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Athalie, a novel by Robert W. Chambers |
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Chapter 14 |
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_ CHAPTER XIV In her letters Athalie never mentioned Captain Dane; not because she had anything to conceal regarding him or herself; but she seemed to be aware that any mention of that friendship might not evoke a sympathetic response from Clive. So, in her last letter, as in the others, she had not spoken of Captain Dane. Yet, now, he was the only man with whom she ever went anywhere and whom she received at her own apartment. He had a habit of striding in two or three evenings in a week,--a big, fair, broad-shouldered six-footer, with sun-narrowed eyes of arctic blue, a short blond moustache, and skin permanently burned by the unshadowed glare of many and tropic days. They went about together on Sundays, usually; sometimes in hot weather to suburban restaurants for dinner and a breath of air, sometimes to roof gardens. Why he lingered in town--for he seemed always to be at leisure--she did not know. And she wondered a little that he should elect to remain in the heat-cursed city whence everybody else she knew had fled. Dane was a godsend to her. With him she went to the Bronx Zoological Park several times, intensely interested in what he had to say concerning the creatures housed there, and shyly proud and delighted to meet the curators of the various departments who all seemed to know Dane and to be on terms of excellent fellowship with him. With him she visited the various museums and art galleries; and went with him to concerts, popular and otherwise; and took long trolley rides with him on suffocating evenings when the poor slept on the grass in the parks and the slums, east and west, presented endless vistas of panting nakedness prostrate under a smouldering red moon. Every diversion he offered her helped to sustain her courage; every time she lunched or dined with him meant more to her than he dreamed it meant. Because her savings were ebbing fast, and she had not yet been able to find employment. Some things she would not do--write to her sisters for any financial aid; nor would she go to the office of her late employers and ask for any recommendation from Mr. Grossman which might help her to secure a position. Never could she bring herself to do either of these things, although the ugly countenance of necessity now began to stare her persistently in the face. Also she was sensitive lest Dane suspect her need and offer aid. But how could he suspect?--with her pretty apartment filled with pretty things, and the luxurious Hafiz pervading everything with his incessant purring and his snowy plume of a tail waving fastidious contentment. He fared better than did his mistress, who denied herself that Hafiz might flourish that same tail. And after a while the girl actually began to grow thinner from sheer lack of nourishment. It never occurred to her to sell or pawn any of the furniture, silver, furs, rugs,--anything at all that Clive had given her. And there was one reason why she never would do it: she refused to consider anything he had given her as her own property to dispose of if she chose. For she had accepted these things from Clive only because it gave him pleasure to give. And what she possessed she regarded as his property held in trust. Nothing could have induced her to consider these things in any other light. One souvenir, only, did she look upon as her own. It had no financial value; and, if it had, she would have starved before disposing of it. This was the first thing he ever gave her--his boy's offering--the gun-metal wrist-watch. And her only recent extravagance had been a sentimental one; she had the watch cleaned and regulated, and a new leather strap adjusted. The evening it was returned to her she wore it; and that night she slept with the watch strapped to her wrist. So much for a young girl's sentiment!--for no letter came from him on the morrow although the European mail was in. None came the next day; nor the next. Toward the end of the week, one sultry evening, when Athalie returned from an unsuccessful tour of job-hunting, and nearer depression than ever she had yet been, Captain Dane came stalking in, shook hands with his usual decision, picked up Hafiz who adored him, and took the chair nearest to the lounge where Athalie lay. [Illustration: "With him she visited the various museums and art galleries."] "Suppose we dine somewhere?" he suggested, fondling the purring Angora and rubbing its ears. "Would you mind," she said, "if I didn't?" "You're very tired, aren't you, Miss Greensleeve?" "A little. I don't believe I have the energy to go out with you." Still fondling the willing cat he said: "What's wrong? Something's wrong, isn't it?" "No indeed." He turned and gave her a square look: "You're quite sure?" "Quite." "Oh; all right. Will you let me have dinner here with you?" She said without embarrassment: "I neglected my marketing: there's very little in the pantry." "Well," he said, "I'm hungry and I'm going to call up the Hotel Trebizond and have them send us some dinner." She seemed inclined to demur, but he had his way, went to the telephone and gave his orders. The dinner arrived in due time and was excellent. And when the remains of the dinner and the waiter who served it had been cleared out, Athalie felt better. "You ought to go to the country for two or three weeks," he remarked. "Why don't _you_ go?" she asked, smilingly. "Don't need it." "Neither do I, Captain Dane. Besides I have to continue my search for a position." "No luck yet?" "Not yet." He mused over his cigar for a few moments, lifted his blond head as though about to speak, but evidently decided not to. She had taken up her sewing and was now busy with it. From moment to moment Hafiz took liberties with her spool of thread where he sprawled beside her, patting it this way and that until it fell upon the floor and Dane was obliged to rescue it. It had grown cooler. A breeze from the open windows occasionally stirred her soft hair and the smoke of Dane's cigar. They had been silent for a few moments. Threading her needle she happened to glance up at him, and saw somebody else standing just behind him--a tall man, olive-skinned and black-bearded--and knew instantly that he was not alive. Serenely incurious, she looked at the visitor, aware that the clothes he wore were foreign, and that his features, too, were not American. And the next moment she gazed at him more attentively, for he had laid one hand on Dane's shoulder and was looking very earnestly across at her. He said distinctly but with a foreign accent: "Would you please say to him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez." "Yes," she said, unconscious that she had spoken aloud. Dane lifted his head, and remained motionless, gazing at her intently. The visitor was already moving across the room. Halfway across he looked back at Athalie in a pleasant, questioning manner; and she nodded her reassurance with a smile. Then her visitor was there no longer; and she found herself, a trifle confused, looking into the keen eyes of Captain Dane. Neither spoke for a moment or two; then he said, quietly: "I did not know you were clairvoyant." "I--see clearly--now and then." "I understand. It is nothing new to me." "You _do_ understand then?" "I understand that some few people see more clearly than the great majority." "Do you?" "No.... There was a comrade of mine--a Frenchman--Jacques Renouf. He was like you; he saw." "Is he living?--I mean as we are?" "No." "Was he tall, olive-skinned, black-bearded--" "Yes," said Dane coolly; "did you see him just now?" "Yes." "I wondered.... There are moments when I seem to feel his presence. I was thinking of him just now. We were on the upper Amazon together last winter." "How did he die?" "He'd been off by himself all day. About five o'clock he came into camp with a poisoned arrow broken off behind his shoulder-blade. He seemed dazed and stupefied; but at moments I had an idea that he was trying to tell us something." Dane hesitated, shrugged: "It was no use. We left our fire as usual and went into the forest about two miles to sleep. Jacques died that night, still dazed by the poison, still making feeble signs at me as though he were trying to tell me something.... I believe that he has been near me very often since, trying to speak to me." "He laid his hand on your shoulder, Captain Dane." Dane's stern lips quivered for a second, then self-command resumed control. He said: "He usually did that when he had something to tell me.... Did he speak to me, Miss Greensleeve?" "He spoke to me." "Clearly?" "Yes. He said: 'Would you please say to him that the greatest of all the ancient cities is hidden by the jungle near the source of the middle fork. It was called Yhdunez.'" For a long while Dane sat silent, his chin resting on his clenched hand, looking down at the rug at his feet. After a while he said, still looking down: "He must have found it all alone. And got an arrow in him for his reward.... They're a dirty lot, those cannibals along the middle fork of the Amazon. Nobody knows much about them yet except that they _are_ cannibals and their arrows are poisoned.... I brought back the arrow that I pulled out of Jacques.... There's no analysis that can determine what the poison is--except that it's vegetable." He leaned forward, as though weary, resting his face between both hands. "Yhdunez? Is that what it was called? Well, it and everything in it was not worth the life of my friend Renouf.... Nor is anything I've ever seen worth a single life sacrificed to the Red God of Discovery.... Those accursed cities full of vile and monstrous carvings--they belong to the jaguars now. Let them keep them. Let the world's jungles keep their own--if only they'd give me back my friend--" He rested a moment as he was, then straightened up impatiently as though ashamed. "Death is death," he said in matter-of-fact tones. Athalie slowly shook her head: "There is no death." He nodded almost gratefully: "I know what you mean. I dare say you are right.... Well--I think I'll go back to Yhdunez." "Not this evening?" she protested, smilingly. He smiled, too: "No, not this evening, Miss Greensleeve. I shall never care to go anywhere again--"... His face altered.... "Unless you care to go--with me." What he had said she would have taken gaily, lightly, had not the gravity of his face forbidden it. She saw the lean muscles tighten along his clean-cut cheek, saw the keen eyes grow wistful, then steady themselves for her answer. She could not misunderstand him; she disdained to, honouring the simplicity and truth of this man to whom she was so truly devoted. Her abandoned sewing lay on her lap. Hafiz slept with one velvet paw entangled in her thread. She looked down, absently freeing thread and fabric, and remained so for a moment, thinking. After a while she looked up, a trifle pale: "Thank you, Captain Dane," she said in a low voice. He waited. "I--am afraid that I am--in love--already--with another man." He bent his head, quietly; there was no pleading, no asking for a chance, no whining of any species to which the monarch man is so constitutionally predisposed when soft, young lips pronounce the death warrant of his sentimental hopes. All he said was: "It need not alter anything between us--what I have asked of you." "It only makes me care the more for our friendship, Captain Dane." He nodded, studying the pattern in the Shirvan rug under his feet. A procession of symbols representing scorpions and tarantulas embellished one of the rug's many border stripes. His grave eyes followed the procession entirely around the five-by-three bit of weaving. Then he rose, bent over her, took her slim hand in silence, saluted it, and asking if he might call again very soon, went out about his business, whatever it was. Probably the most important business he had on hand just then was to get over his love for Athalie Greensleeve. For a long while Athalie sat there beside Hafiz considering the world and what it was threatening to do to her; considering man and what he had offered and what he had not offered to do to her. Distressed because of the pain she had inflicted on Captain Dane, yet proud of the honour done her, she sat thinking, sometimes of Clive, sometimes of Mr. Wahlbaum, sometimes of Doris and Catharine, and of her brother who had gone out to the coast years ago, and from whom she had never heard. But mostly she thought of Clive--and of his long silence. Presently Hafiz woke up, stretched his fluffy, snowy limbs, yawned, pink-mouthed, then looked up out of gem-clear eyes, blinking inquiringly at his young mistress. "Hafiz," she said, "if I don't find employment very soon, what is to become of you?" The evening paper, as yet unread, lay on the sofa beside her. She picked it up, listlessly, glancing at the headings of the front page columns. There seemed to be trouble in Mexico; trouble in Japan; trouble in Hayti. Another column recorded last night's heat and gave the list of deaths and prostrations in the city. Another column--the last on the front page--announced by cable the news of a fashionable engagement--a Miss Winifred Stuart to a Mr. Clive Bailey; both at present in Paris-- She read it again, slowly; and even yet it meant nothing to her, conveyed nothing she seemed able to comprehend. But halfway down the column her eyes blurred, the paper slipped from her hands to the floor, and she dropped back into the hollow of the sofa, and lay there, unstirring. And Hafiz, momentarily disturbed, curled up on her lap again and went peacefully to sleep. _ |
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