Part 11

Simultaneously the two men raised and extended their right arms, d’Arcy in such a manner that the forearm and butt of the pistol masked the abnormal beauty of his face. The hand was bare, but the left, which hung at his side, was gloved.

“One! Two! Three!”

With the ridiculous noise of a firecracker a pistol went off. D’Arcy, lowering his right hand, raised and shook the left. The delicate material of the glove had reddened, and on the ground specks of crimson dropped.

“Four! Five!”

D’Arcy’s left hand fell back. He raised the right.

“Six! Seven! Eight!”

Measuredly, monotonously, but more loudly than before, the final numbers were being called. Infinitesimally the point of d’Arcy’s pistol moved. His heels were no longer drawn together. His right hand was held less high. His left hand burned. Otherwise he was entirely at his ease.

He had withstood Barouffski’s fire. It was Barouffski’s turn to withstand his. He had time and to spare. Slowly, coolly, deliberately, he was taking aim.

It was very agreeable. He was smiling. He was enjoying himself. He was enjoying Barouffski’s presumable suspense. He was savouring his equally presumable agitations. The man’s face had turned ashen. The fact that it had, that he could see it had, delighted him. He felt sure of himself, and his thoughts were pleasant.

He was thinking: “That glass of wine of yours was the last you will ever ask me or any one else to drink.”

He had become aware of Leilah’s presence. That, too, delighted him. If he had a regret, it was that Tempest, the Silverstairs, all the demi-mondaines and exotics of the night before, the Bohemians to boot, the waiters as well, were not present also. Though in appearance divine, at heart he was human.

Again, imperceptibly, the point of his pistol moved.

“Nine!”

The trigger had been pulled. There was a fresh detonation. D’Arcy handed his pistol to the fat man, bent over, took up his hat, put it on, took it off, raised it straight upward, and for a moment, before replacing it, held it high in the air.

Leilah, without noticing the salute which was intended for her, saw Barouffski turn completely around, sink on his knees, press his hands to his side, and pitch forward.

It was a feint, she thought, histrionics for the gallery, perhaps for her. But now the old man and his colleague were bending over him. Behind them, Palencia, Tyszkiewicz and the man with the umbrella leaned. Barouffski’s coat and waistcoat were opened, his shirt was torn apart.

Leilah heard what to her was the meaninglessness of technical terms. She saw the men who had been bending arise. She saw the others remove their hats. At the significant action she saw that the garden had been again invaded, this time by Death.

She turned, clutching for support at the velvet of a curtain, overwhelmed at the knowledge that her prison had crumbled, that the jailer was gone.

It had been her destiny to have sorrow spring into her life, fell her, make her its own, and to what end? Tearfully she had put that query to walls as callous as fate. Tearfully she had come to believe that she was damned in this existence for sins committed in another. It is this life that is hell she had told herself. But now, abruptly, the malediction was lifted. Still in hell, she was at the portals, the gates were open, she was free!

Yet was she? At the moment it seemed to her that it was all a hallucination; that, if she looked again into the accursed garden, she would see Barouffski tapping his breast with one hand, pointing to some prostrate form with the other, and, with his ambiguous smile, calling to her:

“See, my dear, I, I am unharmed.”

So poignant was the impression that she did look. A litter had been improvised, and on it Barouffski, an arm pendent, his head fallen back, his face a gray green, was being put.

On the door behind her sounded the muffled tap of fingers furtive and discreet. She turned. At the threshold was Parker.

“If you please, my lady. Will your ladyship receive----”

“No,” Leilah answered. She was about to add that she was at home to no one. But she caught herself. “Who is it?”

With that air which those acquire who attend to delicate matters, the woman answered: “Mr. Verplank.”

Leilah drew a long breath. She went to the mirror. The curtain had disarranged her hair. She readjusted it, and passed out and down into the slippery salon.

Verplank was leaning against the piano. His left arm was in a sling, and the left side of his face from the nose to the ear was bandaged.

Before either could speak there came from the hall a murmur of voices, the sound of lumbering feet, the noise of people labouring upward.

Verplank looked at Leilah, and from her to the door.

“What is that?”

On and upward moved the steps, the noise decreasing as they passed, the sound subsiding with them.

“What is it?” Verplank asked again.

Leilah’s under lip trembled. The deliverance from the vortex, the after-shudder that comes when some great peril has been barely escaped, the sensation of strength overtaxed, these things fusing with the consciousness that the last barricade had been taken, that there were now no more hostages to joy, induced in her one of the most curious of physical phenomena.

With tears running down her cheeks, she smiled. Then, sobbing and smiling still, she answered him:

“The key of the prison.”

Verplank nodded. He did not in the least understand. But the singularity of her appearance, joined to the singularity of her reply, aroused in him a great pity for this woman who had ruined her life, ruined his own, and who then seemed to him demented.

“Pardon, madame la comtesse. Monsieur Palencia and Monsieur Tyszkiewicz ask if madame la comtesse will receive them?”

At the door, behind her, was Emmanuel.

At once another phenomenon occurred. Galvanised by that instinct of form which, when requisite, enables women of the world to banish instantly any trace of emotion, Leilah turned to the footman a face in which the tears had been reabsorbed, and from which the smile had gone.

“Say to these gentlemen that I appreciate and thank them, but that I can see no one.”

Emmanuel compressed his lips. He wondered how she knew. There was a great deal occurring in this house that perplexed him. Moreover, Verplank’s bandage and sling interested him very much. But, trained to his calling, he bowed and withdrew.

“What do they want?” Verplank asked, memories of his own duel surging at mention of their names before him.

In Leilah’s face the tears and smiles reappearing, mingled.

“Barouffski is dead,” she answered.

Verplank closed and opened a hand. His mouth opened also. He was sure now that she was crazy.

“Dead! How? What do you mean?”

Leilah made a gesture.

“There, a moment ago, in the garden. D’Arcy shot him.”

Verplank started. The definiteness of her reply divested him of his idea concerning her, but it produced another which was also, though differently, disturbing. His eyes blazed. The old scar, the scar on the right side of his face, reddened.

“Who the devil is d’Arcy?”

For a moment he stared. Then, angrily snapping two fingers, he cried:

“In taking you from this damned house to-day, I had intended to leave a card for him, not a p. p. c. either, one with our address on it and the hours when I would be at home. If there was any shooting going on, I intended to be in it. Now some duffer must interfere.”

With a rapid intake of the breath, he considered her. At the moment, he doubted it could be true. Yet her face, with its hysterical blending of joy and sorrow, seemed to certify that it was so. After all, he reflected, however the odour may occur, always the smell of an enemy’s corpse is sweet. But, uncertain still, he threw out for clincher:

“Is that what you meant by the key of the prison?”

She moved to him.

“Gulian, yes, and never can I be thankful enough that it was not your hand that turned it.”

Verplank tossed his bandaged head.

“So this is the end!”

Leilah looked up at him.

“Gulian, no, not that. The end of the beginning, if you like. Hereafter we will be beginning anew. Hereafter----”

She paused. The word had been evocative. Its repetition showed her that which she had not yet had time to consider; the decencies of life, the decencies, too, of death, the funeral, the widow’s weeds, the delay which the world exacts; new hostages to joy, real though impermanent.

She told him of them.

From the church next door the organ pealed, and as they then remade their plans--those plans which mortals think they make, and which always are unmade unless intended for them--a ray of sunshine entered; the organ pealed louder, the beauty of the melody hushed their voices, and for a moment, to the appoggiatura of Stradella, on that shaft of light, Leilah’s thoughts, ascending, mounted into realms where all things broken are made complete, and where are found again things vanished.

* * * * * *

Transcriber’s note:

--Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

--Archaic and variable spelling is preserved.

--Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved.

--The author’s long dash style has been retained.