CHAPTER IX

CONCERNING THAT DAUGHTER OF CUPID AND PSYCHE WHOM MEN CALL VOLUPTAS

The furniture, though otherwise of the customary proportions, had all

been dwarfed. This had been achieved in some cases by ingenious design

in its construction, in others by the simple process of cutting down,

thus reducing table and chair, couch and bureau, in itself of whatever

grace of style, dignity of age, or fineness of workmanship, to an

equality of uncomely degradation in respect of height. The resultant

effect was of false perspective. Nor was this unpleasing effect

lessened by the proportions of the room itself. In common with all

those of the _entresol_, it was noticeably low in relation to its

length and width, while the stunted vaultings of its darkly-frescoed

ceiling produced an impression of heaviness rather than of space.

Bookcases, dwarfed as were all the other furnishings, lined the walls

to within about two feet of the spring of the said vaulting. Made of

red cedar and unpolished, the cornices and uprights of them were carved

with arabesques in high relief. An antique, Persian carpet, sombre in

colouring and of great value, covered the greater portion of the pale

pink and gray mosaic pavement of the floor. Thick, rusty-red,

Genoa-velvet curtains were drawn over each low, square window. A fire

of logs burned on the open hearth. And this notwithstanding the

unaccustomed warmth of the outside air, did but temper the chill

atmosphere of the room and serve to draw a faint aroma from the carven

cedar wood.

It was here, to his library,--carried down-stairs by his men-servants

as a helpless baby-child might be,--that Richard Calmady had come when

Helen de Vallorbes departed so blithely to her bedchamber. And it was

here he remained, though nearly two hours had elapsed since then,

finding sleep impossible.

For the wakefulness and unrest of rapidly breeding illness were upon

him. His senses and his will had been in very active conflict. Desire

had licked him, as with fiery tongues, driving him onward. Honour,

self-contempt in face of temptation to sensual indulgence, an

aspiration after somewhat stoic asceticism which had come to influence

his action of late, held him back. But now, here and alone, the

immediately provoking cause of passion removed, reaction against the

strain of all that had very sensibly set in. He felt strangely astray,

as though drifting at hazard upon the waters of an unquiet,

mist-blinded sea. He was conscious of a deep-seated preoccupation

regarding some matter, which he was alike unable to forget or to

define. Formless images perplexed his vision. Formless thoughts pursued

one another, as with the hurry of rumoured calamity, through his mind.

A desolating apprehension of things insufficiently developed, of the

inconclusive, the immature, the unattained, of things mutilated, things

unfinished, born out of due time and incomplete, oppressed his fancy.

Even the events of the last few hours, in which he had played so

considerable a part, took on a shadowy semblance, ceased to appeal to

him as realities, began to merge themselves in that all-pervading

apprehension of defectiveness, of that which is wanting, lopped off, so

to speak, and docked. It was to him as though all natural, common-sense

relations were in abeyance, as though his own, usually precise, mental

processes were divorced from reason and experience, had got out of

perspective, in short--even as this low, wide, cedar-scented library,

of which the vaulted ceiling seemed to approach unduly close to the

mosaic, marble floor, and all its dwarfed furnishings, its squat tables

and almost legless chairs, had got out of perspective.

The alternate purposeless energy and weariful weakness of fever, just

as the alternate dry flush and trembling chill of it, distressed him.

He had slipped on a smoking-coat, but even the weight of this thin,

silk garment seemed oppressive, although, now and again, he felt as

though around his middle he wore a belt of ice. Not without

considerable exertion he rolled forward a couch--wide, high-backed,

legless, mounted upon little wheels--to the vicinity of the fire. He

drew himself up on to it and rested among the piled-up cushions.

Perhaps, if he waited, exercising patience, sleep might mercifully

visit him and deliver him from this intolerable confusion of mind.

Deliver him, too, from that hideous apprehension of universal

mutilation, of maimed purposes, maimed happenings, of a world peopled

by beings maimed as he was himself, but after a more subtle and

intimate fashion, a fashion intellectual or moral rather than merely

physical, so that they had to him, just now, an added hatefulness of

specious lying, since to ordinary seeing they appeared whole, while

whole they truly and actually were not.

Sternly he tried to shake himself free of these morbid fancies, to

bring his imagination under control and force himself once again to

join hands with reality and common sense. And, to this end, he turned

his attention to the consideration of practical matters. He dwelt on

the details of the coaling and revictualing of his yacht, upon the

objective of the voyage upon which he proposed to start a few days

hence. He reviewed the letters which must be written and the

arrangements which must be made with a view to putting his cousin

legally in possession of the villa, the rent of which he proposed still

to pay to her husband. This suite of rooms he would retain for his own

use. That was necessary, obligatory. Yet, why must he retain it? He did

not propose to return and live here at any future time. This episode

was over--or rather, had it not simply failed of completion? Was it

not, like all the rest, maimed, lopped off ungainly, docked? Then,

where came in the obligation to reserve these rooms? He could not

remember. Yet he knew that he was compelled to do so, because--because----

And, once again, Richard's power of concentration broke down. Once

again his thought eluded him, becoming tangled, fugitive, not to be

grasped. While, like swarms of shrill squeaking bats disturbed in the

recesses of some age-old cavern by sudden intrusion of voices and of

lights, half-formed visions, half-formed ideas, once again, flapped

duskily about him, torturing in their multiplicity alike to his senses

and his brain. He fought with them, striving to beat them off in a

madness of disgust, half suffocated by the fanning of their foul and

stifling wings. Then, exhausted by the conflict, he stumbled and fell,

while they closed down on him. And he, losing consciousness, slept.

That unconsciousness lasted in point of fact but for a few minutes. Yet

to Richard those minutes were as years, as centuries. At length, still

heavy with dreamless slumber, he was aware of the stealthy turning of a

key in a lock. Little padding foot-falls, soft as those of some strong,

yet dainty, cat-creature crossed the carpet. A whisper of silk came

along with them, like the murmur of the breeze in an oak grove on a

clear, hot, summer noon, or the sibilant ripple of the sea upon spaces

of fine-ribbed, yellow sand. And the impression produced upon Richard

was delicious, as of one passing from a close room into the open air.

Confusion and exhaustion left him. Energy returned. The energy of

breeding fever merely, yet to him it appeared that of refreshment, of

renewed and abounding health. He was conscious, too, of a will outside

himself, acting upon his will--a will self-secure, impregnable, working

with triumphant daring towards a single end. It certainly was

unmaimed--in its present manifestation in any case. It told, and with

assurance, of completion, of attainment. Yielding himself to it, with

something of the recklessness a man yields himself to the poison which

yet promises relief, Richard opened his eyes.

Before him stood Helen de Vallorbes. In one hand she carried a little

lamp. In the other her high-heeled, cloth-of-gold slippers. Her feet

were bare. In the haste of the journey, from her bedchamber up-stairs

through the great rooms and down the marble stairs, the fronts of the

sea-blue, sea-green dressing-gown she wore had flown apart, thus

disclosing not only her delicate night-dress, but--since this last was

fine to the point of transparency--all the secret loveliness of her

body and her limbs. Her shining hair curled low upon her forehead, half

concealed her pretty ears, and lay upon her shoulders like a little,

golden cape. And, from out this brightness of her hair, the exultant

laughter bubbling in her throat, the small lamp carried high in one

hand, she looked down at Richard Calmady.

"I waited till the hours grew old and you did not come to me, so I have

come to you, Dickie," she said. "Let what will happen to-morrow, this

very certainly shall happen to-night--that with you and me Love shall

have his own way, speak his own language, be worshipped with the rites,

be found in the sacraments, ordained by himself, and to which all

nature is, and has been, obedient since life on earth first began!"

Not till the gray of a rain-washed, windy morning had come, and Naples

had put off its merry sinning, changing from a city of pleasure to a

city of labour and, too often, of callously inflicted pain, did Helen

de Vallorbes leave the cedar-scented library. The fire of logs had

burnt itself out upon the hearth, and other fires, perhaps, had pretty

thoroughly burnt themselves out likewise. Then, with the extinguished

lamp in one hand and her high-heeled, cloth-of-gold slippers in the

other, she had run swiftly, barefoot, up the cold, marble stairs,

through the suite of lofty rooms, her image, in the bleak dimness of

the wet morning, given back by their tall mirrors as that of no mortal

woman but some fear-driven, hurrying ghost. Carefully closing the door

of the bedchamber behind her, she threw her dressing-gown aside and

buried herself in the luxurious softness of the unslept-in bed. And she

was only just in time. Servants began to move to and fro. The house was

awake.