SACRIFICIAL
The city was muffled in fog. It brooded over Fifth Avenue, oozing rain
like an enormous sponge. Beneath its clammy drip, dirty snow melted into
unwholesome puddles, street lamps haloed goldenly. It was after midnight
and the broad, deserted pavement glistened like some dark river upon
which a few rare craft slid by in ghostly procession. Occasional
passers-by, beneath outspreading umbrellas, looked strangely fungoid.
Their breath issuing in small clouds, seemed to congeal and solidify
upon reaching the air as if the fog itself were composed of the warm
emanations of mankind. Alexis hurried drearily up the avenue. With
Claire safely installed in the apartment and companioned by a nurse,
there was nothing further for him to do. He was free momentarily. Free
to savor to the full the bitterness of the cup he had set to his lips.
But the evening had left him numb as well as distraught. He was
conscious only of an overmastering impulse to rush out into the streets,
to drown identity in fog, lose self in some demoniac outburst.
Huge gulps of the chill air in his lungs, he staggered forward as if
propelled by a monster wind, eyes fixed in front of him, burning a path
through the drizzling mist. An empty taxi glided close to the curb. He
hailed it mechanically and gave the man Anne's address. A moment later
they had joined the current on the black and glistening river.
Of course, he would not disturb Anne. That would be sheer cruelty. But
he must be near to her somehow. That was an exquisite torture which he
was too weak to forego. Once there, he would dismiss his taxi and hug
close to the wall which sheltered her. After that he had no plans. The
future was not more dark nor indefinite than the immediate night before
him. There was only one thing certain in his mind. He could not return
to Gramercy Park. That was a grinning horror which his embryonic
Quixotry was too feeble to face.
A rapid transit up the avenue brought them to the shrouded park. They
skirted its graveyard shore to the Seventies, and then swerved into
Anne's street. As they neared the house Alexis smothered a cry of
irritation. The façade was brilliant with lights. It shone luminous
through the fog like the golden exit from a tunnel.
Of course, how foolish to have forgotten! This was Anne's night at the
opera, and she was having some people in afterwards. He had been invited
to join them but had refused as usual. The hilarious horde was his
particular abomination, and it was seldom that Anne could persuade him
into one of these parties. She did not try very hard, for as the season
progressed she herself had become utterly wearied with it all. It was
only fear of appearing both snobbish and unkind which prevented her from
breaking away altogether. And Alexis knew his presence made it more
difficult. The malice of Ellen, who could not forgive Anne for not
confiding in her, the jealousy of Gerald, created a tension. So,
although always invited, Alexis' absence had evolved into a kind of
unwritten law.
But to-night was different. A desperate night, created for the breaking
of all rules. A frantic, lawless night, lying between the boundaries of
time like a savage bandit-ridden tract, dividing two civilized states.
To-night all forms of excitement were unabhorrent, even the ribald
efforts of the horde. At any rate, their presence would afford an
opportunity to see Anne, to be near her, to breathe in the beloved
atmosphere while she still remained unconscious of the barrier which had
fallen between them forever.
Fever surging in his veins, Alexis dismissed his taxi.
Inside the house, there was the usual uproar of music and dancing.
Unperceived for the moment, Alexis stood upon the threshold of the huge
living room. His eyes flashed through the swirling couples, searching
for Anne. But she was not upon the floor. Seated at the Steinway, Gerald
was playing with delicate ferocity. His young, almost beautiful face,
glowered cynically as he glanced at the dancers. Grotesque syncopations
dripped from his swooping fingertips.
Alexis started to wedge his way to the other end of the room. The eyes
of the two men met with a shock. A smile distorted Gerald's lips. The
music ceased almost discordantly. Everybody stopped dancing. For a
moment the world stood still.
"Look who's here!"
In a flame-colored chiffon frock, Olive Fay darted up to Alexis.
"Please dance with me, Mr. Petrovskey?"
"Of course, that's what I came for!" His hard gaze hovered over her
naked young shoulders. "But first, where is my hostess?"
She pouted. "How old-fashioned of you to remember your hostess! But come
along, Old Ironsides, if you must."
The dancing had recommenced. They dashed through revolving couples to
the sofa in front of the fire, where Anne was sitting with a large, dark
man, whom Alexis recognized as Del Re, the South American opera singer.
In a dream-like dance dress of sapphire tulle over pale-green chiffon,
the emerald pendant upon her breast, Anne watched their approach with
concealed astonishment. So Alexis had come after all! Why? The brilliant
eyes, the twisted smile puzzled her. Had he been listening to some rumor
about Del Re? Was the old serpent of jealousy once more coiling to
strike her long-suffering head?
"How nice of you to change your mind!" she murmured, a question beneath
her composure, "Have you met Señor Del Re? Mr. Petrovskey."
The familiar pang gnawing at his vitals, Alexis suppressed it savagely.
"Who does not know the celebrated Mephisto? You have given me many a
thrill, Señor."
"Is there a thrill left in New York?" Del Re's crooked eyebrow curved
whimsically. "I thought they were all in your violin, Petrovskey!
Thrills? You are the master there!" There was genuine admiration in the
cello-like tones.
"Yes, isn't he wonderful?" shrilled Olive. "I am going to dance with him
this very minute. I've simply got to be seen in his company, that's
all!"
"Very flattering, isn't she!" Flashing a blazing glance into Anne's
face, Alexis laughed loudly, then turned to Olive. "Did you bring your
press-agent along?"
"Mean thing!" She dragged him on to the floor with another shrill
squeal. They danced away. Her mocking eyes on his face, she cackled
gayly.
"No use in looking at Anne like that, Mr. Petrovskey. Might as well make
up your mind to lose her. He can get 'em whenever he wants to."
Dragging his eyes from Anne's face, Alexis hid his crimson anger like a
wound. "He has a record, has he?" He crushed Olive to him savagely.
"Oh yes," she gasped, mistaking his clasp for ardor. "And what he hasn't
been through! Thrust in the stomach with bayonets. Scarred with
shrapnel. Face lifted at least twice. You know they say he is almost
seventy. But what with Steinach and surgery, you'd never dream it, would
you?"
"Never!" They circled the room in abandoned unison. As they reached the
sofa again, Alexis rudely relaxed his hold and sank into the couch upon
the other side of Anne. With a chagrined laugh, Olive fell into a chair
next to Del Re.
"He doesn't seem to appreciate me, does he?"
"Will you dance with me?" Alexis whispered into Anne's ear.
"Of course!" She did not know Alexis in this reckless, Byronical mood.
Could he have had a little too much to drink? She watched him down the
whisky and soda just passed by the footman.
Alexis caught her troubled glance. He nodded gayly. "It's all right.
Don't be frightened. I'm not drunk with anything except you. You are
crème de Menthe in a dark-blue glass, and very intoxicating." He pointed
to the green lining of the sapphire gown.
Laughingly, they started to dance. Almost of equal height, faces on a
level, their breath mingled in a single stream. Their bodies swayed to
the rhythmic breeze of a waltz. Radio music this time. Dance orchestra
from the Drake Hotel, Chicago. And although unromantically canned, most
peppy and enticing; vitamins intact. As she and Alexis swung by Ellen,
Anne caught her amused smile. Sitting between Gerald, who was smoking
furiously, and Caldenas, doing nothing at all in his usual cherubic
fashion, she appeared serenely malicious, like some complaisant goddess
of the senses.
Anne shivered and drew closer to Alexis. His clasp tightened
tempestuously about the slim, ungirdled body. He danced her out into the
hall. Swooping into a remote corner, he stopped abruptly, and pressed
his lips upon hers. The Sparkling eyes were so close that she felt as if
she were being sucked into the expanded pupils, as into a bottomless
whirlpool. She went pale and a little giddy.
"What is the matter with you to-night, Alexis?" she whispered as they
started to dance again.
His lashes swept her forehead like a caress. He did not reply but
continued to look into her eyes with the same disturbing gaze. Holding
her as in a vise, their limbs interlocked, merged, in rapturous fusion.
Stabbing weakness pierced Anne.
"Don't," she supplicated faintly.
Muffled against her hair, his laugh rumbled dizzily through her head.
His lips brushed her cheek, mumbling softly at the pink lobe of her ear.
"I don't think I like you to-night!" Her whisper was breathless.
The sardonic laughter was repeated. The eyes fixed upon hers flared
hotly. Anne was afraid. As they whirled giddily back into the noisy
room, she welcomed with relief the announcement of supper.
They all trooped into the dining room and seated themselves as they
pleased at small tables, which lent the vast room the festive air of a
récherché little restaurant. Varicolored bowls of copper-hued tulips
with glass candlesticks to match adorned each table, sounding a rich
note against the gray tempera walls. Adroitly shed by Anne, Alexis
discovered himself between a young Roumanian noblewoman, almost as
beautiful as Queen Marie in her prime, and a well-known authoress, whose
Savonarola profile stared austerely beneath close-cropped hair. Opposite
sat a young nondescript, one of those indispensable stop-gaps whose
white shirt-fronts fill the social vacuum so perfectly.
The young countess was, according to the society column, decidedly
vivacious. This was her first visit to the United States, and she was
collecting scalps as well as impressions. Alexis' golden mane was not to
be disdained. She courted him assiduously all through supper and he made
contemptuously free response. The honey-colored hair, the sweet-scented
body intrigued him very little. He knew that he could have her with a
single gesture from his famous fingers. He had met her kind before, a
little less beautiful perhaps, certainly more blatant, but equally
voracious of sensation. A liaison with Alexis Petrovskey or any other
famous artist would furnish welcome tidbit for dainty jaws.
A hectic spot upon each cheek, he ate his supper in a sort of petrified
excitement, scarcely aware of the audacious words his lips were
uttering; absolutely ignorant of the food he put between them. He drank
the sparkling wine feverishly. It spread through his body and was
absorbed like spilled ink upon a blotter. Beyond the saturnine profile
of the authoress, he occasionally caught Anne's eyes fixed upon him from
a neighboring table. Beneath their serene surface he glimpsed a troubled
question. Was she, too, suffering? Did she sense his pain? His
unutterable, stupefying torture? Or did she merely find him volatile and
unstable? Well, she would understand it all soon enough, God knows!
What a nightmare!
Supper over, the crowd overflowed into the living room. Seated at the
piano, Del Re was preparing to sing. Her hand upon his arm, his
beautiful neighbor lured Alexis into a remote window-seat.
"Now, we can listen in comfort," she murmured, approaching felinely. Her
bare flesh grazed his shoulder. He lighted his cigarette from hers,
leaning unnecessarily close. It amused him to whet her genteel
nymphomania.
Del Re sang an aria from Mephisto with diabolic grandeur. Then broke
into a series of Spanish folk songs. The vibrating, cello-like tones,
the lilting accompaniment, were replete with magnetism and created a
furore. Close upon his triumphant heels, followed Olive Fay, who
executed a kicking dance to Gerald's devilishly clever improvisation.
Rosy, rouged knees emerging impudently from slit draperies, she was the
incarnation of Gerald's heady and insinuating jazz.
There was an unsteady silence, a self-conscious, tightened silence. Lips
parted feverishly, the wine-warmed crowd was momentarily uneasy. Then it
relaxed into uproarious applause. Olive was lost amongst a bevy of
shirt-fronts as indispensable to her being as lipstick or rouge, and
about as impersonal.
Later, they called upon Alexis. He came out from his corner smiling and
unexpectedly amiable. To Anne's surprise, he consented to contribute to
the entertainment.
"But you haven't your violin!"
"I don't need it," he replied, laughing lightly. "I intend to be
low-brow."
Running his fingers over the piano keys, he clashed into a disturbing
medley, Chopin, Stravinsky, Mendelssohn and Sowerby, Ornstein and
Tchaikowsky, with a dash of MacDowell as leaven. The audience howled
approbation. "What do you call it?"
He looked up demurely from the keys. "The Petrovskey Blues!"
He broke into a revised version of the popular negro melody,
transforming its plaintive simplicity into symphonic proportions. Then
with a swift transition, he began to ragtime an old Italian opera. With
a broad smile, Del Re strode to the piano and sang an accompaniment, in
the nasal drone of the cabaret favorite. Negroid and scintillating, the
parody ceased upon a plaintive chord, reminiscent of some southern
spiritual.
Listeners crowded about the piano, jaded senses stirred to the shallow
depths. From the background, Anne watched in fascinated silence. She did
not dream Alexis had it in him, and as she looked at the flushed face an
undercurrent of apprehension flowed like an icy stream below the surface
of her pleasure. What could have excited him so to-night that he had
ventured forth from his shell with such uncharacteristic fireworks? At
Anne's elbow, Caldenas grunted appreciatively. He was putting the last
touches to a caricature of the two celebrities at the piano, which, as
he quaintly put it, would immortalize their genius as well as his own.
The little Roumanian leaned over Alexis. Her perfume weighed on his
irritated nerves, nauseatingly heavy. "When are you coming to see me?"
He laughed loudly. His eyes stripped her. "Never!"
She flushed and bit her naturally red lips.
"You are detestable. I am mad about you," she whispered.
"You are maddeningly pretty, but I am immune," he retorted, smiling up
into the flower-like face with curved, saturnine lips.
She rested her hand upon the keyboard next to his.
"Your music makes me feel positively wanton!" The blue eyes swam
amorously.
He flung her hand away, with casual fingers. His glance rent her
unmercifully. "You are wasting your time!"
She crumbled as if struck by lightning. Tears of mortification rose to
the lovely eyes. She stammered in utter rout, "You are a fiend!"
He rose from the piano and looked about him smilingly. "The end of a
perfect day," he remarked in a loud voice. He shook hands with Del Re
and retreated towards Anne.
With meaning looks the group began to break up. Their guard of honor
ranged about them, Ellen and Olive flitted away to the accompaniment of
knowing smiles. An obscure and taciturn husband was claimed by the
authoress and led triumphantly home.
The countess, a little pale, accepted the escort of Gerald and Caldenas.
Alexis waited flagrantly, while Del Re completed ceremonious adieus.
As the door closed upon them all, Anne turned towards Alexis with an
inquiring, slightly apprehensive air. "Are you going to stay, Alexis? It
is very late."
For response he drew her to him in an abrupt convulsive gesture. Leading
her to the sofa, he knelt and buried his head on her lap. She brushed
the hair back from his forehead nervously. It was indiscreet of him to
have remained after the others had gone. She had caught interchanged
glances and knew that the worst interpretation would be made of the
situation. As he remained motionless, she spoke a little wearily.
"What is the matter, dear? Why are you so excited to-night?"
He raised a bloodless face, and she saw that his eyes were swimming in
tears.
"Oh Anne, it is all over. This is the end."
With a smothered sob, he dropped his head back upon her knees.
"What do you mean?" Her voice was shocked. A premonitory thrill sent a
shiver over her body.
"I have taken Claire back again," he gasped.
She uttered a cry and recoiled instinctively.
"I understand and--and I suppose I am glad," she faltered, with quick
pride. She tried to remove his hold but his arms tightened about her
convulsively.
"Oh no, you don't understand at all. I don't love her. It isn't that.
It's----" his eyes widened with horror, "Claire is going to have a
child," he finished brokenly.
"Ah!" Anne's face became suddenly ashen. "I suppose I should have
foreseen this," she murmured, pushing him away from her almost roughly.
"Oh, poor Claire, how she must have suffered! How can I ever forgive
myself?" She wrung her hands in an unfamiliar gesture.
He stumbled to his feet and stood over her. "I didn't know it, Anne. I
never dreamed of such a thing."
"No, I suppose not, but that doesn't make it any easier for Claire, does
it?" Her voice was dry and expressionless. "When--when is it to be?"
He shot her a tortured glance.
"Very soon, I am afraid." He averted his working face. "Oh Anne, don't
despise me. I was mad, beside myself when it all happened. It is
blurred, fantastic, like the memory of some confused dream."
His miserable voice pierced Anne's pride. She put her arms about him and
drew him down on to the couch beside her. "Poor Alexis, my poor, poor
boy," she crooned sorrowfully.
He hid his face against the back of the sofa. "I am cursed, I seem to
blast all those who love me," he choked. "Oh, Anne, if you had seen her
pitiful little face! I am not fit to live!"
"Hush, it is terrible for her, of course. But it was not your fault. You
were horribly unfortunate, that is all." She stroked his shoulder, all
the aching tenderness of her heart in her finger-tips. "And now you are
going to make it all up to her."
He returned her look with dumb, suffering eyes. "How the gods must hate
me!"
A little shudder ran through her. What was the adage? "Whom the gods
destroy, they first make mad"? She placed her hand upon his lips. "Don't
say that. I can't bear to hear you. Nobody hates you, least of all the
gods. It is only that you are not as other men. Suffering seems to be
the price exacted of genius."
"I wish I were a clerk, tied to a desk in some rich man's office. I
might have had some chance at happiness then!"
She shook her head pityingly. "Oh no, that would never do. That life
would kill you. Your wings are powerful. You must soar higher than the
rest of us, even if it means aching loneliness and solitude."
His mother's words on Anne's lips! There must be truth in them, indeed!
He uttered a sorrowful cry. "Oh Anne, I simply cannot believe that this
is the end. Tell me, must it be so?"
She nodded. Great tears coursed down her face. "Yes Alexis, this is the
end. You must stand by Claire now. I shall love you more than ever for
doing it."
"It will kill me to part from you." He pressed a tear-wet cheek against
hers. For an anguished moment, they rocked to and fro in silent grief.
She spoke at last, in a weak little voice, unlike her own. "Better
perhaps that we should part while we still love each other. Then--then
we shall always remember it so."
A bitter-sweet smile twisted his lips. "Were you afraid my love would
get tepid? You were mistaken. If I didn't love you so consumingly, I
couldn't part with you now. If this were only passion," his voice broke,
"I might have been tempted to let things drift as they were until, until
you discovered."
A beautiful look of comprehension crossed her face. She pressed Alexis'
head to her bosom in a passion of tenderness. "You are more noble than I
dreamed."
He groaned. "Not noble at all, only suffering, Anne."
"Tell me what you intend to do? Of course you will go on your tour?"
"Don't ask me, I hardly know as yet, what I shall do on my return. I
will make the best arrangements for Claire that I can. But I will never
live with her as my wife, and perhaps not even under the same roof."
"Poor Alexis, poor boy," Anne felt him shudder as he lay against her.
"Does it hurt you to say good-by?" The whisper was dragged from the
anguish in his heart.
A lump in her throat, she clasped him to her without a word, and their
lips met and clung in sorrowful communion.
He bent over her and touched the emerald pendant about her throat. "Keep
it always in memory of me," he whispered. "Promise?"
She nodded. A rending pain, as of disruption racked her to the bone. "I
promise." Her voice broke. She turned away and flung herself face
downwards on to the pillows. "Go, please go, I cannot bear any more."
He stumbled to his feet and looked down upon her for the final time, a
lingering look, as if he were trying to quench the thirst of the years
to come in one consuming glance.
"Good-by, my very, my only dearest. Try to forgive me if you can.
Remember that I love you, and always shall love you to the very end."
Then he went away.
The door closed behind him with a soft, insistent finality that
resounded against Anne's heart like the first clod of earth upon a
beloved coffin. She suddenly felt old and inexpressibly weary, as if he
had taken her youth away with him forever. She broke into a fit of
passionate weeping.