The Dago Duke"s tone was one of easy friendliness.
"All you need, but don"t forget the suspense is hard on Essie Tisdale."
XXVII
ESSIE TISDALE"S MOMENT.
Mrs. Sylva.n.u.s Starr, who was indisposed, sat up in her _robe de nuit_ of pink, striped outing-flannel and looked down into the street.
"Pearline," she said hastily, "turn the dish-pan over the roast beef and cache the oranges. Planchette, hide the cake and just lay this sweet chocolate under the mattress--the doctor"s coming."
"She cleaned us out last time all right," commented Lucille.
"Her legs are hollow," observed Camille, "she can eat half a sheep."
"What"s half a sheep to a growing girl?" inquired Mrs. Starr as she plucked at her pompadour and straightened the counterpane.
The Starrs were still t.i.ttering when Dr. Harpe walked in. Their hilarity quickly pa.s.sed at the sight of her face. Another intelligence, a new personality from which they unconsciously shrank looked at them through Dr. Harpe"s familiar features. The Starrs were not a.n.a.lytical nor given to psychology, therefore it was no subtle change which could make them stare. It was as though a ruthless hand had torn away a mask disclosing a woman who only resembled some one they had known. She was a trifle more than thirty and she looked to-day a haggard forty-five.
A grayish pallor had settled upon her face, and her neck, by the simple turning of her head, had the lines of withered old age. Her lips were colorless, and dry, and drooped in a kind of sneering cruelty, while her restless, glittering eyes contained the malice and desperation of a vicious animal when it"s cornered. The uneasiness and erratic movements of a user of cocaine was in her manner.
"What ails you now?" Her voice was harsh and Mrs. Starr flushed at the blunt question.
She saw that Dr. Harpe was not listening to her reply.
"Get this filled." The prescription she wrote and handed her was scarcely legible. "I"ll be in again."
She stalked downstairs without more words.
The Starrs looked at each other blankly when she had gone.
"What"s the matter with Dr. Harpe?"
Elsewhere throughout the town the same question was being asked. The clairvoyant milliner cautiously asked the baker"s wife as they watched her turn the corner--
"Have you noticed anything queer about Dr. Harpe?"
There was that about her which repelled, and those who were wont to pa.s.s her on the street with a friendly flourish of the hand and a "h.e.l.lo, Doc," somehow omitted it and subst.i.tuted a nod and a stare of curiosity.
Her swaggering stride of a.s.surance was a shamble, and, as she came down the street now with her head down, her Stetson pulled low over her eyes, her hand thrust deep in one pocket of her square cut coat, her skirt flapping petticoatless about her, she looked even to the wife of the baker, who liked her, and to the clairvoyant milliner, who imitated her, a caricature upon womankind.
There was a look of evil upon her face at the moment not easy to describe. She and Augusta had quarrelled--for the first time--and when she could least afford to quarrel.
She had spoken often of Andy P. Symes as "the laziest man in Crowheart"
and Augusta always had giggled; to-day she had resented it. Was it, Dr.
Harpe asked herself, that she was losing control of Augusta because she was losing her own? Nothing more disastrous could happen to her at this time than to lose her footing in the Symes household. Her power over Symes went with her prestige, for her word would have little weight if the Dago Duke even partially carried out his threats. Her disclosure would appear but the last resort of malice and receive little credence.
As she walked down the street with bent head she was asking herself if the props were to be pulled from beneath her one by one, if the invisible lines emanating from her own acts were tightening about her to her undoing?
With a fierce gesture she pushed these thoughts from her as though they were tangible things. No, no! she would not be beaten! Insomnia, narcotics and stimulants had unnerved her for the time, but she was strong enough to pull herself together and stay the circ.u.mstances which threatened to swamp her midway in her career. Bolstered for the moment by this resolve, she threw back her head and raised her eyes.
The Dago Duke, Dan Treu, and an important looking stranger were crossing the street and she felt intuitively that it was for the purpose of meeting her face to face. The Dago Duke bowed with his exaggerated salutation of respect as they pa.s.sed, the deputy-sheriff with an odd constraint of manner, while the stranger who raised his hat in formal politeness gave her a look which seemed to search her soul. It frightened her. Who was he? She had seen him at old Dubois"s funeral.
Was he some new factor to be reckoned with, or was it merely her crazy nerves that made her see fresh danger at every turn, a new enemy in every stranger?
She climbed the stairs to her office in a kind of nervous frenzy. She felt like screaming, like beating upon the walls with her bare fists.
Inaction was no longer possible. She must do something, else this agony of uncertainty and suspense would drive her mad. She strode up and down at a pace which left her breathless, clenching and unclenching her hands, while thickly, between set teeth, she raved at Essie Tisdale, upon whom her venom concentrated.
"I could throttle her!" She looked at her curved, outspread fingers, tense and strong as steel hooks. "I could choke her with my own hands till she is black! Curse her--curse her! She"s been a stumbling block in my way ever since I came. The sight of her is a needle in my flesh. I"d only want a minute if I could get my fingers on her throat! I"d shut that baby mouth of hers for good and all. G.o.d! How I hate her!" She hissed the words in venomous intensity, racked with the strength of her emotions, weak from it, her ghastly face moist with perspiration.
"I"ve humiliated her!" she gasped. "I"ve made her suffer. I"ve downed her, but there"s something left yet that I haven"t crushed! I"m not satisfied; I haven"t done enough. I want to break her spirit, to break her heart, to finish her for all time!"
She groped for the door-k.n.o.b as one who sees dimly, and all but ran down the corridor. Even as she went the thought flashed through her mind that she was making a fool of herself, that she was being led by an impulse for which she would be sorry.
But she was at a pitch where the voice of caution had no weight; she wanted what she wanted and in her heart she knew that she was going to Essie Tisdale with the intention of inflicting physical pain. Nothing less would satisfy her. Yet, when the door opened in response to her knock, her upper lip stretched in its straight, mirthless smile.
"h.e.l.lo, Ess!" She stepped back a bit into the dimly lighted corridor and the girl all but shrank from the malice glowing in her eyes.
Essie did not immediately respond, so she asked in mock humility--
"Can"t I come in, Mrs. Dubois?"
She saw the girl wince at the name by which no one as yet had called her.
"Why this timidity, this unexpected politeness, when it"s not usual for you even to knock?"
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
"True enough, Mrs. Dubois, but naturally a poor country doctor like me would hesitate before bolting in upon the privacy of a rich widow."
"If you use "poor" in the sense of incompetent I am afraid I must agree with you," was the unexpected answer.
"Ah, beginning to feel your oats, my dear." She slouched into the nearest chair and flung her hat carelessly upon the floor.
"You notice it, my dear?" mimicked Essie Tisdale.
"When a range cayuse has a few square meals he gets onery."
"While they merely give a well-bred horse spirit."
Dr. Harpe looked at her searchingly. There was a change in Essie Tisdale. She had a new confidence of manner, a cool poise that was older than her years, while that intangible something which she could never crush looked at her more defiantly than ever from the girl"s sparkling eyes. She had a feeling that Essie Tisdale welcomed her coming.
Certainly her a.s.surance and animation was strangely at variance with her precarious position. What had happened? Dr. Harpe intended to learn before she left the room.
"At any rate you"ve paid high for your oats, Ess," she said finally.
The girl agreed coolly--