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 const.i.tutionally predisposed when soft, young lips p.r.o.nounce 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 j.a.pan; 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.
CHAPTER XV
To her sisters Athalie wrote:
"For reasons of economy, and other reasons, I have moved to 1006 West Fifty-fifth Street where I have the top floor. I think that you both can find accommodations in this house when you return to New York.
"So far I have not secured a position. Please don"t think I am discouraged. I do hope that you are well and successful."
Their address, at that time, was Vancouver, B. C.
To Clive Bailey, Jr., his agent wrote:
"Miss Athalie Greensleeve called at the office this morning and returned the keys to the apartment which she has occupied.
"Miss Greensleeve explained to me a fact of which I had not been aware, viz.: that the furniture, books, hangings, pictures, porcelains, rugs, clothing, furs, bed and table linen, silver, etc., etc., belong to you and not to her as I had supposed.
"I have compared the contents of the apartment with the minute inventory given me by Miss Greensleeve. Everything is accounted for; all is in excellent order.
"I have, therefore, locked up the apartment, pending orders from you regarding its disposition,"--etc., etc.
The tall shabby house in Fifty-fourth Street was one of a five-storied row built by a speculator to attract fashion many years before.
Fashion ignored the bait.
A small square of paper which had once been white was pasted on the brick front just over the tarnished door-bell. On it was written in ink: "Furnished Rooms."
Answering in person the first advertis.e.m.e.nt she had turned to in the morning paper Athalie had found this place. There was nothing attractive about it except the price; but that was sufficient in this emergency. For the girl would not permit herself to remain another night in the pretty apartment furnished for her by the man whose engagement had been announced to her through the daily papers.
And nothing of his would she take with her except the old gun-metal wrist-watch, and Hafiz, and the barred basket in which Hafiz had arrived. Everything else she left, her toilet silver, desk-set, her evening gowns and wraps, gloves, negligees, boudoir caps, slippers, silk stockings, all her bath linen, everything that she herself had not purchased out of her own salary--even the little silver cupid holding aloft his torch, which had been her night-light.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "With a basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a furled umbrella she started for her new lodgings."]
Never again could she illuminate that torch. The other woman must do that.
She went about quietly from room to room, lowering the shades and drawing the curtains. There was brilliant colour in her cheeks, an undimmed beauty in her eyes; pride crowned the golden head held steady and high on its slender, snowy neck. Only the lips threatened betrayal; and were bitten as punishment into immobility.
Her small steamer trunk went by a rickety private express for fifty cents: with the basket containing Hafiz, her suit-case, and a furled umbrella she started for her new lodgings.
Michael, opening the lower grille for her, stammered: "G.o.d knows why ye do this, Miss! Th" young Masther"ll be afther givin" me the sack av ye lave the house unbeknowns"t him!"
"I can"t stay, Michael. He knows I can"t. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye Miss! G.o.d be good to ye--an" th" pusheen--!" laying a huge but gentle paw on Hafiz"s basket whence a gentle plaint arose.
And so Athalie and Hafiz departed into the world together; and presently bivouacked; their first etape on life"s long journey ending on the top floor of 1006 West Fifty-fifth Street.