The Wages of Virtue Part 27

He turned into Carmelita's alley and entered the Cafe.

Carmelita, whose eyes had rarely left the door throughout the evening, saw him as he entered, and her face lit up as does a lantern when the wick is kindled. Here was her n.o.ble and beautiful Luigi. Away with all wicked doubts and fears. Even the good Jean Boule was prejudiced against her Luigi She would now hear his version of the discovery of the Russian girl. How amused he would be to know that she had guessed Mikhail's secret long ago.

Rivoli pa.s.sed behind the bar. Carmelita held open the door of her room, and having closed it behind him, turned and flung her arms round his neck.

"Marito amato!" she murmured as she kissed him again and again. How could she entertain these doubts of her Luigi in his absence? She was a wicked, wicked girl, and undeserving of her fortune in having so glorious a mate. She decided to utter no reproaches and ask no questions concerning the discovery of the Russian girl. She would just tell him that she had taken her in and that she counted on his help in keeping the girl's secret and getting her away.

"Beloved and beautiful Luigi of my heart," she said, as she placed a steaming dish of macaroni before him, "I want your help once more. That poor, foolish, little Mikhail Kyrilovitch has come and told me he is in trouble, and begged my help. Fancy his thinking he could lead the life that my Luigi leads--that of a soldier of France's fiercest Regiment.

Poor little fool.... Guess where he is at this moment, Luigi."

With his mouth full, the n.o.ble Luigi intimated that he knew not, cared not, and desired not to know.

"I will tell my lord," murmured Carmelita, bending over his lordship's huge and brawny shoulder, and kissing the tip of the ear into which she whispered, "He is in my bed."

Luigi had to think quickly. How much had the Russian girl told of what had happened in the wash-house? Nothing, or Carmelita would not be in this frame of mind. What did Carmelita know? Did she know that _he_ knew? He sprang to his feet with an oath, and a well-a.s.sumed glare of ferocity. He raised his fist above his head, and by holding his breath, contrived to induce a dark flush and raise the veins upon his forehead.

"In your bed, _puttana_?" he hissed. (Carmelita was overjoyed, Luigi was angered and jealous. Where there is jealousy, there is love! Of course, Luigi loved her as he had always done. How dared she doubt it?

Throwing her arms around his neck with a happy laugh, she rea.s.sured her ruffled mate until he permitted himself to calm down and resume his interrupted meal. Jean Boule had lied to her! Luigi knew nothing!...) She went to the bar.

Curse this Russian anarchist! But for her he would not have been in danger of losing Madame, nor of finding a violent death. Curse Carmelita, the stupid fool, for harbouring her. What should he do?

What could he say? If he thwarted Carmelita's plan, she would think he desired the Russian wench for himself, and fly into a rage. She would be a very fiend from h.e.l.l if she were jealous! A pretty pa.s.s he would be brought to if both Canteen and Cafe were closed to him! He had better walk warily here, until he had ascertained the exact amount of damage he had done by his most unwise allusion to Madame's whiskers.

(Never tell a cross-eyed man he squints.) But he must get even with this Russian she-devil who had thwarted him in the lavatory, struck him across the face, humiliated him before the Englishman, ruined his prestige with his comrades and Madame, and brought him to the brink of an abyss of danger.... He had an idea.... When Carmelita came into the room again from the bar, she should have the shock of her life, and the Russian _puttana_, another. Also the over-clever Jean Boule should learn that the race is not always to the slow, nor the battle to the weak.... Carmelita entered. Picking up his kepi, he extended his arms, and with a smile of lofty sadness, bade her come and kiss him while she might....

_While she might_! Carmelita turned pale, and Doubt again reared its horrid head. Was this his way of beginning some tale concerning separation? Some tale in which Madame la Cantiniere's name would appear sooner or later? By the Blessed Virgin and the Holy Bambino, she would tear the eyes from Luigi Rivoli's head, before they should look on that French _meretrice_ as his wife.

"While I may? Why do you say that, Luigi?" she asked in a dead voice.

The ruffian felt uncomfortable as he watched those great, black eyes blazing in the pinched, blanched face, and realised that there were depths in Carmelita that he had not sounded--and would be ill-advised to sound. What a devil she looked! Luigi Rivoli would do well to eat no food to which Carmelita had had access, when once she knew the truth.

Luigi Rivoli would do well to watch warily, and, move quickly, should Carmelita's hand go to the dagger in her garter when he told her that he was thinking of settling in life. In fact it was a question whether his life would be safe, so long as Carmelita was in Sidi-bel-Abbes, and he was the husband of Madame! Another idea! _Madre de Dios_! A brilliant one. Denounce Carmelita for aiding and abetting a deserter! Two birds with one stone--Carmelita jailed and deported, and the Russian recaptured--Luigi Rivoli rid of a danger from the one, and gratified by a vengeance on the other! As these thoughts flashed through the Italian's evil mind, he maintained his pose, and gently and sadly shook his head.

"While you may, indeed, my Carmelita," he murmured, and produced the first of his brilliant ideas. "While you may. Do not think I reproach you, Carmelita, for you have acted but in accordance with the dictates of your warm young heart in taking in this girl. How were _you_ to know that this would involve me in a duel to the death with the finest shot in the Nineteenth Division, the most famous marksman in the army of Africa?"

"What?" gasped Carmelita.

"What I say, my poor girl," was the reply, uttered with calm dignity.

"Your English friend, this Jean Boule, who fears to meet me face to face, and man to man, with Nature's weapons, has forced a quarrel on me over this Russian girl. He challenged me in the Canteen this night, and I, who could break him like a dried stick, must stand up to be shot by him, like a dog.... I do not blame _you_, Carmelita. How were you to know?..."

Carmelita suddenly sat down.

"I do not understand," she whispered and sat agape.

"The Englishman owns this girl...."

"He brought her here," Carmelita interrupted, nodding her head.

"Ha! I guessed it.... Yes, he owns her, and when I discovered the shameless _puttana's_ s.e.x he drew a pistol on me, an innocent, unarmed man.... Did he tell you it was I who found the shameful hussy out? What could I do against him empty-handed? ... And now I must fight him--and he can put a bullet where he will.... So kiss me, while you may, Carmelita."

With a low cry the girl sprang into his arms.

"My love! My love! My husband!" she wailed, and Luigi hoped that she would release her clasp from about his neck in time for him to avoid suffocation.... Curse all women--they were the cause of nine-tenths of the sorrows of mankind. But one could not do without them.... Suddenly Carmelita started back, and clapped her hands with a cry of glee. "The Holy Virgin be praised! I have it! I have it! Unless Legionnaire Jean Boule confesses his fault and begs my Luigi's pardon--out into the gutter goes his Russian mistress," and Carmelita pirouetted with joy....

Thank G.o.d! Thank G.o.d! Here was a solution, and she embraced her lover again and again. Luigi's face was wreathed in smiles. _Excellente_!

That would do the trick admirably, and the thrice-accursed, and ten-times-too-clever English _aristocratico_ should publicly apologise, if he wished to save his mistress.... Yes, that would be very much pleasanter than a mere stab-in-the-back revenge, as well as safer.

There is always some slight risk, even in Sidi-bel-Abbes, about arranging a murder, and blackmail is always unpleasant--for the blackmailed. Ho-ho! Ho-ho! Only to think of the cold and haughty Englishman publicly apologising and begging Luigi, of his mercifulness, to cancel the duel. _Corpo di Bacco_, he should do it on his knees.

"Rivoli the Coward," forsooth, and what of "Jean Boule the Coward,"

after this? ... Yes; Jean Boule defeated, the Russian girl denounced when clear of Carmelita's Cafe, if Madame proved unkind, and denounced in the Cafe together with Carmelita if Madame accepted him. He himself need not appear personally in the matter at all. And when Carmelita was jailed or deported, and the Russian girl sent to Biribi, or turned into a _figlia del reggimento_, the Englishman should still get it in the back one dark night--and Signor Luigi Rivoli would wax fat behind Madame's bar, until his five years' service was completed and he could live happy ever after, upon the earnings of Madame....

Stroking her hair, he smiled superior upon Carmelita.

"A clever thought, my little one," he murmured, "and bravely meant, but your Luigi's days are numbered. Would that proud, cold _aristocratico_ eat the words he shouted before half the Company? No! He will leave the girl to shift for herself."

Carmelita's face fell.

"Do not say so," she begged. "No! No! He would not do that. You know how these English treat women. You know the sort of man this Jean Boule is," and for a moment, involuntarily, Carmelita contrasted her Luigi with Il Signor Jean Boule in the matter of their chivalry and honour, and ere she could thrust the thought from her mind, she had realised the comparison to be unfavourable to her lover.

"Luigi," she said, "I feel it in my heart that, since the Englishman has said that he will save his mistress, he will do it at any cost whatsoever to himself.... Go, dearest Luigi, go now, and I will send to him, and say I must see him at once. He will surely come, thinking that I send on behalf of this Russian fool."

And with a last vehement embrace and burning kiss, she thrust him before her into the bar and watched him out of the Cafe.

Le Legionnaire Jean Boule was not among the score or so of Legionaries who sat drinking at the little tables, nor were either of his friends.

Whom could she send? Was that funny English _ribaldo_, Legionnaire Erbiggin, there? ... No.... Ah!--There sat the poor Gra.s.shopper. He would do. She made her way with laugh and jest and badinage to where he sat, _faisant Suisse_ as usual.

"Bonsoir, cher Monsieur Cigale," she said. "Would you do me a kindness?"

The Gra.s.shopper rose, thrust his hands up the sleeves of his tunic as far as his elbows, bowed three times, and then knelt upon the ground and smote it thrice with his forehead. Rising, he poured forth a torrent of some language entirely unknown to Carmelita.

"Speak French or Italian, cher Monsieur Cigale," she said.

"A thousand pardons, Signora," replied the Gra.s.shopper. "But you will admit it is not usual for a Mandarin of the Highest b.u.t.ton to speak French. I was saying that the true kindness would be your allowing me to do you a kindness. May I doom your _wonk_[#] of an enemy to the death of the Thousand Cuts?"

[#] Chinese pariah dog.

"Not this evening, dear Mandarin, thank you," replied Carmelita; "but you can carry a message of the highest military importance. It is well known that you are a soldier of soldiers, and have never yet failed in any military duty."

The Mandarin bowed thrice.

"Will you go straight and find le Legionnaire Jean Boule of your Company, and tell him to come to me at once. Say Carmelita sent you and tell him you have the countersign:--'Our Ally, Russia, is in danger!'"

"I am honoured and I fly," was the reply. "I will send no official of the Yamen, but go myself. Should the Po Sing, they of the Hundred Names, the [Greek: _hoi polloi_], beset my path I will cry, '_Sha!

Sha!_--Kill! Kill!--and scatter them before me. Should the _kwei tzu_, the Head Dragon from h.e.l.l, or the Military Police (and they are _tung yen_ you know--of the same race and tarred with the same brush) impede me, they too shall die the death of the Wire Net," and the Gra.s.shopper placed his kepi on his head.

Carmelita knew that John Bull would be with her that evening, and that the risk of eight days' _salle de police_, for being out after tattoo, would not deter him.

In a fever of anxiety, impatience, hope and fear, Carmelita paced up and down behind her bar, like a panther in its cage. One thought shone brightly on the troubled turmoil of her soul. Luigi loved her still; Luigi so loved her that he had been ready to strike her dead as the tide of jealousy surged in his soul. That was the sort of love that Carmelita understood. Let him take her by the throat until she choked--let him seize her by the hair and drag her round the room--let him stab her in the breast, so it be for jealousy. Better Luigi's knife in Carmelita's throat than Luigi's lips on Madame's face. Thank G.o.d!

Luigi had suffered those pangs--on hearing of a Russian boy in her room--that she herself had suffered on hearing Malvin and the rest couple Luigi's name with Madame's. Thank G.o.d! that Luigi knew jealousy even as she did herself. Where there is jealousy, there is love....

And then Carmelita struck her forehead with her clenched fists and laid her head upon her folded arms with a piteous groan. Luigi had been acting. Luigi had _pretended_ that jealousy of the Russian. Luigi knew Mikhail Kyrilovitch was a girl--he had fooled her, and once again doubt raised its cruel head in Carmelita's poor distracted mind. "Oh Luigi!