THE room was small and dim, although the shutters were open, as Lucas
had remarked. There was a frayed and scanty look to everything, but
a big four-poster stood in the corner. Lying across that, looking as
small and helpless as a child, was Fanchon. She was half dressed, and
she lay with her head on her arm, her soft dark hair tumbled about her
shoulders and framing her white profile.
Virginia, who had stopped just inside the door, stood waiting,
hesitating, uncertain what to do. Fanchon did not move, and she looked
so white and limp as she lay there that Virginia thought she had
fainted. She went quickly across the room and stood beside the bed,
looking down at the motionless figure.
Fanchon’s eyes were closed, and the long, thick lashes made shadows
on her white cheeks. There was no sign of makeup now except a touch
of the lips that made her mouth look scarlet, in fearful contrast to
the whiteness of cheeks and brow and throat. One arm was thrown across
the bed and the small hand clasped the crumpled coverlet convulsively,
the blue veins showing through its delicate whiteness. Half-clad as
she was, Virginia saw how thin were Fanchon’s arms and how slender her
neck, delicate and round as the stem of a flower. How changed she was!
A memory of the daring little figure in white flashed back, and a flood
of pity submerged Virginia’s heart. William’s cry, “I’m done with
her!”--how incredibly cruel it would have seemed here!
Still she did not move or speak, and Virginia touched her gently.
“Fanchon!” she said softly.
Very slowly Fanchon rose on her elbow and looked at the visitor. The
fawn-like eyes were no longer soft; there was a smoldering fire in
them, and the delicate brows came down above them. The small white face
was distorted with an emotion that seemed to shake her from head to
foot.
“Why do you come here?” she asked sharply. “What do you want of me?”
Virginia’s blush deepened painfully.
“I came because I heard you were ill and in trouble,” she replied
kindly, her voice trembling a little.
Fanchon drew herself up farther into a sitting attitude, her knees
under her chin and her hands clasping them. Her eyes still lowered at
Virginia, and the whiteness of her face against her loose, dark hair
had an almost weird effect.
“Why do you care for that?” she asked slowly. “Why do you want to see
how far I’m down?”
Her tone and her glance alike conveyed almost an insult, and certainly
a defiance; yet she was so weak that the other girl saw her tremble
from head to foot, as if she had an ague. Again Virginia blushed, but
this time she raised her head proudly.
“You don’t know me,” she replied gravely. “You wouldn’t say that to me
if you did. I’m--I’m not like that.”
Fanchon still looked at her steadily, an untamed passion leaping up in
her brown eyes like a flame.
“_Ma foi_, I know you well enough, I think!” she retorted bitterly.
“You’re the woman my husband loved--and you’ve taken him from me! Oh, I
know--you can look indignant! You righteous people--oh, _mon Dieu_, how
good you are! But you’ve taken him away, for all that.”
Virginia, who had never had such things said to her before, recoiled.
She drew away, looking at the wild little creature on the bed with a
kind of horror. For a moment all her impulses were beaten down, and in
the rebound she was ready to turn her back, to abandon the wretched
girl to her fate. She felt as if physical blows had been rained upon
her, as if she was no longer the Virginia Denbigh who had entered that
wretched room on an errand of mercy.
“If you say things like that I can’t stay to hear them,” she said
hurriedly, speaking with an effort, hot tears in her eyes. “I came to
help you, if I could--and you insult me.”
Fanchon laughed the shrill laughter of hysterics.
“You don’t like it!” she cried wildly. “_Que voulez vous?_ You want
only nice things said to you--and I can have all the horrid things and
all the insults. That’s all I’ve had since I came here!”
Virginia, who was half-way to the door, stood still. Her quick ear had
caught the wildness of the laughter, and the poor little huddled figure
was sinking weakly forward. She came back.
“Fanchon, I came to help you. I’m telling you the truth--can’t you
believe me? I should like to help you, if I could.”
Fanchon’s face twisted convulsively, and she snatched at the coverlet
and drew it up over her shoulders. To Virginia she looked like a wild
child playing at “tents” under the counterpane.
“_Tiens!_” she cried fretfully. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve
always told stories myself, until--until Leigh killed that man. Now,
I’m not telling stories. I suppose I can believe that you meant to do
something--something queer. That’s what they’ve all done to me since
I came. I don’t know why you’re here--I don’t care! _C’est fini_--I’m
done with you all!”
Virginia started. She remembered William’s words.
“I came because you’re ill. I want to help you, to make you more
comfortable. That’s really all I came for, Fanchon. I’m sorry you feel
so toward us--toward me.”
Fanchon shook back her hair and looked at the other girl curiously, her
eyes darkening and changing wonderfully.
“How pretty she is,” Virginia thought, “and how wretched.”
But Fanchon did not speak. For a while she only studied Virginia. At
last she spoke slowly, twisting the coverlet.
“Were you in court?” she asked.
Virginia shook her head. Fanchon’s eyes held hers, with that fierce,
dark, challenging look.
“But you know my story?”
“Yes, I’ve heard it,” Virginia reluctantly answered.
“My husband told you!” Fanchon sprang out of bed and ran across the
room, seizing Virginia’s arm and looking at her wildly. “William told
you!”
Virginia, who was fatally honest sometimes, said nothing; but her face
confessed that William had told her much. She was horrified. How could
she make this furious little creature understand how William had told
her, and how she had replied? She ought never to have come here.
For an instant panic seized her and she longed to get away; and then
her inherited and noble fearlessness steadied her. She met Fanchon’s
feverish look calmly and frankly.
“I wish you’d believe me,” she said simply. “I’m not that sort of a
woman, Fanchon. It’s true that William and I were engaged once, but he
broke it off when he married you. And now”--Virginia’s pride flashed
in her eyes--“if he were free to-morrow, Fanchon, it would make no
difference--no difference in the world to me.”
They looked at each other. Fanchon, still holding the other girl’s arm
in her shaking hands, searched Virginia’s face with that wild look of
hers, her lips quivering. Virginia met the look at first proudly and
angrily, and then with such compassion, such tenderness and honesty,
that Fanchon’s lips twisted convulsively again. Suddenly she dropped
Virginia’s arm and turned away. She took an unsteady step and almost
reeled as she flung herself into a chair, hiding her face in her hands.
“Do you believe me now, Fanchon?” Virginia asked, more gently.
There was no answer for a moment, then she heard the other girl’s
convulsive weeping. Fanchon, who had never controlled an impulse in her
life, was weeping wildly, twisting about in her chair and beating the
air for breath. It startled Virginia; she forgot herself and went to
her. Seizing the frantic little hands, she held them in her cool, firm
ones, as a mother might hold a frantic child’s.
“Hush!” she whispered. “You’re ill, you mustn’t! Don’t cry like this.”
But Fanchon wept on until she lay there almost fainting, white and limp
and broken. Virginia began to suspect what had happened before she came
into the room.
“_Dieu_, they all hated me!” Fanchon gasped at last. “All but Leigh and
that silly child, Emily.” She laughed wildly, still gasping. “She tried
to paint her face like mine, and they made her wash it off. _Quelle
drôle de chose que la vie!_ And they hated me for that.” She gasped
again, dragging her hands away from Virginia and beating the air with
them. “They made him hate me, too.”
“Oh, no, no!” cried Virginia. “Fanchon, you’re wild--you don’t
understand!”
“Oh, I understand!” she retorted bitterly. “You’re one of them. I don’t
know why you came here--you’re one of them!”
“I came because you’re ill. You’ll be very ill if you don’t stop.”
“You think I’ll die, _n’est-ce-pas_?” Her red mouth twisted oddly.
“They’d like me to die, so he’d be free. They’re so good--they don’t
like divorces!”
“Hush!” said Virginia steadily. “I wouldn’t stay here if you were not
so ill, Fanchon, you’re trembling and shaking. Let me get a doctor for
you; let me take you out of this wretched place.”
Fanchon laughed again hysterically.
“It’s a fine place, isn’t it? _Tiens!_ The place for Mrs. William
Carter. You see I have no money. _Mon Dieu_, I wouldn’t take a cent of
his--I’d starve first!”
“I understand.” Virginia laid her hand gently on her shoulder. “I
should feel like that myself. But I’m a woman, Fanchon--let me help you
while you’re so ill.”
Something in her touch, her voice, reached the girl. She stopped
shivering and looked up into Virginia’s face. She looked up steadily,
her own face changing and quivering. Then, suddenly, she sank back in
her chair very pale and quiet, her large eyes fixed not on Virginia
now, but on space.
“He was the only good man who ever loved me,” she said in a low voice.
“I’m not bad--I’ve never been bad--but they thought I was, and I lied
to him. I was afraid that if he knew I was divorced he wouldn’t care
for me--not in that way--and it would have killed me then.” Her voice
broke pitifully. “I--I loved him.”
Her head sank mournfully, she began to tear at the elaborate lace
petticoat she wore.
“You mean William?” said Virginia gently.
She nodded. Then, with a convulsive effort, she went on, more to
herself than to Virginia.
“He was good, and he loved me. He asked me to marry him, and I lied. I
said I’d never been married before. I needn’t have said it, but I was
afraid. I lied. And he hates me.” Her voice wavered again. “He hates
me. I shall never see him again!”
“But you love him still, Fanchon,” Virginia said softly; “and if you
love him you’ll forgive him.”
Fanchon’s face flamed suddenly.
“Never! I don’t want to see him again.” She rose unsteadily. “I’m going
to dress and go out there.” She pointed toward the door, laughing again
and trembling at the same time. “That fat man is out there. I’m going
into his pictures. He’s not afraid to engage me for his show.”
“You can’t go, Fanchon,” said Virginia quickly. “You’re too ill. I must
help you.” She stopped, and her eyes filled with tears. “Fanchon, I’m
so sorry for you, I hope you understand. Let me help you.”
Fanchon turned, caught at a chair-back, and clung to it, laughing
wildly.
“You’re so sorry for me--and he loves you!”
“No,” said Virginia, “he shan’t! If he did, it would make no
difference. Fanchon, I want you to leave this place and come with me.
Let me take care of you. You’re too ill to stand up.”
“To stand up? Why, I’m going to dance for the pictures. You call me
ill? I can dance. _Attendez!_”
She let go of the chair to which she had been clinging, and seemed to
listen, her head bent and her brown eyes brilliant, her whole small
figure quivering and tense.
“_Mon Dieu_--I hear it--the music!”
She swayed slightly, and then softly, easily, she began to dance. She
danced wonderfully, keeping time to the music that she seemed to hear,
swaying with it, stepping back and forth, weaving a dance so strange,
so weird, so silent, that Virginia could not move. She stood rooted to
the spot, watching, fascinated--watching the white face and the wild
hair, the half-bare shoulders and the slender lifted arms.
Fanchon clasped her hands behind her head, twisting her slender body
this way and that. Her small bare feet flashed back and forth, soft
and silent and incredibly swift. She danced across the room, back and
forth, to and fro, and Virginia watched her. Never in her life had she
seen such dancing, never in her life had she seen such a wretched,
quivering, tear-stained face. She thought it would have touched a heart
of stone.
At last she could endure it no longer; it seemed to her like the dance
of death.
“Stop!” she cried. “Oh, Fanchon, stop!”
Virginia’s voice, the sharp sound of her own name, broke the spell.
Fanchon turned her head and looked at her. Something seemed to snap in
her brain; her eyes clouded, she reeled, and, stretching out groping
hands, she staggered blindly and would have fallen had not the other
girl caught her. Virginia held her by main force, almost lifting her in
her strong young arms, for suddenly all the life and motion had left
the small wasted figure, and Fanchon lay white and senseless against
her breast.
Ten minutes later Virginia came out of Fanchon’s room and closed the
door behind her. She was very pale, but her eyes shone. She ignored the
patient Bernstein and spoke directly to the woman.
“Mrs. Quantah, I’m going to take Mrs. Carter home with me. Have you a
telephone?”
Mrs. Quantah stood rigidly.
“I ain’t got no phone, an’ she ain’t a goin’ to take her trunk until
she pays. She owes me two weeks’ board now, and extries.”
“I was just telling the lady,” Mr. Bernstein began, “I’d pay in advance
if--”
“I’ll pay,” said Virginia superbly, sweeping past them, her head up.
“Make out your bill in full, Mrs. Quantah.”
She opened the hall door and called Lucas.
“Drive over for Dr. Barbour, Lucas. Bring him here at once, if you can.
While you’re over there, phone to Plato to get the west room ready for
an invalid--yes, and phone to the colonel that I want him out here--in
a taxi.”
“Yes’m, Miss Jinny.”
Lucas turned the fat horses around with their heads toward the
highroad. Then he looked back at the tall white-clad figure in the door.
“Hurry!” she called after him.
Lucas whipped up.
“G’long, Billy! Ain’t dat jus’ Miss Jinny? I knowed it, I knowed it--if
she ain’t gwine t’ bring Miz Wilyum Carter home! Ain’t dat Miss Jinny
cl’ar down to de groun’? I declare to goodness if it don’ beat all.”