Абрахам Меррит - Burn, Witch, Burn!

spread a half-dozen boxes on the counter and was opening them. She looked up at me, candidly, almost

sweetly. She said:

"Why, of course you may see all that we have. I am sorry if you thought me indifferent to your desires.

My aunt, who makes the dolls, loves children. She would not willingly allow one who also loves them to

go from here disappointed."

It was a curious little speech, oddly stilted, enunciated half as though she were reciting from dictation. Yet

it was not that which aroused my interest so much as the subtle change that had taken place in the girl

herself. Her voice was no longer languid. It held a vital vibrancy. Nor was she the lifeless, listless person

she had been. She was animated, even a touch of vivaciousness about her; color had crept into her face

and all vagueness gone from her eyes; in them was a sparkle, faintly mocking, more than faintly malicious.

I examined the dolls.

"They are lovely," I said at last. "But are these the best you have? Frankly, this is rather an especial

occasion-my granddaughter's seventh birthday. The price doesn't really matter as long, of course, as it is

in reason-"

I heard her sigh. I looked at her. The pale eyes held their olden fear-touched stare, all sparkling mockery

gone. The color had fled her face. And again, abruptly, I felt the unseen gaze upon me, more powerfully

than before. And again I felt it shuttered off.

The door beside the counter opened.

Prepared though I had been for the extraordinary by Walters' description of the doll-maker, her

appearance gave me a distinct shock. Her height, her massiveness, were amplified by the proximity of the

dolls and the slender figure of the girl. It was a giantess who regarded me from the doorway-a giantess

whose heavy face with its broad, high cheek bones, mustached upper lip and thick mouth produced a

suggestion of masculinity grotesquely in contrast with the immense bosom.

I looked into her eyes and forgot all grotesqueness of face and figure. The eyes were enormous, a

luminous black, clear, disconcertingly alive. As though they were twin spirits of life, and independent of

the body. And from them poured a flood of vitality that sent along my nerves a warm tingle in which there

was nothing sinister-or was not then.

With difficulty I forced my own eyes from hers. I looked for her hands. She was swathed all in black,

and her hands were hidden in the folds of her ample dress. My gaze went back to her eyes, and within

them was a sparkle of the mocking contempt I had seen in those of the girl. She spoke, and I knew that

the vital vibrancy I had heard in the girl's voice had been an echo of those sonorously sweet, deep tones.

"What my niece has shown does not please you?"

I gathered my wits. I said: "They are all beautiful, Madame-Madame-"

"Mandilip," she said, serenely. "Madame Mandilip. You do not know the name, eh?"

"It is my ill fortune," I answered, ambiguously. "I have a grandchild-a little girl. I want something

peculiarly fine for her seventh birthday. All that I have been shown are beautiful-but I was wondering

whether there was not something-"

"Something-peculiarly-" her voice lingered on the word-"more beautiful. Well, perhaps there is. But

when I favor customers peculiarly-" I now was sure she emphasized the word-"I must know with

whom I am dealing. You think me a strange shopkeeper, do you not?"

She laughed, and I marveled at the freshness, the youthfulness, the curious tingling sweetness of that

laughter.

It was by a distinct effort that I brought myself back to reality, put myself again on guard. I drew a card

from my case. I did not wish her to recognize me, as she would have had I given her my own card. Nor

did I desire to direct her attention to anyone she could harm. I had, therefore, prepared myself by

carrying the card of a doctor friend long dead. She glanced at it.

"Ah," she said. "You are a professional-a physician. Well, now that we know each other, come with me

and I will show you of my best."

She led me through the door and into a wide, dim corridor. She touched my arm and again I felt that

strange, vital tingling. She paused at another door, and faced me.

"It is here," she said, "that I keep my best. My-peculiarly best!"

Once more she laughed, then flung the door open.

I crossed the threshold and paused, looking about the room with swift disquietude. For here was no

spacious chamber of enchantment such as Walters had described. True enough, it was somewhat larger

than one would have expected. But where were the exquisite old panelings, the ancient tapestries, that

magic mirror which was like a great "half-globe of purest water," and all those other things that had made

it seem to her a Paradise?

The light came through the half-drawn curtains of a window opening upon a small, enclosed and barren

yard. The walls and ceiling were of plain, stained wood. One end was entirely taken up by small, built-in

cabinets with wooden doors. There was a mirror on the wall, and it was round-but there any similarity

to Walters' description ended.

There was a fireplace, the kind one can find in any ordinary old New York house. On the walls were a

few prints. The great table, the "baronial board," was an entirely commonplace one, littered with dolls'

clothing in various stages of completion.

My disquietude grew. If Walters had been romancing about this room, then what else in her diary was

invention-or, at least, as I had surmised when I had read it, the product of a too active imagination?

Yet-she had not been romancing about the doll-maker's eyes, nor her voice; and she had not

exaggerated the doll-maker's appearance nor the peculiarities of the niece. The woman spoke, recalling

me to myself, breaking my thoughts.

"My room interests you?"

She spoke softly, and with, I thought, a certain secret amusement.

I said: "Any room where any true artist creates is of interest. And you are a true artist, Madame

Mandilip."

"Now, how do you know that?" she mused.

It had been a slip. I said, quickly:

"I am a lover of art. I have seen a few of your dolls. It does not take a gallery of his pictures to make one

realize that Raphael, for example, was a master. One picture is enough."

She smiled, in the friendliest fashion. She closed the door behind me, and pointed to a chair beside the

table.

"You will not mind waiting a few minutes before I show you my dolls? There is a dress I must finish. It is

promised, and soon the little one to whom I have promised it will come. It will not take me long."

"Why, no," I answered, and dropped into the chair.

She said, softly: "It is quiet here. And you seem weary. You have been working hard, eh? And you are

weary."

I sank back into the chair. Suddenly I realized how weary I really was. For a moment my guard relaxed

and I closed my eyes. I opened them to find that the doll-maker had taken her seat at the table.

And now I saw her hands. They were long and delicate and white and I knew that they were the most

beautiful I had ever beheld. Just as her eyes seemed to have life of their own, so did those hands seem

living things, having a being independent of the body to which they belonged. She rested them on the

table. She spoke again, caressingly.

"It is well to come now and then to a quiet place. To a place where peace is. One grows so weary-so

weary. So tired-so very tired."

She picked a little dress from the table and began to sew. Long white fingers plied the needle while the

other hand turned and moved the small garment. How wonderful was the motion of those long white