The Enemies of Women Part 56

As he drew near the crowd, he could hear the comments of various detached onlookers, who were telling the news to the new arrivals.

"A convalescent officer.... He was taking a walk with a lady....

Suddenly he fell in a heap, as though struck by lightning. There he is."

Yes; there was Martinez, in the center of that human ma.s.s, a pitiful object, lying on the ground, with his body bent into the shape of a Z: his head made a right angle with his breast, and his legs were doubled, making another angle. Lubimoff came forward until he could look over the shoulders of the first row of stupefied onlookers. A constant sound of hard breathing, a rattle like that of some poor beast in the death agony kept coming from his foaming lips. In his motionless body, the only sign of life was that moan, repeated with clock-like regularity, with no change in the tone.

Officers were leaving their women companions to force their way into the center of the crowd. On recognizing Martinez, their surprise a.s.sumed a caressing brotherly expression.

"Antonio! Antonio!"

They bent over him to talk in his ear, as though he were asleep; but Antonio did not hear them. One of his eyes was hidden in the dirt of the walk; a small pebble was clinging to the eyelid of the other. All one side of his uniform was white with dust. The terrible harsh breathing was the only reply to their words of endearment.

A military doctor stepped through the crowd. He took hold of Martinez's hands, and felt his pulse. A look of helplessness came over the doctor's face. The Lieutenant had had many attacks like this one. They could only hope that it was not to be his last....

Lubimoff could see Alicia kneeling on the ground, stunned by the shock, showing the sinuous curves of her back, under her mourning garments, oblivious of everything about her, with her eyes fixed on the man who a few minutes before had been walking at her side, talking and smiling, convinced that life is happiness, and who now lay stretched in the dust, convulsed and inert, a pitiable vessel slowly emptying itself in dying gasps.

Suddenly she stood up, with an instinctive sense of danger. She did not care to remain in that posture before everybody's gaze. Her large eyes, with a blank, frightened look, began to move about over the crowd, without however recognizing any one. For a moment they rested on Michael and her gaze met his with an expression of anguished entreaty. But the Prince, lowering his head, concealed himself behind the front row of onlookers, and her eyes went on in their search about the circle, with a look that became dull and gray again. She believed, doubtless, that it had been an hallucination.

As Alicia remained standing there, people began to point her out. That was the lady who was with the officer. Some of them recognized her, and repeated her name: "The d.u.c.h.ess de Delille." Through an instinctive feeling of repulsion, or a cowardly desire not to get mixed up in any "affair," no one spoke to her. She was left alone in the center of the crowd, with a look of stupefaction in her eyes, that seemed to ask for help, though without knowing just what help.

Willing souls began to take the initiative with an air of authority.

"Air! Give him air!" They began to shove the crowd back in order to increase the circle around the fallen man. But the people immediately pushed forward again with useless suggestions of aid; and once more the s.p.a.ce was narrowed, until the feet of the nearest spectators grazed the panting lips of the dying man.

A young girl had run of her own accord to the bar at the entrance of the Casino and was coming back with a gla.s.s of water.

"Antonio! Antonio!" his kneeling comrades vainly called the Lieutenant, using all their strength to open his jaws and force him to drink. His lips repelled the liquid, and went on repeating the painful moans.

Ladies, attracted by the news, began to arrive from the gambling rooms.

They all knew the d.u.c.h.ess; and looked at her with a certain hostility, after gazing at the dying man. The Prince heard fragments of their comment: "A poor fellow rescued from death by a miracle.... The slightest emotion.... That woman...."

Beyond the group, park policemen were running about giving orders. The stretcher bearers had arrived; the same ones who, according to public rumor, were pa.s.sed by magic through the walls of the Casino to carry away the gamblers dying in the play-rooms.

This time the stretcher was absent. The onlookers were separating to open the way for an extraordinary novelty. A hired carriage was coming across the terraces, which were forbidden to vehicles.

Suddenly Lubimoff saw the d.u.c.h.ess rise above the heads of the crowd. She had just gotten into the carriage and was standing in it, with a dazed look and the inexpressive features of a person walking in her sleep.

Perhaps she had done it without thinking; perhaps the military doctor had invited her to get in, thinking she was a relative of the patient.

Several men in uniform lifted the inert body of the officer.

The harsh breathing that rent his chest continued.

And then, in the presence of the crowd, whose eyes were sightless with stupefaction, the d.u.c.h.ess proceeded as though she were alone. She had just dropped to the seat. She had them lay the corpse-like body across her knees, and she herself, as she held Martinez with one arm, laid his panting head against one of her shoulders.

The carriage slowly started off in the direction of the officers' hotel, followed by a large part of the crowd. The doctor went along on foot, telling the driver to go slowly.

Michael saw Alicia pa.s.s, upright and rigid in her seat, her eyes wide open, with terror, her mouth tense with grief, and holding the dying man on her knees. Her att.i.tude reminded him of the Divine Mother at the foot of the cross; but there was something impure and shameful in Alicia's sorrow that made the comparison inadmissible.

"Oh, Venus Dolorosa."

The Prince was interrupted in his reflections. He felt himself rudely shoved aside by a woman in uniform. It was Mary Lewis, running, as fast as her legs could carry her, to overtake the carriage. The Amazon of Good Deeds always arrived in time to catch up with suffering.

Lubimoff saw how the vehicle slowly drove away with its embroidery of people. Its journey as far as the hotel would be endless; all Monte Carlo would see it go by.

He felt sad, very, very sad. That officer was his enemy; but death!...

He was not so sorry for Alicia. He smiled a malicious smile as he looked for the last time at the carriage and its following, which was constantly increasing.

In the line of scandals there was nothing commonplace about this latest of the d.u.c.h.ess de Delille.

CHAPTER XI

Two days later, in the morning, Lubimoff saw the Colonel go out dressed in black.

He was going to the funeral of Martinez. He and Novoa felt it was their duty, as Spaniards, to accompany the hero on his last earthly journey.

On his return he told his impressions, with painful conciseness, to the Prince. A few convalescent officers had followed the bier. The Professor and he were the only ones in civilian clothes present. In spite of his garb, those kindly heroic boys, seeing that he was a Colonel and a compatriot of the dead man, had obliged him to preside over the funeral services.

The Beausoleil Cemetery lay half way up the slope of the mountain on the crest of which La Turbie is situated. On account of the war, it had been necessary to enlarge it by several level plots of ground that formed a series of terraces. From these esplanades the eye embraced a magnificent view: Monte Carlo, Monaco, immediately below that, Cap-Martin advancing out over the waves, finally the infinite expanse of sea that rose and rose until it mingled with the sky. A monument with a rooster arrogant and victorious on its summit held the remains of the combatants who had died for France. Don Marcos was still much moved by the speech he had delivered, while all stood hushed, at the entrance to this common tomb, which was about to swallow up forever the body of Martinez.

"It was a speech for men," said Toledo, with pride, "for men who had been crippled in warfare. Nothing but heroes before me! There wasn't a single woman at the funeral."

This was the detail that interested the Prince most: "Not a single woman." And he asked himself again what could have become of Alicia.

Toward the end of the afternoon, as he was walking about his gardens, he saw Lady Lewis coming, preceded by the Colonel.

The Prince took refuge in his house. The nurse was undoubtedly arriving with a group of convalescent Englishmen, and wanted to run about among the trees and pick flowers. He did not feel he had the strength to listen to her chatter, which was like the twittering of a gay but wounded bird and was filled with a happiness that persisted tenaciously in the midst of grief, and continued even to the threshold of death.

The Prince was going up the stairway to retire to the upper rooms, when the Colonel overtook him; but before the latter could speak Lubimoff turned on him in a rage. He didn't want to see the nurse! Let her take her Englishmen over the gardens; she might go about in them as though they belonged to her; but as for himself, he wanted her to leave him alone.

"Marquis," said Toledo, "the n.o.ble woman has come alone and must talk with your Highness. She has something important to say to you."

The Prince and the nurse sat down in wicker chairs out of doors in a little open s.p.a.ce surrounded by leafy trees. A fountain was laughing as great drops of water scattered from its lazy jet.

The greenish light reflected through the grove made Lady Lewis appear weaker and more anaemic. What was left of life seemed concentrated in her eyes, before taking flight and vanishing like some volatile fluid, into s.p.a.ce. The Prince was beginning to forget his recent anger. Poor Lady Mary! Once more he had a feeling of tenderness and respect for her. Her physical wretchedness finally changed his pity into the kind of admiration that disinterested sacrifice always inspires.

Accustomed to living amid the deepest sorrows, to witnessing the greatest catastrophes, Lady Lewis paid little attention to the conventions prevailing in ordinary life and spoke at once, with a certain military abruptness, of the reason for her visit.

She was coming in behalf of the d.u.c.h.ess de Delille. She had spent the last two days at Villa Rosa, sleeping there in order not to leave the d.u.c.h.ess a single moment. First, Alicia's wild despair, followed later by a complete collapse, had frightened her. The lady had tried to kill herself.

"Poor woman!... She finally grew calm, seeing the true light, and realizing the path she must take. I feel satisfied that I've accomplished that much by my words."

Lubimoff's questioning glance remained fixed on the English woman. What light and what path was she talking about? But there was something that interested him more: the motive of her visit, the message that the d.u.c.h.ess had given her for him.

Lady Lewis read his thoughts.