Persons Unknown Part 51

Herrick was not more than about nine feet above the flooring of the room, with the main door from the hall to his right hand and the fireplace on his left, so that the little glittering table was before him and to the left of him but a few feet. And there the red-haired woman blew out the flame she had kindled, as if she had but meant to test the wick. It was Herrick's first long clear look at her and he looked hard. The resemblance to Christina lay only in a very striking suggestion of the tall figure, a pose, a poise, an indescribable lightness and sense of life; they had the same gracious, gallant bearing, the same proud carriage of the head, and he suddenly realized that he was looking at one of Christina's gowns. For the rest, she was, of course, six years the elder, and her equal slenderness was much more richly hued and softly curved. Handsome enough, her face at once attracted and repelled by the diverse coloring of the eyes. It was a face at once selfish and fierce and soft, with the softness of a woman who is fashioned from head to foot in one ardent glow; a softness like a panther's. In the flame-white allure of s.e.x she struck straight at you, as undisguised and challenging as lightning, and, to any but a monomaniac, as soon wearied of. It seemed that she could never be satisfied with her preparations. She walked about the room, touching and re-touching the flowers; over and over again she scrutinized the appointments of the table; lifted the silver covers; peered into the chafing-dish, and tested the champagne in its bucket of ice. At last she could find nothing more to do. Through all her coming and going, she had seemed to be mocking and triumphing to herself; humming, singing and even whistling very low with her mouth pursed into a confident and quizzing little smile, or inclining her bright head, in victorious scrutinies, from side to side; so that it seemed the guest must be very welcome and, if she were bent on conquest, the conquest very sure.

She was not yet gowned for a festival, and, remembering the light in the room above, Herrick, grim as the hour was, smiled to imagine that here was to be played a little domestic comedy like thousands that go on in Harlem flats and tame suburban cottages; the servantless hostess satisfied at length about her cooking and her table and flying upstairs at the last moment to dress for company. So indeed she turned to fly, but then her mood changed. She whirled round upon the vacant table, her comedy, her mockery quite fallen from her, and given way to a black hate. All her quick humors swarmed in her, in a threatening storm; she was not so much like a woman as like a great, bad, lovely, furious child that runs its tongue out in defiance. But there was a power in this defiance like the power in that soft panther of her grace. So that it was a sort of curse her swirling movement cast upon the pretty table as she flung one arm up and out above her head; the hand clinched, and then the fingers slowly spreading and stiffening in the air. Then she went out of the room and up the stair and overhead.

Herrick, scarcely knowing what he did, rose to his knees! Just then, he thought he heard a slight noise behind him. As he turned, something struck him on the head; he fell millions of miles through a black horror stabbed with pain and forgot everything.

CHAPTER II

THE EXPECTED COMPANY

When he came to himself he was trussed up like a bundle, with arms and ankles tied too tight for comfort. He still lay on the floor of the musicians' gallery and the room below him was still lighted. He rolled over and again could look through the valance. Only a little time must have elapsed, for the room was still empty.

And with the sight of that emptiness, questions poured in upon him. Who had found him out? And for what fate was he reserved? How long did they mean to leave him here and why did they leave him here at all? Why had he not been finished and done with? There struck through him, with perhaps the first utter and broken fear of his life, the depth of the silence by which he was again surrounded. No breath, no stir; that intense stillness was vivid as a presence and positive like sound; he was alone in it; he lay there helpless; a bound fool and sacrifice in the bright house, in the middle of the wood and the depth of the night, and, if those chose who left him so, he must lie there till he died. He lurched up and sat quiet, waiting for the dreadful giddiness and nausea that came with movement to pa.s.s by; determined to struggle till he got to his knees and on his knees, if necessary, to attempt to pa.s.s out of that house. He knew it was impossible, but movement he must have. Then, through that density of silence, he heard a step upon the terrace.

His curiosity rushed back on him, like fire in a back-draft. He held his breath; the step was a man's; it crossed the threshold of the great door and sounded on the tiling of the hall. The next instant the guest of the red-haired woman was in the room under Herrick's eyes.

Removing a long driving ulster and a soft hat, he proved to be in full evening clothes, and expectancy, held firmly down, lay mute and rigid in every part of him. He lifted a face the color of tallow and, staring straight at Herrick's balcony with blank, black eyes, the visitor drew a quivering breath. This visitor was Cuyler Ten Euyck.

The sound of his entrance had evidently been remarked. Again there was a light footstep overhead, and Herrick guessed that enough time had elapsed for the toilet to have been completed. The hostess came forth at once, and could be heard slowly, and with great deliberation, descending the stairs. Ten Euyck did not go to meet her. Only his eyes traveled to the door and he stood stiff, with little swallowings in his throat.

Herrick could hear, as she came into the room, a swish, a tinkle about her steps as though she walked through jeweled silk, and before her on the waxed and gleaming floor there floated a pool of additional brightness, so that he saw she had not been satisfied, after all, with the lighting of her supper-party, but carried a lamp to her own beauty as she came. Another step and there swam into his sight the beautiful, tall figure, carrying her lamp high, and incomparably more than before the mistress of that great apartment. This time it was Christina herself.

CHAPTER III

THE SHIPS AT ACTIUM

She stretched out one arm, keeping Ten Euyck at the tips of her fingers.

He seemed content to stay so, looking at her.

She was dressed in a trailing gown of silken tissue that was now gold, now silver, as the light took it; but the long vaporous slip beneath was of pale rose; molded to her motion and stirring with her breath, there dwelt in the gauze which covered her a perpetual faint flush. The stuffs were cut as low about the breast as if she had been some social queen, and her fair, pale arms were bare of gloves. Their adorable young flatness below the gleam of the slim, smooth shoulders, was now shimmered over and now revealed by short fringes of silver and gold, of cooler colored amber and crystal, which were their only sleeve; and these fringes hung about the borders of her gown and trembled into music as she moved. In the high-piled softness of her hair, diamonds glimmered like stars in a fair dusk; diamonds banded her brow in an inverted crescent; diamonds and topaz dropped in long pendants from her ears; diamonds and pearls clung round her arms; the restored necklace drooped down her breast, and the peep and shine of jewels glanced from her everywhere like glow-worms. She seemed to be clothed in fluctuant light, and yet it could not dim one radiance of her beauty. This was more than newly crowned; the rose was fully open; her loveliness had spread its folded wings and come into its own. There was no shyness now in those wide eyes; her spirit shone there, all in arms, and moved with a new and deeper strength in her young body. Very faintly, on the pure and delicate oval of her cheek, burned the soft, hot stain of rouge. This was the reality of the dear ghost, calling in the night with the rain upon its face; this was the pale girl in the gray suit who had once sat beside her mother in the corner of the coroner's office. It may be Ten Euyck thought of this; it may be she did.

"Well," she said, "have I made myself fine? Do I please you?"

He broke from his trance, took the lamp out of her hold, set it on the mantelshelf, and returned to her without a word.

"Pray speak!" she said; "I am all yours!"

"Christina!" he broke out, and caught and covered her hand with kisses.

"It is quite true. Do I do you credit?

"Look at me here, Look at me there, Criticize me everywhere--"

He leaned toward her and she swayed past him to the piano. Over her shoulder she sang to him--

"From head to feet I am most sweet, And most perfect and complete!"

She struck the chords a crash and whirled round to him with her hands in her lap. "Yes, it is quite true. From my head to my feet--" here she thrust forth through the music of the shaken fringe a slim gold shoe with its buckle winking up at him--"you have paid for every rag I stand in." Christina's accent upon the word "rag" suggested that she was accustomed to standing in something much better. "It would be hard if you were not suited. Would you like to go to your room a moment? It's all ready."

He must have considered this jabber at somewhat its true worth, for what he did was to draw up a chair and take and hold her hands. "Christina,"

said he, studying her face, "do you hate me so much?"

She remained a moment, silent. Then, "Yes!" she said. "I am a good hater!" And she smiled at him, a soft, stinging smile, with her eyes lingering on his.

"And yet you come--willingly--to me?"

"Willingly?" she said. "Oh, greedily!"

"Of your own suggestion?"

"Of my own suggestion."

"And on my terms?"

"Ah, no!" she cried. "On mine!"

"Well, then, for simply what you know I have?"

"For that," she said, "and nothing else."

"Great heavens!" he cried. "You're a cool hand!--You, who value yourself so well, are willing to pay so high for it."

She replied, "To the last breath of my life!"

He leaned down and kissed her wrist and then her arm, and she sat quiet in his grasp.

"What are you thinking of?" he asked, looking up.

She replied, "Of other kisses."

He sprang to his feet with a kind of snort, going to one of the windows, and Christina purled at his broad back, "Don't be angry. How can I help what I think? Have I not kept my part of the bargain? Have I not come here to meet you without another soul? To a house I never saw before?

That you tell me you have hired? In a sort of wood, at night, quite alone, not even a servant--although I must say everything seems to have been well arranged and left quite handy! Would you like some supper, now? If you ordered it, I am sure it must be good. I am very obedient.

All the same, I am rather hungry."

He came back to the table with the little pink line showing about his nostrils. "I do not mind your not desiring me," he said, "and perhaps, after all, I shall not mind your desiring another man. As you say, it is not a question of what you desire, but of what I do. Well, Christina, I am satisfied with your preparations for me; do you approve mine for you?

You shall have servants enough, Christina, when I am sure we may not be traced by your sister's gentry! How do you like my trysting-place? You gave me very little time. If you consider it a cage, is it sufficiently gilded?"

Christina drew a long breath. "It's wonderful. A palace--wonderful!

Surely I was born to walk rooms like these! And a far cry from the little boarding-house I lived in when you first met me! G.o.d knows," said Christina, in a voice that trembled, "I am glad to be here!"

"You like it then?" he cried eagerly. "It's for sale. It shall be yours to-morrow!"