“I am a classy, two-handed little champion myself,” said Flick, shaking his head; “but I’ve got to sleep once in three days to get the kinks out of my hair. I’ve seen some tough ones in my day, but my hat’s off to this one!”
“He can’t go on this way forever,” said Tootles, seriously.
“Right! There’s a smash-up coming soon,” said O’Leary laconically. “I know the signs.”
And then a curious interruption occurred.
They were all in Dangerfield’s studio, about eleven o’clock one night—a mixed group, for Dangerfield and Flick, in the wanderings of the night before, had been seized with the idea of giving a boxing carnival and had annexed two ornaments of the profession, Spike Feeley and Gumbo Rickey, who knew Flick of old. In order to impress Tootles, Flick had plotted a dramatic finale, in which, after the professionals had disposed of the amateurs, they were to go down before the might of his thin arms. Unfortunately, the imminence of this conclusion and the slight floating doubt which always accompanies trafficking with men of lower ethical standards had so weighed upon Flick that he had resorted to much artificial encouragement, until by the time Spike Feeley had floored Drinkwater (which was part of the program) and King O’Leary and Gumbo Rickey had slugged each other to their hearts’ content, Flick, the coming champion, was heard to whisper to his antagonist:
“First time—down—you down; make sure—see!”
Spike, to the honor of the profession, carried out his part of the contract to the extent of going down under the first assault, with a realistic imitation of unconsciousness. Unfortunately, Flick went down also, and, going down, stayed there; so that a new record was established in the annals of the fistic art by the spectacle of both men knocked out by one blow. When the laughter and confusion had subsided, Dangerfield made up his mind suddenly to put on the gloves. Until now, though he had fenced several bouts with Mr. Cornelius, who wielded the rapier with surprising dexterity, Dangerfield had never boxed; but something in the joyful fury of O’Leary’s bout had sent the fighting blood coursing in him. He stripped to the waist, and, in the glare of the top light which cut its brilliant circle through the obscurity of the farther room, his body came out impressively, muscled and knitted, despite the loose coating of flesh that lay over it.
“Look out for yourself, Spike!” he said suddenly, as Feeley slouched into a lazy, receptive attitude; and the joy with which his voice rang warned them that he could box.
Feeley came forward languidly with an orthodox feint. Dangerfield walked into him and drove a hard left straight to the face that sent the professional back with a rude jar and a quick flash of temper.
“All right, if that’s the way ye’s fightin’,” he said, and he came back crouching, with chin thrust out.
“I told you to look out,” said Dangerfield, laughing, and the next moment they were at it, back and forth, hammer and tongs, fast and heavy.
In the long run, condition must, of course, have told, though, to be fair, the professional, too, had been in the cups that night; but at a quick, mixing scrap, Dangerfieldhad him at his mercy. There was something ferocious in the way he plunged in, as though reveling in the opportunity of throwing off the tension under which he had struggled—a certain wild delight in the clash of bodies which caused the on-lookers to watch him a little apprehensively. He caught hard smashes with a reckless laugh, giving in kind. Once he went reeling against the old Roman chest and almost over, but he steadied himself and fought back, rocking the other man under the impact of his blows. It was no tame boxing exhibition but a fight for blood by now, and the spectators were on their feet, shouting in excitement, Drinkwater quite beside himself with curiosity and satisfaction at his host’s exhibition. A blow caught Feeley full on the head; he staggered, and Dangerfield stepped in with a mighty drive at the body which lifted him off the floor and flung him crashing into a pile of copper plaques that went clanging in every direction.... And at that precise moment the door opened and a woman stood looking in. Feeley, bounding up, came rushing in furiously, but Dangerfield stopped him with a quick oath, and he turned, gazing, too, at the tall figure, purposely concealed in furs and heavy veils.
There was a silence as flat as a calm in a gale. Each recognized at once that it was a woman of the world and that she had the right to be there, and drew back so as to leave the room to the two figures: the woman drawn up scornfully against the door, and Dangerfield, with his lips twitching and his curious bearlike stare, facing her, with the white lights running over his glistening neck and torso. It was a hard moment for him, and those who knew the man wondered into what paroxysm of anger he might go. In the end the breeding in him won out, and though his rage flashed up at the position into which she had put him, he held himself in fairly well. Fortunately,as he was standing there, seeking an excuse, King O’Leary came to his assistance.
“Better clear out, you fellows,” he sang out; and with that, like a herd of huddling sheep, awkwardly and nervously, they crowded out of the room, suddenly quieted and sobered. King O’Leary, who came last, closed the door, leaving Dangerfield alone with the woman, who, by the possessive assurance of her attitude, they instinctively divined must be his wife.
This dramatic interruption made a tremendous commotion. The party broke up instantly. O’Leary, who had been watching Drinkwater from the moment Dangerfield had put on the gloves, purposely left the door of their room open into the hall.
“What’s going on there is no business of ours,” he said grimly. “I propose to keep it so.”
Sure enough, presently along came Drinkwater, head down, as though unaware of the open door.
“Hey, there!”
At O’Leary’s call, the elongated figure pulled up abruptly, and Drinkwater’s gipsy face loomed high in the door-frame.
“Yes?” he said, blowing nervously through his nose. “What is it?”
“I say, Drinkwater, better keep away from that end of the hall,” said O’Leary casually. “You see, you might overhear something you oughtn’t to.”
Drinkwater looked around with an excellent simulation of surprise.
“Really?” he said affably. “I wasn’t noticing. Good-night.” With which, smiling, he moved away, and quite casually he reached out and closed the door.
O’Leary, whistling to himself, rose and opened it again, saying sarcastically:
“Now, wasn’t that cute of him!”
Presently, just as he had expected, Drinkwater came by the door again.
“Hey, there!”
The lawyer stopped, but this time there was no smile on his face.
“Well, what is it?” he said curtly.
“Told you to keep away from this end—savvy?” said O’Leary, looking at him.
“I do not recognize, O’Leary,” said the lawyer, puffing after every third word, and speaking as though he were addressing the court, “any right of yours to tell me what I should do.”
“You don’t? Well, I do. What’s going on in there is nothing in your life, old horse, so I’ve just made up my mind to sit here and see that no little five-dollar lawyer goes soft-footing it down there to sneak around. You see, Drinkwater, I’m on to your game.”
“What do you mean?” said the other, quietly enough, though his fingers were twitching at the hem of his coat.
“Think it over,” said O’Leary. “I’m not at all certain that this isn’t some of your work to-night. But you heard what I said. Now, git!”
Drinkwater stood looking at him stubbornly, hatred fairly oozing out of his brilliant black eyes that were now drawn and wicked as a cornered reptile’s. Then he blew through his nostrils again and went up the hall.
They waited with a sense of impending tragedy—Tootles at the table drawing nervous caricatures on a pad, Flick and Schneibel by the window, talking in low tones, O’Leary moving restlessly up and down the room. The woman had been there an hour by the watch which he jerked out every five minutes, when, all at once, they heard steps coming down the hall. O’Leary turned with a sudden start and shot over to the door, whether he believed it was Drinkwater again or whether he had some other possibility in mind. This time it was Mr. Cornelius, who, unable to contain his anxiety, had come down for news.
“Now, isn’t this a nice damn thing?” he said, in his staccato, excited way, and they noticed that his gray mustache, ordinarily so immaculate, was sadly twisted and awry. He stood there, fretting and undecided. “How long is it now since she was there?”
“Over an hour.”
Instinctively they were silent, listening. From the next room not a sound came to them.
“You hear anything?” said the baron.
“Once. They were getting up pretty high,” said O’Leary. “I gave them a rap or two on the wall.”
“I don’t like it—une sale affaire! Que diable vient-elle faire ici?” said the baron, twitching at the tuft under his chin.
“Do you think some one had better break it up?” said O’Leary, who showed a good deal of uneasiness, for him.
Tootles drew a big breath, shoved away his pad, and went to listen by the wall.
“A nice damn thing,” said Mr. Cornelius, angrily. “What a stupid damn thing—eh? Yes, perhaps some one had better go. One never knows—at such times. He is—so—so wild!”
“If any one goes, it’s up to you, Baron,” said O’Leary solemnly. “You’ve got more of the inside dope than we. It wouldn’t be quite so raw—” He pulled out his watch again, though he had consulted it only a few moments before, and said nervously: “Yes; darned if I don’t think you’d better see what’s going on.”
At this moment the door of the corner studio opened, and they heard Dangerfield say:
“Too late—I’ve said it—you’ve got just four days more.” Then something unintelligible in the woman’s voice, evidently a supplication, for he replied with a scornful laugh:
“With all your cleverness—you’re not clever enough.You should have known the man you were dealing with.”
The nerves of the listeners were at such a tension that they were quite unconscious of their exposed position in the hall. Dangerfield perceived them first, for he drew up, folded his arms and said:
“Don’t waste time—good-by.”
Whether or not she became aware of her listeners, she seemed to accept the inevitable, for, after a moment she said quietly:
“You will, at least, I suppose, see me to my car?”
He hesitated, and was about to comply, though it was evident that it went against the grain to do so, when the door of the little studio opened abruptly and Inga came out.
“Don’t go!” she said emphatically, moving directly to Dangerfield and touching his arm.
This unlooked-for action on the part of Inga left them all amazed. Curiously enough, the only one who seemed to take it as a matter of course was Dangerfield.
“Why do you say that?” he said sharply, yet seeming to give the matter attention.
“Don’t go—don’t!” she repeated insistently.
While every one was waiting for what was going to happen next, the woman said quietly, with supreme insolence, as though such persons as Inga were beneath her notice:
“You have not quite lost, I suppose, all sense of decency? Kindly take me out of this humiliating scene.”
There was something in her tone that did not quite ring true. It was too calm, too calculatedly unresentful, perhaps. At any rate, each was conscious of an uneasy sense of distrust. Dangerfield, who had been looking at Inga’s tense face, seemed to make up his mind all at once.
“O’Leary, are you there?” he said abruptly.
To the surprise of the others, O’Leary stepped forward at once and blurted out:
“Miss Sonderson’s advice is good. If you want, I’ll show the lady down.”
“Do,” said Dangerfield, who by now was in a high pitch of excitement, staring with shifty suspicion at the woman. At such moments, there was something brooding and combustible about him that gave one the sensation of walking over a mine.
The woman drew hastily away, as though really alarmed; then she turned on them as they stood together, Inga’s hand still resting on his arm, as though to quiet him.
“So that’s how it is?” she said, with a high-pitched laugh.
Then she turned and went around the corner. At the steps she seemed to see O’Leary for the first time.
“I don’t need your assistance,” she said curtly.
O’Leary, without reply, continued to follow. At the bottom of the flight she turned again. This time her voice was conciliating.
“Thank you, but I prefer to go on alone.”
“Yes, yes,” said O’Leary, as though he had grown suddenly deaf; “but it’s no trouble—none at all.”
At the next flight she wheeled around with abrupt determination.
“You evidently don’t understand me,” she said sharply. “Your presence is obnoxious. Iwishto be left alone.”
“Very probably,” said O’Leary, without, however, having shown any signs of departing.
“Do you hear me?” she said angrily.
He shrugged his shoulders.
“Useless to talk to me like that, my lady,” he said, exaggerating his role for purposes of his own. “I’m nogentleman, you see—you can’t put those tricks over on me. I’m just King O’Leary, and I’m going to see that you get out of here. Now that you understand things better, will you go quietly, or do you want me to pick you up and carry you?”
She drew back with a cry.
“Don’t touch me!”
“Well, which is it?”
She made up her mind quickly; evidently she could size up a situation and reconcile herself to it when faced with a crisis, for she turned and went down the other flights without a word.
On the second floor, his ear caught the sounds of hurried, slipping steps. He turned hastily, almost certain that he had seen the passage of some tall, shifting body, but he did not dare to investigate them, with the duty in hand.
“Are you satisfied now?” she said, when they had reached the ground floor. “Your intention is not to annoy me, is it?”
He stood stroking his chin, undecided. She profited by the moment’s indecision to flit swiftly out of the ghostly arcade toward the avenue. He did not move purposely until he had seen her round the corner, where she gave a hasty backward glance to assure herself that she was not followed. Then, making up his mind suddenly, he went down the arcade and out onto the sidewalk, for spying was not in his nature. She was at the door of a closed touring car; some one was giving her a hand from within, and on the curb two men were standing. She saw O’Leary start angrily toward them, and said something in peremptory command, and before he could come rushing up, the Irish anger in him awaking at the suspicion of foul play, they had jumped in after her and the car had rushed away through the muddy slush.
Remembering the shadow he had seen on the second floor, he hastened back. He made a thorough inspection of the halls without finding any one in these old corridors given over to business offices. Then he went directly to Drinkwater’s room and rapped sharply on the glowing glass. In a moment, the lawyer half opened the door, and seeing O’Leary there, stood scowling at him.
“What were you doing down on the second floor just now?” said O’Leary directly.
“Second floor? You’re crazy!” said Drinkwater, surlily.
“You were down there five minutes ago.”
“I was not, and I don’t know what business it is of yours anyway,” said the lawyer, catching his breath.
“Drinkwater, I believe you’re lying,” said O’Leary, with a twitching of his hands that made the other draw back abruptly. “If you’ve got any dirty scheme in your head—keep out of it, do you understand?”
“Is that all?” said the Portuguese, with a sneer.
O’Leary turned without answer and went down the hall.
“Dangerfield’s been asking after you,” said Flick. “Well, what?”
King O’Leary made a sign to signify that he would give his news later, and went to the next room.
Dangerfield jumped up at his entrance and came forward in a positive frenzy, crying:
“Well, what did you see—who was there?”
Behind him the straight, slender figure of Inga was standing. She shook her head hastily and placed her finger across her lips in warning.
“Why, no one at all,” said O’Leary heartily.
“No one?” said Dangerfield, and he came up close to him and looked into his face like a puzzled child.“You say, no one?”
“I told you that there was no reason to be excited,” said Inga, in a strangely calming voice.
“How do you know there was no one?” he said, dissatisfied. “Did you see who was outside? Did you go to the car,—all the way?”
“Yes, indeed; and the bigger fool I,” said O’Leary, who comprehended that the man was in no condition to hear what he had seen.
“But some one was there—in the car—waiting?” said Dangerfield, insisting. “A square-set man, about my height, cropped mustache—you saw him—you——”
Inga had advanced to his side; now she laid her hand on his arm and said with a smile:
“Why, Mr. Dangerfield, didn’t you hear what he said? There was no one there?”
“No one?” said Dangerfield, frowning and looking back at O’Leary with a perplexed stare.
“No one at all, and no one waiting,” said O’Leary glibly.
“Then why didn’t you want me to go down?” he said abruptly, turning on her.
“You would only have gone on arguing,” she said.
His back was turned a moment, as he ran his hand over his head and walked away. Inga’s eyes went quickly to King O’Leary. He nodded and held up three fingers.
Dangerfield had sat down at the spacious Florentine table and taken up two packs of cards. Inga glanced at him, and going over to the sideboard, lit two candles and placed them on either side of him. He looked up, smiled, and patted her hand, quite unconscious of O’Leary’s presence. Then he seemed to forget them both in the absorption of the solitaire, laying out the cards with minute pains, as though this assembled order rested his flutteringmind. She made a sign to King O’Leary and went to the door. Instantly Dangerfield looked up.
“Where are you going?” he said querulously.
She smiled.
“It’s all right; I’m coming back.”
Outside, O’Leary told her the results of the investigation, saying:
“Hadn’t he ought to know?”
She considered thoughtfully.
“Do you think they were there on purpose?”
“Don’t know—hard to tell,” he said, frowning. “It was her actions that made me suspicious. Well, oughtn’t we to put him wise?”
“I’ll tell him,” she said, nodding; “at least, I’ll mention it so he’ll be on his guard. Do you think—that is, if there is anything wrong—that there will be any danger to-night?”
“Can’t tell,” he said thoughtfully. “Do you want me to stay with him?”
She shook her head.
“If anything happens, I’ll come for you. It’s all right; I know how to handle him.”
“Say?”
“What?”
He looked down at her a moment, while, a little puzzled, she stood facing him, wondering.
“You’ve made up your mind, haven’t you?” he said abruptly.
She understood at once, but she waited some time before answering, as though the question were still undecided in her own mind.
“He needs me,” she said, at length, looking up into his eager eyes. Then she went back to the studio for the long night’s vigil.
One unlooked-for result of the evening’s happenings was that O’Leary’s antagonism to Dangerfield seemed completely to disappear. Indeed, he seemed now to share Inga’s devotion—probably for no other reason than that Dangerfield, in a moment of perplexity, had called him to his assistance.
The effect on Dangerfield was marked. He sobered up all at once, as though concentrated on some fixed purpose. Yet the restless note remained—if anything, it was aggravated. There was always about him, even in the midst of conversation, the effect of listening for some distant warning sound. Another thing they noticed was that he did not leave the arcade or indeed the sixth floor, having his meals sent in by Sassafras. When O’Leary went down to see him the second night, he had to name himself in a loud voice before the door was opened cautiously, while once inside, he found quite a system of bars and bolts had been installed; and by this he divined that Inga had found a means to warn him.
The change in Dangerfield brought a more pliable mood, of which the girl availed herself to amuse his mind with the final arrangement of the studio. Curiously enough, though it was characteristic of his disconnected actions, he made but one reference, and that an indirect one, to the abrupt interruption of the woman, whoever she might have been in his other life. It was the second afternoon, and they were engaged in hanging pictures and placing the bric-à-brac. For long periods he was keen and interested, deeply enjoying her enthusiasm; then, allat once, there came a spell of moody aloofness in which he forgot her, roving about the room with a nervous, jerky snapping of his fingers, talking to himself. Once he stopped with his ear trained to some outer noise and went abruptly to the door for a suspicious survey. That ended, he closed it carefully and drew each bolt, trying the strength of the door.
“A couple of bars,” he said, as though dissatisfied; “that’s what it needs.”
He came back, and, seemingly struck with her presence, went up to her and laid one of his big hands on her shoulder.
“You think this all very queer, don’t you?”
“It is no business of mine,” she said.
“How do I know you’re not in their game—you, too?” he said abruptly, and a startled leap of suspicion came into his yellow-green eyes that made them almost uncanny. “By George, that would be clever!”
“Don’t get excited, Mr. Dangerfield,” she said; and whether consciously or unconsciously, her voice took on that dreamy, quiet tone—like the bubbling of waters along hidden brooks—that seemed to exercise a peculiar quieting effect upon him.
“No, no; that’s crazy,” he said. Then he frowned suddenly. “Well, it will all come out soon—the truth—as much as people ever get of the truth.”
“Where do you want to hang this?”
He stopped and came back, studying a long time the canvas she held up, a study of sunlight through the foliage that flung spattered shadows across a group of urchins.
“Like that?” he said suddenly.
“I like it the best.”
“You do?”
She smiled and nodded.
“I thought that a great picture when I painted it—where was it? Yes, at Étretat,” he said moodily. “Wonder how good it really is? So you like it best, do you?”
“It’s so sure and daring; and there’s something that draws you into it.”
“Why, that’s good criticism,” he said, pleased. “Yes, that’s youth—when you don’t know how difficult the thing is. That’s why sometimes you succeed in doing it—Well, we’ll give it the place of honor. Wish the sun shone like that nowadays.”
“You haven’t taken off the signature,” she said, pointing to the lower corner. “Do you want to?”
“That’s queer! Thought I’d cleaned them all up,” he said, without appearing to notice the knowledge her remark implied.
He took a palette-knife and carefully shaved away the telltale strokes.
When they had hung the picture, he seemed to come out of his mental eclipse as though reinvigorated, and turned to her quite normally.
“Why, you must be tired!” he said, with a sudden contrition. “What a brute I am! Kept you up all night, too.”
She shook her head and smiled.
“I like this—I like changing something bare and empty into something beautiful and fine.”
“Now, just what do you mean by that?” he said, with an odd smile; but, seeing by her expression that she had meant nothing more than the words implied, he laughed to himself and added thoughtfully, with some personal show of interest, as he looked into her quiet eyes:
“Queer—that you should happen to be just over there!”
“Fate, isn’t it?” she said; and, for once, their rôles were reversed—the man studying her as she went intoa revery, her lips a little drawn, looking far down the long-storied lanes of the tapestry.
“That’s what it all is,” he said, watching her with more curiosity than he had shown—“whether you turn to the left or the right at a certain moment. ‘Life is a jest, and all things show it.’ Why, Inga, if a gust of wind hadn’t blown my hat off at the right—” he corrected himself—“no, the wrong moment, would I be here? A gust of wind—and that’s the cause, the real cause of it all. How ridiculous!”
Then all at once, after they had completed their task and the studio stood about them clothed in dark greens and mellow golden rugs, with rich notes of carved furniture and glowing copper in subduing shadows, and great Spanish jars in streaked gray and green in massive restfulness, he became quite furious, as though suddenly realizing what her patience had accomplished.
“You made me do it, and I didn’t want to! You made me!” he said, crossing his arms and looking so moodily ferocious that she began to smile. He continued to scowl at her without answering her mood. “Lots of good it will do,” he said curtly, with a dark look.
“It kills time,” she said quietly.
“Well, yes; anything for that. Thank God for anything that will do that,” he admitted. “But as for anything else—” and he began to laugh in a low tone to himself at something that had struck his imagination. “All right, then, suppose we have tea here.”
“That would be nice.”
“Ask the others in,” he said restlessly.
She looked up, genuinely surprised, wondering if she had understood him.
“The men next door?”
“The girls, too—all of them. Fix the tea—wait—I’ll ask them in myself.”
Accustomed as she was to his change of moods, this inconsistency amazed her. However, she said nothing, and busied herself at the tea-table. At the door he stopped and came back.
“You don’t mind, do you?” he said tentatively.
“I? Mind what?”
“The others coming in—perhaps you’d rather not. I thought when I spoke, you looked as though—”
“No; on the contrary, I think that’s what you ought to do. It will amuse you.”
“Yes, yes; that’s what I want.”
He nodded, and went to the next studio, where he knocked.
“Who the devil is that?” cried the angry voice of King O’Leary.
“It’s I, Dangerfield.”
Instantly the room was filled with laughter, and the door was presently opened by Tootles, hair rumpled, paint-brush in his teeth, palette in hand, sunk in enormous overalls streaked and speckled with every conceivable combination of colors.
“Come in or shut the door,” cried O’Leary, from across the screen. “This costume was never meant for January in New York.”
“What is it?” said Dangerfield in surprise.
“I am engaged on a monumental masterpiece,” said Tootles proudly.“Step in, brother artist, and give me your expert advice.”
Against the heroic proportions of the back drop, which represented a peculiarly violent sunset over the cañons of Colorado, was a group in such incongruous attire that Dangerfield, accustomed as he was to the eccentricities of the studio, halted in astonishment. King O’Leary, crowned with a battered helmet and draped in a white sheet to represent a toga, was in an attitude of deferential amazement before Flick, who occupied the center of the tableau in Tootles’ dress suit, which shrunk below the elbows and positively refused to descend to the ankles. To the left, Sassafras, stripped to the waist, with the doctored pelt of the Harlem bear flung over one shoulder, and a wig of pendent black horsehair, was on one knee, rolling his eyes upward in ecstatic tribute. Behind appeared Mr. Cornelius in the most Elizabethan of frilled coats and the most Victorian of trousers, while Pansy, in powdered wig and black-silk knee-breeches, was the most charming of beaux.
“Do you seize the idea?” said Tootles proudly, his head on one side in paternal affection for the group which had sprung Minerva-wise from his brain.
Dangerfield resorted hastily to his pocket-handkerchief and surreptitiously flicked away a tear of agony, which all his self-control could not keep down.
“It’s only a preliminary sketch,” said Tootles hastily, “for my monumental decoration, ‘The Ages Contemplating the Apotheosis of the Well-dressed Man.’”
“There’s millions in it,” said Flick, who forgot himself to the extent of raising one arm, with the result that a ripping sound was heard.
“Holy cats! Drop that arm!” exclaimed Tootles, who rushed to the rescue of the pride of the wardrobe.
During this diversion, Dangerfield was able to recover himself sufficiently to present a grave mask.
“What does Sassafras represent?” he asked, stroking his chin.
“Sassafras is primitive man,” said Tootles, assuming the attitude of a lecturer. “O’Leary represents Rome—Cæsar or some other classic chap, you know. The baron is the Spirit of the Middle Ages, and Pansy is the celebrated Beau Brummel. It’s symbolic, of course.”
“And Wilder is the Apotheosis of the Well-dressed Man?” said Dangerfield gravely, contemplating the thin limbs, which seemed to have sprouted from the legs and arms of Wimpfheimer & Goldfinch’s glorified dress suit.
“No, no,” said Tootles hastily; “Flick is only a clothes-horse for the time being.”
Flick objected strongly to this characterization, and while his feelings were being soothed, Dangerfield turned the easel and inspected the canvas.
“I’m afraid I’m in a terrible mix,” said Tootles, scratching his head and looking in despair at the canvas, which had certain marked resemblances to the first days of Creation, when the earth and the waters were still mingled.
“How are you going at it?” said Dangerfield, peering into the confusion of colors.
“Diving in, head foremost, I guess,” said Tootles, rather discouraged.
“Have you made any sketches, charcoal sketches?”
“Oh, yes; dozens.”
He returned with heaped-up arms.
Dangerfield sorted them rapidly, humming to himself. Bits of drawing caught his attention, a free, felicitous line here and there evoking an approving grunt.
“Not so bad—this is more like it—too worked over—this means something—good! But you must get your composition first, my boy.”
“I know that,” said Tootles ruefully; “but then, I’m new to decoration, you see.”
“Harder than you thought, eh?”
Tootles nodded darkly.
“Here, give me a canvas,” said Dangerfield, selecting a charcoal; and then, unable to hold in any longer, he burst into a shout and began to rock back and forth, convulsed with laughter. This cleared the atmosphere and brought them all down from the rarified heights to a working basis.
When Inga, anxious at his continued absence, came in a moment later, she found Dangerfield chuckling to himself, oblivious to everything but the joy of the moment, rearranging the group, as excited as though he were launched on a masterpiece.
“The first point is the Well-dressed Man,” he began, with splendid gravity. “We must place him in a way to dominate everything else—a pedestal, or better still, a throne—no, no; he mustn’t be sitting.”
“The cut of the trousers is most important,” said Flick, who had already formed ambitious plans for the marketing.
“Right—you must stand on an elevation, a flight of steps, perhaps. A box on the model-stand will do for the moment. Now we center it in a triangle, Sassafras at the left, reclining, one leg out, back to us—hold that, good line—other side, what?—the Sphinx—Adam and the Sphinx—not a bad idea!”
“Do you want me full-face or side view?” said Flick, while Sassafras took his pose and King O’Leary was draped in a semi-recumbent position to fill the lower right half.
“There!” He gave them a signal, and stood off grinning, his head on one side, contemplatively, as they crowded about the composition.
“There!” He gave them a signal, and stood off grinning, his head on one side, contemplatively, as they crowded about the composition.
“There!” He gave them a signal, and stood off grinning, his head on one side, contemplatively, as they crowded about the composition.
“Thought of taking him three-quarters, with hat and gloves resting on his cane in front—see, like this!” said Tootles meekly.
“Full-front is better for commercial purposes,” said Flick.
“How so?”
“When they use it for magazine and newspaper ads., they can print ‘$47.50’ over the shirt-front. That would be very effective.”
“Vandal!” said Tootles indignantly. “This is intended for mural decoration only—like something dignified and inspiring—over a bar.”
“Still, if the dress suit is to be held up as the ultimate expression of grace,” said Dangerfield, looking over at Inga, “it ought to be full-front.”
“Absolutely,” said King O’Leary, convinced.
“But I want to get the high hat in, somehow,” said Tootles doubtfully. “Beside, it gives us two chances to sell it. I can be practical also.”
“Wait.” Dangerfield ran over the canvas and began hurriedly to draw in the three figures as determined upon. Then he burst into renewed peals of laughter, waving them back as they pressed forward curiously to watch his progress.
“There!” He gave them a signal, and stood off grinning, his head on one side, contemplatively, as they crowded about the composition.
Above the idealized figure of the Well-dressed Man, flanked in servile admiration by the Sphinx and Primitive Man, an Angel of Victory, floating down, after the uncomfortable manner of angels of Victory, was triumphantly blowing on a trumpet sustained by one hand, while with the other she prepared to crown the Modern Man, not with a wreath but with an immaculate silk hat, which was held just over his brow. The face of theWell-dressed Man likewise expressed the serene flush that heroes must show at such monumental moments.
“Cracky!” said O’Leary, gazing in awe.
“Wimpfheimer will weep for joy,” said Flick, delighted.
Tootles gazed at Dangerfield as the pickets of the Grand Army used to come to startled salute at the sudden apparition of the Little Corporal.
“You must sign it, too,” he said, in a burst of fairness.
“It’ll be a riot,” said Flick, seeing visions of a golden shower. “We’ll work it up until we have the whole clothes-aristocracy fighting each other for it.”
“That’s a beginning,” said Dangerfield, who enjoyed the satire more than he dared show. “Beau Brummel can be about left center, examining him through a lorgnon, or better, indicating him to a belle in a powdered wig.”
“You do think there ought to be woman-interest?” said Tootles.
“Sure! Appeal to the women—get the women’s periodicals,” said Flick.
“I think so,” said Dangerfield, setting his lips. “Gives us a better chance at color. But start on this; that will come later.”
When he had returned to the studio, he took out his handkerchief and wiped his eyes, which were wet with repressed emotion. Inga, delighted to see him in this mood, stood smiling.
“It’s the most wonderful take-off,” he said, at last, when he could get breath. “You don’t understand. I have made it a caricature of a superhuman ass I know—Tomlinson—who thinks he can decorate. It’ll be the death of him when it comes out.”
“You had a lot of fun directing them,” she said, glad to find even this expedient to interest him.
The boisterous mood left him.
“Lucky devils,” he said, with the smile still lingering about the corners of his mouth. “Wonder if they know their luck?” An expression of great kindness came to soften his face, as he stood there reflecting, which held her eyes and brought a smile of tenderness to them too. For him, the darkling walls, the strident, contending city no longer existed, the hard barriers of the present rolling away before the rise of remembered scenes—glorious attics and tables set with the appetite of youth.
“Reminds me of the time when we painted socks on Quinny’s legs so that he could go out and call on a countess. What rackets we used to cut up then! And weren’t we sure of the future! Well, that was something—to believe, even for a few years. The young are all geniuses. Why, Inga, I used to walk to the top of Montmartre just to look down over Paris and say to myself, ‘Some day, all that, glittering below there, will know who I am!’” He shook his head, and added in a lower voice: “I used to think, in those days, I was going to be a great man.”
“You are.” She came to the side of the armchair into which he had sunk, and stood with her hand upon his arm.
“What?” he said, startled from his revery by the sound of her voice.
“You have the big thing in you!” she said insistently. “I knew it from the first moment.”
He shook his head again.
“No; there are some who think I had—but I know better, I know—I know!” he said, with a rising emphasis. “That’s the terrible time in the life of an artist, when he realizes he can go so far—and no farther. That’s when he pays for all the triumphs others envy.”
“I won’t have it so,” she said, with such a note of fury in her voice that it stopped him, and he looked at her eagerly, as though longing to be convinced. She was on the arm of his chair, leaning toward him, serious and wilful. Their glances met, and then gradually the seriousness of her look melted into a smile—a flash of white teeth and the slender oval face suffused with a light that seemed to envelop and warm him. He forgot what he had been saying, watching her, the craving for beauty in his soul fed by the tenderness and the youth of her eyes. He laid his hand over hers and stared into her face with that wondering, baffled look of his. Then his mind slipped away to the novelty of the orderly, harmonious room.
“You have made a spot for dreams here,” he said, at length.
“I have only just begun,” she said confidently.
“Don’t!” he said, in a low voice, understanding her. “It’s not fair to you; it cannot be done.”
She smiled again, a smile that seemed to draw him up into her arms like a tired child, and laid her hand gently over his forehead.
“We shall see.”
“Good heavens! Haven’t you anything better to do in life,” he said, all at once, “than to believe in derelicts?”
She did not answer for a moment, looking beyond him with a lost glance which he had noticed once or twice before. Then she answered slowly.
“But that—that makes me happy—to give.”
“Inga, do I remind you of any one?” he said, with a suddenness that startled her.
“Why do you say that?” she said, drawing away and frowning.
“I feel it. Just now, as you were looking, and many times when we were arranging the room I had the feeling—a strange feeling—almost as though there were some one else here with us—that all this—well, how shall I say—that you had been here before——”
“Why do you say that?” she said, after a moment’s hesitation. “I haven’t asked any questions, have I?”
“You can—and besides, you won’t need to, soon,” he said, his curiosity aroused by the answer her evasion implied.
“No, no,” she said emphatically; “what has happened has nothing to do with it. We are what we are to each other. All the rest—what’s happened before—we want to be free of that. What right has that to come into your life again? That’s what’s rare in a friendship, to begin all fresh—isn’t it?”
“Youarequeer!” he said, gazing at her profoundly, with a growing personal curiosity awakened by the intensity which she had put into this unusually long speech.
“Why?”
“So I am not to know anything about you?”
She faced him a long moment, and, despite all his curiosity, he could not divine what was passing behind her eyes.
“Wonder if I shall ever see into those eyes?” he said, wandering from his question. His gaze rested a moment on the sensitive nostrils and the delicate mouth with its poised upper lip; and, suddenly, he said, as though noticing it for the first time:
“You can be beautiful when you want to—why don’t you?” Then he laughed and said in a lighter tone, “Inga, if I were ten years younger, I’d be madly in love with those eyes of yours.”
“Would that help?” she said, her eyes filling with a sudden compassionate gentleness.
This frank question threw him into a turmoil. He seemed suddenly recalled to himself—to the imminenceof some crisis dominating his freedom of decision. He went from her brusquely, turning about the studio with restless, nervous step, snapping his fingers with quick, irritated gesture, until, as she waited, he came as suddenly back and seized her in his big hands.
“Inga, whatever you do, don’t get to caring for me—do you hear?” he said vehemently, with the stricken intensity of his disordered moods. Then each seemed struck with the strangeness and the significance of what they had been saying. He repeated: “Do you hear—do you understand—not that!”
She looked at him, yet across her eyes, as across her soul, the same misty curtain seemed to intervene. Then she shrugged her shoulders, as much as to lay the decision on the lap of fate.
“It will only bring you suffering,” he said roughly, almost angrily.
“Yes, perhaps.”
She nodded, admitting its truth, and her face clouded before a vision starting out of the shadows. Her arms drew closer about her body, while a shiver ran through it—a premonition perhaps. She repeated:
“Yes, perhaps.”
Tootles had progressed along the arduous road to masterpieces to the extent that he felt a need of realistic detail. Flick, of course, was but a substitute, the center of the stage, as well as Wimpfheimer & Goldfinch’s perfection dress suit, being now occupied by Belle Shaler, who gave a satisfactory rendering of the new hothouse variety of young man. Sassafras (when he could put the elevator out of commission) represented Primitive Man with impressive ferocity, but there was something lacking in the Sphinx of King O’Leary. O’Leary suggested many things, but he did not suggest the feminine mystery of that historic lady. Tootles felt this, and felt it acutely, when it suddenly occurred to him that, with a little diplomacy, relief might be at hand. Accordingly, one day at high noon, he went tripping down the stone stairway to the floor below and over to the door which was inscribed:
MME. THEODORA PROBASCO
SPIRITUALISTIC SÉANCES
He rapped gently once, and then once more firmly, with an uneasy glance at the darkened glass, that seemed to him of an unearthly obscurity.
“Who knocks at this door?” said a solemn voice.
“The one above,” said Tootles, in an equally mysterious whisper.
The door was opened cautiously, and Madame Probasco’s streaked curls appeared. From inside came the unmistakable scent of a pork chop frying.
“How do you do?” said Tootles, affably, with a radiating smile. “And how are all the little spirits?”
“Oh, it’s you?” said Madame Probasco, descending to a conversational tone.
“Only me; and in distress—oh, nothing for the spirits to do, but I need a sphinx. Thought you might have one on the premises?”
“A sphinx? I have a sphinx,” said Madame Probasco, ceremoniously.
“May I enter?”
Madame Probasco was still hesitating, considering the advisability of introducing such a visitor behind the scenes, when the memory of the pork chop decided her. She hurried back, followed by Tootles, who witnessed the rescue with an expression of sympathy, while seeking among the black-curtained partitions for the abode of ghostly aids.
“I hope we have done nothing to disturb the spirits,” he said genially, at the first opportunity.
“It’s not you—it’s that Dutch yodler!” said Madame Probasco, taken strategically on flank. “He broke up a see-ance only last night and sent me into a fit of hysterics. It’s an outrage!”
“Madame, have I your permission to speak to Mr. Schneibel?” said Tootles majestically.
“’Deed you’ll save my life if you do,” said Madame Probasco, with a fleshy sigh. “What was it you wanted—oh, yes, a sphinx,” she added, turning toward the mantelpiece, where underneath gleaming death-masks and plastered hands was a collection of scarabs, elephants, and a bronze fragment representing the sphinx in the shadow of the Pyramid.
“One moment—don’t move!” said Tootles, in an excited voice. “Hold that position—by Jove, that is marvelous now!”
“Heavens! what is the matter?” said Madame Probasco, startled.
“Madame Probasco, have you ever posed—has any one ever done your portrait?”
“There’s Mooney, down on the second floor, did a colored photo that wasn’t bad—”
“No, no; I mean did you ever have your portrait painted? By jove, just that moment—then I caught an expression—I say, do you know youwouldmake a remarkable symbolic study of the Sphinx?”
“Really?” said Madame Probasco, smiling and fastening the brooch at her neck, which had become undone, with a reawakening of coquetry.
“’Pon my word! Tell you what I’ll do: If you’ll sit for the Sphinx, for a monumental decoration I’m doing, I’ll make a special sketch and present it to you. Think of the publicity!”
On this basis, the bargain was completed immediately, and King O’Leary, vastly relieved, was promoted to the rôle of Paris, who, with one arm about Helen of Troy (Millie Brewster) a glave brandished in the air, was represented hesitating in his passionate flight to glance back at the symbolic vision of the modern ravisher of hearts in the person of the Well-dressed Man. Madame Probasco entered, in fact, so completely into the spirit of the conception, that the brooding realism of her frown brought cold shivers to the impressionable imaginations of Pansy Hartmann and Millie Brewster. The work went on gaily, as all great works of inspiration carry happiness.
The girls, since the night of the farewell dinner, had heaped coals of fire upon the heads of their admirers by an unlooked-for loyalty. Myrtle Popper had brought Mr. Pomello to the studio, a lonely little old man in loose clothes, who conveyed the idea of a shy species of cockatoobehind black-rimmed spectacles, and who accepted the introduction to “cousin” O’Leary with meek obedience. It was evident that he was all eyes for the brimming youth of the girl, and hurriedly seconded her suggestion that O’Leary should preside over the orchestra of one piano in the “continuous” below, from eight until elevenp. m.Belle Shaler, in her turn, succeeded in inviting the three friends to one banquet and two dances, which considerably improved their household account; while Pansy, as though realizing for the first time the heights to which Tootles might ascend, became almost docile, and if she still listened to the assiduous compliments of Drinkwater and others, at least she concealed the evidence with skill. The larder was not exactly overcrowded, but with O’Leary’s salary and three mother-in-law jokes which Flick obtained in translation from Mr. Cornelius and modernized forPuck, the wolf was kept at a respectable distance, while Flick planned the killing on Tootles’ masterpiece which would revolutionize the commercial arts.
Dangerfield came in twice again for a flitting visit and a few words of advice, but the first enthusiasm had vanished, or rather, he seemed obsessed by some distant preoccupation. A week had now passed since the episode of the interrupted boxing-match, and the heated discussions as to who Dangerfield really was and what were the mysterious complications in which he was involved had been going on with unabated excitement, when, one Sunday evening, without warning, he appeared at the door of the studio dressed to go out.
“O’Leary, are you free for about half an hour?” he said, without notice of the fact that Tootles and Flick were tidying up the supper-dishes; though by now they had grown accustomed to his abstractions.
“What can I do for you?”
“Can you come with me—now?”
“Going out?” said O’Leary, surprised, while the others looked up, for this in itself was in abrupt contrast to his late habit of never setting foot outside of the Arcade.
“Yes.”
O’Leary slipped into his things and joined him in the hall.
“Where away?”
“I prefer not to go out of the Arcade—I have reasons,” said Dangerfield, his voice pitched just above the normal. “We will go down a couple of flights and out through the apartment-house.”
They descended, and by a bridge (one of the many mysterious byways of the Arcade) passed into an apartment-house that set upon the side street. Down this they went without word of explanation, O’Leary more and more intrigued by the behavior of his companion, who stopped at each landing to read the cards upon the door-plates, talking to himself the while. At the entrance below, as O’Leary was passing curiously out, he caught him with a sudden restraining clutch and a low admonition. Then he lit a match and studied the row of mail-boxes in the vestibule.
“No, no; that’s all right,” he said at last. “Old cards, all of them. No changes here.” He blew out the match and looked back at the stairs lost in the dimness of the hall light. “Uncanny, isn’t it? Anything might happen there. All right, now. Out, and turn straight toward Amsterdam Avenue.”
“As you say,” said O’Leary, struck by the restrained excitement in the other’s voice and gesture.
They went down the block and up the avenue two streets, then eastward to Columbus Avenue, and prepared to descend. Opposite Healy’s, Dangerfield stopped and said abruptly:
“Now, O’Leary, keep your eyes open and if you see any one you have seen before—” He stopped short, and his eyes set suspiciously on the other’s face.
“Any one I’ve seen before?” said O’Leary, frowning.
“Exactly—any one—who was downstairs the night you saw the car. Oh, it’s all right; you didn’t deceive me then—I know. That’s not the point. I must know if any one’s around.”
“All right; but I don’t understand a word,” said O’Leary helplessly. “Just what are you driving at?”
But for all answer his companion smiled knowingly, shrugged his shoulders and said:
“You understand? Touch my arm if you see him. Come.”
They crossed Lincoln Square after a careful reconnoitering of the surrounding spaces, and descending briskly on the Arcade, passed along the Broadway front and around the corner to the lower street, going in by the side entrance, past the stuffy halls of the animal fancier. The inner arcade, deserted in the barren calm of Sunday night, showed only the lingering figures of a group of newsboys and the half-lights of the telegraph office.
“All right; that’s enough,” said Dangerfield, looking apparently satisfied. “Mighty decent of you. Thanks.”
“Don’t see that I’ve done anything in particular,” said O’Leary, following him into the elevator, “but at your service any time.”
Nevertheless, mystified as he was, he concealed the details of their trip under an evasive answer when he returned to his room. However, the experience remained fixed in his mind, and he divined that Inga, by now, must have told Dangerfield in detail of his discoveries. The precautions taken to bar the door, the voluntary self-imprisonment, the brooding suspicion in the man himself, had spread an uncanny feeling of suspense in the upperhall, where, from day to day, each awaited some dramatic explanation. How near it was at hand no one, not even King O’Leary, had any suspicion.
On the following night, Madame Probasco gave a party “to meet the spooks,” as Tootles expressed it. Just how it came to take place, or who may have put the suggestion into her mind, was never clearly defined. The fact of Drinkwater’s participation left a certain suspicion in the minds of some, especially considering what happened later. At a quarter before midnight, being the witching hour, they came down, expectant and a little awestruck, to Madame Probasco’s rooms. The black-draped passage, which had an aroma of heavy incense, was faintly revealed by a solitary green lamp, which cast uncanny hues over their faces and caused Pansy to take a desperate clutch of Tootles’ hand.
“I can feel them spirits already,” said Myrtle Popper, with a nervous laugh.
“Sh! sh! Silence!” said Flick, in a voice which caused Belle Shaler to stumble with a smothered cry.
Mr. Cornelius, Miss Quirley, and Schneibel, the last in the charge of O’Leary, who had given his word to restrain his volubility, pressed forward eagerly, while Millie Brewster, at the sight of the coffinlike passage, the green light, and the black-draped curtains, billowing as though with the passage of unseen shapes, gave a scream and fled precipitately. Inga and Dangerfield were likewise absentees.
At the door of the salon, a surprise awaited them. Madame Probasco was still behind the scenes, but in the center of the misty room was no other than Drinkwater, gaunter and taller than ever, in the midst of the death-masks and plastered hands which set against the walls. A great white collar flashed about his neck against the somber hue of his face and his coal-black eyes.
“Madame Probasco will come on as soon as every one is seated,” he said suavely, yet with a queer little break of excitement in his voice. “She particularly wished me to caution you that there must be the most absolute quiet. Any sudden noise might prove almost fatal to her in the intense mental concentration into which she must go for these experiments.”
This revelation of Drinkwater’s connection with the spiritualistic parlors came as a disagreeable introduction. Tootles gazed at O’Leary, rather undecided, with a vague sense of something ominous impending. O’Leary, for a moment, seemed on the point of breaking out into an objection, but before he could take a decision, from the other room the voice of Madame Probasco came floating in, in querulous complaint.
“Too much noise—hush!”
The wavering passed. They grouped themselves in a circle on the chairs which had already been placed. In the center of the room a great armchair was waiting beside a table on which were displayed two gray-and-white elephants and a plaster skull. Drinkwater passed to the door by which they had entered and drew it shut, and going to the window, flung across a second curtain. In the circle the bodies seemed to recede into a mist, leaving only the white faces distinct, faces white as the chalky death-masks that spotted the walls.
“Remember, silence; absolute silence,” said Drinkwater, with his finger on his lips. He took a last precautionary glance and then stepped gingerly and softly to the door of the inner room, knocked three times, and announced,
“Everything is ready!”
Madame Probasco delayed her appearance for an interminable, creepy interval, and then, when they were least expecting her, came floating in, clad in long, flutteringgarments of slatish blue, her hair bound with Greek fillets, her arms and neck laden with shining ornaments, her eyes half closed, hands extended in groping gestures. Drinkwater went to her side and piloted her to the armchair, amid a heavy craning-forward of her tense audience. She gazed fixedly ahead a moment, with blank, glassy eyes, her lips parted in short, troubled breaths. Then she bent her head suddenly and covered her eyes with one hand, while the other stretched across the dark table until it found the gray-and-white elephant that, in the dim light, seemed to have come into a grotesque distortion of life. At the end of a full ten minutes, during which Drinkwater, at her back with warning finger, cautioned all to immovability and silence, her hand jerked up rapidly in three commanding gestures, and she began babbling in a deep, guttural tone, a jargon without relevance or resemblance to any language they knew.
Drinkwater, as though he had waited for this stage, moved toward the expectant circle, hesitated a moment, and selecting Myrtle Popper, whispered:
“A handkerchief—anything—of your own. Yes; a glove—that will do. You’ve worn it? All right.”
Madame Probasco immediately transferred the glove to her forehead, and the jargon increased in rapidity. Another interval, and all at once she swayed in her seat and began to talk intelligibly.
“Rivers—trees—a house on a hill—much snow—children, many children in sleighs—a great fireplace with a copper kettle boiling—a holiday—a holiday party of some sort. Who’s that? A man—two men—a widower and a young man—a quarrel. I see discord—many quarrels—a journey to a church in a sleigh with the young man—no, no; something’s wrong—I don’t understand—it’s turned back.”
Here Myrtle Popper’s voice was heard exclaiming:
“My God, it’s true!”
The medium ran on more confidently.
“Discord—more quarrels—railroads—crowds, people—so many people—”
For a while, what she said continued broken and mystifying. Suddenly she seemed to pick up the thread again.
“Some one close to you will die within the year—a relative—no, not a relative—perhaps the old man—” She lapsed into the mysterious jargon and again came out: “Changes, marvelous changes—wealth by death, beyond your dreams; and yet your dream, the real dream, will not be realized—a woman—two other women—stand between you and that. This year—everything seems to come in this year—all the changes in your life—great fortune and great disappointments—journeys—new conditions—everything will be changed. That’s all I can see—the rest is blurred.”
With which, she flung the glove from her and sank her head in her arms.
Drinkwater selected Miss Quirley next, and after her Schneibel. Whether Madame Probasco was feigning or not, the outstanding fact was that the next experiments varied greatly in effectiveness. With some she began to prophesy immediately, and with others she refused to go on absolutely, declaring she could do nothing. The séance had been going on thus with alternate success and failure, when Drinkwater selected Mr. Cornelius. Now, several of those present, reviewing these events at a later date, believed that it had all been a carefully laid plan of the lawyer’s to ferret into the baron’s past and that the scene had been agreed upon with Madame Probasco. Yet others insisted that what she had said had startled Drinkwater almost as much as any one, and that indeed he had gone white and leaned against the wall. However that may be, as soon as Madame Probasco had receivedinto her hands a watch-chain which Mr. Cornelius had given with the greatest reluctance, she cried, in excellent French, in a voice shrill and quite different from her own,
“Cinq mille louis sur la bande!”
The effect on the Frenchman was amazing. He half rose from his seat with a gasp of astonishment, and only the firm hold of his companions in the chain of hands kept him down. The next moment, Madame Probasco was running on in her usual guttural voice:
“I see a great house—oh, but a great, great house—tapestries—a great marble fireplace—and a woman—not there—no—not there—somewhere else—can’t quite make out—only she is tall and her hair is like a flame—and there are lights, lots of lights all around her, at her feet, in the air—people are applauding her—flowers—I smell the scent of roses, always roses—yellow, pink. Why, I can’t see her distinctly any more—what has happened? Why, she is not young—she is not beautiful at all—there’s no one around her, and the room is dark—she leans on a cane.” All at once her hands began to clutch nervously in the air, and she cried in more excited voice: “What’s this? Blows are struck—high words—some one is choking him—some one has him by the throat, forcing him over a table, a green table—and now all the lights are back—oh, so many lights, my head is turned with the lights....Le numéro quatre!” she cried suddenly, or rather, the same shrill nasal voice cried from her. Then she began to tremble as she had at no time before. “No, no, I can’t—don’t make me tell what I see!”