The Firing Line

Far away in the wastes of dune and jungle the sweet flute-like tremolo of an owl broke out, prolonged infinitely. From the dark garden below, a widow-bird called breathlessly, its ghostly cry, now a far whisper in the night, now close at hand, husky, hurried, startling amid the shadows. And, whir! whir-r-r! thud! came the great soft night-moths against the window screens where sprays of silvery jasmine clung, perfuming all the night.

Still Constance sat before the mirror which was now invisible in the dusk, bare elbows on the dresser's edge, face framed in her hands over which the thick hair rippled. And, in the darkness, her brown eyes closed—perhaps that they might behold more clearly the phantoms of the past together there in an old-time parlour, where the golden radiance of suns long dead still lingered, warming the faded roses on the floor.

And after a long while her maid came with a card; and she straightened up in her chair, gathered the filmy robe of lace, and, rising, pressed the electric switch. But Virginia had returned to her own room to bathe her eyelids and pace the floor until she cared to face the outer world once more and, for another hour or two, deceive it.

CHAPTER XV

UNDER FIRE

Meanwhile Constance dressed hastily, abetted by the clever maid; for Wayward was below, invited to dine with them. Malcourt also was due for dinner, and, as usual, late.

In fact, he was at that moment leisurely tying his white neckwear in his bed-chamber at Villa Cardross. And sometimes he whistled, tentatively, as though absorbed in mentally following an elusive air; sometimes he resumed a lighted cigarette which lay across the gilded stomach of a Chinese joss, sending a thin, high thread of smoke to the ceiling. He had begun his collection with one small idol; there were now nineteen, and all hideous.

"The deuce! the deuce!" he murmured, rejecting the tie and trying another one; "and all the things I've got to do this blessed night!… Console the afflicted—three of them; dine with one, get to "The Breakers" and spoon with another—get to the Club and sup with another!—the deuce! the deuce! the—"

He hummed a bar or two of a new waltz, took a puff at his cigarette, winked affably at the idol, put on his coat, and without a second glance at the glass went out whistling a lively tune.

Hamil, dressed for dinner, but looking rather worn and fatigued, passed him in the hall.

"You've evidently had a hard day," said Malcourt; "you resemble the last run of sea-weed. Is everybody dining at this hour?"

"I dined early with Mrs. Cardross. Mrs. Carrick has taken Shiela and Cecile to that dinner dance at the O'Haras'. It's the last of the season. I thought you might be going later."

"Are you?"

"No; I'm rather tired."

"I'm tired, too. Hang it! I'm always tired—but only of Bibi. Quand même! Good night.... I'll probably reappear with the dicky-birds. Leave your key under that yellow rose-bush, will you? I can't stop to hunt up mine. And tell them not to bar and chain the door; that's a good fellow."

Hamil nodded and resumed his journey to his bedroom. There he transferred a disorderly heap of letters, plans, contracts, and blue-prints from his bed to a table, threw a travelling rug over the bed, lay down on it, and lighted a cigar, closing his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them wearily.

He did not intend to sleep; there was work waiting for him; that was why he left the electric bulbs burning as safeguard against slumber.

For a while he smoked, flat on his back; his cigar went out twice and he relighted it. The third time he was deciding whether or not to set fire to it again—he remembered that—and remembered nothing more, except the haunted dreams in which he followed her, through sad and endless forests, gray in deepening twilight, where he could neither see her face nor reach her side, nor utter the cry which strained in his throat.... On, on, endlessly struggling onward in the thickening darkness, year after year, the sky a lowering horror, the forest, no longer silent, a twisting, stupefying confusion of sound, growing, increasing, breaking into a hellish clamour!—

Upright on his bed he realised that somebody was knocking; and he slid to the floor, still stupid and scarcely convinced.

"Mrs. Carrick's compliments, and is Mr. Hamil quite well bein' as the lights is burnin' an' past two o'clock, sir?" said the maid at the door.

"Past two! O Lord! Please thank Mrs. Carrick, and say that I am going to do a little work, and that I am perfectly well."

He closed the door and looked around him in despair: "All that stuff to verify and O.K.! What an infernal ass I am! By the nineteen little josses in Malcourt's bedroom I'm so many kinds of a fool that I hate to count up beyond the dozen!"

Stretching and yawning alternately he eyed the mass of papers with increasing repugnance; but later a cold sponge across his eyes revived him sufficiently to sit down and inspect the first document. Then he opened the ink-well, picked up a pen, and began.

For half an hour he sat there, now refreshed and keenly absorbed in his work. Once the stairs outside creaked, and he raised his head, listening absently, then returned to the task before him with a sigh.

All his windows were open; the warm night air was saturated with the odour of Bermuda lilies. Once or twice he laid down his pen and stared out into the darkness as a subtler perfume grew on the breeze—the far fragrance of china-berry in bloom; Calypso's breath!

Then, in the silence, the heavy throb of his heart unnerved his hand, rendering his pen unsteady as he signed each rendered bill: "O.K. for $–," and affixed his signature, "John Garret Hamil, Architect."

The aroma of the lilies hung heavy in the room, penetrating as the scent of Malcourt's spiced Chinese gums afire and bubbling. And he thought again of Malcourt's nineteen little josses which he lugged about with him everywhere from some occult whim, and in whose gilt-bronze laps he sometimes burned cigarettes, sometimes a tiny globule of aromatic gum, pretending it propitiated the malice-brooding gods.

And, thinking of Malcourt, suddenly he remembered the door-key. Malcourt could not get in without it. And the doors were barred and chained.

Slipping the key into his pocket he opened his door, and, treading quietly through the silent house, descended to the great hall. With infinite precaution he fumbled for the chains; they were dangling loose. Somebody, too, had drawn the heavy bars, but the door itself was locked.

So he cautiously unlocked it, and holding the key in his hand, let himself out on the terrace.

And at the same moment a shadowy figure turned in the starlight to confront him.

"Shiela!"

"Is that you, Mr. Hamil?"

"Yes. What on earth are you—"

"Hush! What are you doing down here?"

"Louis Malcourt is out. I forgot to leave a key for him under the yellow rose—"

"Under the rose—and yellow at that! The mysteries of the Rosicrucians pale into insignificance beside the lurid rites of Mr. Malcourt and Mr. Hamil—under the yellow rose! Proceed, my fearsome adept, and perform the occult deed!"

Hamil descended the terrace to the new garden, hung the key to a brier under the fragrant mass of flowers, and glanced up at Shiela, who, arms on the balustrade above him, was looking down at the proceedings.

"Is the dread deed done?" she whispered.

"If you don't believe it come down and see."

"I? Come down? At two in the morning?"

"It's half-past two."

"Oh," she said, "if it's half-past two I might think of coming down for a moment—to look at my roses.... Thank you, Mr. Hamil, I can see my way very clearly. I can usually see my own way clearly—without the aid of your too readily offered hand.... Did you ever dream of such an exquisitely hot night! That means rain, doesn't it?—with so many fragrances mingling? The odour of lilies predominates, and I think some jasmine is in the inland wind, but my roses are very sweet if you only bend down to them. A rose is always worth stooping for."

She leaned over the yellow blossoms, slender, spirit-white in the starlight, and brushed her fresh young face with the silken petals.

"So sweet," she said; "lean down and worship my young roses, you unappreciative man!"

For a few minutes she strolled along the paths of the new garden he had built, bending capriciously here and there to savour some perfect blossom. The night was growing warmer; the sea breeze had died out, and a hot wind blew languidly from the west.

"You know," she said, looking back at him over her shoulder, "I don't want to go to bed."

"Neither do I, and I'm not going."

"But I'm going.... I wonder why I don't want to? Listen! Once—after I was a protoplasm and a micro-organism, and a mollusc, and other things, I probably was a predatory animal—nice and sleek with velvet feet and shining incandescent eyes—and very, very predatory.... That's doubtless why I often feel so deliciously awake at night—with a tameless longing to prowl under the moon.... And I think I'd better go in, now."

"Nonsense," he said, "I'm not going to bed yet."