The next day it rained. All day the rain dripped on the roof and ran
down the waterspouts, hurrying to the ground. In her own room the
mistress of the house sat watching the rain and the heavy sky and
drenched earth. The child was never for a minute out of her thoughts.
Her fancy pictured gruesome places, foul dens where the child sat--pale
and worn and listless. Did they tie her hands? Would they let her run
about a little--and play? But she could not play--a child could not
play in all the strangeness and sordidness. The mother had watched the
dripping rain too long. It seemed to be falling on coffins. She crept
back to the fire and held out her hands to a feeble blaze that
flickered up, and died out. Why did not Marie come back? It was three
o’clock--where was Marie? She looked about her and held out her hands to
the blaze and shivered--there was fire in her veins, and beside her
on the hearth the child seemed to crouch and shiver and reach out thin
hands to the warmth. Phil had said they would not hurt her! But what
could a man know? He did not know the sensitive child-nature that
trembled at a word. And she was with rough men--hideous women--longing
to come home--wondering why they did not come for her and take her
away... dear child! How cruel Phil was! She crouched nearer the fire,
her eyes devouring it--her thoughts crowding on the darkness. Those
terrible men had been silent seven weeks--more than seven--desperate
weeks... not a word out of the darkness--and she could not cry out to
them--perhaps they would not tap the wires again! The thought confronted
her and she sprang up and walked wildly, her pulses beating in her
temples.... She stopped by a table and looked down. A little vial lay
there, and the medicine dropper and wine glass--waiting. She turned her
head uneasily and moved away. She must save it for the night--for the
dark hours that never passed. But she must think of something! She
glanced about her, and rang the bell sharply, and waited.
“I want the Greek boy,” she said, “send him to me!”
“Yes, madame.” Marie’s voice hurried itself away... and Alcibiades stood
in the doorway, looking in.
The woman turned to him--a little comfort shining in the sleepless eyes.
“Come in,” she said, “I want to talk to you--tell me about Athens--the
sun shines there!” She glanced again at the hearth and shivered.
The boy came in, flashing a gleam through the dark day. The little
sadness of the night before had gone. He was alive and lithe and happy.
He came over to her, smiling... and she looked at him curiously. “What
have you been doing all day?” she asked.
“I play,” said Alcibiades, “I play--on flute--” His fingers made little
music gestures at his lips, and fell away. “And I--run--” he said, “I go
in rain--and run--and come in.” He shook his dark head. Little gleams of
moisture shone from it. The earth seemed to breathe about him.
She drew a quick breath. “You shall tell me,” she said, “but not here.”
She glanced about the room filled with sickness and wild thoughts--not
even the boy’s presence dispelled them. “We will go away somewhere--to
the gallery,” she said quickly, “it is lighter there and I have not been
there--for weeks.” Her voice dropped a little.
The boy followed her through the hall, across a covered way, to the
gallery that held the gems--and the refuse--that Philip Harris had
gathered up from the world. She looked about her with a proud,
imperious gesture. She knew--better now than when the pictures were
purchased--which ones were good, and which were very bad; but she could
not interfere with the gallery. It was Philip’s own place in the house.
It had been his fancy--to buy pictures--when the money came pouring in
faster than they could spend it--and the gallery was his own private
venture--his gymnasium in culture! She smiled a little. Over there, a
great canvas had been taken down and carted off to make room for the
little Monticelli in its place. He was learning--yes! But she could not
bring guests to the gallery when they came to Idlewood for the day. If
he would only let a connoisseur go through the place and pick out
the best ones--the gallery was not so bad! She looked about her with
curious, tolerant smile.
The boy’s gaze followed hers. He had not been in this big room, with the
high-reaching skylight, and the vari-coloured pictures and grey
walls. His dark eyes went everywhere--and flashed smiles and brought
a touch-stone to the place. Eyes trained to the Acropolis were on the
pictures; and the temples of the gods spoke in swift words or laughed
out in quick surprise.
The mistress of the house followed him, with amused step. If Phil could
only hear it! She must manage somehow--Phil was too shrewd and practical
not to see how true the boy was--and how keen! That great Thing--over
the fireplace--Chicago on her throne, with the nations prostrate before
her--how the boy wondered and chuckled--and questioned her--and brought
the colour to her face!... Philip had stood before the picture by the
hour--entranced; the man who painted it had made a key to go with it,
and Philip Harris knew the meaning of every line and figure--and he
gloried and wallowed in it. “That is a picture with some sense in it!”
was his proudest word, standing before it and waving his hand at the
vision on her throne. She was a lovely lady--a little like his wife,
Philip Harris thought. Perhaps the artist had not been unaware of this.
Certainly Mrs. Philip Harris knew it, and loathed the Thing. The boy’s
words were like music to her soul, under the skylight with the rain
dripping softly down. She had thought of covering the Thing up--a velvet
curtain, perhaps. But she had not quite dared yet.... Across the room
another picture was covered by a curtain--the velvet folds sweeping
straight in front of it, and covering it from top to bottom. Only the
rim of the gilt frame that reached to the ceiling, glimmered about the
blue folds of the curtain. The boy’s eyes had rested on the curtained
picture as they passed before it, but Mrs. Philip Harris had not turned
her head. She felt the boy’s eyes now--they had wandered to it again,
and he stood with half-parted lips, as if something behind the curtain
called to him. She touched him subtly and drew his attention--and he
followed her a minute... then his attention wandered and he gazed at
the deep folds in the curtain with troubled eyes. She hesitated a
moment--and her hand trembled. It was as if the curtain were calling
her, too, and she moved toward it, the boy beside her.... They did not
speak--they moved blindly and paused a breath... the rain falling on the
skylight. The boy flashed a smile to her. “I have not see it,” he said.
She reached out her hand then and drew back the curtain. “It is
Betty--my little girl--” she said, “she has gone away--” She was talking
aimlessly--to steady her hands. But the boy did not hear her--he had
stumbled a little--and his eyes were on the picture--searching the
roguish smile, the wide eyes, the straight, true little figure that
seemed stepping toward them--out from behind the curtain.... The
mother’s eyes feasted on it a moment hungrily and she turned to the boy.
But he did not see--his gaze was on the picture--and he took a step--and
looked--and drew his hand across his eyes with a little breath. Then he
reached out his hands, “--I--see--her,” he said swiftly. “She look at
me--on ground--she cry--” His face worked a minute--then it grew quiet
and he turned it toward her. “I see--her,” he repeated slowly.
She had seized his shoulder and was questioning him, forcing him toward
the picture, calling the words into his ear as if he were deaf, or far
away--and the boy responded slowly--truly, each word lighting up the
scene for her--the great car crashing upon him, the overthrow of his
cart, the scattered fruit on the ground, and the Greek boy crawling
toward it--thrust forward as the car pushed by--and his swift, upward
glance of the girl’s face as it flashed past, and of the men holding her
between them--“She cry,” he said--as if he saw the vision again before
him. “She cry--and they stop--hands.” He placed both hands across his
mouth, shutting out words and cry.
And the mother fondled him and cried to him and questioned him again.
_She_ had no fear--no knowledge of what might hang in the balance--of
the delicate grey matter that trembled at her strokes... no surgeon
would have dared question so sternly, so unsparingly. But the delicate
brain held itself steady and the boy’s eyes were turned to her--piecing
her broken words, answering them before they came--as if she drew them
forth at will--
The door opened and she looked up and sprang forward. “Listen, Phil.
He saw Betty!” Her hand trembled to the boy. “He _saw_ her--_that last
day_--it must be--tell him, Alcie--”
The boy was looking at him smiling quietly, and nodding to him.
Philip Harris closed the door with set face.