The Long Night Part 4

"Worse or better you will repent it," she retorted. "You will repent it bitterly!"

"I may," he answered. "But at least you never shall."

She turned and looked at him at that; looked at him as if the curtain of apathy fell from her eyes and she saw him for the first time as he was, a young man, upright and not uncomely. She looked at him with her mind as well as her eyes, and seeing felt curiosity about him, pity for him, felt her own pulses stirred by his presence and his aspect. A faint colour, softer than the storm-flag which had fluttered there a minute before, rose to her cheeks; her lips began to tremble. He feared that she was going to weep, and "That is settled!" he said cheerfully.

"Good!" and he went into the little room and brought out his cap. "I lay last night at the 'Bible and Hand,' and I must fetch my cloak and pack."

She stayed him by a gesture. "One moment," she said. "You are determined to--to do this? To lodge here?"

"Firmly," he answered, smiling.

"Then wait." She pa.s.sed by him and, moving to the fireplace, raised the lid of the great black pot. The broth inside was boiling and bubbling to within an inch of the lip, the steam rose from it in a fragrant cloud.

She took an iron spoon and looked at him, a strange look in her eyes.

"Stand where you are," she said, "and I will try you, if you are fit to come to us or no. Stand, do you hear," she repeated, a note of excitation, almost of mockery, in her voice, "where you are whatever happens! You understand?"

"Yes, I am to stand here, whatever happens," he answered, wondering.

What was she going to do?

She was going to do a thing outside the limits of his imagination. She dipped the iron spoon in the pot and, extending her left arm, deliberately allowed some drops of the scalding liquor to fall on the bare flesh. He saw the arm wince, saw red blisters spring out on the white skin, he caught the sharp indraw of her breath, but he did not move. Again she dipped the spoon, looking at him with defiant eyes, and with the same deliberation she let the stuff fall on the living flesh.

This time the perspiration sprang out on her brow, her face burned suddenly hot, her whole frame shrank under the torture.

"Don't!" he cried hoa.r.s.ely. "I will not bear it! Don't!" And he uttered a cry half-articulate, like a beast's.

"Stand there!" she said. And still he stood: stood, his hands clenched and his lips drawn back from his teeth, while she dipped the spoon again, and--though her arm shook now like an aspen and there were tears of pain in her eyes--let the dreadful stuff fall a third time.

She was white when she turned to him. "If you do it again," he cried furiously, "I will upset--the cursed pot."

"I have done," she said, smiling faintly. "I am not very brave--after all!" And going to the dresser, her knees trembling under her, she poured out some water and drank it greedily. Then she turned to him, "Do you understand?" she said with a long tense look. "Are you prepared? If you come here, you will see me suffer worse things, things a hundred times, a thousand times worse than that. You will see me suffer, and you will have to stand and see it. You will have to stand and suffer it. You will have to stand! If you cannot, do not come."

"I stood it," he answered doggedly. "But there are things flesh and blood cannot stand. There is a limit----"

"The limit I shall fix," she said proudly. "Not you."

"But you will fix it?"

"Perhaps. At any rate, that is the bargain. You may accept or refuse.

You do not know where I stand, and I do. You must see and be blind, feel and be dumb, hear and make no answer, unless I speak--if you are to come here."

"But you will speak--sometime?"

"I do not know," she answered wearily, and her whole form wilting she looked away from him. "I do not know. Go now, if you please--and remember!"

CHAPTER III.

THE QUINTESSENTIAL STONE.

The old town of Geneva, pent in the angle between lake and river, and cramped for many generations by the narrow corselet of its walls, was not large; it was still high noon when Mercier, after paying his reckoning at the "Bible and Hand," and collecting his possessions, found himself again in the Corraterie. A pleasant breeze stirred the leafy branches which shaded the ramparts, and he stood a moment beside one of the small steep-roofed watch-towers, and resting his burden on the breast-high wall, gazed across the hazy landscape to the mountains, beyond which lay Chatillon and his home.

Yet it was not of his home he was thinking as he gazed; nor was it his mother's or his father's face that the dancing heat of mid-day mirrored for him as he dreamed. Oh, happy days of youth when an hour and a face change all, and a glance from shy eyes, or the pout of strange lips blinds to the world and the world's ambitions! Happy youth! But alas for the studies this youth had come so far to pursue, for the theology he had crossed those mountains to imbibe--at the pure source and fount of evangelical doctrine! Alas for the venerable Beza, pillar and pattern of the faith, whom he had thirsted to see, and the grave of Calvin, aim and end of his pilgrimage! All Geneva held but one face for him now, one presence, one gracious personality. A scarlet blister on a round white arm, the quiver of a girl's lip a-tremble on the verge of tears--these and no longing for home, these and no memory of father or mother or the days of childhood, filled his heart to overflowing. He dreamed with his eyes on the hills, but it was not

Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate, Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,

the things he had come to study; but of a woman's trouble and the secret life of the house behind him, of which he was about to form part.

At length the call of a sentry at the Porte Terta.s.se startled him from his thoughts. He roused himself, and uncertain how long he had lingered he took up his cloak and bag and, turning, hastened across the street to the door at the head of the four steps. He found it on the latch, and with a confident air, which belied his real feelings, he pushed it open and presented himself.

For a moment he fancied that the room held only one person. This was a young man who sat at the table in the middle of the room and, surprised by the appearance of a stranger, suspended his spoon in the air that he might the better gaze at him. But when Claude had set down his bag behind the door, and turned to salute the other, he discovered his error; and despite himself he paused in the act of advancing, unable to hide his concern. At the table on the hearth, staring at him in silence, sat two other men. And one of the two was Grio.

Mercier paused we have said; he expected an outburst of anger if not an a.s.sault. But a second glance at the old ruffian's face relieved him: a stare of vacant wonder made it plain that Grio sober retained little of the doings of Grio drunk. Nevertheless, the silent gaze of the three--for no one greeted him--took Claude aback; and it was but awkwardly and with embarra.s.sment that he approached the table, and prepared to add himself to the party. Something in their looks as well as their silence whispered him unwelcome. He blushed, and addressing the young man at the larger table--

"I have taken Tissot's room," he said shyly. "This is his seat, I suppose. May I take it?" And indicating an empty bowl and spoon on the nearer side of the table, he made as if he would sit down before them.

In place of answering, the young man looked from him to the two on the hearth, and laughed--a foolish, frightened laugh. The sound led Mercier's eyes in the same direction, and he appreciated for the first time the aspect of the man who sat with Grio; a man of great height and vast bulk, with a large plump face and small grey eyes. It struck Mercier as he met the fixed stare of those eyes, that he had entered with less ceremony than was becoming, and that he ought to make amends for it; and, in the act of sitting down in the vacant seat, he turned and bowed politely to the two at the other table.

"Tissotius timuit, jam peregrinus adest!" the big man murmured in a voice at once silky and sonorous. Then ignoring Mercier, but looking blandly at the young man who sat facing him at the table, "What is this of Tissot?" he continued. "Can it be," with a side-glance at the newcomer, "that we have lost our--I may not call him our quintessence or alcahest--rather shall I say our baser ore, that at the virgin touch of our philosophical stone blushed into ruddy gold? And burned ever brighter and hotter in her presence! Tissot gone, and with him all those fair experiments! Is it possible?"

The young man's grin showed that he savoured a jest. But, "I know nothing," he muttered sheepishly. "'Tis new to me."

"Tissot gone!" the big man repeated in a tone humorously melancholy. "No more shall we

Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, And see him trans.m.u.tations three endure!

Tissot gone! And you, sir, come in his place. What change is here! A stranger, I believe?"

"In Geneva, yes," Claude answered, wondering and a little abashed. The man spoke with an air of power and weight.

"And a student, doubtless in our Academia? Like our Tissot? Yes. It may be," he continued in the same smooth tones wherein ridicule and politeness appeared to be so nicely mingled that it was difficult to judge if he spoke in jest or earnest, "like him in other things! It may be that we have gained and not lost. And that qualities finer and more susceptible underlie an exterior more polished and an ease more complete," he bowed, "than our poor Tissot could boast! But here is

Our stone angelical whereby All secret potencies to light are brought!

Doubtless"--with a wave of the hand he indicated the girl who had that moment entered--"you have met before?"

"I could not otherwise," Claude answered coldly--he began to resent both the man and his manner--"have engaged the lodging." And he rose to take from the girl's hand the broth she was bringing him. She, on her side, made no sign that she noticed a change, or that it was no longer Tissot she served. She gave him what he needed, mechanically and without meeting his eyes. Then turning to the others, she waited on them after the same fas.h.i.+on. For a minute or two there was silence in the room.

A strange silence, Claude thought, listening and wondering: as strange and embarra.s.sing as the talk of the man who shared with Grio the table by the fireplace: as strange as the atmosphere about them, which hung heavy, to his fancy, and oppressive, fraught with unintelligible railleries, with subtle jests and sneers. The girl went to and fro, from one to another, her face pale, her manner quiet. And had he not seen her earlier with another look in her eyes, had he not detected a sinister something underlying the big man's good humour, he would have learned nothing from her; he would have fancied that all was as it should be in the house and in the company.

As it was he understood nothing. But he felt that a something was wrong, that a something overhung the party. Seated as he was he could not without turning see the faces of the two at the other table, nor watch the girl when she waited on them. But the suspicion of a smile which hovered on the lips of the young man who sat opposite him--whom he could see--kept him on his guard. Was a trick in preparation? Were they about to make him pay his footing? No, for they had no notice of his coming.

They could not have laid the mine. Then why that smile? And why this silence?

On a sudden he caught the sound of a movement behind him, the swirl of a petticoat, and the clang of a pewter plate as it fell noisily to the floor. His companion looked up swiftly, the smile on his face broadening to a sn.i.g.g.e.r. Claude turned too as quickly as he could and looked, his face hot, his mind suspecting some prank to be played on him; to his astonishment he discovered nothing to account for the laugh. The girl appeared to be bending over the embers on the hearth, the men to be engaged with their meal; and baffled and perplexed he turned again and, his ears burning, bent over his plate. He was glad when the stout man broke the silence for the second time.

"Agrippa," he said, "has this of amalgams. That whereas gold, silver, tin are valuable in themselves, they attain when mixed with mercury to a certain light and sparkling character, as who should say the bubbles on wine, or the light resistance of beauty, which in the one case and the other add to the charm. Such to our simple pleasures"--he continued with a rumble of deep laughter--"our simple pleasures, which I must now also call our pleasures of the past, was our Tissot! Who, running fluid hither and thither, where resistance might be least of use, was as it were the ultimate sting of enjoyment. Is it possible that we have in our friend a new Tissot?"

The young man at the table giggled. "I did not know Tissot!" Claude replied sharply and with a burning face--they were certainly laughing at him. "And therefore I cannot say."