Part 39

Whispers began to circulate.... In the smoking-rooms of the great Clubs, in the social circle at the palace of the Presidency, Dunoisse’s rare appearances were provocative of the smart _double entente_, and the cynical witticism; flagged darts that, thrown without discretion, presently found their way to the raw quick under the thickened skin. The very day that showed the stupendous task all but accomplished, brought home to Dunoisse--by the medium of an unsigned letter in a delicate feminine hand--the knowledge that, in the estimation of his world, at least--he was held to have been supplanted by de Moulny. The closing sentence of the anonymous writer reproduced, almost in the very words, the unforgettable utterance of Henriette at the inn of “The Heron”:

“_You only have yourself to thank for what has happened now!_”

It seemed the very voice of his Fate speaking, and Dunoisse grew pale as ashes, and laid the letter down. He had been much weakened by his unremitting labors, and the drumming of the blood in his ears and the violent beating of his heart made him deaf to the quiet opening and closing of the door. But a voice spoke to him, and he looked up, with the sharp-fanged fox of desperate jealousy gnawing under his uniform, as it had possibly gnawed under that of de Roux, and became aware that Monseigneur had entered, and was looking at him with a somewhat sinister smile. He said--as Dunoisse stumbled to his feet and saluted--looking narrowly at the haggard handsome face, and smoothing his thick brown mustache with the little hand that was so like a pretty woman’s:

“So! We draw near the end! We have at last the goal in view, according to the report I received from you this morning.” He added, as Dunoisse bowed in assent: “Accept my sincere congratulations upon the excellent service you have rendered, General-of-Brigade von Widinitz Dunoisse.”

His glance, as keen as dull and lusterless, had recognized the writing of the letter lying on the blotting-pad. He had calculated, and rightly, that to grant the coveted step at the moment of revelation would inconceivably intensify the torment of its sting. He did not delay to receive the halting thanks of the victim. He went on in his cool, mellifluous tones, showing a docketed paper in his hand:

“You mention at the close of your summary of the work that has been accomplished, that without diligent and painstaking revision of the maps of Eastern Europe at present in use at our Military School, and employed at our War Department, the coping-stone of perfection must be lacking still.” He added, “This, I will own, surprises me, our Government Survey Department being considered--I believe with justice!--as pre-eminent in skill and accuracy. How, then, do you suggest that the maps should be improved?”

“Monseigneur, the network of intelligence being complete,” answered Dunoisse, “a minute sanitary survey of the ground most likely to become the scene of militant operations should necessarily follow. Fever-breeding districts must be plainly labeled ‘Pestilential,’--doubtfully-salubrious regions must be indicated for what they are.... No detail should be neglected. Special qualifications--precise scientific knowledge will be necessarily required of the Staff officer who is deputed to carry out this mission.” He added, “For upon the health of the Army depends its fighting-power. One cannot win battles with sick men!”

“An excellent apophthegm,” Monseigneur pronounced, with that peculiarly amiable smile of his. He tapped his teeth thoughtfully with the paper in his hand. “As regards the Staff officer who is to be despatched on this--would you call it a perilous mission?”--He went on, Dunoisse having admitted it to be a decidedly perilous mission--“I know of but one individual possessing the necessary, indispensable qualifications, and he is yourself!” He added, turning the poisoned poniard in the wound: “Fair eyes will weep at your departure, my dear Dunoisse--lovely lips will call me cruel. But undoubtedly--you must be the man to go!”

LXIII

So Dunoisse, with a step in rank in lieu of the promised heap of gold, and the suspicion rankling in him that his banishment had long been contemplated, went back to the Rue de Sèvres and found Henriette and de Moulny there together.

It was early upon a chill October evening. They were talking low and earnestly before the fire that glowed in its polished steel basket. The rose-shaded lamp threw a tender light upon the pair. And the portrait of the nun-Princess of Orleans, treading with dimpled, naked feet upon scattered crowns and scepters, looked down upon them with her triumphant harlot’s smile.

There was a silence, poignant and tense. They had risen upon Dunoisse’s entrance--both faces wore a set, artificial smile of greeting. He looked from one to the other and waited, the venomed sentences of the anonymous letter rankling in his sickened mind. He noted, dully, that Henriette wore a loose, flowing robe of creamy white, the skirt edged, the low neck and loose sleeves bordered, with a Greek key-pattern in dull gold; and that de Moulny’s tall, official figure--arrayed in the unrelieved magpie-garb of black-and-white that Fashion had but recently decreed as the only evening wear for the ultra-fashionable civilian--bulked gigantic in the small boudoir that was no longer gray, but pranked it gayly, as one of Monseigneur’s own pages, in a coat of green-and-gold. His own face was sharp and hard as though sculptured in Egyptian granite, and his black eyes were glittering and chill. And it seemed as though the silence would last unbroken forever.... The Sèvres clock upon the mantelshelf ticked, the wood-ashes fell from the grate with a little rustling sound.... Dunoisse could hear de Moulny’s deep, even respiration and Henriette’s agitated, hurried breathing. It seemed to him that his heart did not beat--that he himself did not breathe at all. And then the spell was broken by a woman’s soft utterance. Henriette said:

“Dear friend, your arrival is opportune. M. de Moulny has called upon me to entreat that I would use such influence as I am--perhaps mistakenly--credited with possessing--to effect a reconciliation between you both.... The misunderstanding that has divided you so long shall be cleared up, shall it not--as he wishes?” She added, looking from one man to the other with softly-beaming eyes: “I too wish this, so very greatly.... Will you not be friends, to please me?”

De Moulny’s deep voice said:

“Have we ever been enemies?”

And he held out to Dunoisse his large, thick, white hand with the fleshy, round-tipped fingers; and, as a man in a dream will unquestionably accept some inconceivable, impossible situation, Dunoisse took the hand in his. It loosely grasped and was withdrawn. Then, there had followed some moments of conventional, ordinary, social commonplace. They had discussed the Message to the Senate, and the protest of the Count de Chambord against the contemplated restoration of the Empire; the probable results of the _plebiscite_, and the superior becomingness of the Marie Stuart style of _coiffure_ to a roll _à la Chinoise_. And then de Moulny had taken his leave, and, freed from the hateful oppression of his presence, Dunoisse could think clearly again.

Ah! could it be--without any bridging of the wide gulf of silence and neglect by any explanation--without any clearing up of that trifling matter of the command to fire, that had followed the pistol-shot at the Foreign Ministry nearly four years previously--could it be that Redskin and Alain were reconciled? With the anonymous letter festering in his memory--with the knowledge of impending banishment gnawing at his heart--Dunoisse answered No, no, no! to the question.... And then, a sudden, unexpected surge of joy lifted the poor dupe off the shoals of Disillusion, and swept him--how willingly!--back into the deceptive deeps beyond.

He broke to Henriette the news of the Eastern mission. She paled ... cried out ... threw herself half-swooning--bathed in tears, upon his breast. Cruel, cruel Monseigneur!... Her beautiful bosom heaved as she inveighed against the implacable tyrant at the Élysée. She vowed she would not submit to such a heartless abuse of authority.... She would go to the Prince, she declared--throw herself before him--plead upon her knees for a reversal of the pitiless appointment. And Dunoisse dissuaded her with difficulty from adopting such a course; inwardly blessing the power she reviled, for the discovery that, after all, he was loved....

And indeed, during the few, the very few, days that intervened between the reconciliation with de Moulny and Dunoisse’s departure, Henriette’s passion, that shriveled rose of Jericho, soaked in warm tears from lovely eyes, regained its pristine color, bloom, and fragrance. The ancient glamour was upon all earth and heaven, and the cup once more offered by those exquisite hands to the thirsting lips of her lover brimmed with the intoxicating wine of old.

LXIV

Their parting.... Ah! what pen could do justice to their parting, when, upon a certain fateful morning, some eight days subsequently to the decision of Monseigneur, Dunoisse tore himself away from Henriette and his revived and radiant happiness, and left Paris, _en route_ for Eastern Roumelia, and the debatable ground one day to be contested by the forces of the Sultan and the Czar.

Not without pith of meaning is the old saw that warns the traveler never, once having started, to retrace his steps. But the overworked pointsman’s blunder that sent the engine of the South-Eastern express crashing into the rear-wagon of a goods-train outside the station of Joigny--a disaster without resultant loss of life to any portion of the human freight--must be held responsible for Dunoisse’s return.

His route had officially been pricked out _viâ_ Marseilles and Constantinople. Owing to the lapse of hours that would intervene before the next Southward-going mail could be boarded, the bi-monthly steamer plying between the ports above named must certainly sail without Dunoisse. Somewhat bruised and shaken by the shock of the accident, and furthermore possessed with an intense nostalgia for Paris and Henriette, her lover yielded to the tempting, urgent voice; left his baggage--soldierly in its economy of bulk--in charge of the officials at Joigny--and burdened with nothing more cumbrous than a traveling-bag--took the next train for home.

* * * * *

The city clocks were striking twelve when he left the terminus of the Rue Mazas and rattled in a hired _coupé_ over the Bridge of Austerlitz. It was a windless night of numbing cold, and the long double line of the quays, and the sluggish river winding between them, and the arcs of the bridges spanning the wide, turbid flood, were only indicated by their lamps, twinkling brightly as a jeweler’s emeralds and topazes out of wrappings of fleecy cotton-wool. No bivouac-fires reddened the foggy sky; no troops occupied the public places or patroled the streets; no blood-bedabbled corpses were being carted to the cemetery; yet Dunoisse was irresistibly reminded of the night of his return from London, on the morning that had followed the master-stroke of Monseigneur. Perhaps that association threw the first splash of cold water on his enterprise.... But he told himself for the hundredth time that he was going back to Henriette, who loved him; and that her joy at the unexpected sight of him would clear away all shadow of doubt and misunderstanding from between them for evermore.

It seemed a long drive. You are never in such a red-hot hurry as when you are speeding to the wreck and ruin of an illusion upon the jagged rocks of a test. But at last it was over. He dismissed his cab at the street-corner, in the interests of the joyful surprise he had in view--and reached the familiar gates on foot. No need to use the little pass-key, carried in Dunoisse’s waistcoat-pocket, and admitting by the smaller portal, framed in the corner of the larger one, for--thanks to some neglect of the portress--the little door stood ajar; it swung inwards at the first touch.... And thus Dunoisse stepped noiselessly into the dark, foggy courtyard, passed under the tall, stately, familiar portico--conjectured rather than seen in the draping veil of fog--and drew out the latch-key of the de Roux’s hall-door. But that door was also open--upon this night of wonders every obstacle seemed to dissolve like foam or mist-wreath under the touch of the man who was hurrying to prove his mistress faithful. For, stripped of all ornament or pretense, you have in these five plain words the reason of Dunoisse’s return.

The servants had gone to bed, or had been given leave to spend the night elsewhere. A small lamp burned feebly in the deserted vestibule, like Faith trying to keep itself alive in a soul that has learned to doubt. The drawing-rooms were in darkness, their wood fires mere cores of red under gray crusts of ashes. Beyond, the green-and-gold boudoir, with a brilliant fire and many lights, gleamed like some transcendent emerald at the end of a tunnel of ebony blackness. She was not there. But the door of the bedroom that was fragrant and pink as the heart of a blush-rose--that stood a little ajar....

Moving with long, swift, eager strides over the velvety carpets, Dunoisse reached the open door of the bedroom. With a heart that throbbed as madly as on the first night that had seen him cross its threshold, he looked in, and saw Henriette.

In sharpest contrast with the brilliancy of the green-and-gold boudoir, the rose-colored bedroom, save for the blazing wood-billets that dispensed a dancing light and a delicious warmth, was all in shadow. At an angle, facing towards the fire, stood a low, broad ebony couch without a back or foot-piece, covered in rose-color matching the shade of the draperies of the windows, the walls, and the tent that in the graceful fashion of the era, sheltered the bed. And Henriette lay--in beauty revealed rather than covered by a thin diaphanous robe of lawn and lace--outstretched upon the couch beside the fire, her shoulders raised upon its rose-colored cushions, her lovely head thrown back and drooping as in the chaste abandonment of sleep, toward the shoulder whose curving whiteness shone pearly between the tresses of night-black hair that streamed across it and downwards; partly veiling the white arm, and the delicate hand that rested, palm upwards, on the leopard-skin that was spread before the hearth.

Surely, surely, she was very pale.... But never had she seemed more alluringly, irresistibly fair in the eyes that drank her in, and could not slake their thirst in gazing. And surely she was very still.... The colorless lips, parted in a faint, mysterious smile, gave forth no sighing breath; the pulses at the base of the rounded throat did not throb perceptibly--the full, goddess-like bosom that gleamed through the mist-thin fabric of her robe did not rise or fall with the deep even respiration of natural, wholesome slumber. But not until Dunoisse had crossed to her side--bent down and set his burning kiss upon those smiling lips, did he realize that they were icy cold; that the teeth were rigidly clenched behind them, and that the half-open eyes were fixed in a glassy stare. And in the poignant horror of the discovery he cried her name aloud, and snatched the inert form into his embrace--lavishing frantic caresses and adoring words upon her--imploring her to revive ... to look at him ... to answer ... if only by a sigh.

In vain his prayers. The silent heart against which his cheek was pressed gave back no throb; not the slightest answering pressure might be won from the nerveless arms he laced about his neck--not the faintest nerve-thrill told of life in the beautiful body, whose most secret chords were so well used to respond to the urgent call of Passion. She was cold, white and silent as the dead.

Could this be Death indeed?... Dunoisse drove the haunting query desperately from him. He remembered with relief a flask of cognac that he carried in an inner pocket of his traveling-cloak; and tried, out of the silver thimble-cup that was screwed as a cap over the stopper, to pour a little of the spirit between the small, set teeth. When her head rolled helplessly on his supporting arm--when the liquid, finding no entrance, flowed away at the corners of the pale, stiff lips, adding a coarse spirituous tang to the delicately-fragrant atmosphere of the bedroom, the dreadful doubt assailed Dunoisse more fiercely. Baffled, sick with despair, he laid her back upon the couch, freed himself tenderly from the long strands of night-black hair that clung to his rough traveling clothes and tangled in his buttons--struck a match and lighted, with what a shaking hand!--the rose-tinted wax candles upheld by porcelain Cupids on the mantelshelf. Holding one of the candlesticks on high, he sent a questioning glance about in search of smelling-salts or some more powerful restorative. And not until then did the tell-tale disorder of the place yield up its ugly secret. He knew all.

The disorder of the luxurious bed ... the little table of two covers that stood near its foot, bearing a plate of caviare sandwiches partly consumed, a cut _pâté_ and two champagne-bottles, one prone and empty, the other partly full, gave testimony there was no disproving. Even without the clinching evidence furnished by the heavy, fur-lined overcoat that sprawled over the back of a chair--the masculine stock that curled about an ivory hand, loaded with rings of price--the black satin cravat that lay upon the lace-draped toilette table, its twin diamond pins, linked by a chain of gold, winking and gleaming like mocking goblin-eyes. And was not that a man’s white glove, lying where it had been dropped upon the rose-colored carpet?... Mechanically Dunoisse crossed the room and picked it up. And it was no glove, but a crumpled note, penned in violet ink, in Henriette’s clear, delicate characteristic hand, on her white, satin-striped paper. And it told all, crudely and without reserve, to the poor dupe whom it flouted and mocked.

“UNRULY MONSTER,--

“Yes! ’tis true! Don Quixote has departed. Naturally I am inconsolable!--but since you profess yourself convinced of the contrary, you may come at the usual hour. The servants will be disposed of--the doors will be open.... When we meet, perhaps I may be----

THY HENRIETTE.”

LXV

He turned upon her with her letter in his hand; with fierce upbraidings struggling for utterance at his twisted lips; with a heart full of bitter hatred ready to outpour upon her. She quelled his madness--she struck him speechless--he tried to curse her, but could find no voice.

For a nameless, awe-inspiring change, had crept over her. The shell-white features were now pinched and drawn. Beneath the broad white brow the partly-open, coldly-glittering eyes were sunk in caves of bluish tinting. Hollows had appeared beneath the cheekbones; while about the mouth, whose drawn, livid, parted lips revealed the little clenched pearly teeth, that disquieting shadow, cruelly suggestive of dissolution and corruption, showed in a broad band; and beneath the swelling curves of her bosom a deep, abdominal depression now sharply marked the edges of the lower ribs. And thus Dunoisse, familiar with Death as a soldier may be who has met the grim King of Terrors on the battle-field, and in the camp, and on the pallets of field-hospitals, told himself that beyond all doubt Death was here.

And so it was that he could not curse her for a harlot. She was dead, and Death is pure.... She was dead, and Death is meek and helpless; at the mercy of the smallest, most despicable, weakest thing that walks or crawls or flies.

Looking upon Henriette, you would never have guessed that here lay a wanton, stricken down at the height of a delirious orgy of forbidden pleasure. Rather you thought of a snow-white seagull, lying stiff and frozen on a stretch of sunset-dyed seashore, or a frail white butterfly, dead in the heart of a pink, overblown rose.

So the madness burned itself out in the brain of Dunoisse as he stood looking at her. The blood in his veins ran less like liquid fire, the cold sweat dried upon his skin, the roaring in his ears lessened--he could now control the twitching of his muscles that had ached with the desire to kill with naked hands a man abhorred--to batter out all semblance of its luring beauty from the white, white face against the rose-hued background. If the prone figure had given sign of life!--but its pallor as of snow--its rigidity and breathlessness remained unaltered. And presently, looking upon her, lying there; laughter and tears, love and anger, forever quenched in her; disarmed of her panoply of conquering gifts and graces by pitiless Death, a bitter spasm took him by the throat and a mist of tears came before his eyes. He trembled, and for lack of power to stand, sat down upon the foot of the sofa, near where the stiff little feet he had so often kissed peeped out beyond the border of her robe of lawn and laces. His haggard eyes were fixed upon the cold and speechless mouth. And in its rigid silence it was eloquent.

* * * * *

“Dear friend,” the dumb voice seemed to say ... “sweet friend, whose pleadings won me to deceive--and whom I have in turn deceived--the heroic virtue of Fidelity having no part in the pliable, silken web of my nature--listen to me, and be, not pardoning--but pitiful!...”

“God knows,” said Dunoisse sorrowfully, “how I pity you, Henriette!”

“Born with the fatal gift of maddening beauty--endowed with the deadly heritage of irresistible fascination,” went on the silent voice, “ask yourself how it was possible for your Henriette to pass through life untainted by the desires--unbranded by the scorching lusts of men? Be fair to me, dear friend. Question--and give answer.”

Dunoisse asked himself the question. There was but one reply.

“Look around,” said the voice, “and you will see my prototype in liberal Nature. The bird that builds too low; the rose that does not hang her clusters high enough; the fruit whose very ripeness calls the wasps to settle and feast. Yet who says to the bird, ‘Build higher! Another year you will not lose your eggs so!’ Does anyone bid the rose change her nature and lift her perfumed blossoms far out of reach of plundering hands? What if one cried to the peach, ‘Do not ripen, stay crude and sour because thus you will not tempt the yellow-and-black marauder.’ Would not the pious tell us that to expect Heaven-taught Nature to alter her ways at our bidding were to be guilty of mortal sin? Then, what of us Henriettes--born to yield and submit, give and grant and lavish? Are we much more to blame, do you think, than the bird, than the rose, than the peach?”

“Oh, my poor, frail, false love!” said Dunoisse, “how wise Death has made you!” For his bitter anger and resentment were vanishing as the silent voice talked on:

“We drink in the sunshine of admiring glances at every pore,” said the voice. “We thrive on smiles and compliments. All young and handsome men--even those who are neither young nor handsome--are our comrades or servants--until the moment arrives when the comrade becomes tyrant, and the servant commands! Then, what tears we shed!--for our dearest dream is always of pure passion--unrewarded fidelity. We are continually planting the gardens of our hearts with these fragrant, homely flowers, and Man is always tearing them up, and setting in their stead the vine of nightshade, deadly briony, sad rosemary, bitter wormwood and sorrowful rue. And as long as the world shall last, the cruel play goes on....”

The half-open, glassy eyes were dry, but the silent voice had sobs in it. And it said: