To Brood's surprise she came half-way down the steps again, and,
leaning over the railing, spoke to him with a voice full of irony.
“Will you be good enough to call off your spy, James?”
“What do you mean?” He had started to put on his light overcoat.
“I think you know,” she said briefly.
“Do you consider me so mean, so infamous as------” he began hotly.
“Nevertheless, I feel happier when I know he is out of the house. Call
off your dog, James.”
He smothered an execration and then called out harshly to Jones:
“Ask Ranjab to attend me here, Jones. He is to go out with me,” he said
to the butler a moment later.
Yvonne was still leaning over the banister, a scornful smile on her
lips.
“I shall wait until you are gone. I intend to see Frederic alone,” she
said, with marked emphasis on the final word.
“As you like,” said he coldly.
She crossed the upper hall and disappeared from view down the corridor
leading to her own room. Her lips were set with decision; a wild,
reckless light filled her eyes, and the smile of scorn had given way
to one of exaltation. Her breath came fast and tremulously through
quivering nostrils as she closed her door and hurried across to the
little vine-covered balcony.
“The time has come--the time has come, thank God!” she was saying to
herself, over and over again. The French doors stuck. She was jerking
angrily at them when her maid hurried in from the bedroom, attracted by
the unusual commotion.
“_Que faites vous, madame?_” she cried anxiously.
Her mistress turned quickly.
“Listen! Go downstairs at once and tell them that I have dismissed you.
At once, do you hear?”
“_Oui madame!_” cried Céleste, her eyes dancing with a sudden,
incomprehensible delight.
“You are to leave the house immediately. I dismiss you. You have been
stealing from me, do you understand?”
“_Oui, madame. Je comprendes parfaitement, madame!_” cried the maid,
actually clapping her hands.
“You will pack two steamer-trunks and get them out of the house before
five o'clock. You are going back to Paris. You are dismissed.”
The little Frenchwoman beamed.
“_Certainement, madame! Par le premier bateau. Je comprend_.”
“The first boat for Havre--do you know the hour for sailing? Consult the
morning paper, Céleste.”
“_En bien, madame. La Provence. Il part demain. Je------_”
“Go at once!” cried the mistress, waving her hands excitedly.
“_Vous me renvoyez!_” And the little maid dashed out of the room.
As she descended the back stairs an amazing change came over her. Her
sprightly face became black with sullen rage and her eyes snapped with
fury. So violent was her manner when she accosted Jones in the servants'
hall that he fell back in some alarm. She was not long in making him
understand that she had been dismissed, however, and that she would
surely poison the diabolical creature upstairs if she remained in the
house another hour. Even the cook, who had a temper of her own, was
appalled by the exhibition; other servants were struck dumb.
Jones, perspiring freely, said something about calling in an officer,
and then Céleste began to weep bitterly. All she wanted was to get out
of the house before she did something desperate to the cruel tyrant
upstairs, and she'd be eternally grateful to Jones if he'd get her
trunks out of the storeroom as soon as------ But Jones was already on
his way to give instructions to the furnace-man.
Céleste took the occasion to go into hysterics, and the entire servant
body fell to work hissing “_Sh--h!_” in an agony of apprehension lest
the turmoil should penetrate the walls and reach the ears of the “woman
upstairs.” They closed all of the doors and most of the windows, and the
upstairs maid thought it would be a good idea to put a blanket over the
girl's head.
Left alone, Yvonne turned her attention to the window across the
court and two floors above her the heavily curtained window in Brood's
“retreat.” There was no sign of life there, so she hurried to the front
of the house to wait for the departure of James Brood and his man.
The two were going down the front steps. At the bottom Brood spoke to
Ranjab, and the latter, as imperturbable as a rock, bowed low and moved
off in an opposite direction to that taken by his master. She watched
until both were out of sight. Then she rapidly mounted the stairs to the
top floor.
Frederic was lying on the couch near the jade room door. She was able
to distinguish his long, dark figure after peering intently about the
shadowy interior in what seemed at first to be a vain search for him.
She shrank back, her eyes fixed in horror upon the prostrate shadow.
Suddenly he stirred and then half raised himself on one elbow to stare
at the figure in the doorway.
“Is it _you?_” he whispered hoarsely, and dropped back with a great sigh
on his lips.
Her heart leaped. The blood rushed back to her face. Quickly closing the
door, she advanced into the room, her tread as swift and as soft as a
cat's.
“He has gone out. We are quite alone,” she said, stopping to lean
against the table, suddenly faint with excitement.
He laughed, a bitter, mirthless, snarling laugh.
“Get up, Frederic. Be a man! I know what has happened. Get up! I want to
talk it over with you. We must plan. We must decide now at once--before
he returns.” The words broke from her lips with sharp, staccato-like
emphasis.
He came to a sitting posture slowly, all the while staring at her with a
dull wonder in his heavy eyes.
“Pull yourself together,” she cried hurriedly. “We cannot talk here. I
am afraid in this room. It has ears, I know. That awful Hindu is always
here, even though he may seem to be elsewhere. We will go down to my
boudoir.”
He slowly shook his head and then allowed his chin to sink dejectedly
into his hands. With his elbows resting on his knees, he watched her
movements in a state of increasing interest and bewilderment. She turned
abruptly to the Buddha, whose placid, smirking countenance seemed to be
alive to the situation in all of its aspects. Standing close, her hands
behind her back, her figure very erect and theatric, she proceeded to
address the image in a voice full of mockery.
“Well, my chatterbox friend, I have pierced his armour, haven't I? He
will creep up here and ask you, his wonderful god, to tell him what to
do about it, _aïe?_ His wits are tangled. He doubts his senses. And
when he comes to you, my friend, and whines his secret doubts into your
excellent and trustworthy ear, do me the kindness to keep the secret I
shall now whisper to you, for I trust you, too, you amiable fraud.”
Standing on tiptoe, she put her lips to the idol's ear and whispered.
Frederic, across the room, roused from his lethargy by the strange
words and still stranger action, rose to his feet and took several steps
toward her.
“There! Now you know everything. You know more than James Brood knows,
for you know what his charming wife is about to do next.” She drew back
and regarded the image through half-closed, smouldering eyes. “But he
will know before long--before long.”
“What are you doing, Yvonne?” demanded Frederic unsteadily.
She whirled about and came toward him, her hands still clasped behind
her back.
“Come with me,” she said, ignoring his question.
“He--he thinks I am in love with you,” said he, shaking his head.
“And are you not in love with me?”
He was startled. “Good Lord, Yvonne!”
She came quite close to him. He could feel the warmth that travelled
from her body across the short space that separated them. The
intoxicating perfume filled his nostrils; he drew a deep breath, his
eyes closing slowly as his senses prepared to succumb to the delicious
spell that came over him. When he opened them an instant later she was
still facing him, as straight and fearless as a soldier, and the light
of victory was in her dark, compelling eyes.
“Well,” she said deliberately, “I am ready to go away with you.”
He fell back stunned beyond the power of speech. His brain was filled
with a thousand clattering noises.
“He has turned you out,” she went on rapidly. “He disowns you. Very
well; the time has come for me to exact payment of him for that and for
all that has gone before. I shall go away with you. I------”
“Impossible!” he cried, finding his tongue and drawing still farther
away from her.
“Are you not in love with me?” she whispered softly.
He put his hands to his eyes to shut out the alluring vision.
“For God's sake, Yvonne--leave me. Let me go my way. Let me------”
“He cursed your mother! He curses you! He damns you--as he damned her.
You can pay him up for everything. You owe nothing to him. He has killed
every------”
Frederic straightened up suddenly and, with a loud cry of exultation,
raised his clenched hands above his head.
“By Heaven, I will break him! I will make him pay! Do you know what
he has done to me? Listen to this: he boasts of having reared me to
manhood, as one might bring up a prize beast, that he might make me pay
for the wrong that my poor mother did a quarter of a century ago. All
these years he has had in mind this thing that he has done to-day. All
my life has been spent in preparation for the sacrifice that came an
hour ago. I have suffered all these years in ignorance of------”
“Not so loud!” she whispered, alarmed by the vehemence of his reawakened
fury.
“Oh, I'm not afraid!” he cried savagely. “Can you imagine anything more
diabolical than the scheme he has had in mind all these years? To pay
back my mother--whom he loved and still loves--yes, by Heaven, he still
loves her--he works to this beastly end! He made her suffer the agonies
of the damned up to the day of her death by refusing her the right to
have the child that he swears is no child of his. Oh, you don't know
the story--you don't know the kind of man you have for a husband--you
don't------”
“Yes, yes; I do know!” she cried violently, beating her breast with
clenched hands. “I _do_ know! I know that he still loves the poor girl
who went out of this house with his curses ringing in her ears a score
of years ago, and who died still hearing them. And I had almost come
to the point of pitying him--I was failing--I was weakening. He is
a wonderful man. I--I was losing myself. But that is all over. Three
months ago I could have left him without a pang--yesterday I was afraid
that it would never be possible. To-day he makes it easy for me. He has
hurt you beyond all reason, not because he hates you, but because he
loved your mother.”
“But you do love him!” cried Frederic in stark wonder. “You don't
care the snap of your fingers for me. What is all this you are saying,
Yvonne? You must be mad. Think! Think what you are saying.”
“I have thought--I am always thinking. I know my own mind well enough.
It is settled: I am going away, and I am going with you.”
“You can't be in earnest!”
“I am desperately in earnest. You owe nothing to him now. He says you
are not his son. You owe nothing but hatred to him, and you should pay.
You owe vengeance for your mother's sake--for the sake of her whose face
you have come to love, who loved you to the day she died, I am sure. He
will proclaim to the world that you are not his son, he will brand you
with the mark of shame, he will drive you out of New York. You are the
son of a music-master, he shouts from the housetops! Your mother was a
vile woman, he shouts from the housetops! You cannot remain here. You
_must_ go. You must take me with you. Ah, you are thinking of Lydia!
Well, are you thinking of dragging her through the mire that he will
create? Are you willing to give her the name he declares is not yours to
give? Are you a craven, whipped coward who will not strike back when the
chance is offered to give a blow that will------”
“I cannot listen to you, Yvonne!” cried Frederic, aghast. His heart was
pounding so fiercely that the blood surged to his head in great waves,
almost stunning him with its velocity.
“We go to-morrow!” she cried out in an ecstasy of triumph. She was
convinced that he would go! “La Provence!”
“Good Heaven!” he gasped, dropping suddenly into a chair and burying his
face in his shaking hands. “What will this mean to Lydia--what will she
do--what will become of her?”
A quiver of pain crossed the woman's face, her eyelids fell as if to
shut out something that shamed her in spite of all her vainglorious
protestations. Then the spirit of exaltation resumed its sway. She
lifted her eyes heavenward, and inaudible words trembled on her lips. A
moment later she stood over him, her hands extended as if in blessing.
Had he looked up at that instant he would have witnessed a Yvonne he did
not know. No longer was she the alluring, sensuous creature who had been
in his thoughts for months, but a transfigured being whose soul looked
out through gentle, pitying eyes, whose wiles no longer were employed
in the devices of which she was past-mistress, whose real nature was
revealed now for the first time since she entered the house of James
Brood.
There was pain and suffering in the lovely eyes, and there was a strange
atmosphere of sanctuary attending the very conquest she had made. But
Frederic did not look up until all this had passed and the smile of
triumph was on her lips again and the glint of determination in her
eyes. He had missed the revelation that would have altered his estimate
of her for the future.
“You cannot marry Lydia now,” she said, affecting a sharpness of tone
that caused him to shrink involuntarily. “It is your duty to write her
a letter to-night, explaining all that has happened to-day. She would
sacrifice herself for you to-day, but there is--to-morrow! A thousand
to-morrows, Frederic. Don't forget them, my dear. They would be ugly,
after all, and she is too good, too fine to be dragged into------”
“You are right!” he exclaimed, leaping to his feet. “It would be the
vilest act that a man could perpetrate. Why--why, it would be proof of
what he says of me--it would stamp me for ever the dastard he--no, no;
I could never lift my head again if I were to do this utterly vile thing
to Lydia. He said to me here--not an hour ago--that he expected me to
go ahead and blight that loyal girl's life, that I would consider it a
noble means of self-justification! What do you think of that? He------
But wait! What is this that we are proposing to do? Give me time to
think! Why--why, I can't take you away from him, Yvonne! What am I
thinking of? Have I no sense of honour? Am I------”
“You are not his son,” she said significantly.
“But that is no reason why I should stoop to a foul trick like this.
Do--do you know what you are suggesting?” He drew back from her with a
look of disgust in his eyes. “No! I'm not that vile! I----”
“Frederic, you must let me------”
“I don't want to hear anything more, Yvonne. What manner of woman are
you? He is your husband, he loves you, he trusts you; oh, yes, he does!
And you would leave him like this? You would------”
“Hush! Not so loud!” she cried in great agitation.
“And let me tell you something more. Although I can never marry Lydia,
by Heaven, I shall love her to the end of my life. I will not betray
that love. To the end of time she shall know that my love for her is
real and true and------”
“Frederic, you must listen to me,” she cried, wringing her hands. “You
must hear what I have to say to you. Wait! Do not leave me!”
“What is it, Yvonne--what is it?” he cried, pausing in utter amazement
after taking a few steps toward the door.
“Where are you going?” she whispered, following him with dragging steps.
“Not to _him?_”
“Certainly not! Do you think I would betray you to him?”
“Wait! Give me time to think,” she pleaded. He shook his head
resolutely. “Do not judge me too harshly. Hear what I have to say before
you condemn me. I am not the vile creature you think, Frederic. Wait!
Let me think!”
He stared at her for a moment in deep perplexity and then slowly drew
near.
“Yvonne, I do not believe you mean to do wrong--I do not believe it of
you. You have been carried away by some horrible------”
“Listen to me,” she broke in fiercely. “I would have sacrificed
you--aye, sacrificed you, poor boy--in order to strike James Brood the
cruellest blow that man ever sustained. I would have destroyed you in
destroying him--God forgive me! But you have shown me how terrible I am,
how utterly terrible! Love you? No! No! Not in that way. I would have
put a curse, an undeserved curse, upon your innocent head, and all for
the joy it would give me to see James Brood grovel in misery for the
rest of his life. Oh!”
She uttered a groan of despair and self-loathing so deep and full of
pain that his heart was chilled.
“Yvonne!” he gasped, dumbfounded.
“Do not come near me!” she cried out, covering her face with her hands.
For a full minute she stood before him, straight and rigid as a statue,
a tragic figure he was never to forget. Suddenly she lowered her hands.
To his surprise, a smile was on her lips.
“You would never have gone away with me. I know it now. All these
months I have been counting on you for this very hour, this culminating
hour--and now I realise how little hope I have really had, even from the
beginning. You are honourable. There have been times when my influence
over you was such that you resisted only because you were loyal to
yourself--not to Lydia, not to my husband--but to yourself. I came to
this house with but one purpose in mind. I came here to take you away
from the man who has always stood as your father. I would not have
become your mistress--pah! how loathsome it sounds!--but I would have
enticed you away, believing myself to be justified. I would have struck
James Brood that blow. He would have gone to his grave believing himself
to have been paid in full by the son of the woman he had degraded, by
the boy he had reared for the slaughter, by the blood------”
“In God's name, Yvonne, what is this you are saying? What have you
against my--against him?”
“Wait! I shall come to that. I did not stop to consider all that I
should have to overcome. First, there was your soul, your honour, your
integrity to consider. I did not think of all those things. I did not
stop to think of the damnable wrong I should be doing to you. I was
blind to everything except my one great, long-enduring purpose. I could
see nothing else but triumph over James Brood. To gain my end it was
necessary that I should be his wife. I became his wife--I deliberately
took that step in order to make complete my triumph over him. I became
the wife of the man I had hated with all my soul, Frederic. So you can
see how far I was willing to go to--ah, it was a hard thing to do! But
I did not shrink. I went into it without faltering, without a single
thought of the cost to myself. He was to pay for all that, too, in the
end. Look into my eyes, Frederic. I want to ask you a question. Will you
go away with me? Will you take me?”
He returned her look steadily.
“No!”
“That is all I want to hear you say. It means the end. I have done all
that could be done, and I have failed. Thank God, I have failed!” She
came swiftly to him and, before he was aware of her intention, clutched
his hand and pressed it to her lips. He was shocked to find that a
sudden gush of tears was wetting his hand.
“Oh, Yvonne!” he cried miserably.
She was sobbing convulsively. He looked down upon her dark, bowed head
and again felt the mastering desire to crush her slender, beautiful body
in his arms. The spell of her was upon him again, but now he realised
that the appeal was to his spirit and not to his flesh--as it had been
all along, he was beginning to suspect.
“Don't pity me,” she choked out. “This will pass, as everything else has
passed. I am proud of you now, Frederic. You are splendid. Not many men
could have resisted in this hour of despair. You have been cast off,
despised, degraded, humiliated. You were offered the means to retaliate.
You------”
“And I was tempted!” he cried bitterly. “For the moment I was------”
“And now what is to become of _me?_” she wailed.
His heart grew cold.
“You--you will leave him? You will go back to Paris? Yvonne, it will be
a blow to him. He has had one fearful slash in the back. This will break
him.”
“At least, I may have that consolation,” she cried, straightening up in
an effort to revive her waning purpose. “Yes, I shall go. I cannot stay
here now. I--” She paused and shuddered.
“What, in Heaven's name, have you against my--against him? What does it
all mean? How you must have hated him to------”
“Hated him? Oh, how feeble the word is! Hate! There should be a word
that strikes more terror to the soul than that one. But wait! You shall
know everything. You shall have the story from the beginning. There is
much to tell, and there will be consolation--aye, triumph for you in the
story I shall tell. First, let me say this to you: when I came here I
did not know that there was a Lydia Desmond. I would have hurt that poor
girl; but it would not have been a lasting pain. In my plans, after I
came to know her, there grew a beautiful alternative through which she
should know great happiness. Oh, I have planned well and carefully, but
I was ruthless. I would have crushed her with him rather than to have
failed. But it is all a dream that has passed, and I am awake.
“It was the most cruel, but the most magnificent dream--ah, but I dare
not think of it. As I stand here before you now, Frederic, I am shorn of
all my power. I could not strike him as I might have done a month ago.
Even as I was cursing him but a moment ago I realised that I could not
have gone on with the game. Even as I begged you to take your revenge, I
knew that it was not myself who urged, but the thing that was having its
death-struggle within me.”
“Go on. Tell me. Why do you stop?”
She was glancing fearfully toward the Hindu's door. “There is one man in
this house who knows. He reads my every thought. He does not know all,
but he knows _me_. He has known from the beginning that I was not to be
trusted. That man is never out of my thoughts. I fear him, Frederic--I
fear him as I fear death. If he had not been here I--I believe I should
have dared anything. I _could_ have taken you away with me months ago.
But he worked his spell and I was afraid. I faltered. He knew that I was
afraid, for he spoke to me one day of the beautiful serpents in his land
that were cowards in spite of the death they could deal with one flash
of their fangs. You were intoxicated. I _am_ a thing of beauty. I can
charm as the------”
“God knows that is true,” he said hoarsely.
“But enough of that! I am stricken with my own poison. Go to the door!
See if he is there. I fear------”
“No one is near,” said he, after striding swiftly to both doors,
listening at one and peering out through the other.
“You will have to go away, Frederic. I shall have to go. But we shall
not go together. In my room I have kept hidden the sum of ten thousand
dollars, waiting for the day to come when I should use it to complete
the game I have played. I knew that you would have no money of your
own. I was prepared even for that. Look again! See if anyone is there? I
feel--I feel that someone is near us. Look, I say!”
He obeyed.
“See! There is no one near.” He held open the door to the hall. “You
must speak quickly. I am to leave this house in an hour. I was given the
hour.”
“Ah, I can see by your face that you hate him! It is well. That is
something. It is but little, I know, after all I have wished for--but it
is something for me to treasure--something for me to take back with me
to the one sacred little spot in this beastly world of men and women.”
“Yvonne, you are the most incomprehensible------”
“Am I not beautiful, Frederic? Tell me!” She came quite close to him.
“You are the most beautiful woman in all the world,” he said abjectly.
“And I have wasted all my beauty--I have lent it to unloveliness, and it
has not been destroyed! It is still with me, is it not? I have not lost
it in------”
“You are beautiful beyond words--beyond anything I have ever imagined,”
said he, suddenly passing his hand over his brow.
“You would have loved me if it had not been for Lydia?”
“I couldn't have helped myself. I--I fear I--faltered in my--are you
still trying to tempt me? Are you still asking me to go away with you?”
A hoarse cry came from the doorway behind them--a cry of pain and anger
that struck terror to their souls.