His face was livid with rage. For a moment he glowered upon the two
old men, his fingers working spasmodically, his chest heaving with the
volcanic emotions he was trying so hard to subdue. Then he whirled about
to glare into the hall.
“In God's name, Freddy, what's happened?” cried Mr Riggs, all a-tremble.
They had never seen him in a rage before. There had been occasions when
they had secretly criticised James Brood's treatment of the unhappy boy,
but from the youth himself there had come no complaint, only the hurt,
puzzled look of one who endures because an alternative does not suggest
itself. Intuitively the old men knew that his present condition was due
to something his father had said or done, and that it must have been
unusually severe to have provoked the wrath that he made no effort to
conceal.
It was not in their honest old hearts to hold grievance against the
lad, notwithstanding his frequent periods of impatience where they were
concerned, periods when they were admittedly as much at fault as he, by
the way. Usually he made up for these lapses by a protracted season of
sweetness and consideration that won back not only their sympathy, but
the affection they had felt for him since his lonely boyhood days.
Some minutes passed before he could trust himself to speak. Ugly veins
stood out on his pale temples as he paced the floor in front of them.
Eventually Mr Dawes ventured the vital question in a somewhat hushed
voice:
“Have you--quarrelled with your father, Freddy?”
The young man threw up his arms in a gesture of despair. There was a
wail of misery in his voice as he answered:
“In the name of God, why should he hate me as he does? What have I done?
Am I not a good son to him?”
“Hush!” implored Mr Dawes nervously. “He'll hear you.”
“Hear me!” cried Frederic, and laughed aloud in his recklessness. “Why
shouldn't he hear me? I'll not stand it a day longer. He wouldn't think
of treating a dog as he treats me. I--I--why, he is actually forcing me
to hate him. I _do_ hate him! I swear to Heaven it was in my heart to
kill him down there just now. I------” He could not go on. He choked
up and the tears rushed to his eyes. Abruptly turning away, he threw
himself upon the couch and buried his face on his arms, sobbing like a
little child.
The old men, distressed beyond the power of speech, mumbled incoherent
words of comfort as they slowly edged toward the door. They tiptoed into
the hall, and neither spoke until their bedroom door was closed behind
them. Mr Dawes even tried it to see that it was safely latched.
“It's got to come,” said Mr Riggs, wiping his eyes but neglecting to
blow his nose--recollecting in good time the vociferous noise that
always attended the performance. “Yes, sir; it's bound to come. There's
going to be a smash, mark my words. It can't go on.” He sat down heavily
and stared rather pathetically at his friend, who was the picture of
lugubrious concern.
“Yes, sir,” said Mr Dawes bleakly, “as sure as you're alive, Joey. That
boy's spunk is going to assert itself some day, and then--good Lord,
what then? He'll curse Jim to his teeth and--and Jim'll up and tell him
the truth. I--I don't know what will happen then.”
Riggs swallowed hard--a gulping sound.
“Freddy's the kind of a feller who'll kill himself, Danny. He's as high
strung as a harp. Something will snap. I hate to think of it. Poor lad!
It--it ain't his fault that things are not as they ought to be.”
“If Jim Brood ever tells him he's no son of his, he'll break the boy's
heart.”
“I'm not so sure of that,” said Riggs sagely. “Sometimes I think Freddy
would be darned glad to know it.”
The curtains parted and Yvonne looked in upon the wretched Frederic.
There was a look of mingled pain and commiseration in her wide-open
eyes. For a moment she stood there regarding him in silence. Then
she swiftly crossed the room to the couch in the corner, where he sat
huddled up, his shoulders still shaking with the misery that racked him.
Her eyes darkened into the hungry, yearning look of one who would gladly
share or assume all of the suffering of another whose happiness was dear
to her--the look of a gentle mother. The mocking, seductive gleam was
gone, and in its place was the glow of infinite pity. Her hand went out
to touch the tousled hair, but stopped before contact. Slowly she drew
back, with a glance of apprehension toward the door of the Hindu's
closet. An odd expression of alarm crept into her eyes.
“Frederic,” she said softly, almost timorously.
He lifted his head quickly and then sprang to his feet. His eyes were
wet and his lips were drawn. Shame possessed him. He tried to smile, but
it was a pitiful failure.
“Oh, I'm so ashamed of--of----” he began in a choked voice.
“Ashamed because you have cried?” she said quickly. “But no! It is good
to cry; it is good for men to cry. But when a strong man breaks down and
sheds tears, I am--oh, I am heartbroken. A woman's tears mean nothing,
but a man's? Oh, they are terrible! But come! You must compose yourself.
The others will be here in a few minutes. I ran away from them on the
pretext that I--but it is of no consequence. It is enough that I am
here. You must go to your room and bathe your face. Go at once. Your
father must not know that you have cried. He------”
“Curse him!” came from between Frederic's clenched teeth.
“Hush!” she cried, with another glance at Ranjab's door. She would have
given much to know whether the Hindu was there or still below-stairs.
“You must not say such----”
“I will say it, Yvonne--I'll say it to his face! I don't care if the
others do see that I have been crying. I want them to know how he hurts
me, and I want them to hate him for it.”
“For my sake, Frederic, calm yourself. I implore you to go to your room.
Come back later, but go now.”
He was struck by the seriousness in her voice and manner. An ugly,
crooked smile writhed about the corners of his mouth.
“I suppose you're trying to smooth it over so that they won't consider
him a brute. Is that it?”
“Hush! Please, please! You know that my heart aches for you, _mon ami_.
It was cruel of him, it was cowardly--yes, cowardly! Now I have said
it!” She drew herself up and turned deliberately toward the little door
across the room.
His eyes brightened. The crooked sneer turned into an imploring smile.
“Forgive me, Yvonne! You must see that I'm beside myself. I--I------”
“But you must be sensible. Remember he is your father. He is a strange
man. There has been a great deal of bitterness in his life. He------”
“Have I been the cause of a moment's bitterness to him?” cried Frederic.
“Why should he hate me? Why------”
“You are losing control of yourself again, Frederic.”
“But I can't go on the way things are now. He's getting to be worse
than ever. I never have a kind word from him, seldom a word of any
description. Never a kind look. Can't you understand how it goads me
to------”
“Yes, yes! You've said all this before, and I have listened to you when
I should have reminded you that he is my husband,” she said impatiently.
“By Heaven, I don't see how you can love him!” he cried boldly.
“Sometimes I wonder if you do love him. He is as selfish, as unfeeling
as oh, there's no word for it. Why, in the name of God, did you ever
marry such a man? You couldn't have loved him.” Something in her
expression brought him up sharply. Her eyes had narrowed; they had the
look of a wary, hunted thing that has been driven into a corner. He
stared. “Forgive me, Yvonne. I--I------”
“You don't know what you are saying,” she panted. “Are you accusing me?”
“No, no! What a coward, what a dog I am!” he cried abjectly.
A queer little smile stole into her face. It was even more baffling than
the expression it displaced.
“I am your friend,” she said slowly. “Is this the way to reward me?”
He dropped to his knees and covered her hands with kisses, mumbling his
plea for forgiveness.
“I am so terribly unhappy,” he said over and over again. “I'd leave this
house to-night if it were not that I can't bear the thought of leaving
you, Yvonne. I adore you. You are everything in the world to me.
I------”
“Get up!” she cried out sharply. He lifted his eyes in dumb wonder
and adoration, but not in time to catch the look of triumph that swept
across her face.
“You will forgive me?” he cried, coming to his feet. “I--I couldn't help
saying it. It was wrong--wrong! But you _will_ forgive me, Yvonne?”
She turned away, walking slowly toward the door. He remained rooted to
the spot, blushing with shame and dismay.
“Where are you going? To tell _him?_” he gasped.
She did not reply at once, but drew the _portières_ apart and peered
down the stairs beyond, her attitude one of tense anxiety. As she faced
him a smile of security was on her lips. She leaned gracefully against
the jamb of the door, her arms dropping to her sides.
“Yes, I will forgive you,” she said calmly, and he realised in a
flash that the verdict would have been different if there had been
the remotest chance that his declaration was overheard. She would have
denied him.
“I adore you, Yvonne,” he cried in low tones, striding swiftly toward
her, only to halt as he caught the smile of derision in her eyes. “I
don't mean it in the way you think. You are so good to me. You have
given me so much joy and happiness, and--and you understand me so well.
I could die for you, Yvonne. I _would_ die for you. It's not the kind of
love you are in the habit of commanding, you who are so glorious and so
beautiful. It's the love of a dog for his master.”
She waited an instant, and then came toward him. He never could have
explained the unaccountable impulse that forced him to fall back a few
steps as she approached. Her eyes were gazing steadily into his, and her
red lips were parted.
“That is as it should be,” she was saying, but he was never sure that he
heard the words. His knees grew weak. He was in the toils! “Now you must
pull yourself together,” she went on, in such a matter-of-fact tone that
he straightened up involuntarily. “Come! Wipe the tear-stains from your
cheeks.”
He obeyed, but his lip still quivered with the rage that had been
checked by the ascendancy of another and even more devastating emotion.
She was standing quite close to him now, her slender figure swaying
slightly as if moved by some strange, rhythmic melody to which the heart
beat time.
Her eyes were soft and velvety again, her smile tender and appealing.
The vivid white of her arms and shoulders seemed to shed a soft light
about her, so radiant was the sheen of the satin skin. Her gown was of
black velvet, cut very low, and with scarcely any ornamentation save
the great cluster of rubies at the top of her corsage. They gleamed like
coals of fire against the skin, which appeared to absorb and reflect
their warmth.
There was a full red rose in her dark hair. She wore no ear-rings,
no finger-rings except the narrow gold band on her left hand. A wide,
exquisitely designed gold bracelet fitted tightly about her right
forearm, as if it had been welded to the soft white flesh. Yvonne's
ears were lovely; she knew better than to disfigure them. Her hands were
incomparably beautiful; she knew their full value unadorned.
She moved closer to him and with deft fingers applied her tiny lace
handkerchief to his flushed cheeks and eyes, laughing audibly as she did
so; a low gurgle of infinite sweetness and concern.
He stood like a statue, scarcely breathing, the veins in his throat
throbbing violently.
“There!” she said, and deliberately touched the _mouchoir_ to her own
smiling lips before replacing it in her bodice next to the warm, soft
skin. “Lydia must not see that her big baby sweetheart has been crying,”
she went on, and if there was mockery in her voice it was lost on him.
He could only stare as if bereft of all his senses.
“I have been thinking, Frederic,” she said, suddenly serious, “perhaps
it would be better if we were not alone when the others come up. Go at
once and fetch the two old men. Tell them I expect them here to witness
the magic. It appears to be a family party, so why exclude them? Be
quick!”
He dashed off to obey her command. She lighted a cigarette at the table,
her unsmiling eyes fixed on the door to the Hindu's closet. Then, with
a little sigh, she sank down on the broad couch and stretched her supple
body in the ecstasy of complete relaxation.
The scene at the dinner-table had been most distressing. Up to the
instant of the outburst her husband had been in singularly gay spirits,
a circumstance so unusual that the whole party wondered not a little. If
the others were vaguely puzzled by his high humour, not so Yvonne. She
understood him better than anyone else in the world; she read his mind
as she would have read an open book.
There was riot, not joy, in the heart of the brilliant talker at the
head of the table. He was talking against the savagery that strained so
hard at its leash.
At her right sat Frederic, at her left the renowned Dr Hodder, whose
feats at the operating table were vastly more successful than his
efforts at the dinner-table. He was a very wonderful surgeon, but
equally famous as a bore of the first rank. Yvonne could not endure him.
His jokes were antediluvian, and his laughter over them an abomination.
He had an impression, as many famous men have, that the sole duty of a
dinner guest is to be funny in the loudest voice possible, drowning out
all competition, and to talk glowingly about the soup, as if nothing
else was required to convince the hostess that he considered her dinner
irreproachable and her cook a jewel. Still, it was agreed Dr Hodder was
a wonderful surgeon.
Mrs Desmond and Lydia were there. (This was an excellent opportunity
to entertain them on an occasion of more or less magnitude.) There were
also present Bertie Gunning and his pretty wife, Maisie, both of whom
Yvonne liked; and the Followed sisters, with two middle-aged gentlemen
from one of the clubs.
Miss Followed was forty, and proved it by cheerfully discussing events
that happened at least that far back in her life. Her sister Janey
was much younger, quite pretty, and acutely ingenuous. The middle-aged
gentlemen ate very little. They were going to a supper at the
Knickerbocker later on for someone whose name was Lilly. Occasionally it
was Lil. It rather gratified them to be chided about the lady.
Frederic, deceived by his father's sprightly mood, entered rather
recklessly into the lively discussion. He seldom took his eyes from the
face of his beautiful stepmother, and many of his remarks were uttered
_sotto voce_ for her ear alone.
Suddenly James Brood called out his name in a sharp, commanding tone.
Frederic, at the moment engaged in a low exchange of words with Yvonne,
did not hear him. Brood spoke again, loudly, harshly. There was dead
silence at the table.
“We will excuse you, Frederic,” said he, a deadly calm in his voice. The
puzzled expression in the young man's face slowly gave way to a
steady glare of fury. He could not trust himself to speak. “I regret
exceedingly that you cannot take wine in moderation. A breath of fresh
air will be of benefit to you. You may join us upstairs later on.”
“I haven't drunk a full glass of champagne,” began the young man in
amazed protest.
Brood smiled indulgently, but there was a sinister gleam in his gray
eyes. “I think you had better take my advice,” he said.
“Very well, sir,” said Frederic in a low, suppressed voice, his face
paling. Without another word he got up from the table and walked out of
the room.
He spoke the truth later on when he told Yvonne that he could not
understand. But she understood. She knew that James Brood had endured
the situation as long as it was in his power to endure, and she knew
that it was her fault entirely that poor Frederic had been exposed to
this crowning bit of humiliation.
As she sat in the dim study awaiting her stepson's reappearance with the
two old men, her active, far-seeing mind was striving to estimate the
cost of that tragic clash. Not the cost to herself or to Frederic, but
to James Brood!
The Messrs Dawes and Riggs, inordinately pleased over the rehabitation,
were barely through delivering themselves of their protestations of
undying fealty when the sound of voices came up from the lower hall.
Frederic started to leave the room, not caring to face those who had
witnessed his unwarranted degradation. Yvonne hurried to his side.
“Where are you going?” she cried sharply.
“You cannot expect me to stay here----”
“But certainly!” she exclaimed. “Listen! I will tell you what to do.”
Her voice sank to an imperative whisper. He listened in sheer amazement,
his face growing dark with rebellion as she proceeded to unfold her plan
for a present victory over his father.
“No, no! I can't do that! Never, Yvonne,” he protested.
“For my sake, Freddy. Don't forget that you owe something to me. I
command you to do as I tell you. It is the only way. Make haste! Open
the window, get the breath of air he prescribed, and when they are all
here, _apologise for your condition!_”
When Dr Hodder and Mrs Gunning entered the room a few minutes later
young Brood was standing in the open window, drinking in the cold night
air, and she was blithely regaling the blinking old men with an account
of her stepson's unhappy efforts to drink all the wine in sight! As she
told it, it was a most amusing experiment.
James Brood was the last to enter, with Miss Followed. He took in the
situation at a glance. Was it relief that sprang into his eyes as he
saw the two old men?
Frederic came down from the window, somewhat too swiftly for one who is
moved by shame and contrition, and faced the group with a well-assumed
look of mortification in his pale, twitching face. He spoke in low,
repressed tones, but not once did he permit his gaze to encounter that
of his father.
“I'm awfully sorry to have made a nuisance of myself. It does go to my
head, and I--I dare say the heat of the room helped to do the work. I'm
all right now, however. The fresh air did me a lot of good. Hope you'll
all overlook my foolish attempt to be a devil of a fellow.” He hesitated
a moment and then went on, more clearly. “I'm all right now, father. It
shall not happen again, I can promise you that.”
A close observer might have seen the muscles of his jaw harden as he
uttered the final sentence. He intended that his father should take it
as a threat, not as an apology.
Brood was watching him closely, a puzzled expression in his eyes;
gradually it developed into something like admiration. In the clamour of
voices that ensued the older man detected the presence of an underlying
note of censure for his own behaviour. For the first time in many years
he experienced a feeling of shame.
Someone was speaking at his elbow. Janey, in her young,
enthusiastic voice, shrilled something into his ear that caused him to
look at her in utter amazement. It was so astounding that he could not
believe he heard aright. He mumbled in a questioning tone, “I beg your
pardon,” and she repeated her remark.
“How wonderfully like you Frederic is, Mr Brood.” Then she added: “Do
you know, I've never noticed it until to-night? It's really remarkable.”
“Indeed,” Brood responded somewhat icily.
“Don't you think so, Mr Brood?”
“No, I do not, Miss Janey,” said he distinctly.
“Maisie Gunning was speaking of it just a few minutes ago,” went on
the girl, unimpressed. “She says you are very much alike when you
are--are------” here she foundered in sudden confusion.
“Intoxicated?” he inquired, without a smile.
She blushed painfully. “No, no! When you are angry. There, I suppose I
shouldn't have said it, but------”
“It is a most gratifying discovery,” said he, and turned to speak to
Mrs Desmond. He did not take his gaze from Frederic's white, set face,
however; and, despite the fact that he knew the girl had uttered an idle
commonplace, he was annoyed to find himself studying the features of
Matilde's boy with an interest that seemed almost laughable when he
considered it later on.
His guests found much to talk about in the room. He was soon being
dragged from one object to another and ordered to reveal the history,
the use, and the nature of countless things that obviously were intended
to be just what they seemed; such as rugs, shields, lamps, and so forth.
He was ably assisted by Messrs Riggs and Dawes, who lied prodigiously in
a frenzy of rivalry.
“What a perfectly delightful Buddha!” cried Miss Janey, stopping in
front of the idol. “How perfectly lovely he is--or is it a she, Mr
Brood?”
He did not reply at once. His eyes were on Frederic and Yvonne, who had
come together at last and were conversing earnestly apart from the rest
of the group. He observed that Lydia was standing quite alone near the
table, idly handling a magazine. To the best of his recollection,
Frederic had scarcely spoken to the girl during the evening.
“This is where I work and play and dream, Miss Janey, and practise the
ogre's art. It is a forbidden chamber, my sanctuary,”--with a glance at
the idol--“and here is where I sometimes chop off pretty young women's
heads and hang them from the window-ledge as a warning to all other
birds of prey.”
Miss Janey laughed gleefully, attracting Yvonne's attention. Then she
sang out across the room:
“Your husband says he is an ogre. Is he?”
Yvonne came languidly toward them.
“My husband manages to keep me in his enchanted castle without chains
and padlocks, and that is saying a great deal in this day and age, my
dear. Would you call him an ogre after that?”
“Perhaps it is the old story of the fairy queen and the ogre.”
“You may be sure I'd be an ogre if there was no other way of keeping
you, my dear,” said Brood. There was something in his voice that caused
her to look up into his face quickly.
Dr Hodder, being a wonderful surgeon, managed to cut his finger with
a razor-edged kris at that instant, drawing a little shriek from Miss
Followed, to whom he was jocularly explaining that scientific Malays
used the thing in removing one another's appendices, the surgeon being
the one who survived the operation.
During the excitement incident to the bloodletting the middle-aged
gentlemen glanced furtively at their watches and indulged in a mental
calculation from which they emerged somewhat easier in their minds. It
still wanted an hour before the theatres were out.
“Dreadful bore,” yawned one of them behind his hand.
“Stupidest woman I ever sat next to,” said the other,
Then both looked at their watches again.
Frederic joined Lydia at the table.
“A delicious scene, wasn't it?” he asked bitterly in lowered tones.
Her fingers touched his.
“What did he mean, Freddy? Oh, I felt so sorry for you. It was
dreadful.”
“Don't take it so seriously, Lyddy,” he said, squeezing her hand gently.
Both of them realised that it was the nearest thing to a caress that
had passed between them in a fortnight or longer. A wave of shame swept
through him. “Dear old girl--my dear old girl,” he whispered brokenly.
Her eyes radiated joy, her lips parted in a wan, tremulous smile of
surprise, and a soft sigh escaped them.
“My dear, dear boy,” she murmured, and was happier than she had been in
weeks.
“See here, old chap,” said one of the middle-aged gentlemen, again
consulting his watch as he loudly addressed his host, “can't you hurry
this performance of yours along a bit? It is after ten, you know.”
“A quarter after,” said the other middle-aged gentleman.
“I will summon the magician,” said Brood. “Be prepared, ladies and
gentlemen, to meet the devil. Ranjab is the prince of darkness.”
He lifted his hand to strike the gong that stood near the edge of the
table.
Involuntarily four pairs of eyes fastened their gaze upon the door to
the Hindu's closet. Three mellow, softly reverberating “booms” filled
the room. Almost instantly the voice of the Hindu was heard.
“_Aih, sahib!_”
He came swiftly into the room from the hall, and not from his closet.
The look of relief in Yvonne's eyes was short-lived. She saw amazement
in the faces of the two old men--and knew!
“After we have had the feats of magic,” Brood was saying, “Miss Desmond
will read to you, ladies and gentlemen, that chapter of our journal----”
“My word!” groaned both of the middle-aged gentlemen, looking at their
watches.
“Relating to----”
“You'll have to excuse me, Brood, really, you know. Important engagement
up-town----”
“Sit down, Cruger,” exclaimed Hodder. “The lady won't miss you.”
“Relating to our first encounter with the great and only Ranjab,”
pursued Brood oracularly. “We found him in a little village far up in
the mountains. He was under the sentence of death for murder. By the
way, Yvonne, the kris you have in your hand is the very weapon the good
fellow used in the commission of his crime. He was in prison and was
to die within a fortnight after our arrival in the town. I heard of his
unhappy plight and all that had led up to it. His case interested
me tremendously. One night, a week before the proposed execution, my
friends and I stormed the little prison and rescued him. We were just
getting over the cholera and needed excitement. That was fifteen years
ago. He has been my trusted body-servant ever since. I am sure you will
be interested in what I have written about that thrilling adventure.”
Yvonne had dropped the ugly knife upon the table as if it were a thing
that scorched her fingers.
“Did he--really kill a man?” whispered Miss Janey with horror in her
eyes.
“He killed a woman. His wife, Miss Janey. She had been faithless, you
see. He cut her heart out. And now, Ranjab, are you ready?”
The Hindu salaamed.
“Ranjab is always ready, _sahib_,” said he.