The Indian Lily and Other Stories Part 16

"For heaven's sake!" he cried, "Put that red-headed beast into the street."

"It isn't she! I'll take my oath on that," she said eagerly and thought that she had done a wonderfully clever thing.

She waited in suspense, fearing that the authorities would take a closer look at this last incident. She was equipped for any search--even one that might penetrate to her own bed-room. For she had put false bottoms into the little medicine-boxes. Beneath these she kept the a.r.s.enic. On top lay harmless magnesia. The boxes themselves stood on her toilet-table, exposed to all eyes and hence withdrawn from all suspicion.

She waited till evening, but n.o.body came. And yet the connection between this incident and the former one seemed easy enough to establish. However that might be, she a.s.signed the final deed to the very next day. And why wait? An end had to be made of this torture of hesitation which, at every new scruple, seemed to freeze her very heart's blood. Furthermore the finding of the "crow's eyes" would be of use in leading justice astray.

To-morrow, then ... to-morrow....

Weigand had gone to bed early. But Toni sat behind the door of the public room and, through a slit of the door, listened to every movement of the waitress. She had kept near her all evening. She scarcely knew why. But a strange, dull hope would not die in her--a hope that something might happen whereby her unsuspecting victim and herself might both be saved.

The clock struck one. The public rooms were all but empty. Only a few young clerks remained. These were half-drunk and made rough advances to the waitress.

She resisted half-serious, half-jesting.

"You go out and cool yourselves in the night-air. I don't care about such fellows as you."

"I suppose you want only counts and barons," one of them taunted her.

"I suppose you wouldn't even think the county-counsellor good enough!"

"That's my affair," she answered, "as to who is good enough for me. I have my choice. I can get any man I want."

They laughed at her and she flew into a rage.

"If you weren't such a beggarly crew and had anything to bet, I'd wager you any money that I'd seduce any man I want in a week. In a week, do I say? In three days! Just name the man."

Antonie quivered sharply and then sank with closed eyes, against the back of her chair. A dream of infinite bliss stole through her being.

Was there salvation for her in this world? Could this coa.r.s.e creature accomplish that in which beauty and refinement had failed?

Could she be saved from becoming a murderess? Would it be granted her to remain human, with a human soul and a human face?

But this was no time for tears or weakening.

With iron energy she summoned all her strength and quietude and wisdom. The moment was a decisive one.

When the last guests had gone and all servants, too, had gone to their rest, she called the waitress, with some jesting reproach, into her room.

A long whispered conversation followed. At its end the woman declared that the matter was child's play to her.

And did not suspect that by this game she was saving her life.

Chapter VII.

In hesitant incredulity Antonie awaited the things that were to come.

On the first day a staggering thing happened. The red-headed woman, scolding at the top of her voice, threw down a beer-gla.s.s at her master's feet, upon which he immediately gave her notice.

Toni's newly-awakened hope sank. The woman had boasted. And what was worse than all: if the final deed could be accomplished, her compact with the waitress would d.a.m.n her. The woman would of course use this weapon ruthlessly. The affair had never stood so badly.

But that evening she breathed again. For Weigand declared that the waitress seemed to have her good qualities too and her heart-felt prayers had persuaded him to keep her.

For several days nothing of significance took place except that Weigand, whenever he mentioned the waitress, peered curiously aside.

And this fact Toni interpreted in a favorable light.

Almost a week pa.s.sed. Then, one day, the waitress approached Toni at an unwonted hour.

"If you'll just peep into my room this afternoon...."

Toni followed directions.... The poor subst.i.tute crept down the stairs--caught and powerless. He followed his wife who knelt sobbing beside their bed. She was not to be comforted, nor to be moved. She repulsed him and wept and wept.

Weigand had never dreamed that he was so pa.s.sionately loved. The more violent was the anger of the deceived wife.... She demanded divorce, instant divorce....

He begged and besought and adjured. In vain.

Next he enlisted the sympathy of his father-in-law who had taken no great interest in the business during these years, but was content if the money he had invested in it paid the necessary six per cent. promptly.

The old man came immediately and made a scene with his recalcitrant daughter.... There was the splendid business and the heavy investment!

She was not to think that he would give her one extra penny. He would simply withdraw his capital and let her and the child starve.

Toni did not even deign to reply.

The suit progressed rapidly. The unequivocal testimony of the waitress rendered any protest nugatory.

Three months later Toni put her possessions on a train, took her child, whom the deserted father followed with an inarticulate moan, and travelled to Koenigsberg where she rented a small flat in order to await in quiet the reunion with her beloved.

The latter was trying to work up a practice in a village close to the Russian border. He wrote that things were going slowly and that, hence, he must be at his post night and day. So soon as he had the slightest financial certainty for his wife and child, he would come for them.

And so she awaited the coming of her life's happiness. She had little to do, and pa.s.sed many happy hours in imagining how he would rush in--by yonder pa.s.sage--through this very door--tall and slender and impa.s.sioned and press her to his wildly throbbing heart. And ever again, though she knew it to be a foolish dream, did she see the blue white golden scarf upon his chest and the blue and gold cap upon his blond curls.

Lonely widows--even those of the divorced variety--find friends and ready sympathy in the land of good hearts. But Antonie avoided everyone who sought her society. Under the ban of her great secret purpose she had ceased to regard men and women except as they could be turned into the instruments of her will. And her use for them was over. As for their merely human character and experience--Toni saw through these at once. And it all seemed to her futile and trivial in the fierce reflection of those infernal fires through which she had had to pa.s.s.

Adorned like a bride and waiting--thus she lived quietly and modestly on the means which her divorced husband--in order to keep his own head above water--managed to squeeze out of the business.

Suddenly her father died. People said that his death was due to unconquerable rage over her folly....

She buried him, bearing herself all the while with blameless filial piety and then awoke to the fact that she was rich.

She wrote to her beloved: "Don't worry another day. We are in a position to choose the kind of life that pleases us."

He wired back: "Expect me to-morrow."

Full of delight and anxiety she ran to the mirror and discovered for the thousandth time, that she was beautiful again. The results of poisoning had disappeared, crime and degradation had burned no marks into her face. She stood there--a ruler of life. Her whole being seemed sure of itself, kindly, open. Only the wild glance might, at times, betray the fact that there was much to conceal.

She kept wakeful throughout the night, as she had done through many another. Plan after plan pa.s.sed through her busy brain. It was with an effort that she realised the pa.s.sing of such grim necessities.