Chapter 26

THE RED ROSE.

He did not see her enter. He did not hear her enter. Yet he knew that she was there, although he had left her across an ocean.... Another sense, it seemed, there was within him.... He knew that she had crossed the room; that she was leaning, rounded arms all bare, across the back of the great chair, by the window. He did not know; he had not looked; yet he could see her, beautiful, gloriously beautiful in her strange, weird, dark beauty; head poised like a tiger lily upon its stalk; great masses of dead black hair coiled in the disorder that, of her, was order above the low, white forehead; vivid lips parted to reveal the gleam of shining teeth; long, lithe limbs in the easy relaxation that is of the panther, or the leopard.

At length he turned.... She was there. She was as he, unseeing, had seen; as he had known that he should see.... He had ceased to wonder. The Unknown had taught him so much that of the things it had not taught, he had ceased to wonder....

He looked; and looked away. She laughed, a little, lightly. She turned a little, lissomely. He could see the muscles of her straight, slender shape ripple beneath the shimmering black gown.

At length he spoke, roughly, gruffly:

"Well?"

Almost caressingly, she answered:

"Well?"

"So you've come to gaze upon the ruin you have wrought, eh?"

Again she laughed.

"Upon the ruin _we_ have wrought, My Fool," she corrected.

"Don't call me that," he muttered. "It hurts. It hurts because it's true."

"Most truths hurt," she remarked, smilingly.

"Now," he mumbled, "yes...." And then: "You're satisfied, I hope. She's gone."

"Gone?" It was a pretty inflection--the rising inflection of great surprise. Her eyes, glowing of merriment, belied her lips.

"Gone," he repeated, doggedly. "Gone, and taken the child--my child--our child--with her."

She glided across to where he sat; she leaned over him.

"And you're sorry, I suppose," she asked, mockingly. "Heart-broken!"

"Yes, by God! I am!" he cried, from the soul.

There came from her lips a peal of merry, musical laughter.

"The man of it! Every man wants two women--one to love, and one to respect; one to caress, the other to honor; one to please himself, the other to please his friends. And you're no different from the rest that I have known."

He looked up at her, eye laden of hate, and scorn.

"The rest that you have known!" he retorted, with bitterness, with meaning.

"The rest that I have known," she returned, evenly, lightly.

"Young Parmalee, and Rogers, and Seward Van Dam--and God knows how many more!"

She laughed.

"Jealous, eh? That is as it should be, My Fool." She laid her hand lightly on his shoulder. Roughly he took it, casting it from him.

"Damn you!" he cried. "Let me alone!"

She drew up, stiffly, but speaking softly, said,

"So?"

"I--I didn't mean it that way," he apologized.

"I wonder if you ever spoke that way to her--the other.... You didn't," came from her slowly.

He shook his head.

"No," he replied.

The Woman seated herself upon the arm of his chair, lithely.

"And do you know why?"

Again he shook his head.

"Because you never loved her as you love me. A man is as rough sometimes to the woman he loves as at other times he is sweet." She plucked a scarlet rose from the great cluster that she wore at her breast, dangling it in one white hand, lazily, sensuously.

"You know well of men, don't you," Schuyler remarked, bitterly,

"Well enough" she replied, lightly. "And that is why, when you said, 'Damn you, let me alone!' that I didn't say, 'Damn you!'" she struck him lightly across the face with the scarlet blossom, "and go." Then, with abrupt transition: "That and because I love you."

He laughed, mirthlessly.

"Because you love me!" he cried, his voice all scorn. "Because you love me! Does love then bring disgrace, and ruin, and dishonor upon the object of its lavishment? Does it? Does it?"

She had sunk upon the floor at his feet. Her legs were drawn beneath her; she poised herself upon her supple white arms, looking up at him.

"Sometimes," she returned, evenly. "Even as it brings joy, and ecstasy and happiness untold.... And it does bring that," she purred, sibilantly. "Doesn't it, My Fool?"

He leaned forward, drawing her to him.

"You know it," he cried.... "You know it!"

She saw beginning to glow in the leaden eyes the light that she alone knew how to kindle.... It pleased her.... It pleased her also to blight it at her will. She laughed. She knew as well how to blight as how to kindle. She knew also how to twist a soul in torment; and how to swirl it to the false heaven of unreal joys. For she, of the Unknown, knew much-- more, perhaps, than of the known. She said, laughing janglingly:

"But did you ever think, My Fool, that there are different loves?"

He sunk back into his chair. The eyes again were leaden. His head bent. She leaned forward, taking from a vase on the table a nodding white blossom.

"One love," she went on, "is like the white rose--pallid, pale, wistful, weak--a lifeless thing that lies dead against the hand that holds it-- that wearies the eye and chills the soul.... The other love is like the red rose--rich, rare, glowing, glorious--that thrills the heart with the joy of living and quickens the blood in the veins until the very soul cries out in the frenzy of its fragrance--a pulsing, throbbing love of body and soul and heart and head, that rushes upon one like a storm at sea, dashing one hither and thither, impotent in its tearing, tossing grip.... That is our love--the Red Love--and it is sweet, is it not, My Fool?"

She bent over him, watching the light again leap to the heavy eyes as he answered:

"Sweet? Sweet as Paradise--a false Paradise, perhaps; but still Paradise! Those days on the Mediterranean, the sea no bluer than the sky that held it in its sunlit hand--and Venice--Venice, with the great, round moon overhead, and the mysterious semi-darkness all about--the splashing of soft waters there beside us and the silent whisper of the lazy oar--and just you and I--alone amid all the glories--side by side--heart in heart-- soul in soul." With a great choking sob: "It was sweet, Lady Fair! Sweet!"

The Woman continued:

"And there are two roads through life even as there are two roses. The one is a rough road and weary, and on it happiness seldom treads. It is a plodding road, flat and long; and there you walk with stale and barren people, through a stale and barren land, until you come to an ending yet more stale and more barren than are road or people. That is the road of the White Rose. But the Road of the Red Rose! That's different! On the Road of the Red Rose there is laughter and light, and happiness and joy! Flowers bloom; birds sing. There come the soft wash of the sea--the silent whisper of the breeze--the call of Love!"

She rose lithely to her feet. In one hand she held the bending white blossom; in the other the crimson. Suddenly she thrust them toward him, body bent, lips parted, and cried, sibilantly:

"Which rose do you choose, My Fool? Which Road?"

Roughly he struck from her hand the drooping flower of white. That of red was crushed between them as he seized her in his arms and drew her to him.

"The red rose!" he cried. "And the Red Road! And we'll travel to the end, and beyond!"