Black is White 11

Black is White 11

This command was modified to a slight extent later on. Brood felt sorry

for the victims. He loved them, and he knew that their pride was injured

a great deal more than their appetite. In its modified form the edict

allowed them a small drink in the morning and another at bedtime, but

the doses (as they sarcastically called them) were to be administered by

Jones the butler, who held the key to the situation and--the sideboard.

 

“Is this a dispensary?” wailed Mr Dawes in weak horror. “Are we to stand

in line and solicit the common necessities of life? Answer me, Riggs!

Confound you, don’t stand there like a wax figure! Say something!”

 

Mr Riggs shook his head bleakly.

 

“Poor Jim,” was all that he said, and rolled his eyes heavenward.

 

Mr Dawes reflected. After many minutes the tears started down his

rubicund cheeks. “Poor old Jim,” he sighed. And after that they looked

upon Mrs Brood as the common enemy of all three.

 

The case of Mrs John Desmond was disposed of in a summary but tactful

manner.

 

“If Mrs Desmond is willing to remain, James, as housekeeper instead of

friend, all well and good,” said Mrs Brood, discussing the matter in the

seclusion of her boudoir. “I doubt, however, whether she can descend to

that. You have spoiled her, my dear.”

 

Brood was manifestly pained and uncomfortable.

 

“She was the wife of my best friend, Yvonne. I have never permitted her

to feel----”

 

“Ah,” she interrupted, “the wives of best friends! Nearly every man has

the wife of a best friend somewhere in his life’s history.” She shook

her head at him with mock mournfulness.

 

He flushed. “I trust you do not mean to imply that----”

 

“I know what you would say. No, I do not mean anything of the sort.

Still, you now have a wife of your own. Is it advisable to have also the

wife of a best friend?”

 

“Really, Yvonne, all this sounds very suspicious and--unpleasant. Mrs

Desmond is the soul of----”

 

“My dear man, why should you defend her? I am not accusing her. I am

merely going into the ethics of the situation. If you can forget that

Mrs Desmond is the wife of your friend and come to regard her as a

servant in your establishment, no one will be more happy than I to have

her about the place. She is fine, she is competent, she is a lady. But

she is not my equal here. Can’t you understand?”

 

He was thoughtful for a moment.

 

“I dare, say you are right. The conditions are peculiar. I can’t go

to her and say that she must consider herself as--oh, no, that would be

impossible.”

 

“I should like to have Mrs Desmond as my friend, not as my housekeeper,”

said his wife simply.

 

“By Jove, and that’s just what I should like,” he cried.

 

“There is but one way, you know.”

 

“She must be one or the other, eh?”

 

“Precisely,” she said with firmness. “In my country, James, the wives of

best friends haven’t the same moral standing that they appear to have in

yours. Oh, don’t scowl so! Shall I tell you again that I do not mean to

reflect on Mrs Desmond’s virtue--or discretion? Far from it. If she is to

be my friend, she cannot be your housekeeper. That’s the point. Has she

any means of her own? Can she----”

 

“She has a small income, and an annuity which I took out for her soon

after her poor husband’s death. We were the closest of friends----”

 

“I understand, James. You are very generous and very loyal. I quite

understand. Losing her position here, then, will not be a hardship?”

 

“No,” said he soberly.

 

“I am quite competent, James,” she said brightly. “You will not miss

her, I am sure.”

 

“It isn’t that, Yvonne,” he sighed. “Mrs Desmond and Lydia have been

factors in my life for so long that---- But, of course, that is neither

here nor there. I will explain the situation to her to-morrow. She will

understand.”

 

“Thank you, James. You are really quite reasonable.”

 

“Are you laughing at me, darling?”

 

She gave him one of her searching, unfathomable glances, and she smiled

with roguish mirth.

 

“Isn’t it your mission in life to amuse and entertain me?”

 

“I love you, Yvonne. Good God, how I love you!” he cried abruptly.

 

His eyes burned with a sudden flame of passion as he bent over her.

His face quivered; his whole being tingled with the fierce spasm of an

uncontrollable desire to crush the warm, adorable body to his breast in

the supreme ecstasy of possession.

 

She surrendered herself to his passionate embrace. A little later

she withdrew herself from his arms, her lips still quivering with the

fierceness of his kisses. Her eyes, dark with wonder and perplexity,

regarded his transfigured face for a long, tense moment.

 

“Is this love, James?” she whispered. “Is this the real, true love?”

 

“What else, in Heaven’s name, can it be?” he cried. He was sitting upon

the arm of her chair, looking down at the strangely pallid face.

 

“But should love have the power to frighten me?”

 

“Frighten, my darling?”

 

“Oh, it is not you who are frightened,” she cried. “You are the man. But

I--ah, I am only the woman.”

 

He stared. “What an odd way to put it, dear.”

 

Then he drew back, struck by the curious gleam of mockery in her eyes.

 

“Was it like this twenty-five years ago?” she asked.

 

“Yvonne!”

 

“Did you love her--like this?”

 

He managed to smile. “Are you jealous?”

 

“Tell me about her,”

 

His face hardened. “Some other time, not now.”

 

“But you loved her, didn’t you?”

 

“Don’t be silly, dear.”

 

“And she loved you. If you loved her as you love me, she could not have

helped----”

 

“Please, please, Yvonne!” he exclaimed, a dull red setting in his cheek.

 

“You have never told me her name----”

 

He faced her, his eyes as cold as steel. “I may as well tell you now,

Yvonne, that her name is never mentioned in this house.”

 

She seemed to shrink down farther in the chair.

 

“Why?” she asked, an insistent note in her voice.

 

“It isn’t necessary to explain.” He walked away from her to the window

and stood looking out over the bleak little courtyard. Neither spoke for

many minutes, and yet he knew that her questioning gaze was upon him and

that when he turned to her again she would ask still another question.

He tried to think of something to say that would turn her away from this

hated subject.

 

“Isn’t it time for you to dress, dearest? The Gunnings live pretty

far up north and the going will be bad with Fifth Avenue piled up with

snow----”

 

“Doesn’t Frederic ever mention his mother’s name?” came the question

that he feared before it was uttered.

 

“I am not certain that he knows her name,” said he levelly. The knuckles

of his hands, clenched tightly behind his back, were white. “He has

never heard me utter it.”

 

She looked at him darkly. There was something in her eyes that caused

him to shift his own steady gaze uncomfortably. He could not have

explained what it was, but it gave him a curiously uneasy feeling, as

of impending peril. It was not unlike the queer, inexplicable, though

definite, sensing of danger that more than once he had experienced in

the silent, tranquil depths of great forests.

 

“But you loved her just the same, James, up to the time you met me. Is

not that true?”

 

“No!” he exclaimed loudly. “It is not true.”

 

“I wonder what could have happened to make you so bitter toward her,”

she went on, still watching him through half-closed eyes. “Was she

unfaithful to you? Was----”

 

“Good God, Yvonne!” he cried, an angry light jumping into his eyes--the

eyes that so recently had been ablaze with love.

 

“Don’t be angry, dearest,” she cried plaintively. “We Europeans speak of

such things as if they were mere incidents. I forget that you Americans

take them seriously, as tragedies.”