Роберт Чамберс - The Dark Star

He leaned across the cloth and laid a hot, cushiony hand over both of hers, where they lay primly clasped on the table edge:

"Don't you ever miss me when I'm away from you, Rue?" he asked.

"I think—it is nice to be with you," she said, hotly embarrassed by the publicity of his caress.

"I don't believe you mean it." But he smiled this time. At which the little rigid smile stamped itself on her lips; but she timidly withdrew her hands from his.

"Rue, I don't believe you love me." This time there was no smile.

She found nothing to answer, being without any experience in give–and–take conversation, which left her always uncertain and uncomfortable.

For the girl was merely a creature still in the making—a soft, pliable thing to be shaped to perfection only by the light touch of some steady, patient hand that understood—or to be marred and ruined by a heavy hand which wrought at random or in brutal haste.

Brandes watched her for a moment out of sleepy, greenish eyes. Then he consulted his watch again, summoned a waiter, gave him the parcels–room checks, and bade him have a boy carry their luggage into the lobby.

As they rose from the table, a man and a woman entering the lobby caught sight of them, halted, then turned and walked back toward the street door which they had just entered.

Brandes had not noticed them where he stood by the desk, scratching off a telegram to Stull:

"All O. K. Just going aboard. Fix it with Stein."

He rejoined Rue as the boy appeared with their luggage; an under porter took the bags and preceded them toward the street.

"There's the car!" said Brandes, with a deep breath of relief. "He knows his business, that chauffeur of mine."

Their chauffeur was standing beside the car as they emerged from the hotel and started to cross the sidewalk; the porter, following, set their luggage on the curbstone; and at the same instant a young and pretty woman stepped lightly between Rue and Brandes.

"Good evening, Eddie," she said, and struck him a staggering blow in the face with her white–gloved hand.

Brandes lost his balance, stumbled sideways, recovered himself, turned swiftly and encountered the full, protruding black eyes of Maxy Venem staring close and menacingly into his.

From Brandes' cut lip blood was running down over his chin and collar; his face remained absolutely expressionless. The next moment his eyes shifted, met Ruhannah's stupefied gaze.

"Go into the hotel," he said calmly. "Quick―"

"Stay where you are!" interrupted Maxy Venem, and caught the speechless and bewildered girl by the elbow.

Like lightning Brandes' hand flew to his hip pocket, and at the same instant his own chauffeur seized both his heavy, short arms and held them rigid, pinned behind his back.

"Frisk him!" he panted; Venem nimbly relieved him of the dull black weapon.

"Can the fake gun–play, Eddie," he said, coolly shoving aside the porter who attempted to interfere. "You're double–crossed. We got the goods on you; come on; who's the girl?"

The woman who had struck Brandes now came up again beside Venem. She was young, very pretty, but deathly white except for the patches of cosmetic on either cheek. She pointed at Brandes. There was blood on her soiled and split glove:

"You dirty dog!" she said unsteadily. "You'll marry this girl before I've divorced you, will you? And you think you are going to get away with it! You dog! You dirty dog!"

The porter attempted to interfere again, but Venem shoved him out of the way. Brandes, still silently struggling to free his imprisoned arms, ceased twisting suddenly and swung his heavy head toward Venem. His hat had fallen off; his face, deeply flushed with exertion, was smeared with blood and sweat.

"What's the idea, you fool!" he said in a low voice. "I'm not married to her."

But Ruhannah heard him say it.

"You claim that you haven't married this girl?" demanded Venem loudly, motioning toward Rue, who stood swaying, half dead, held fast by the gathering crowd which pushed around them from every side.

"Did you marry her or did you fake it?" repeated Venem in a louder voice. "It's jail one way; maybe both!"

"He married her in Gayfield at eleven this morning!" said the chauffeur. "Parson Smawley turned the trick."

Brandes' narrow eyes glittered; he struggled for a moment, gave it up, shot a deadly glance at Maxy Venem, at his wife, at the increasing throng crowding closely about him. Then his infuriated eyes met Rue's, and the expression of her face apparently crazed him.

Frantic, he hurled himself backward, jerking one arm free, tripped, fell heavily with the chauffeur on top, twisting, panting, struggling convulsively, while all around him surged the excited crowd, shouting, pressing closer, trampling one another in eagerness to see.

Rue, almost swooning with fear, was pushed, jostled, flung aside. Stumbling over her own suitcase, she fell to her knees, rose, and, scarce conscious of what she was about, caught up her suitcase and reeled away into the light–shot darkness.

She had no idea of what she was doing or where she was going; the terror of the scene still remained luridly before her eyes; the shouting of the crowd was in her ears; an indescribable fear of Brandes filled her—a growing horror of this man who had denied that he had married her. And the instinct of a frightened and bewildered child drove her into blind flight, anywhere to escape this hideous, incomprehensible scene behind her.

Hurrying on, alternately confused and dazzled in the patches of darkness and flaring light, clutched at and followed by a terrible fear, she found herself halted on the curbstone of an avenue through which lighted tramcars were passing. A man spoke to her, came closer; and she turned desperately and hurried across a street where other people were crossing.

From overhead sounded the roaring dissonance of an elevated train; on either side of her phantom shapes swarmed—figures which moved everywhere around her, now illumined by shop windows, now silhouetted against them. And always through the deafening confusion in her brain, the dismay, the stupefaction, one dreadful fear dominated—the fear of Brandes—the dread and horror of this Judas who had denied her.

She could not drive the scene from her mind—the never–to–be forgotten picture where he stood with blood from his cut lip striping his fat chin. She heard his voice denying her through swollen lips that scarcely moved—denying that he had married her.

And in her ears still sounded the other voice—the terrible words of the woman who had struck him—an unsteady, unreal voice accusing him; and her brain throbbed with the horrible repetition: "Dirty dog—dirty dog—dirty dog―" until, almost out of her mind, she dropped her bag and clapped both hands over her ears.

One or two men stared at her. A taxi driver came from beside his car and asked her if she was ill. But she caught up her suitcase and hurried on without answering.

She was very tired. She had come to the end of the lighted avenue. There was darkness ahead, a wall, trees, and electric lights sparkling among the foliage.

Perhaps the sudden glimpse of a wide and star–set sky quieted her, calmed her. Freed suddenly from the cañon of the city's streets, the unreasoning panic of a trapped thing subsided a little.

Her arm ached; she shifted the suitcase to her other hand and looked across at the trees and at the high stars above, striving desperately for self–command.

Something had to be done. She must find some place where she could sit down. Where was she to find it?

For a while she could feel her limbs trembling; but gradually the heavy thudding of her pulses quieted; nobody molested her; nobody had followed her. That she was quite lost did not matter; she had also lost this man who had denied her, somewhere in the depths of the confusion behind her. That was all that mattered—escape from him, from the terrible woman who had struck him and reviled him.