Fool There Was — The Red Rose; The Red Road
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX.
THE RED ROSE.
He did not see her enter.
He did not hear her enter.
Yet he knew that she was there, although he had left her across an ocean....
Another sense, it seemed, there was within him....
He knew that she had crossed the room; that she was leaning, rounded arms all bare, across the back of the great chair, by the window.
He did not know; he had not looked; yet he could see her, beautiful, gloriously beautiful in her strange, weird, dark beauty; head poised like a tiger lily upon its stalk; great masses of dead black hair coiled in the disorder that, of her, was order above the low, white forehead; vivid lips parted to reveal the gleam of shining teeth; long, lithe limbs in the easy relaxation that is of the panther, or the leopard.
At length he turned....
She was there.
She was as he, unseeing, had seen;
as he had known that he should see....
He had ceased to wonder.
The Unknown had taught him so much that of the things it had not taught, he had ceased to wonder....
He looked; and looked away.
She laughed, a little, lightly.
She turned a little, lissomely.
He could see the muscles of her straight, slender shape ripple beneath the shimmering black gown.
At length he spoke, roughly, gruffly: "Well?"
Almost caressingly, she answered: "Well?"
"So you've come to gaze upon the ruin you have wrought, eh?"
Again she laughed.
"Upon the ruin _we_ have wrought, My Fool," she corrected.
"Don't call me that," he muttered.
"It hurts.
It hurts because it's true."
"Most truths hurt," she remarked, smilingly.
"Now," he mumbled, "yes...."
And then: "You're satisfied, I hope.
She's gone."
"Gone?"
It was a pretty inflection--the rising inflection of great surprise.
Her eyes, glowing of merriment, belied her lips.
"Gone," he repeated, doggedly.
"Gone, and taken the child--my child--our child--with her."
She glided across to where he sat; she leaned over him.
"And you're sorry, I suppose," she asked, mockingly.
"Heart-broken!"
"Yes, by God!
I am!"
he cried, from the soul.
There came from her lips a peal of merry, musical laughter.
"The man of it!
Every man wants two women--one to love, and one to respect; one to caress, the other to honor; one to please himself, the other to please his friends.
And you're no different from the rest that I have known."
He looked up at her, eye laden of hate, and scorn.
"The rest that you have known!"
he retorted, with bitterness, with meaning.
"The rest that I have known," she returned, evenly, lightly.
"Young Parmalee, and Rogers, and Seward Van Dam--and God knows how many more!"
She laughed.
"Jealous, eh?
That is as it should be, My Fool."
She laid her hand lightly on his shoulder.
Roughly he took it, casting it from him.
"Damn you!"
he cried.
"Let me alone!"
She drew up, stiffly, but speaking softly, said, "So?"
"I--I didn't mean it that way," he apologized.
"I wonder if you ever spoke that way to her--the other....
You didn't," came from her slowly.
He shook his head.
"No," he replied.
The Woman seated herself upon the arm of his chair, lithely.
"And do you know why?"
Again he shook his head.
"Because you never loved her as you love me.
A man is as rough sometimes to the woman he loves as at other times he is sweet."
She plucked a scarlet rose from the great cluster that she wore at her breast, dangling it in one white hand, lazily, sensuously.
"You know well of men, don't you," Schuyler remarked, bitterly, "Well enough" she replied, lightly.
"And that is why, when you said, 'Damn you, let me alone!'
that I didn't say, 'Damn you!'
" she struck him lightly across the face with the scarlet blossom, "and go."
Then, with abrupt transition: "That and because I love you."
He laughed, mirthlessly.
"Because you love me!"
he cried, his voice all scorn.
"Because you love me!
Does love then bring disgrace, and ruin, and dishonor upon the object of its lavishment?
Does it?
Does it?"
She had sunk upon the floor at his feet.
Her legs were drawn beneath her;
she poised herself upon her supple white arms, looking up at him.
"Sometimes," she returned, evenly.
"Even as it brings joy, and ecstasy and happiness untold....
And it does bring that," she purred, sibilantly.
"Doesn't it, My Fool?"
He leaned forward, drawing her to him.
"You know it," he cried....
"You know it!"
She saw beginning to glow in the leaden eyes the light that she alone knew how to kindle....
It pleased her....
It pleased her also to blight it at her will.
She laughed.
She knew as well how to blight as how to kindle.
She knew also how to twist a soul in torment; and how to swirl it to the false heaven of unreal joys.
For she, of the Unknown, knew much-- more, perhaps, than of the known.
She said, laughing janglingly: "But did you ever think, My Fool, that there are different loves?"
He sunk back into his chair.
The eyes again were leaden.
His head bent.
She leaned forward, taking from a vase on the table a nodding white blossom.
"One love," she went on, "is like the white rose--pallid, pale, wistful, weak--a lifeless thing that lies dead against the hand that holds it-- that wearies the eye and chills the soul....
The other love is like the red rose--rich, rare, glowing, glorious--that thrills the heart with the joy of living and quickens the blood in the veins until the very soul cries out in the frenzy of its fragrance--a pulsing, throbbing love of body and soul and heart and head, that rushes upon one like a storm at sea, dashing one hither and thither, impotent in its tearing, tossing grip....
That is our love--the Red Love--and it is sweet, is it not, My Fool?"
She bent over him, watching the light again leap to the heavy eyes as he answered: "Sweet?
Sweet as Paradise--a false Paradise, perhaps; but still Paradise!
Those days on the Mediterranean, the sea no bluer than the sky that held it in its sunlit hand--and Venice--Venice, with the great, round moon overhead, and the mysterious semi-darkness all about--the splashing of soft waters there beside us and the silent whisper of the lazy oar--and just you and I--alone amid all the glories--side by side--heart in heart-- soul in soul."
With a great choking sob: "It was sweet, Lady Fair!
Sweet!"
The Woman continued: "And there are two roads through life even as there are two roses.
The one is a rough road and weary, and on it happiness seldom treads.
It is a plodding road, flat and long; and there you walk with stale and barren people, through a stale and barren land, until you come to an ending yet more stale and more barren than are road or people.
That is the road of the White Rose.
But the Road of the Red Rose!
That's different!
On the Road of the Red Rose there is laughter and light, and happiness and joy!
Flowers bloom; birds sing.
There come the soft wash of the sea--the silent whisper of the breeze--the call of Love!"
She rose lithely to her feet.
In one hand she held the bending white blossom; in the other the crimson.
Suddenly she thrust them toward him, body bent, lips parted, and cried, sibilantly: "Which rose do you choose, My Fool?
Which Road?"
Roughly he struck from her hand the drooping flower of white.
That of red was crushed between them as he seized her in his arms and drew her to him.
"The red rose!"
he cried.
"And the Red Road!
And we'll travel to the end, and beyond!"
[Illustration] CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN.
THE RED ROAD.
From across the table she was laughing at him, brightly, merrily-- laughing to see the havoc that she had wrought in the soul of a man.
He turned to her, almost savagely.
"You do love me, Lady Fair, don't you?"
he almost pleaded.
"You must love me, knowing as you do all that I have given up for you."
He pointed to a heap of carelessly-tossed letters upon desk-top.
"Do you see those?"
he demanded.
"The first from Washington--the President--demanding my resignation.
Following that, curt requests that I withdraw from positions of trust that I held.
My wife crushed--my child disgraced--my friends gone--!
God in heaven!
What haven't I given you, Lady Fair!"
"I thank you," she responded, most graciously, bending low, "And I have given you what?
Myself.
Is that less than a fair exchange?"
"Not if I may keep that self mine, and mine alone, for all time.
But may I?"
"Can you doubt it?"
she queried, with a lifting of arched brows.
"There was Parmalee--" "A silly boy.
I never cared for him!"
"And Rogers--" "Interesting--only interesting--and only at first.
Then tiresome!"
"And Seward Van Dam."
"Next to you, a man," she cried.
"But like you, insanely jealous, and unreasonable."
"And in the end, perhaps," he said slowly, very slowly, "I shall be like him."
He sat for a moment, silent.
At length he continued: "But if it were to be I, I alone, for all time, could it last--this Red Love of ours?
Could it?
...
Could it?"
She leaned forward.
"Why not?"
she asked, lightly.
"Why not?"
Leaden eyes were gazing out into nothingness.
"Age comes," he said.
His voice was low, and deep, and dead.
"The body withers.
The brain grows dull.
The blood becomes thin.
The soul gets weary.
And the power to live as once we lived is taken from us.
We sit white-haired, blue-veined, drinking in the sun through shrivelled pores to drive the chill from our shrunken frames.
It will come to you--to me-- to all of us.
And neither man, nor God may stop it."
There had come to her face an expression as of a great fear.
This man who knew so little, was teaching of that little to her, who knew so much....
At length she swept that fear from her, as one might brush aside the ugly web of a sullen spider....
Again she was the woman who did not know the Known, but only the Unknown.
She asked, lightly: "Why worry over the years to come when the days that are are ours....
There is happiness in the days that are?"
Her voice was very soft.
Again dull eyes gleamed; he exclaimed: "Happiness!
I did not dream there could be a happiness like this!"
Her slender arm was about his neck; he could feel the glow of its warmth.
Her voice was soothing--infinitely soothing, and musical beyond the telling.
"Then keep a-dreaming, My Fool," she purred, softly.
It was almost a whisper.
"Keep a-dreaming."
"Would to God I could!"
he cried, earnestly.
"Would to God I could, forever!
The memories of a thousand joys are with me always.
Love?
What is this love?
A golden leaf of happiness floating on the summer seas of life.
A silver star of utter joy set in the soft heavens of eternity.
A
dream that is a reality; a reality that is a dream....
But the storm comes upon the sea.
Black clouds blot out the stars.
And there can be no dream from which there is no awakening."
"Yet," she cajoled, "while the sea smiles--while the star shines--while we dream--there is happiness to pay for all."
"To pay for all, and more!"
Again he turned upon her, swiftly.
"Yet in the golden aura of that happiness, there always stand three sodden souls pointing stark fingers at me in ghoulish glee....
Parmalee--Rogers-- VanDam....
If I thought--if I for one moment thought--that I should be as they, I'd--" She stopped him, quickly: "You'd what, My Fool?"
"I'd kill you where you stand!"
he replied, savagely.
She laughed, gaily, clapping soft palms.
"That's the way I love you best, My Fool.
It shows spirit, and manhood, and good, red blood--red, like our roses!"
She plucked from her breast a handful of scarlet petals, casting them above her head.
They fell about them both, a glowing shower.
She went on: "How for a moment you could have imagined that you love the woman you call wife--a soft, silly, namby-pamby--" He was on his feet now, fierce, primal, brutal--all the manhood that was left of him straight and rigid.
"Stop!"
he commanded.
"Don't you dare say one word against her, or by God, I'll--" She interrupted, rising haughtily before him, and said coldly, incisively: "You forget yourself.
You humiliate yourself.
You insult me.
I'll say what I please of whom I please."
"You'll keep your tongue off her, and off the little one!"
"I'll not if I choose not!"
"You will!"
She laughed.
He stood for a moment, poised in anger.
Then the momentary flash of righteous wrath was gone.
He turned, slowly, from her.
She remarked, lightly, scornfully: "The man of it, and again the fool of it.
You would protect her who has scorned, and flouted, and humiliated you."
"The fault was mine," he flashed.
"And you know it; and I know it."
"Then why did you do it?"
He shook his head, eyes again leaden.
"God knows," he whispered.
She stood for a moment; then again laughter rippled from the red lips.
"But why should we quarrel?"
she asked, gently.
"There are things in life more sweet."
She went to him, leaning toward him, beautiful arms extended, lissome body bent.
"A kiss, My Fool," she whispered.
He turned from her.
"No," he cried.
She smiled.
"I said, 'A kiss, My Fool!'
" she repeated.
"I heard."
Her eyes were on him....
Slowly he turned....
The set jaw relaxed; the straight limned lips weakened....
He looked at her.
Her lips now were almost upon his own; her eyes were very close to his.
Again she whispered; softly, sibilantly, caressingly: "A kiss, My Fool!"
* * * * * He thrust her from him.
"You devil!"
he cried.
"I love you--and I hate you!
You are beautiful-- and you're ugly!
You are sweeter than the last of life--and more bitter than the sodden shame of a secret sin!"
She replied, lightly, arranging the masses of her hair with deft, slender fingers: "All of which is quite as it should be, My Fool; for the hate makes the love but the more poignant; the ugliness is but a fair setting for the beauty; and sweetness in bitterness is far more sweet than sweetness alone."
Her mood was different now.
He had sunk into the great chair.
She seated herself upon its arm; her head sunk to his; her cheek against his....
And again he kissed her, on the lips.
[Illustration] CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT.
