For the task therefore which she could not perform, he seemed naturally indicated. What alone gave her pause was the certainty that he would enjoy it. She could see him, see his ambiguous smile, see his green eyes aglow, his cruel and sensual mouth distended.
From the picture she turned. Beyond was a church, the frontal draped with black. The motor had stopped. It had reached the house in the Rue de la Pompe and pending the opening of the doors, whirred as it blocked the sidewalk.
It was then that she turned. Beside her, arrested by the car, stood Verplank.
After walking up from Voisin’s with Silverstairs he had left him a moment earlier at Tempest’s.
But the great doors had opened. Before Verplank could speak, the machine slid in. As it entered the court, the doors closed noisily.
VIII
On alighting at the perron, Leilah had as always to endure the ceremonial of two footmen assiduously assisting her.
“Emmanuel,” she said to one of them. “Is Monsieur Barouffski at home?”
“No, madame la comtesse.”
Leilah passed on and up. For a moment, in the hall above, she hesitated. Then, pushing a portière aside, she entered a salon, went to the window, and looked out. Crossing the court was Verplank.
Fear and the fear of it, the throttling sensation which children know when pursued, enveloped her. With an idea of telling the servants that she was out, that she was ill, that she could see no one, she turned. On a table near the entrance was a service of Sevrès. Its tender hues were repeated on the ceiling. Beneath was the mirror of a waxed and polished floor. On the glistening woodwork her foot slipped. She staggered, recovered herself, got to the door.
Already Verplank had entered. She could hear him. He was not asking, he was demanding to see her. The form of the order mounted violently.
“Tell your mistress that I am here.”
Even then, with the idea that she might still deny herself, Leilah drew back into the room. Mentally she was framing a phrase when Emmanuel entered.
With that air domestics have when tidying something objectionable, the footman reconstructed Verplank’s command:
“There is a monsieur who inquires whether madame la comtesse receives?”
“Tell him—”
But the injunction, as yet not wholly formed, was never completed. Verplank, brushing the man aside, strode in.
Leilah, retreating before him, motioned at Emmanuel, and the servant, with an affronted air of personal grievance, vacated this room that was charged now with the vibrations of hostilities begun.
Retreating yet farther, her eyes on the foe, Leilah stared at him, and, as she retreated, Verplank, staring, too, advanced. In his stare were threats so voluble that she thought: “He will kill me.” At the thought, there appeared before her Death’s liberating face, the mysteriously consoling visage which it reveals to those alone who have reached the depth of human woe.
Beyond, from the church, came the music of an organ. A requiem was being held. Leilah felt as though it were her own.
Verplank, his hands clenched, the look of an executioner about him, threw at her:
“For six months I have been looking for you. I am come to have you tell me why I have had to look at all.”
“Dies irae, dies illa,” admirably, in a clear contralto, a woman’s voice rang out.
Neither heard it. At the menace of the man, Leilah shrank, and in an effort at defense cried pitiably:
“Gulian! I left a letter for you.”
Angrily he tossed his head.
“I received none, nor did I need any to tell me that there are women on the street, others in jail, that are less vile than you.”
“Teste David cum Sibylla,” clearly and beautifully the voice resumed.
“Gulian!” Leilah cried again.
With whips in his words, he added:
“No harlot could have acted more infamously than you.”
At the lash of the outrage, Leilah, joining her hands, held them to him. “Gulian! You are killing me!”
“It is what you deserve. There are no penalties now for such turpitudes as yours. But, when there were, women like you were beaten with rods, they were lapidated, stoned to death, and death was too good for them; they should have been made to go about, as they afterward were, as you should be, in a yellow wig, in a yellow gown, that even children might point and cry: ‘Shame!’ ”
The words, which he tore from his mouth, he hurled at her. She cowered before them. On a chair nearby she had put her bag. Her wrap had fallen from her. In the church now the hymn had ceased. The ringing of the Elevation was beginning.
“Gulian! As if shame had not cried at me! Gulian, I have been scourged, I have been stoned. If I live, it is to implore of you mercy.”
Her hands, still joined, were still extended, and in her face was an expression of absolute despair. But this martyr attitude seemed to him the most abominable of hypocrisies, and it was with anger refreshed that he lashed her again.
“Mercy? Yes, you want mercy, you, who were merciless in your treachery to me. A sweep would have had more decency, a scullion more heart. I put in your hands my trust, my love, my honour, and you who want mercy dragged them in dirt.”
“Gulian!” Within her now was that invincible need of justice which impels the weakest to protest against the savagery of wrong. “Gulian! When you know!”
“I do know. I know you and your lies, and the infamy of them too well. At Coronado—”
“Gulian! You are not killing me merely, you torture my very soul.”
He sneered.
“Do I? Do I, indeed! No, you compliment yourself. It is what I want to do, but you cheat me even
