He had only one regret to interfere with his sleep and his digestion; he was sorry he had not fired his pistol into the youthful face of Nihla Quellen. He should have avenged himself, taken his chances, and above everything else he should have destroyed her beauty. His timidity and caution still caused him deep and bitter chagrin.
For nearly a year he heard absolutely nothing concerning her. Then one day a letter arrived from Ferez Bey through Max Freund, both being in New York. And when, using his key to the cipher, he extracted the message it contained, he had learned, among other things, that Nihla Quellen was in New York, employed as a teacher in a school for dancing.
The gist of his reply to Ferez Bey was that Nihla Quellen had already outlived her usefulness on earth, and that Max Freund should attend to the matter at the first favourable opportunity.
CHAPTER III
SUNSET
On the edge of evening she came out of the Palace of Mirrors and crossed the wet asphalt, which already reflected primrose lights from a clearing western sky.
A few moments before, he had been thinking of her, never dreaming that she was in America. But he knew her instantly, there amid the rush and clatter of the street, recognised her even in the twilight of the passing storm — perhaps not alone from the half-caught glimpse of her shadowy, averted face, nor even from that young, lissome figure so celebrated in Europe. There is a sixth sense — the sense of nearness to what is familiar. When it awakes we call it premonition.
The shock of seeing her, the moment’s exciting incredulity, passed before he became aware that he was already following her through swarming metropolitan throngs released from the toil of a long, wet day in early spring.
Through every twilit avenue poured the crowds; through every cross-street a rosy glory from the west was streaming; and in its magic he saw her immortally transfigured, where the pink light suffused the crossings, only to put on again her lovely mortality in the shadowy avenue.
At Times Square she turned west, straight into the dazzling fire of sunset, and he at her slender heels, not knowing why, not even asking it of himself, not thinking, not caring.
A third figure followed them both.
The bronze giants south of them stirred, swung their great hammers against the iron bell; strokes of the hour rang out above the din of Herald Square, inaudible in the traffic roar another square away, lost, drowned out long before the pleasant bell-notes penetrated to Forty-second Street, into which they both had turned.
Yet, as though occultly conscious that some hour had struck on earth, significant to her, she stopped, turned, and looked back — looked quite through him, seeing neither him nor the one-eyed man who followed them both — as though her line of vision were the East itself, where, across the grey sea’s peril, a thousand miles of cannon were sounding the hour from the North Sea to the Alps.
He passed her at her very elbow — aware of her nearness, as though suddenly close to a young orchard in April. The girl, too, resumed her way, unconscious of him, of his youthful face set hard with controlled emotion.
The one-eyed man followed them both.
A few steps further and she turned into the entrance to one of those sprawling, pretentious restaurants, the sham magnificence of which becomes grimy overnight. He halted, swung around, retraced his steps and followed her. And at his heels two shapes followed them very silently — her shadow and his own — so close together now, against the stucco wall that they seemed like Destiny and Fate linked arm in arm.
The one-eyed man halted at the door for a few moments. Then he, too, went in, dogged by his sinister shadow.
The red sunset’s rays penetrated to the rotunda and were quenched there in a flood of artificial light; and there their sun-born shadows vanished, and three strange new shadows, twisted and grotesque, took their places.
She continued on into the almost empty restaurant, looming dimly beyond. He followed; the one-eyed man followed both.
The place into which they stepped was circular, centred by a waterfall splashing over concrete rocks. In the ruffled pool goldfish glimmered, nearly motionless, and mandarin ducks floated, preening exotic plumage.
A wilderness of tables surrounded the pool, set for the expected patronage of the coming evening. The girl seated herself at one of these.
At the next table he found a place for himself, entirely unnoticed by her. The one-eyed man took the table behind them. A waiter presented himself to take her order; another waiter came up leisurely to attend to him. A third served the one-eyed man. There were only a few inches between the three tables. Yet the girl, deeply preoccupied, paid no attention to either man, although both kept their eyes on her.
But already, under the younger man’s spellbound eyes, an odd and unforeseen thing was occurring: he gradually became aware that, almost imperceptibly, the girl and the table where she sat, and the sleepy waiter who was taking her orders, were slowly moving nearer to him on a floor which was moving, too.
He had never before been in that particular restaurant, and it took him a moment or two to realise that the floor was one of those trick floors, the central part of which slowly revolves.
Her table stood on the revolving part of the floor, his upon fixed terrain; and he now beheld her moving toward him, as the circle of tables rotated on its axis, which was the waterfall and pool in the middle of the restaurant.
A few people began to arrive — theatrical people, who are obliged to dine early. Some took seats at tables placed upon the revolving section of the floor, others preferred the outer circles, where he sat in a fixed position.
Her table was already abreast of his, with only the circular crack in the floor between them; he could easily have touched her.
As the distance began to widen between them, the girl, her gloved hands clasped in her lap, and studying the table-cloth with unseeing gaze, lifted her dark eyes — looked at him without seeing, and once more gazed through him at something invisible upon which her thoughts remained fixed — something absorbing, vital, perhaps tragic — for her face had become as colourless, now, as one of those translucent marbles, vaguely warmed by some buried vein of rose beneath the snowy surface.
Slowly she was being swept away from him — his gaze following — hers lost in concentrated abstraction.
He saw her slipping away, disappearing behind the noisy waterfall. Around him the restaurant continued to fill, slowly at first, then more rapidly after the orchestra had entered its marble gallery.
The music began with something Russian, plaintive at first, then beguiling, then noisy, savage in its brutal precision — something sinister — a trampling melody that was turning into thunder with the throb of doom all through it. And out of the vicious, Asiatic clangour, from behind the dash of too obvious waterfalls, glided the girl he had followed, now on her way toward him again, still seated at her table, still gazing at nothing out of dark, unseeing eyes.
It seemed to him an hour before her table approached his own again. Already she had been served by a waiter — was eating.
He became aware, then, that somebody had also served him. But he could not even pretend to eat, so preoccupied was he by her approach.
Scarcely seeming to move at all, the revolving floor was steadily drawing her table closer and closer to his. She was not looking at the strawberries which she was leisurely eating — did not lift her eyes as her table swept smoothly abreast of his.
Scarcely aware that he spoke aloud, he said:
“Nihla — Nihla Quellen!...”
Like a flash the girl wheeled in her chair to face him. She had lost all her colour. Her fork had dropped and a blood-red berry rolled over the table-cloth toward him.
“I’m sorry,” he said, flushing. “I did not mean to startle you — —”
The girl did not utter a word, nor did she move; but in her dark eyes he seemed to see her every sense concentrated upon him to identify his features, made shadowy by the lighted candles behind his head.
By deg
rees, smoothly, silently, her table swept nearer, nearer, bringing with it her chair, her slender person, her dark, intelligent eyes, so unsmilingly and steadily intent on him.
He began to stammer:
“ — Two years ago — at — the Villa Tresse d’Or — on the Seine.... And we promised to see each other — in the morning — —”
She said coolly:
“My name is Thessalie Dunois. You mistake me for another.”
“No,” he said, in a low voice, “I am not mistaken.”
Her brown eyes seemed to plunge their clear regard into the depths of his very soul — not in recognition, but in watchful, dangerous defiance.
He began again, still stammering a trifle:
“ — In the morning, we were to — to meet — at eleven — near the fountain of Marie de Médicis — unless you do not care to remember — —”
At that her gaze altered swiftly, melted into the exquisite relief of recognition. Suspended breath, released, parted her blanched lips; her little guardian heart, relieved of fear, beat more freely.
“Are you Garry?”
“Yes.”
“I know you now,” she murmured. “You are Garret Barres, of the rue d’Eryx.... You are Garry!” A smile already haunted her dark young eyes; colour was returning to lip and cheek. She drew a deep, noiseless breath.
The table where she sat continued to slip past him; the distance between them was widening. She had to turn her head a little to face him.
“You do remember me then, Nihla?”
The girl inclined her head a trifle. A smile curved her lips — lips now vivid but still a little tremulous from the shock of the encounter.
“May I join you at your table?”
She smiled, drew a deeper breath, looked down at the strawberry on the cloth, looked over her shoulder at him.
“You owe me an explanation,” he insisted, leaning forward to span the increasing distance between them.
“Do I?”
“Ask yourself.”
After a moment, still studying him, she nodded as though the nod answered some silent question of her own:
“Yes, I owe you one.”
“Then may I join you?”
“My table is more prudent than I. It is running away from an explanation.” She fixed her eyes on her tightly clasped hands, as though to concentrate thought. He could see only the back of her head, white neck and lovely dark hair.
Her table was quite a distance away when she turned, leisurely, and looked back at him.
“May I come?” he asked.
She lifted her delicate brows in demure surprise.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” she said, amiably.
The one-eyed man had never taken his eyes off them.
CHAPTER IV
DUSK
She had offered him her hand; he had bent over it, seated himself, and they smilingly exchanged the formal banalities of a pleasantly renewed acquaintance.
A waiter laid a cover for him. She continued to concern herself, leisurely, with her strawberries.
“When did you leave Paris?” she enquired.
“Nearly two years ago.”
“Before war was declared?”
“Yes, in June of that year.”
She looked up at him very seriously; but they both smiled as she said:
“It was a momentous month for you then — the month of June, 1914?”
“Very. A charming young girl broke my heart in 1914; and so I came home, a wreck — to recuperate.”
At that she laughed outright, glancing at his youthful, sunburnt face and lean, vigorous figure.
“When did you come over?” he asked curiously.
“I have been here longer than you have. In fact, I left France the day I last saw you.”
“The same day?”
“I started that very same day — shortly after sunrise. I crossed the Belgian frontier that night, and I sailed for New York the morning after. I landed here a week later, and I’ve been here ever since. That, monsieur, is my history.”
“You’ve been here in New York for two years!” he repeated in astonishment. “Have you really left the stage then? I supposed you had just arrived to fill an engagement here.”
“They gave me a try-out this afternoon.”
“You? A try-out!” he exclaimed, amazed.
She carelessly transfixed a berry with her fork:
“If I secure an engagement I shall be very glad to fill it ... and my stomach, also. If I don’t secure one — well — charity or starvation confronts me.”
He smiled at her with easy incredulity.
“I had not heard that you were here!” he repeated. “I’ve read nothing at all about you in the papers — —”
“No ... I am here incognito.... I have taken my sister’s name. After all, your American public does not know me.”
“But — —”
“Wait! I don’t wish it to know me!”
“But if you — —”
The girl’s slight gesture checked him, although her smile became humorous and friendly:
“Please! We need not discuss my future. Only the past!” She laughed: “How it all comes back to me now, as you speak — that crazy evening of ours together! What children we were — two years ago!”
Smilingly she clasped her hands together on the table’s edge, regarding him with that winning directness which was a celebrated part of her celebrated personality; and happened to be natural to her.
“Why did I not recognise you immediately?” she demanded of herself, frowning in self-reproof. “I am stupid! Also I have, now and then, thought about you — —” She shrugged her shoulders, and again her face faltered subtly:
“Much has happened to distract my memories,” she added carelessly, impaling a strawberry, “ — since you and I took the key to the fields and the road to the moon — like the pair of irresponsibles we were that night in June.”
“Have you really had trouble?”
Her slim figure straightened as at a challenge, then became adorably supple again; and she rested her elbows on the table’s edge and took her cheeks between her hands.
“Trouble?” she repeated, studying his face. “I don’t know that word, trouble. I don’t admit such a word to the honour of my happy vocabulary.”
They both laughed a little.
She said, still looking at him, and at first speaking as though to herself:
“Of course, you are that same, delightful Garry! My youthful American accomplice!... Quite unspoiled, still, but very, very irresponsible ... like all painters — like all students. And the mischief which is in me recognised the mischief in you, I suppose.... I did surprise you that night, didn’t I?... And what a night! What a moon! And how we danced there on the wet lawn until my skirts and slippers and stockings were drenched with dew!... And how we laughed! Oh, that full-hearted, full-throated laughter of ours! How wonderful that we have lived to laugh like that! It is something to remember after death. Just think of it! — you and I, absolute strangers, dancing every dance there in the drenched grass to the music that came through the open windows.... And do you remember how we hid in the flowering bushes when my sister and the others came out to look for me? How they called, ‘Nihla! Nihla! Little devil, where are you?’ Oh, it was funny — funny! And to see him come out on the lawn — do you remember? He looked so fat and stupid and anxious and bad-tempered! And you and I expiring with stifled laughter! And he, with his sash, his decorations and his academic palms! He’d have shot us both, you know....”
They were laughing unrestrainedly now at the memory of that impossible night a year ago; and the girl seemed suddenly transformed into an irresponsible gamine of eighteen. Her eyes grew brighter with mischief and laughter — laughter, the greatest magician and doctor emeritus of them all! The immortal restorer of youth and beauty.
Bluish shadows had gone from under her lower lashes; her eyes were starry as a child’s.
“Oh, Garry
,” she gasped, laying one slim hand across his on the table-cloth, “it was one of those encounters — one of those heavenly accidents that reconcile one to living.... I think the moon had made me a perfect lunatic.... Because you don’t yet know what I risked.... Garry!... It ruined me — ruined me utterly — our night together under the June moon!”
“What!” he exclaimed, incredulously.
But she only laughed her gay, undaunted little laugh:
“It was worth it! Such moments are worth anything we pay for them! I laughed; I pay. What of it?”
“But if I am partly responsible I wish to know — —”
“You shall know nothing about it! As for me, I care nothing about it. I’d do it again to-night! That is living — to go forward, laugh, and accept what comes — to have heart enough, gaiety enough, brains enough to seize the few rare dispensations that the niggardly gods fling across this calvary which we call life! Tenez, that alone is living; the rest is making the endless stations on bleeding knees.”
“Yet, if I thought—” he began, perplexed and troubled, “ — if I thought that through my folly — —”
“Folly! Non pas! Wisdom! Oh, my blessed accomplice! And do you remember the canoe? Were we indeed quite mad to embark for Paris on the moonlit Seine, you and I? — I in evening gown, soaked with dew to the knees! — you with your sketching block and easel! Quelle déménagement en famille! Oh, Garry, my friend of gayer days, was that really folly! No, no, no, it was infinite wisdom; and its memory is helping me to live through this very moment!”
She leaned there on her elbows and laughed across the cloth at him. The mockery began to dance again and glimmer in her eyes:
“After all I’ve told you,” she added, “you are no wiser, are you? You don’t know why I never went to the Fountain of Marie de Médicis — whether I forgot to go — whether I remembered but decided that I had had quite enough of you. You don’t know, do you?”
He shook his head, smiling. The girl’s face grew gradually serious:
“And you never heard anything more about me?” she demanded.
“No. Your name simply disappeared from the billboards, kiosques, and newspapers.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 861