With that mask, he called at her.
“Then may you be forever damned.”
The malediction passed from him, reached her, shook her. She held to the chair for support. Then indignantly she protested.
“Gulian!”
He did not hear. An idea had come to him, one that had visited him in Melbourne, again in New York, to desist from further effort, to leave her where she was, behind the barriers she had raised. At the moment he believed he desired her no longer, loved her no more, had never loved her at all. Occupied with the idea he looked at this woman who had ruined her life, ruined his own.
She had been saying something, what he did not know nor, self-centered in his anger, did he care.
In his pocket was a revolver. He felt of it and infuriatedly cried:
“You ought to be shot.”
“Gulian!”
“You are on a par with the beast you took up with.”
“I took his name, Gulian, his name alone.”
It was her turn to be angry. The flush had gone, she was pale again and she had abandoned the chair’s support. She stood upright, confronting him with that purity which was hers.
“I have no more been his wife than I was yours.”
“What!”
This time he heard. But her words, conflicting with his thoughts, rolled over together. In this mental confusion he stared.
“What!”
“It is as I tell you.”
“You swear it?”
“Do I need to?”
Still he stared. Truth which acts on us and in us like a chemical precipitate was disclosing to him her whiteness and its own.
“Do I?” she repeated.
“No, by God, you don’t. I believe you. I can’t help myself. It is in your eyes.”
He paused and awkwardly added:
“Forgive me.”
Faintly and sadly she smiled.
“Will you?” he asked.
“Kiss me.”
In the unique syllables of the words, which in a woman’s mouth are so fluid, there was a forgiveness so entire and a love so great that in passionate contrition he drew her to him. Longly their lips met. She closed her eyes, opened them, disengaged herself, moved back a step and looked at him. For the first time she noticed the grime on his face. It did not astonish. It seemed natural after what they had both been through and it occurred to her that her own appearance might be equally bizarre.
Briefly then, in this lull in the storm, she told him what Violet had suggested—the buying and divorce of Barouffski.
“That will take time,” he objected. “The shortest way ’round is the quickest way out. If you had not interfered in the garden—”
A gesture completed the sentence.
“No matter,” he grimly added. “I haven’t done with him yet.”
In speaking he had crossed the room, now he recrossed it.
Imploringly Leilah approached him.
“Gulian, not that, not that! Don’t fight with him again. Don’t, I beseech you. It is not alone that anything of the kind is so horrible but he is one of the trickiest swordsmen here. Think what that means! Think what would become of me if—if—”
From the pocket of his coat Verplank had taken the revolver. He looked at it, looked at her, replaced it.
“I am a trifle interested in the matter myself. Besides, there are other weapons than the foil. If I can shoot pigeons—and I believe I can—I ought to be able to land a buzzard.”
At sight of the revolver Leilah had winced. Now she cried:
“Give it to me!”
Verplank, amused at her simplicity, smiled.
“That isn’t a dueling pistol.”
“But you never carried one before.”
“In the States I did not need to. Here, in Paris, particularly at night, the streets are seldom sure. I have this thing for protection.”
“Promise me then—”
Verplank looked her over.
“Don’t be a fool.”
But as he looked, suddenly she started and he saw that she was trembling.
“What the deuce is the matter?”
Trembling still, peeringly now she had turned to the portières.
“What is it?” he repeated.
“I am so frightened.”
“Frightened? What at?”
Uncertainly, her head drawn back as a deer’s is when surprised, she glanced about her. Slowly then her eyes returned to his.
“I am so frightened!”
“Yes, but at what?”
She motioned at the room. “Before you came there seemed to be something here, something around me and just now—”
“Well?”
“I heard something.”
“Your maid probably.”
With an intake of the breath she raised a finger and for a moment both were silent.
“There is no one,” he presently told her. “And what if there were!”
At the idea, he laughed.
The laugh, succeeding the silence, while intended to reassure her, did not wholly succeed. She turned to him anew and in a low voice, said:
“You must go. Tomorrow come to Violet’s.”
“I dine there tonight.”
“Yes, I know. Tell her that tomorrow, say at three, we will both be with her. Then she can tell us—”
But Verplank had drawn her to him. Again her eyes closed.
“Go,” she said at last.
On the sofa was his hat. He reached for it. While he did so, she moved to the tapestry, raised it, disclosing the stair up which he had come.
“Tomorrow, then,” he said, as he entered there.
She nodded at him. “At three!”
Dropping the tapestry she turned, but very quickly, for again she heard or thought she heard a noise.
Across the room the portières were parting. Through them Barouffski appeared.
“I might have known it,” she told herself, and realising that he had been listening, she realised also that the opportunity was as good as another for making an offer which she had in mind.
These ideas, instantaneous at sight of him, were for the moment stayed. On turning she had seen but
