Karl paid no attention to Mimi until she walked over to him and touched
him on the shoulder. Then he sat up impatiently.
"Did I not promise to call at your house?" he asked. "Why did you come
here?"
"Are you ashamed because I came while all those people were here?" Mimi
asked, hurt and drawing away from him.
"Oh, no, not at all. I promised to call, and I can't understand why you
did not wait," Karl answered.
Mimi timidly leaned down and put her arms around his neck. Then she said
pleadingly:
"Oh, Karl, dear, please don't get married."
"Don't! you'll spoil my collar," Karl exclaimed, trying to avoid her
embrace. Mimi began to cry softly.
"Before I saw these people I hardly ever thought of your marriage," she
said. "But now--Karl, dear, my heart aches. Please don't get married."
Karl was touched by her grief, in spite of himself. He reached over and
patted her cheek.
"There, don't cry, dearie; please don't cry," he said. "It makes you
homely."
Mimi brightened instantly, and her tears vanished, leaving her face
smiling.
"I am a silly little girl," she said.
"Yes, you are, but I like you very much," Karl said, taking her in his
arms. "Now, Mimi, suppose we talk over our marriage quietly and
sensibly. You may as well stay, now that you are here. Take off your hat
and your jacket."
He arose and was helping her off with her red woolen jacket. Then he
hugged her and said as he kissed her lips:
"I am your best friend, after all, Mimi, and you are my----"
The door opened suddenly and Millar entered, taking up Karl's speech
with:
"My overcoat; it is here somewhere. Your servant gave me yours."
Karl and Mimi drew away from each other, and Millar looked at them,
smiling.
"It's very singular," he said, "but each time I enter your studio I find
a lady disrobing. You might think this was a ladies' tailoring
establishment."
Mimi looked at Karl jealously as he glared at Millar. Then she burst
into tears and ran out of the room. Karl watched her, and as she slammed
the door, he turned to Millar and quietly said:
"Thank you very much."
"Oh, don't mention it."
"I will get your overcoat, and don't let me detain you," said Karl with
significant emphasis.
"I broke the hanger; your man is mending it and will bring it here,"
Millar said coolly, ignoring the marked impoliteness.
Karl said nothing more, and after a few minutes of silence Millar
resumed:
"I just saw something that touched me deeply. Madam Hofmann clinging to
her husband's arm as if she were begging him to protect her----"
"Protect her?" Karl exclaimed angrily. "You don't mean to protect her
from me?"
"Look here, Karl, do you think you are wise to be a fool?"
"I prefer not to discuss this subject," Karl answered coldly. "You don't
seem to understand my position. Why, it is absurd; I have seen this
woman every day for years; met her and her husband; we have been good
friends. That's all, absolutely, and had I thought of anything else I
should laugh at myself. In wealth, position, everything, she is above
me."
"No woman is above her own heart," Millar replied cynically. "Look at
her. She is yours if you want her. Just stretch out your hand, my boy,
and you have your warmth, your happiness, your joy, unspeakable joy, the
most supreme joy possible to a human being, and you are too lazy to
reach out your hand. Why, another man would toil night and day, risk
life and limb for such a woman; yet she drops into your arms unsought--a
found treasure."
Karl laughed bitterly.
"A found treasure," he repeated. "Perhaps that is why I am indifferent."
Millar moved over to where the young artist was seated on the couch and
sat beside him. He leaned toward Karl and spoke low and earnestly,
keeping his big, black, glittering eyes fixed on him.
"Last fall, on the 6th of September--I shall never forget the date--I
had a singular experience," he said. "I put on an old suit of
clothes--one I had not worn for some time--and as I picked up the
waistcoat a sovereign dropped out from one of the pockets. It had been
there no one knew how long. I picked it up, saying to myself, as I
turned the gold piece over in my hand, 'I wonder when you got there?' It
slipped through my fingers and rolled into some dark corner.
"I searched the room trying to find it, but my sovereign had gone. I
became nervous. Again I searched, with no result. I became angry, took
up the rugs, moved the furniture about, and I called my man to help me.
I grew feverish with the one thought that I must have that sovereign.
Suddenly a suspicion seized me. I sprang to my feet and cried to my
servant, 'You thief, you have found the sovereign and put it back in
your pocket.' He answered disrespectfully. I rushed at him. I saw a
knife blade glimmer in his pocket and I drew a pistol--this pistol--from
mine."
He drew a shining revolver from his hip pocket and laid it on the table
at Karl's elbow.
"And with this pistol I nearly killed a man for a found sovereign which
I did not need," he finished quietly.
Karl was profoundly stirred by the story, although he could hardly tell
why.
"I give found money away," he said, laughing uncertainly, and adding,
"for luck."
"So do I," said Millar quickly, "but it slipped through my fingers, and
what slips through our fingers is what we want--we seek it
breathlessly--that is human nature. You, too, will seek your found
treasure once it slips through your fingers. And then you will find that
worthless thing worth everything. You will find it sweet, dear,
precious."
Karl turned away from him, trying not to listen to him.
"Kill a man for a found sovereign," he repeated.
"That woman will become sweeter, dearer, more precious to you every
day," the malignant one went on, his words searing Karl's soul. "You
will realize that she could have given you wings, that she is the
warmth, the color--her glowing passion the inspiration of your work. All
this you will realize when she has slipped through your fingers. You
might have become a master--a giant. Not by loving your art, but by
loving her. Oh, to be kissed by her, to look into her burning eyes and
to kiss her warm, passionate mouth."
Karl covered his face with his hands. Millar picked up the delicately
scented shawl which had covered Olga's bare shoulders.
"This has touched her bosom," he cried, twining it around Karl's head
and shoulders, so that its fragrance reached his nostrils.
The boy lost control of himself and caught the drapery, pressing it to
his lips.
"Both so beautiful," Millar persisted in his soft, even, melodious
voice. "Oh, what you could be to each other. What divine pleasure you
would find."
Dropping the shawl, Karl started to his feet.
"Be quiet! You are trying to drive me mad," he cried. "Do you want to
ruin me? For God's sake, man, be still!"
"Afraid again, O Puritan," Millar sneered. "Why, boy, life is only worth
living when it is thrown away."
"Why do you tell me that?" Karl demanded. "Why do you hover over me?
What do you want? Who sent you?"
"No one; I am here."
He again touched his forehead significantly and Karl shuddered. "I won't
do it; no, no, no! Do you hear? I won't," the boy cried hysterically. "I
have been her good friend for years--we have been good friends; we will
remain good friends. I don't want the found sovereign."
"But if it slips through your fingers," Millar cried. "Suppose another
man runs away with her."
"Who?" Karl demanded.
"Myself," Millar replied coolly.
"You!"
"To-night! This very night!" Millar cried, laughing satanically and
triumphantly. "To-night I shall play with her as I please. Oh, what joy!
What exquisite joy! For ten thousand years no lovelier mistress."
"What's that?" Karl cried, taking a step toward him.
"Mistress, I said--mistress! She will do whatever I wish--to-night, at
her home. You will see, when the lights are bright, when the air is
filled with perfume--before day dawns, you will see."
"Stop, stop!" Karl cried warningly.
"Be there and you will run after your lost sovereign," Millar went on
tauntingly. "Every minute you don't know where she is she is spending
with me. A carriage passes you with drawn blinds, and your heart stands
still. Who is in it? She and I. You see a couple turn the corner with
arms lovingly interlocked. Who was that? She and I--always she and I.
We sit in every carriage. We go around every corner. Always she and
I--always clinging to each other, always lovingly. The thought maddens
you. You run through the streets. A light is extinguished in some room,
high up in a house. Who is there? She and I. We stand at the window, arm
in arm, looking down into your maddened eyes, and we hold each other
closer, and we laugh at you."
"Stop, damn you, stop!" Karl cried, beside himself and trying to shut
out the terrible monotony of Millar's voice.
"We laugh at you, you fool," the fiend cried again hoarsely. "And her
laughter grows warmer and warmer until she laughs as only a woman can
laugh in the midst of delirious joy."
With a maddened scream of rage Karl reached the table with a bound and
snatched up the revolver. But Millar, with a spring as lithe and agile
as a cat, was there beside him, holding the arm with which he would have
shot down the man who was pouring insidious poison into his ears--into
his soul.
Millar smiled as he looked at the helpless boy before him. Karl
released the revolver, and as he replaced it in his pocket, Millar said
quietly:
"You see, Karl, a man may kill a man for a lost sovereign."
Karl's paroxysm of rage and pain over, he threw himself into a chair and
buried his face in his hands. He did not even look up as Millar, his
cynical glance fixed on him, walked out, closing the door softly behind
him. His departure seemed to clear the atmosphere of its oppressive
burden of evil, however, and Karl jumped to his feet. He made a few
turns up and down the studio and then changed his velvet studio jacket
for a greatcoat and plunged out of doors into the storm.