The Song Of Songs Part 73

The front office door was open as usual when he worked in the back room, and she well knew the secret spring of the gate in the railing.

She prudently knocked at the inner door, which as a rule stood slightly ajar, but which to-day was closed.

"Come in," he said.

She stepped in and faced--his mother.

Lilly had never seen her, and she had imagined her quite, quite different, a tall, thin, imposing old lady. Next to Richard's desk sat a medium-sized, rotund woman with a black lace cap on her grizzled hair.

She looked at Lilly with an expression of surprise and displeasure in her cold, grey eyes.

Lilly instantly knew it was she.

Richard, who had been leaning back comfortably in his revolving chair, jumped to his feet.

Rigid with fright, Lilly stared at the old lady, who now rose from her seat also, while an evil gleam of anger and contempt lighted up those cold eyes.

"A fine state of affairs," she cried, turning her head jerkily from Richard to Lilly and back to Richard. "I'm not secure even in my own home. I beg of you, Richard, do not expose me to another meeting with a person of this sort."

With an indignant snort she pushed past Lilly, who stood to one side in respectful terror.

"What are you doing here? What do you mean by coming here in this way?"

Richard had never shouted at her so before.

He planted himself squarely in front of her, thrust his hands in his trousers' pockets, and gnawed the ends of his moustache. His head hung on his left shoulder. He looked like a treacherous, b.u.t.ting bull.

She wanted to hand him the picture and the letters, tell him everything she had intended to; but her voice failed. Her knees threatened to give way.

"I--I--I--" she faltered, and choked.

"I--I--I--" he mimicked her. "I--I--I'd like to wriggle myself in here.

I--I--I'd like to be mistress here--isn't that so? No, my little angel.

This can't go on! It has to stop--at once! I've long had my suspicions of what you call your unhappy love of the factory. Get out of here! Get out of here, I say."

Before he had finished Lilly was out.

She still held the parcel in a convulsive grip.

She reeled as she walked along--past bright red houses, which threatened to fall on her. A truck loaded with flour bags scattered white clouds. A pulley screeched in a factory yard. When someone came toward her, she made a wide detour, keeping to the edge of the pavement. She feared he might grin his contempt at her.

A skein of silk thread lay on the pavement. Lilly picked it up, and thought of hanging herself.

Something must be done.

To be abandoned--very well--if it could not be helped. Each one, when her turn came, would have to resign herself to her fate.

But to be chased away--thrown out--like a thief--like the vilest woman of the street--to be shaken off like a disgusting worm, to be spat upon!

Something must be done.

Anything to take revenge upon him.

Even if he was now unsusceptible to her revenge--all the same! He would discover he had been to blame throughout. If she descended into the mire, which had heretofore filled her with horror, if she went to ruin--!

Something must be done--any deed of self-degradation which made her fit to be treated in that way and no other--and freed her from those torments--those torments.

Her heart hung in her breast like a painful swelling. She could have drawn a line about it, so sharply defined it was against her side. It seemed to be in the clutch of sharp claws.

Again those lurking vultures occurred to her, the vultures of Kellermann's picture.

They were waiting for Lilly Czepanek. For whom else?

Suddenly something flashed and hissed in her brain like a tongue of fire.

That was it! That was it!

She summoned a cab.

On! On!

Whither?

She ordered the coachman to drive as quickly as possible to Mr.

Kellermann's studio.

She ran up the steps, the same steps down which eight months before she had glided at Richard's side rocked in bliss. All a-tremble she stepped into the dark anteroom, which had the stuffy smell of a badly aired bedroom. Her hand almost failed her as she knocked at the studio door.

Mr. Kellermann in his breeches and slippers was squatting on the floor beside the Turkish tabouret in exactly the same position as at her first visit. He was busied with a coffee machine, and looked contented and seedy.

"Mercy on us!" he said, and drew the collar of his night-s.h.i.+rt together.

"What signifies this sudden appearance, O n.o.ble G.o.ddess? Are the suns setting again?"

Lilly did not reply. She laid her hat and wraps on a chair, and began to unhook her waist, looking about for a screen. There was none.

The models who came to pose for Mr. Kellermann were not squeamish.

He jumped up and stared at her.

When he realised what she meant to do, he broke into exclamations of delight.

"What did I say? What did I say? I said you'd come. You see! We've reached the point at which we're screaming to be set free."

"I'm not screaming," she replied, drawing up the corners of her mouth disdainfully. "If you please, look somewhere else."

He made a dash for the picture leaning against the wall in its blind frame, blew the dust off, drove the wedge in tight, and adjusted the easel, laughing all the while, and grunting:

"She came after all."

Lilly had torn off her outer garments and was pulling at the drawing ribbon of her chemise. Her paralysed fingers could scarcely untie the knot.