For Heitman Michael was nearing thirty, and this to Dorothy and Jurgen was an age that bordered upon senility.
"Now, by heaven," said Jurgen, "wherever Heitman Michael does his next dancing it will not be hereabouts."
Jurgen had decided what he must do.
And then Heitman Michael saluted them civilly. "But I fear I must rob you of this fair lady, Master Jurgen," says he.
Jurgen remembered that the man had said precisely this a score of years ago; and that Jurgen had mumbled polite regrets, and had stood aside while Heitman Michael bore off Dorothy to dance with him. And this dance had been the beginning of intimacy between Heitman Michael and Dorothy.
"Heitman," says Jurgen, "the bereavement which you threaten is very happily spared me, since, as it happens, the next dance is to be mine."
"We can but leave it to the lady," says Heitman Michael, laughing.
"Not I," says Jurgen. "For I know too well what would come of that.
I intend to leave my destiny to no one."
"Your conduct, Master Jurgen, is somewhat strange," observed Heitman Michael.
"Ah, but I will show you a thing yet stranger. For, look you, there seem to be three of us here on this terrace. Yet I can a.s.sure you there are four."
"Read me the riddle, my boy, and have done."
"The fourth of us, Heitman, is a G.o.ddess that wears a speckled garment and has black wings. She can boast of no temples, and no priests cry to her anywhere, because she is the only deity whom no prayers can move or any sacrifices placate. I allude, sir, to the eldest daughter of Nox and Erebus."
"You speak of death, I take it."
"Your apprehension, Heitman, is nimble. Even so, it is not quick enough, I fear, to forerun the whims of G.o.ddesses. Indeed, what person could have foreseen that this implacable lady would have taken such a strong fancy for your company."
"Ah, my young bantam," replies Heitman Michael, "it is quite true that she and I are acquainted. I may even boast of having despatched one or two stout warriors to serve her underground. Now, as I divine your meaning, you plan that I should decrease her obligation by sending her a whippersnapper."
"My notion, Heitman, is that since this dark G.o.ddess is about to leave us, she should not, in common gallantry, be permitted to go hence unaccompanied. I propose, therefore, that we forthwith decide who is to be her escort."
Now Heitman Michael had drawn his sword. "You are insane. But you extend an invitation which I have never yet refused."
"Heitman," cries Jurgen, in honest grat.i.tude and admiration, "I bear you no ill-will. But it is highly necessary you die to-night, in order that my soul may not perish too many years before my body."
With that he too whipped out his sword.
So they fought. Now Jurgen was a very acceptable swordsman, but from the start he found in Heitman Michael his master. Jurgen had never reckoned upon that, and he considered it annoying. If Heitman Michael perforated Jurgen the future would be altered, certainly, but not quite as Jurgen had decided it ought to be remodeled. So this unlooked-for complication seemed preposterous, and Jurgen began to be irritated by the suspicion that he was getting himself killed for nothing at all.
Meanwhile his unruffled tall antagonist seemed but to play with Jurgen, so that Jurgen was steadily forced back toward the bal.u.s.trade. And presently Jurgen"s sword was twisted from his hand, and sent flashing over the bal.u.s.trade, into the public highway.
"So now, Master Jurgen," says Heitman Michael, "that is the end of your nonsense. Why, no, there is not any occasion to posture like a statue. I do not intend to kill you. Why the devil"s name, should I?
To do so would only get me an ill name with your parents: and besides it is infinitely more pleasant to dance with this lady, just as I first intended." And he turned gaily toward Madame Dorothy.
But Jurgen found this outcome of affairs insufferable. This man was stronger than he, this man was of the sort that takes and uses gallantly all the world"s prizes which mere poets can but respectfully admire. All was to do again: Heitman Michael, in his own hateful phrase, would act just as he had first intended, and Jurgen would be brushed aside by the man"s brute strength. This man would take away Dorothy, and leave the life of Jurgen to become a business which Jurgen remembered with distaste. It was unfair.
So Jurgen s.n.a.t.c.hed out his dagger, and drove it deep into the undefended back of Heitman Michael. Three times young Jurgen stabbed and hacked the burly soldier, just underneath the left ribs. Even in his fury Jurgen remembered to strike on the left side.
It was all very quickly done. Heitman Michael"s arms jerked upward, and in the moonlight his fingers spread and clutched. He made curious gurgling noises. Then the strength went from his knees, so that he toppled backward. His head fell upon Jurgen"s shoulder, resting there for an instant fraternally; and as Jurgen shuddered away from the abhorred contact, the body of Heitman Michael collapsed. Now he lay staring upward, dead at the feet of his murderer. He was horrible looking, but he was quite dead.
"What will become of you?" Dorothy whispered, after a while. "Oh, Jurgen, it was foully done, that which you did was infamous! What will become of you, my dear?"
"I will take my doom," says Jurgen, "and without whimpering, so that I get justice. But I shall certainly insist upon justice." Then Jurgen raised his face to the bright heavens. "The man was stronger than I and wanted what I wanted. So I have compromised with necessity, in the only way I could make sure of getting that which was requisite to me. I cry for justice to the power that gave him strength and gave me weakness, and gave to each of us his desires.
That which I have done, I have done. Now judge!"
Then Jurgen tugged and shoved the heavy body of Heitman Michael, until it lay well out of sight, under the bench upon which Jurgen and Dorothy had been sitting. "Rest there, brave sir, until they find you. Come to me now, my Heart"s Desire. Good, that is excellent. Here I sit with my true love, upon the body of my enemy.
Justice is satisfied, and all is quite as it should be. For you must understand that I have fallen heir to a fine steed, whose bridle is marked with a coronet,--prophetically, I take it,--and upon this steed you will ride pillion with me to Lisuarte. There we will find a priest to marry us. We will go together into Gatinais. Meanwhile, there is a bit of neglected business to be attended to." And he drew the girl close to him.
For Jurgen was afraid of nothing now. And Jurgen thought:
"Oh, that I could detain the moment! that I could make some fitting verses to preserve this moment in my own memory! Could I but get into words the odor and the thick softness of this girl"s hair as my hands, that are a-quiver in every nerve of them, caress her hair; and get into enduring words the glitter and the cloudy shadowings of her hair in this be-drenching moonlight! For I shall forget all this beauty, or at best I shall remember this moment very dimly."
"You have done very wrong--" says Dorothy.
Says Jurgen, to himself: "Already the moment pa.s.ses this miserably happy moment wherein once more life shudders and stands heart-stricken at the height of bliss! it pa.s.ses, and I know even as I lift this girl"s soft face to mine, and mark what faith and submissiveness and expectancy is in her face, that whatever the future holds for us, and whatever of happiness we two may know hereafter, we shall find no instant happier than this, which pa.s.ses from us irretrievably while I am thinking about it, poor fool, in place of rising to the issue."
"--And heaven only knows what will become of you Jurgen--"
Says Jurgen, still to himself: "Yes, something must remain to me of all this rapture, though it be only guilt and sorrow: something I mean to wrest from this high moment which was once wasted fruitlessly. Now I am wiser: for I know there is not any memory with less satisfaction in it than the memory of some temptation we resisted. So I will not waste the one real pa.s.sion I have known, nor leave unfed the one desire which ever caused me for a heart-beat to forget to think about Jurgen"s welfare. And thus, whatever happens, I shall not always regret that I did not avail myself of this girl"s love before it was taken from me."
So Jurgen made such advances as seemed good to him. And he noted, with amusing memories of how much afraid he had once been of shocking his Dorothy"s notions of decorum, that she did not repulse him very vigorously.
"Here, over a dead body! Oh, Jurgen, this is horrible! Now, Jurgen, remember that somebody may come any minute! And I thought I could trust you! Ah, and is this all the respect you have for me!" This much she said in duty. Meanwhile the eyes of Dorothy were dilated and very tender.
"Faith, I take no chances, this second time. And so whatever happens, I shall not always regret that which I left undone."
Now upon his lips was laughter, and his arms were about the submissive girl. And in his heart was an unnamable depression and a loneliness, because it seemed to him that this was not the Dorothy whom he had seen in the garden between dawn and sunrise. For in my arms now there is just a very pretty girl who is not over-careful in her dealings with young men, thought Jurgen, as their lips met.
Well, all life is a compromise; and a pretty girl is something tangible, at any rate. So he laughed, triumphantly, and prepared for the sequel.
But as Jurgen laughed triumphantly, with his arm beneath the head of Dorothy, and with the tender face of Dorothy pa.s.sive beneath his lips, and with unreasonable wistfulness in his heart, the castle bell tolled midnight. What followed was curious: for as Wednesday pa.s.sed, the face of Dorothy altered, her flesh roughened under his touch, and her cheeks fell away, and fine lines came about her eyes, and she became the Countess Dorothy whom Jurgen remembered as Heitman Michael"s wife.
There was no doubt about it, in that be-drenching moonlight: and she was leering at him, and he was touching her everywhere, this horrible lascivious woman, who was certainly quite old enough to know better than to permit such liberties. And her breath was sour and nauseous.
Jurgen drew away from her, with a shiver of loathing, and he closed his eyes, to shut away that sensual face.
"No," he said; "it would not be fair to what we owe to others. In fact, it would be a very heinous sin. We should weigh such considerations occasionally, madame."
Then Jurgen left his temptress, with simple dignity. "I go to search for my dear wife, madame, in a frame of mind which I would strongly advise you to adopt toward your husband."
And he went straightway down the terraces of Bellegarde, and turned southward to where his horse was tethered upon Amneran Heath: and Jurgen was feeling very virtuous.
8.
Old Toys and a New Shadow