A Fool There Was Part 33

Slowly she walked across the dirty, disordered room. She looked back, once. He was still sitting there, head buried deep in hands.... She was glad, glad unselfishly. She could give him happiness. Would there ever be happiness for her? She was afraid.... Yet she was glad--glad as Blake was glad--Still there was in her a great, great emptiness.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN.

THE PITY OF IT ALL.

Left alone, John Schuyler sat for long, never-ending moments. He was weak--weak unto the weakness of death. His soul was torn and tossed and twitched within him. At length he rose, slowly, to his feet. A dizziness-- a nausea--overmastered him. He reached for the bottle on the table top.

As he did so, his foot touched some object upon the floor.... He looked down. It was a bit of broken mirror.... He stooped and picked it up. The light upon the table was on. He turned it so that it might illumine with its merciless rays the last cruel line upon his face.... Slowly, holding the mirror so that eyes might see, he looked.... He fell to his knees....

This thing that he saw was he! He! John Schuyler!

Came to him at length strength to rise. Came to his heart great resolves.

He would make atonement to the woman whom he had forsaken--the woman who had not forsaken him. He would make atonement in as far as it lay within possibility--and to the child that was of him and of her he would make atonement. He was but a young man; many years of life should lie before him; and of these years he would give, give all, and ask nothing. It was the sad wreck of a life that lay before him--a stinking, noisome wreck-- yet there must be something in it that was neither foul nor unsightly.

That thing he would find. He set his jaw. Leaden eyes became bright....

Then, he was near to being a man....

He had started toward the door, to leave forever the scene of his moral, mental, spiritual death--he was almost to the portal--another step would carry him through, and beyond--

She stood there. Red lips were parted in a little, inscrutable smile.

White shoulders s.h.i.+mmered. Lithe muscles rippled beneath her gown with every movement of her delicate body. She was beautiful--beautiful as an animal is beautiful. And her eyes were upon his.

He staggered back, clutching at the door jamb for support.

She laughed a little, lightly:

"Just in time. You're going away. Bien. I trust you may have a very pleasant journey."

She swung into the room, lithely, eyes upon him, vivid lips smiling.

Rounded arms were clasped behind lissome back.

"And if I hadn't gone," he inquired, "you were about to go?"

She nodded.

"To another fool?"

She shook her head, merrily.

"Oh, no," she replied, red lips pursed. "To a man--this time."

He shrunk a little. The madness was not far behind.

"Well, squeeze him dry," he muttered. "Squeeze the honor and the manhood and the life and the soul out of him, won't you? And then Parmalee, and Rogers, and Van Dam will laugh at him from their hole in h.e.l.l. And I'll laugh at all of you; for I'll be safe from you all. So squeeze him dry, won't you, you Vampire!"

Again she laughed, gaily. He was very amusing, at times--this thing that had been a man. She slid to the desk, seating herself upon it, swinging small, perfectly shod feet with slender silk-clad ankles.

"So it's all over," she remarked, musingly. "Yet it was sweet while it lasted, wasn't it, My Fool?--sometimes." She tossed at him contemptuously a glowing crimson blossom which she ripped from the great ma.s.s at her rounded breast. She went on:

"Those days on the Mediterranean, under the blue skies. And Venice, with the dim silence all about, and the soft night breezes whispering their strange secrets to us as we lay side by side under the rustling canopy-- very romantic, for dreamers--and we did dream--didn't we, My Fool?--at least, you did." She laughed again; again she cast at him a crimson blossom, maliciously, tantalizingly. "And Paris. That was good, too-- differently. The gay crowds on the Bois, and the races at Longchamps, and the little place in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs--and Saint Antoine, in the Norman hills--and the fuss they made over the newly-wedded couple! It was while we were there, if you will remember, Fool," she went on, in voice caressing but words that stung, "on the morning that we first had breakfast under the grape arbor, with its young green leaves and nodding promises of luscious yield, that there came the letter from your wife."

She laughed, long and merrily. He cried, hoa.r.s.ely:

"Stop! d.a.m.n you, stop! You've tortured me enough!"

"Amedee served us that morning," she continued, unmindful; "or was it Francois?--no, Amedee. He spilt the coffee upon the table cloth twice, in his anxiety lest he embarra.s.s us. And when you kissed me," with a little ripple of mirth, "he looked the other way, covering his lips with his hand. Oh, admirable Amedee! ... The breeze was stirring that morning, Fool--do you remember?--and the dead leaves of yester-year fell about us-- so!" She plucked a great handful of crimson petals from her breast and cast them above her head. They fell about him, and about her. "And I dipped sugar in my coffee and fed it to you, and you let me read your wife's letter." Again she laughed.

Through his clenched teeth came a muttered curse.

"It was interesting, drolly interesting.... that letter." she continued.

"She couldn't understand why your mission detained you so long!"

Yet again she laughed, merrily, ringingly. Suddenly she s.h.i.+fted, lithely, the poise of her body.

"Bah! I weary of this, and of you.... But before I go," she leaned far forward, eyes on his, vivid lips curved, bare breast s.h.i.+mmering, "a kiss, My Fool!"

"Why do you come here?" he cried, piteously. "Have you not done enough?

Is there no pity in your heart--no sympathy--no human feeling of any kind?"

"I've heard you say so, in other days," she smiled.

"Let me go," he begged. "Haven't you done enough? There is no misery that I have not suffered--no degradation that I have not reached--no depths to which I have not sunk--no dishonor that I have not felt. Great G.o.d! What more do you want of me?"

He was a pitiful object, sunken, shrivelled, abject. She looked on him with eyes that revealed only amus.e.m.e.nt--amus.e.m.e.nt, and power.

She asked, lightly:

"What more could I want of you? What more have you to give, My Fool?"

"There's a chance for me," he pleaded, hysterically; "a little, pitiful chance. Can't you find in that dead thing you call a heart just one shred of pity that I may have that chance that is held out to me? I don't ask much in return for all that I have given--just to be let alone.... Ah, go! Go! Please, please go!"

He was on his knees now, thin hands raised in beseeching. She looked down on him from where she sat, upon the desk, little feet swinging. She raised delicate, arched brows.

"Anyone would think," she declared, "that I had done wrong by you."

He struggled erect.

"By G.o.d, I'll have my chance!" he cried. "I'll have it in spite of you!

Do you hear? Go!"

"In good time, My Fool," she returned, easily. "When you shall have ceased to amuse me."

"You'll go now," he insisted, frenziedly. "Now!"

He stumbled forward, to grasp the white, rounded arms. She caught his wrists, holding him easily.