But Leilah, turning to him again, interrupted:
“Gulian, let me tell you. Last night I planned to have some one ask
you, for my sake, to go away. Gulian, I thought you would, but I
determined if you would not that I would go.”
Verplank moved back.
“Go! Go where?”
“Ah! God knows! Anywhere. Wherever I could hide myself. Wherever I
could hide my love for you.”
Her eyes had been raised to his. At the confession they lowered of
themselves. Then again she looked him in the face.
“Gulian, it is that which cried shame at me. It is that which scourged
me with rods bitterer than those of which you spoke. You say the
barriers are nothing. Gulian, you are wrong. To me they are eternal.”
“Yes,” he angrily retorted. “Yes, if your story were true. But it
isn’t. It’s arrant nonsense.”
In miserable protest, she half raised a hand.
“Gulian, when I read those letters my youth died in me. Never since
they reached me have I had the heart to smile. If you had seen them you
would have felt the truth in every line.”
“I would have felt nothing of the kind; the fact that you still care
for me ought to show you that they are false.”
“Gulian, I tried to think that, too; but even in trying I felt that I
was pleading for myself.”
“Then, for the love of God, stop pleading and act! Look at yourself,
look at me! We could not be more unlike if we came from different
planets.”
She was making an effort to answer. He stopped her.
“Listen to this. If you can’t act, I shall. My mother is in London.
To-morrow she is to be here. Probably she can tell me the truth. If
not, I will go to the States. There I will see your father. When I
return it will be with proofs. I will bring them if I have to drag that
old scoundrel with me.”
He paused. Though angry still, her story had pacified him. He felt it
to be false, nonetheless she had believed it and the fact that she
had, absolved her of much that she had done. However she had erred, she
had at least tried to do right. He closed and opened a hand, looked at
it and from it looked at her.
“But first I will see my mother. In any case I will be here to-morrow.
Yes, that’s what I’ll do. Why shouldn’t I come. Why not?”
Leilah did not answer. She did not believe he would come, except to
cause fresh agony to them both there was no reason why he should do
so. The horror which she had told him and to which incredulously he
had listened was gospel to her, an evil gospel, yes, but nonetheless a
true one. Besides if he did come as, in any case, he said he would, he
might meet Barouffski, and affrightedly she foresaw blows, afterwards a
duel--one which she was unaware was then impending.
“Why not?” Verplank repeated, fumbling her as he spoke with suspicious
eyes and appearing to divine and to resent her forecast.
She caught at a straw. Usually, between four and seven, Barouffski was
tabled at baccarat, gambling with her money. That straw she produced.
“Come at five.”
Verplank, appeased, nodded. “Very good, at five then.”
But at once she realised that other safeguards were needful. She
hesitated, looked about her, looked at Verplank, gave him his hat,
motioned to him. Then, preceding him, she passed into an adjoining
salon, entered the dining room and moved from it to the garden below.
Passably mystified, he followed.
The air, freighted with fragrance, stirred by music from the church,
the dogs, at sight of him, charged suddenly with menaces. Straining at
their chains, viciously they clamoured.
Indifferently Verplank glanced from them to the gate beyond, to which
Leilah was leading him.
When both reached it, she opened it and said: “Come this way to-morrow,
will you?”
For a second he considered her. Her face was as a book in which he
could read the reason. In view of many things, particularly of the
duel, it seemed to him all very puerile.
But, replacing his hat, grimly he nodded. “Before then I have rather an
idea that there may be a deficit among us.”
This expression, in itself perhaps over precise, was too much for her
and the fact that it was showed itself in her eyes.
Without heeding their inquiry he nodded again. “I will come this way
but only that together we may leave by the other.”
Again he nodded. In a moment he had gone.
Leilah, closing the gate behind him watched him go. It was, she felt,
her last earthly sight of him. There would be no going away together.
He would never come back. Never. His mother, if she knew the truth,
could only substantiate it. If she did not, another would. Helplessly
she held at the gate. A vagrant passed, she did not see. A hawker
called, she did not hear. She was not only helpless, she was hopeless.
She wished that death really were, that it could beneficently come,
take her, shroud her in blankness, in endless oblivion of what was and
of what might have been. Long since the dogs, mollified by Verplank’s
exit, had ceased to bark. Shrilly now from the church came boys’ fresh
voices. The music of them stirred her a little and she turned.
Before her, framed in a window of the dining room, Barouffski stood. At
sight of him she started. Amiably he smiled. When she looked again he
had vanished.
But, in a moment, in the doorway beneath, smiling still, he reappeared.
“What a beautiful day, is it not?” Oilily he rubbed his hands. “You
have been having visitors, cara mia?”
As he spoke he moved toward her. Urbanely he continued! “And what did
they have to say?”
He was quite near her now and, with his head held a trifle to one side
he was regarding her with affectionate indulgence, much as one would
regard a child.
“They told you nothing new, cara mia?”
Without looking at him, Leilah shook her head. “Nothing. Nothing at
least that I did not know.”
Smiling still, indulgent as before, Barouffski plucked at his pointed
beard. “And what is that, cara mia?”
Remotely, in a voice without colour, as though speaking not to him at
all but only to herself, she answered:
“That I am the most miserable woman in the world.”
Barouffski’s smile broadened. “Bah! They exaggerated, cara mia. It is
the way of the world. Mon Dieu, à qui se fier? You are not at all what
they said. You are--how shall I put it--perhaps a bit indiscreet. That
is it, a bit indiscreet.” He pointed to the bench. “Will you not seat
yourself?”
He was still smiling, but the smile wholly muscular, was one in which
the eyes have no part. The “visitors” whom he affected to ridicule,
alarmed him. They were, he knew, quite capable of taking Leilah away.
Her presence or absence was quite one to him. Only if she departed, so
would her purse.
“Will you not?” he repeated.
“I am going in.”
“Certainly, cara mia. It is as it pleases you. But----”
At this Leilah, who had passed him, turned.
“Well, what?”
“You see, cara mia, supposing I had visitors. Supposing rather I had a
visitor. We are only supposing, are we not? Bon! Supposing this visitor
happened to be what we call an ancienne, an old flame, an inamorata of
mine. Supposing that were so. Do you know what you could do?”
“No,” Leilah from over her shoulder answered. “Nor do I care.”
“Forgive me, cara mia. You mean that you do not care to be informed.
Yet you should know, for you could if you wished have me fined. Yes,
that is what you could do. You could have me fined.
“But I,” he resumed. “Do you know in similar circumstances what I could
do? Do you know rather what the law says I may do? Do you, cara mia?
Do you? For really you ought to.”
But Leilah now was approaching the entrance.
“What!” Barouffski exclaimed. “You are not interested? You are really
going?”
As he spoke, he bowed. “Bon, à ce soir, cara mia. And a last word. If I
may advise, do not be led into indiscretions.”
“Do not,” he repeated, while shrilly from the adjacent church came the
voices of boys chanting the final phrase of the Pater Noster:
“_Sed libera nos a malo._”
“That is it,” he called at Leilah’s retreating back. “Pray rather to be
delivered of them. Otherwise----”
But Leilah now had entered the house.
“Otherwise,” he continued to himself and moving to the kennels, patted
the dogs, “otherwise a sojourn in Poland may improve you.”