"That's all," he said, curtly. "You may go."
"But--"
"I said you might go."
Parks still hesitated. Schuyler looked at him angrily.
"I merely wished to say," Parks spoke deferentially, even soothingly, and
possibly a bit reluctantly, "that there is a lady--"
Schuyler interrupted, quickly.
Parks nodded.
"Yes, sir. The lady."
Schuyler said, eyes closing a little:
"A lady."
"Well, send her--" Then, as Parks started to go: "No, tell her I'm not
here."
"Very well, sir."
Again Parks started to leave the room; again Schuyler stopped him.
"Wait. I've changed my mind. I'll see her."
He reached for the decanter of brandy, and poured into one of the glasses
an even inch of the amber liquor. He raised the glass to his lips; but
set it down again untasted; for Parks had started to speak again.
"Also there's a van here for your wife's--pardon me, for Mrs. Schuyler's
furniture and trunks."
Schuyler's brows contracted; there was the slightest suggestion of a
quiver at lip-ends. Then, after a long, long pause, he replied:
"Well, let them take all that she selected.... And Parks."
"Yes, sir?"
"I won't see the lady after all."
Parks nodded, and quietly withdrew. Left alone, Schuyler for some moments
sat silent and motionless before his desk. But nowadays, he could not sit
motionless for long. There was that inside his brain--inside his soul--
which would not let him. It kept him moving--moving--moving, without
rest, without cessation; even as he had paced the deck of the liner, on
that other morning, almost until the day had come to claim again from the
night that which was its own.
Of a sudden he rose from his chair. Swift strides took him across the
room. Quickly, nervously, he drew back the curtain from the window.... He
could see, beneath him in the street, the van that had come for the
belongings of his wife--of the woman who had borne him his child--the
child which he had not seen since, upon the dock, she had waved him
farewell.
John Schuyler had wandered into the Unknown. Unwillingly, knowing full
well what he was doing, but powerless to help--powerless to prevent--he
had gone.... Sometimes it did not seem real to him. It was a nightmare--
a horrid, horrible, awful, grewsome, rotten dream, a dream that brought
to his nostrils a stench--to his soul a coldness unutterable--a coldness
beside which that of death might seem a grateful warmth.... He would wake
sometimes from his dreams, a cold sweat enveloping him like a pall, a
scream upon his lips.... And then, again--He did not understand. He could
not understand. It was hopeless, utterly, utterly hopeless.... Why should
such things be? How could such things be? There was a God, presumably.
Presumably, that God was good.... There was no logic in it--no reason in
it.... What did it all mean? "Why?" he asked himself, again and again,
and yet again. "Why?" ... There had been no answer....
He watched the van load. He watched the heavy horses throw themselves
into the traces, as the whip fell across their flanks. He watched the van
slowly gather momentum. He watched it rumble heavily down the sodden
asphalt.... At length it turned the corner....
John Schuyler swung on his heel. And then he laughed; it was a laugh
that, God grant, you may never laugh, nor I!
[Illustration]
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.
THE RED ROSE.
He did not see her enter. He did not hear her enter. Yet he knew that
she was there, although he had left her across an ocean.... Another
sense, it seemed, there was within him.... He knew that she had crossed
the room; that she was leaning, rounded arms all bare, across the back of
the great chair, by the window. He did not know; he had not looked; yet
he could see her, beautiful, gloriously beautiful in her strange, weird,
dark beauty; head poised like a tiger lily upon its stalk; great masses
of dead black hair coiled in the disorder that, of her, was order above
the low, white forehead; vivid lips parted to reveal the gleam of shining
teeth; long, lithe limbs in the easy relaxation that is of the panther,
or the leopard.
At length he turned.... She was there. She was as he, unseeing, had seen;
as he had known that he should see.... He had ceased to wonder. The
Unknown had taught him so much that of the things it had not taught, he
had ceased to wonder....
He looked; and looked away. She laughed, a little, lightly. She turned a
little, lissomely. He could see the muscles of her straight, slender
shape ripple beneath the shimmering black gown.
At length he spoke, roughly, gruffly:
"Well?"
Almost caressingly, she answered:
"Well?"
"So you've come to gaze upon the ruin you have wrought, eh?"
Again she laughed.
"Upon the ruin _we_ have wrought, My Fool," she corrected.
"Don't call me that," he muttered. "It hurts. It hurts because it's
true."
"Most truths hurt," she remarked, smilingly.
"Now," he mumbled, "yes...." And then: "You're satisfied, I hope. She's
gone."
"Gone?" It was a pretty inflection--the rising inflection of great
surprise. Her eyes, glowing of merriment, belied her lips.
"Gone," he repeated, doggedly. "Gone, and taken the child--my child--our
child--with her."
She glided across to where he sat; she leaned over him.
"And you're sorry, I suppose," she asked, mockingly. "Heart-broken!"
"Yes, by God! I am!" he cried, from the soul.
There came from her lips a peal of merry, musical laughter.
"The man of it! Every man wants two women--one to love, and one to
respect; one to caress, the other to honor; one to please himself, the
other to please his friends. And you're no different from the rest that I
have known."
He looked up at her, eye laden of hate, and scorn.
"The rest that you have known!" he retorted, with bitterness, with
meaning.
"The rest that I have known," she returned, evenly, lightly.
"Young Parmalee, and Rogers, and Seward Van Dam--and God knows how many
more!"
She laughed.
"Jealous, eh? That is as it should be, My Fool." She laid her hand
lightly on his shoulder. Roughly he took it, casting it from him.
"Damn you!" he cried. "Let me alone!"
She drew up, stiffly, but speaking softly, said,
"So?"
"I--I didn't mean it that way," he apologized.
"I wonder if you ever spoke that way to her--the other.... You didn't,"
came from her slowly.
He shook his head.
"No," he replied.
The Woman seated herself upon the arm of his chair, lithely.
"And do you know why?"
Again he shook his head.
"Because you never loved her as you love me. A man is as rough sometimes
to the woman he loves as at other times he is sweet." She plucked a
scarlet rose from the great cluster that she wore at her breast, dangling
it in one white hand, lazily, sensuously.
"You know well of men, don't you," Schuyler remarked, bitterly,
"Well enough" she replied, lightly. "And that is why, when you said,
'Damn you, let me alone!' that I didn't say, 'Damn you!'" she struck him
lightly across the face with the scarlet blossom, "and go." Then, with
abrupt transition: "That and because I love you."
He laughed, mirthlessly.
"Because you love me!" he cried, his voice all scorn. "Because you love
me! Does love then bring disgrace, and ruin, and dishonor upon the object
of its lavishment? Does it? Does it?"
She had sunk upon the floor at his feet. Her legs were drawn beneath her;
she poised herself upon her supple white arms, looking up at him.
"Sometimes," she returned, evenly. "Even as it brings joy, and ecstasy
and happiness untold.... And it does bring that," she purred, sibilantly.
"Doesn't it, My Fool?"
He leaned forward, drawing her to him.
"You know it," he cried.... "You know it!"
She saw beginning to glow in the leaden eyes the light that she alone
knew how to kindle.... It pleased her.... It pleased her also to blight
it at her will. She laughed. She knew as well how to blight as how to
kindle. She knew also how to twist a soul in torment; and how to swirl it
to the false heaven of unreal joys. For she, of the Unknown, knew much--
more, perhaps, than of the known. She said, laughing janglingly:
"But did you ever think, My Fool, that there are different loves?"
He sunk back into his chair. The eyes again were leaden. His head bent.
She leaned forward, taking from a vase on the table a nodding white
blossom.
"One love," she went on, "is like the white rose--pallid, pale, wistful,
weak--a lifeless thing that lies dead against the hand that holds it--
that wearies the eye and chills the soul.... The other love is like the
red rose--rich, rare, glowing, glorious--that thrills the heart with the
joy of living and quickens the blood in the veins until the very soul
cries out in the frenzy of its fragrance--a pulsing, throbbing love of
body and soul and heart and head, that rushes upon one like a storm at
sea, dashing one hither and thither, impotent in its tearing, tossing
grip.... That is our love--the Red Love--and it is sweet, is it not, My
Fool?"
She bent over him, watching the light again leap to the heavy eyes as he
answered:
"Sweet? Sweet as Paradise--a false Paradise, perhaps; but still Paradise!
Those days on the Mediterranean, the sea no bluer than the sky that held
it in its sunlit hand--and Venice--Venice, with the great, round moon
overhead, and the mysterious semi-darkness all about--the splashing of
soft waters there beside us and the silent whisper of the lazy oar--and
just you and I--alone amid all the glories--side by side--heart in heart--
soul in soul." With a great choking sob: "It was sweet, Lady Fair!
Sweet!"
The Woman continued:
"And there are two roads through life even as there are two roses. The
one is a rough road and weary, and on it happiness seldom treads. It is a
plodding road, flat and long; and there you walk with stale and barren
people, through a stale and barren land, until you come to an ending yet
more stale and more barren than are road or people. That is the road of
the White Rose. But the Road of the Red Rose! That's different! On the
Road of the Red Rose there is laughter and light, and happiness and joy!
Flowers bloom; birds sing. There come the soft wash of the sea--the
silent whisper of the breeze--the call of Love!"
She rose lithely to her feet. In one hand she held the bending white
blossom; in the other the crimson. Suddenly she thrust them toward him,
body bent, lips parted, and cried, sibilantly:
"Which rose do you choose, My Fool? Which Road?"
Roughly he struck from her hand the drooping flower of white. That of red
was crushed between them as he seized her in his arms and drew her to
him.
"The red rose!" he cried. "And the Red Road! And we'll travel to the end,
and beyond!"
[Illustration]
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
THE RED ROAD.
From across the table she was laughing at him, brightly, merrily--
laughing to see the havoc that she had wrought in the soul of a man. He
turned to her, almost savagely.
"You do love me, Lady Fair, don't you?" he almost pleaded. "You must love
me, knowing as you do all that I have given up for you." He pointed to a
heap of carelessly-tossed letters upon desk-top. "Do you see those?" he
demanded. "The first from Washington--the President--demanding my
resignation. Following that, curt requests that I withdraw from positions
of trust that I held. My wife crushed--my child disgraced--my friends
gone--! God in heaven! What haven't I given you, Lady Fair!"
"I thank you," she responded, most graciously, bending low, "And I have
given you what? Myself. Is that less than a fair exchange?"
"Not if I may keep that self mine, and mine alone, for all time. But may
I?"
"Can you doubt it?" she queried, with a lifting of arched brows.
"There was Parmalee--"
"A silly boy. I never cared for him!"
"And Rogers--"
"Interesting--only interesting--and only at first. Then tiresome!"
"And Seward Van Dam."
"Next to you, a man," she cried. "But like you, insanely jealous, and
unreasonable."
"And in the end, perhaps," he said slowly, very slowly, "I shall be like
him." He sat for a moment, silent. At length he continued: "But if it
were to be I, I alone, for all time, could it last--this Red Love of
ours? Could it? ... Could it?"
She leaned forward.
"Why not?" she asked, lightly. "Why not?"
Leaden eyes were gazing out into nothingness.
"Age comes," he said. His voice was low, and deep, and dead. "The body
withers. The brain grows dull. The blood becomes thin. The soul gets
weary. And the power to live as once we lived is taken from us. We sit
white-haired, blue-veined, drinking in the sun through shrivelled pores
to drive the chill from our shrunken frames. It will come to you--to me--
to all of us. And neither man, nor God may stop it."
There had come to her face an expression as of a great fear. This man who
knew so little, was teaching of that little to her, who knew so much....
At length she swept that fear from her, as one might brush aside the ugly
web of a sullen spider.... Again she was the woman who did not know the
Known, but only the Unknown.
She asked, lightly:
"Why worry over the years to come when the days that are are ours....
There is happiness in the days that are?"
Her voice was very soft. Again dull eyes gleamed; he exclaimed:
"Happiness! I did not dream there could be a happiness like this!"
Her slender arm was about his neck; he could feel the glow of its warmth.
Her voice was soothing--infinitely soothing, and musical beyond the
telling.
"Then keep a-dreaming, My Fool," she purred, softly. It was almost a
whisper. "Keep a-dreaming."
"Would to God I could!" he cried, earnestly. "Would to God I could,
forever! The memories of a thousand joys are with me always. Love? What
is this love? A golden leaf of happiness floating on the summer seas of
life. A silver star of utter joy set in the soft heavens of eternity. A
dream that is a reality; a reality that is a dream.... But the storm
comes upon the sea. Black clouds blot out the stars. And there can be no
dream from which there is no awakening."
"Yet," she cajoled, "while the sea smiles--while the star shines--while
we dream--there is happiness to pay for all."
"To pay for all, and more!" Again he turned upon her, swiftly. "Yet in
the golden aura of that happiness, there always stand three sodden souls
pointing stark fingers at me in ghoulish glee.... Parmalee--Rogers--
VanDam.... If I thought--if I for one moment thought--that I should be as
they, I'd--"
She stopped him, quickly:
"You'd what, My Fool?"
"I'd kill you where you stand!" he replied, savagely.
She laughed, gaily, clapping soft palms.
"That's the way I love you best, My Fool. It shows spirit, and manhood,
and good, red blood--red, like our roses!" She plucked from her breast a
handful of scarlet petals, casting them above her head. They fell about
them both, a glowing shower. She went on: "How for a moment you could
have imagined that you love the woman you call wife--a soft, silly,
namby-pamby--"
He was on his feet now, fierce, primal, brutal--all the manhood that was
left of him straight and rigid.
"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't you dare say one word against her, or by
God, I'll--"
She interrupted, rising haughtily before him, and said coldly,
incisively:
"You forget yourself. You humiliate yourself. You insult me. I'll say
what I please of whom I please."
"You'll keep your tongue off her, and off the little one!"
"I'll not if I choose not!"
"You will!"
She laughed. He stood for a moment, poised in anger. Then the momentary
flash of righteous wrath was gone. He turned, slowly, from her.
She remarked, lightly, scornfully:
"The man of it, and again the fool of it. You would protect her who has
scorned, and flouted, and humiliated you."
"The fault was mine," he flashed. "And you know it; and I know it."
"Then why did you do it?"
He shook his head, eyes again leaden.
"God knows," he whispered.
She stood for a moment; then again laughter rippled from the red lips.
"But why should we quarrel?" she asked, gently. "There are things in life
more sweet." She went to him, leaning toward him, beautiful arms
extended, lissome body bent.
"A kiss, My Fool," she whispered.
He turned from her.
"No," he cried.
She smiled.
"I said, 'A kiss, My Fool!'" she repeated.
"I heard."
Her eyes were on him.... Slowly he turned.... The set jaw relaxed; the
straight limned lips weakened.... He looked at her.
Her lips now were almost upon his own; her eyes were very close to his.
Again she whispered; softly, sibilantly, caressingly:
"A kiss, My Fool!"
* * * * *
He thrust her from him.
"You devil!" he cried. "I love you--and I hate you! You are beautiful--
and you're ugly! You are sweeter than the last of life--and more bitter
than the sodden shame of a secret sin!"
She replied, lightly, arranging the masses of her hair with deft, slender
fingers:
"All of which is quite as it should be, My Fool; for the hate makes the
love but the more poignant; the ugliness is but a fair setting for the
beauty; and sweetness in bitterness is far more sweet than sweetness
alone."
Her mood was different now. He had sunk into the great chair. She seated
herself upon its arm; her head sunk to his; her cheek against his.... And
again he kissed her, on the lips.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.
THE BATTLE.
The car stopped before the porte-cochere. Blake alighted. He knew well
the way. He did not ring; for the door was unlocked--ajar. Jaw close set--
lips but a thin straight line, he made his way down the great, dark,
silent hall. He had come to do that which it were hard to do. When one
has been the friend of such a man as John Schuyler was--when one has felt
toward a man as such a man as John Schuyler must be felt toward--when one
has known that man to do the things that he has done--when one has seen
the misery--the suffering unutterable that he has caused--the shame
beyond depth, the grief beyond measurement--and when she upon whom has
been heaped this shame and grief and misery and suffering unutterable is
the woman one loves--then it becomes not a little thing to go to that man
without murder in one's heart and vengeance in one's soul.
Blake knew where he was most likely to find the man that had been his
friend. There he went, thrusting open the broad door. He paused upon the
threshold....
The woman, lifted her head.... She moved away from Schuyler, arranging
the dead black masses of her hair.... She laughed a little.
Schuyler turned. Eyes again leaden saw Blake.
"You!" he cried.
Blake said no word.
Schuyler laughed, raucously.
"So you, of all, have not decided to flee from the leper."
Blake, looking at him, said, slowly:
"No; I stay behind and stand the stench for the sake of him who was my
friend."
"Is the stench then so great that it precludes the common courtesy of
announcing your presence?"
Blake made no answer to this.
"I wish to see you alone," he said, simply.
Schuyler half swung from him.
"You may see me as I am." he returned, doggedly.
"And a most damnably unpleasant sight it is."
Schuyler wheeled.
"You go too far," he said, threateningly.
"Too far?" repeated Blake. "Impossible.... I wish to see you alone--if
you, and this woman--dare."
She, smiling, bowed, graciously.
"By all means," she agreed, easily.
"No!" cried Schuyler. "Stay where you are."
She shook her head.
"Pray pardon me. I'll wait in the morning room."
Alone, Blake turned and looked at Schuyler. Could it be that this was the
man that had been his friend? ... It must be; and yet how could it be?
There was in his heart a great bitterness. He could not understand....
Schuyler had turned to him.
"Look here, Tom," he began, doggedly, "before you begin, I wish to tell
you that it is useless. Nothing that you can say will change me in the
slightest. I've made up my mind; and my decision is unalterable."
"Irrevocable, is the word."
"As you will.... I'm sorry if the course I choose doesn't seem right to
you--to the world--sometimes even to myself--and I'll confess to you that
it doesn't--But, right, or wrong, it's the only one for me, and I must
take it--must, whether I will or not. So, if you've come for a cigar and
a chat, well and good. But if for anything else, go and avoid trouble."
"I'm looking for trouble," returned Blake, quietly. He advanced to the
table and leaned against it. "Jack," he exclaimed, "you're a damned fool.
There was some excuse for the others. Parmalee was a kid--Rogers an old
fool--Van Dam--well, absinthe and asininity account for him. And they
fell to their fooldom without warning to guard them or precedent to
shield them. But you--open-eyed, knowing everything--forewarned and
forearmed,--walk fatuously to your doom as one sheep follows another over
a precipice. I swear I can't even yet believe that it isn't all a dream.
I keep pinching myself and saying to myself that in the morning I'll wake
up and go around and tell old Jack all about it as being a good joke.
It's an uncanny, filthy sort of a nightmare as it stands, however." He
turned to the other; Schuyler was striding up and down the room. "Old
man," he pleaded, quietly, "what's the answer?"
Schuyler stopped in his walk. Looking at Blake, he remarked:
"You've never loved. You couldn't know."
"Never loved!" cried Blake, scornfully. "Couldn't know! Hell! You make me
tired! What do you mean by debauching and degrading a good, pure word
like love by applying it to this snaky, bestial fascination of yours.
You're a fool!"
Schuyler advanced upon him, threateningly.
"Don't you call me that, too," he said, tensely.
Blake paid no heed.
"Love!" he cried, disgustedly. "This sordid, sodden passion of yours
love! Love lives only where there is sympathy, and respect, and mutual
understanding. Do you mean to tell me that you have any respect for this
woman? You know well you haven't a bit more respect for her than she has
for you, and that's none. Do you mean to tell me there's any sympathy
between you? No more than there is between a snake and a bird. And you
aren't capable of understanding her any more than she is of understanding
you. Love! It's lust! And you know it!"
Schuyler had dropped into a chair. Blake finished. He swung toward him.
"Go on!" he almost hissed, through clenched teeth. "Go on! If you can
tell me anything that I haven't told myself, I'd like to hear it. Tell me
what you think. Tell me what everyone thinks. Put into words the scorn
and contempt that I see in every eye that looks into mine--in every
mirror that I look into. Go on! Tell me something else! But let me tell
you one thing! When Destiny can't get a man any other way, she sends a
woman for him.... And the woman gets him."
Blake looked at him.
"'A fool there was';" he quoted. Schuyler interrupted.
"Stop!" he commanded. "Don't you suppose I know that thing by heart--
every syllable--every letter of it? Don't you suppose I know what it
means--all that it means--better than you can ever know?" He struck his
forehead with clenched fist. "Tell me the things that lie here!" his
voice was almost a scream. "The things that lie here, and burn, and burn,
and burn! Tell me the things that lie here!" He struck his forehead
again.
"I'll tell you this," said Blake, voice cold, and ringing. "It was
written for you by a man who knew you; and you'll listen."
"No!" protested Schuyler. He started to rise from his chair. But Blake,
catching him by the shoulders, thrust him back, holding him pinioned.
"You fool," he remarked, bitterly. "You poor, pitiful, puling fool!
'Honor, and faith, and a sure intent'--a wife, a child, a reputation, a
character. 'Stripped to his foolish hide,' the poem reads. But you're
stripped to your naked, sodden skeleton. If I weren't so sorry for you, I
could cut your throat. When I think of the little girl--calling you
daddy--honoring you--loving you--and of what you've done for her! When I
think of your wife--of the woman who went through the pains of childbirth
for you--who held you sacred in that great, loving, glorious heart of
hers--who gave, and gave, and gave asking only that there might be the
more to give--You say that maybe I don't know what love is. Well, maybe I
don't--and maybe I do. There are some things that a man may not tell his
best friend--there are some things that a man may not even tell himself.
But I'm different from you, thank God, and I love differently."
He moved back. Schuyler remained seated. Leaden eyes had in them now a
new light--the light of suffering refined. Blake commanded:
"Stand up. Look me in the eye, as man to man--if you can."