The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne Part 29

Ha! Twin purveyors of the milk of paradise, I wonder like Omar what you buy one-half so precious as the stuff you sell. Motor-cars for Mrs.

Pommery and cakes for the little Grenos? I do not like to regard you as common humans addicted to silk hats and umbrellas and the other vices of respectability. Ye are rather beneficent demiG.o.ds, Castor and Pollux of the vine, dream ent.i.ties who pour from the sunset lands of Nowhere the liquid gold of life's joyousness.

A few words scribbled on this telegraph form would bring her here tomorrow night. But no. What is a week? Leaden-footed, it is an eternity; but winged with the dove's iris it is a mere moment. Besides, I must accustom myself to my youth. I must investigate its follies, I must learn the grammar of its wisdom. We'll take counsel together, Polyphemus, how to turn these chambers, fusty with decayed thought, into a bridal bower radiant and fragrant with innumerable loves. Let us drink again to her witchery. It is her breath itself distilled by the Heavenly Twins that foams against my lips. I would give the soul out of my body to marry her, did I say? It were like buying her for a farthing. I would pledge the soul of the universe for a kiss.

I catch up Polyphemus under the arm-pits, and his hind legs dangle. He continues to lick his chops and looks at me sardonically. He is stolid over his cups--which is somewhat disappointing. No matter; he can be shaken into enthusiasm.

"I care not," I cry, "for man or devil, Polyphemus.

_'Que je suis grand ici! mon amour de feu Va de pair cette nuit avec celui de Dieu!'_

You may say that it's wrong, that the first line is a syllable short, and that Triboulet said _'colere'_ instead of _amour_. You always were a dry-as-dust, pedantic prig. But I say _amour_-love, do you hear? I'll translate, if you like:

'Now am I mighty, and my love of fire To-night goes even with a G.o.d's desire.'

Yes; I'll be a poet even though you do scratch my wrist with your hind claws, Polyphemus."

There! Empty your milk-jug and I will empty my bottle. The wine smells of hyacinth. It is a revelation. Her hair smells of violets, but it is the delicate odour of hyacinth that came from her bare young arms when she clasped them round my neck; _et sa peau, on dirait du satin_.

Carlotta is in the wine, Carlotta with her sorcery and her laughter and her youth, and I drink Carlotta.

_"Quo me rapis Bacche pienum tui?"_

To such a land of dreams, my one-eyed friend, as never before have I visited. You yawn? You are bored? I shoot the dregs of my gla.s.s into his distended jaws. He springs away spitting and coughing, and I lie back in my chair convulsed with inextinguishable laughter.

October 2d.

I have suffered all day from a racking headache, having awakened at six o'clock and crept shivering to bed. I realise that Pommery and Greno are not demi-G.o.ds at all, but mere commercial purveyors of a form of alcohol, a quart of which it is injudicious to imbibe, with a one-eyed tom-cat as boon companion, at two o'clock in the morning:

But I am unrepentant. If I committed follies last night, so much the better. I struggle no longer against the inevitable, when the inevitable is the crown and joy of earthly things. For in sober truth I love her infinitely.

October 6th.

She comes back to-morrow. Antoinette and I have been devising a welcome.

The good soul has filled the house with flowers, and, usurping Stenson's functions, has polished furniture and book backs and silver and has hung fresh blinds and scrubbed and scoured until I am afraid to walk about or sit down lest I should tarnish the spotless brightness of my surroundings.

"You have forgotten one thing, Antoinette," I remarked, satirically.

"You have omitted to strew the front steps with rose-leaves."

"I would cover them with my body for the dear angel to walk upon as she entered," said Antoinette.

"That would scarcely be rose-leaves," I murmured.

Antoinette laughed. "And Monsieur then! He is just as bad. Has he not put new curtains in the room of Mademoiselle, and a new toilette table, and a set of silver brushes and combs and I know not what, as for the toilette of a princess? And the eiderdown in pink satin? _Regardez-moi ca!_ Monsieur can no longer say that it is I alone who spoil the dear angel."

"Monsieur," said I, at a loss for a better retort, "will say whatever Monsieur pleases."

"It is indeed the right of Monsieur," said Antoinette, respectfully, but with a twinkle in her eye not devoid of significance.

Does the crafty old woman suspect? Perhaps my preparations for Carlotta's return have been inordinate, for they have extended to the transformation of the sitting-room downstairs into a lady's boudoir.

I have been busy this happy week. But what care I? It will not be long before I have to say to her, "Antoinette, there is going to be a wedding."

I must be on my guard lest, in the transports of her joy, she clasp me to her capacious bosom!

CHAPTER XIV

October 7th.

At Paddington I came upon Sebastian Pasquale lounging about the arrival platform. As I had not seen or heard of him since the end of July I had concluded that he was wandering as usual over the globe. He greeted me effusively, holding out both hands in his foreign fashion.

"My dear old Ordeyne! who would have thought of meeting you here? What wind blows you to Paddington?"

"I expect Carlotta by the Plymouth Express."

"The fair Carlotta? And how is she? And what is she doing at Plymouth?"

In the middle of my explanation he pulled out his watch.

"By Jove! I must get to the next platform and catch my train to Ealing.

I was just killing time about the station. I like seeing a train come in--the gleam and smoke and rush and whirr of the evil-looking thing--and the sudden metamorphosis of its sleek sides into mouths belching forth humanity. I think of Hades. This, by the way, isn't a bad representation of it--the up-to-date Hades. They've got a railway bridge now across the Styx, and Charon has a gold band around his cap, and this might be the arrival platform of the d.a.m.ned souls."

"You forget," said I, "that it is the arrival platform of Carlotta."

He threw back his head and laughed boyishly.

"Well, consider it the Golden Gate terminus of the 'Earth, Hades and Olympus Railway' if you like. I'm off on a branch line to meet a beauteous d.u.c.h.essa at Ealing--oh, an authentic one, I a.s.sure you."

"Why should I doubt it?" said I.

Stenson, whom I had brought to look after Carlotta's luggage, came up and touched his hat.

"Train just signalled, sir."

Pasquale put out his hand after another glance at his watch.

"I am sorry I cannot wait to greet the fair one. I'll drop in soon and pay my respects. I am only just back in London, you know. _A rivederci._"

He waved me farewell and hurried off. The arrival of the train, the exuberance of Carlotta, the joy of having her sidle up against me once more in the cab while she poured out her story, and the subsequent gaiety of the evening banished Pasquale from my mind. But it is odd that I should have met him at Paddington.

We parted on the landing to dress for dinner. A moment afterwards there was a beating at my door. I opened it to behold Carlotta, in a glow of wondering delight, brandishing a silver-backed brush in one hand and the hand-mirror in the other.

"Oh, my darling Seer Marcous! For me? All that for me?"

"No. It is for Antoinette," said I.