The Song of the Blood-Red Flower Part 35

"No. Wouldn't even kiss me."

"Aha. So you made love to another girl, and then she threw you over--that was it, I'm sure."

"Right again! Yes--made love to another girl--that was it. And quite enough too."

"Oh, it's always the way with--well, that sort of girls. They don't understand how to make love a bit. There's heaps of love to be had, if you only know where to look for it."

They both laughed--the girl in easy, teasing gaiety, Olof still thankful at finding it so easy to suit himself to his company.

"What'll you have to drink? Sherry, madeira, or stout, perhaps? I like sherry best."

"Let's have all three!" cried Olof.

"That'll be twenty, please." He gave her the money and she slipped from the room.

Olof looked round. How was this going to end? He was thankful at any rate that the room was neatly, almost tastefully furnished, and that the girl was so easy to talk to.

The bottles and gla.s.ses were brought in. "Here's to us both!" cried the girl, lifting her gla.s.s with an enticing glance.

They drank--it was the first time Olof had ever tasted wine. And all the bitterness and unrest in his soul seemed drowned at once.

"I say--is this your first time?" The girl explained her question with a meaning glance.

"Yes." The word stuck in his throat. "Have some more to drink," he added hastily.

"That's right!" The gla.s.ses rang. "Got any cigarettes?"

Each lit a cigarette. The girl leaned back in a careless posture, throwing one leg over the other, and watched the smoke curling up in the air.

"First-rate inst.i.tution, isn't it?" she said, with a laugh. "Sort of public sanatorium--though the fools of police or Government or whatever you call it won't make it free. All you men come here when you're tired and worried and ill, and we cure you--isn't that it?"

"I dare say...."

"But it is, though, take my word for it. How'd you ever get on without us, d'you think? Like fish out of water! And yet we're reckoned as outcasts and all that. Devil take all your society women, I say.

There's one I see pa.s.s by every day, a judge's wife, haughty and stuck up as a weatherc.o.c.k on a church spire. Think she'd look at one of us?

But her husband, bless you, he...."

"For Heaven's sake talk of something else," cried Olof. He swallowed a gla.s.s of sherry to cover his disgust.

"Eh? Oh, all right, anything you please. Sing you a song if you like.

What d'you say to that."

"Yes, but nothing...."

"Not a word. Dainty little song. Here you are:

"'Here's a corner for you and me, Room for two--but not for three!

A gla.s.s for each within easy reach...

Just the place for a spree!'"

"How's that? Quite nice, isn't it?"

"Go on." Olof settled down more comfortably there was something pleasantly fascinating in the dance-like rhythm of the song.

"Cushions are soft, and curtains hide,-- What would somebody say if they spied?

Kisses and laughter--and what comes after...?

Ah.... You never know till you've tried!"

Olof could not help laughing.

They sat laughing and talking and telling stories--the girl was never silent for a moment. The gla.s.ses were filled and emptied, the smoke grew thicker.

"Oh ... it's too hot. I'm stifling with all these things on!" The girl rose to her feet, her eyes glittered, her cheeks were flushed with wine. "I'll be back in a second." And she slipped through into the adjoining room.

"Do, if you like." Olof sank back idly on the sofa, watching the smoke from his cigarette thoughtfully. Still he was not quite at home in the place.

The girl came in like a vision, tripping daintily in light slippers, her arms bare to the shoulder, her body scarcely veiled by the thinnest, transparent wrap.

"Oh!" Olof could not repress an exclamation.

"Aha...!" The girl laughed mischievously. Watching his face with a coquettish smile, she lifted one foot gracefully on to the sofa, and leaned towards him, her eyes boldly questioning.

Olof felt his senses in a whirl. He saw in her a mingling of human being, beast and angel, of slave and mistress--a creature fascinating and enticing, bewitching, ensnaring. But only for a moment. His mood changed to one of fury at his own susceptibility; the burning thirst in the girl's eyes, the fumes of wine in her breath, repelled him.

"Sit down and drink--and let that be enough!" He s.n.a.t.c.hed a bottle hastily and filled the gla.s.ses to the brim.

"Ho!" said the girl, with a stare. "Drink--is that all you've come for?"

"Yes!"

She stepped down from the sofa, her features quivering with scorn.

"Well, you're a nice one, you are. If they were all like that--drink and pay the bill and off again--and not so much as a ... well, you're the first I've met of that sort--hope you'll enjoy it!"

She drank, and set down the gla.s.s, a sneer still quivering about the corners of her mouth.

Then, leaning her elbows on the table, she gazed at him thoughtfully under her lowered lashes. Olof smoked furiously, till his cigarette looked like a streak of fire.

The girl sat down on the sofa, at the farther end, and went on with a maudlin tenderness in her voice:

"Why are you like that--a man like you? I wouldn't now for money, whatever you offered me. Can't you see I'm in love with you? Or d'you suppose perhaps a girl--a girl in a place like this--can't love? Ah, but she can, and more than any of the other sort, maybe. I'd like to love a real man just for once--I've had enough of beasts. Stay with me to-night--won't you...?"

Olof shuddered in disgust.

"Drink!" he cried. "Drink, and don't sit there talking nonsense."

Then again a revulsion seized him, and with a feeling of despair and weakness, he went on: