Chambers Robert William
Ailsa Paige
CHAPTER VIII
Berkley, hollow-eyed, ghastly white, but smiling, glanced at the clock.
"Only one more hand after this," he said. "I open it for the limit."
"All in," said Cortlandt briefly. "What are you going to do now?"
"Scindere glaciem," observed Berkley, "you may give me three cards, Cortlandt." He took them, scanned his hand, tossed the discards into the centre of the table, and bet ten dollars. Through the tobacco smoke drifting in level bands, the crystal chandeliers in Cortlandt's house glimmered murkily; the cigar haze even stretched away into the farther room, where, under brilliantly lighted side brackets, a young girl sat playing at the piano, a glass of champagne, gone flat, at her dimpled elbow. Another girl, in a shrimp-pink evening gown, one silken knee drooping over the other, lay half buried among the cushions, singing the air which the player at the piano picked out by ear. A third girl, velvet-eyed and dark of hair, listened pensively, turning the gems on her fingers.
The pretty musician at the piano was playing an old song, once much admired by the sentimental; the singer, reclining amid her cushions, sang the words, absently:
"Why did I give my heart away—
Give it so lightly, give it to pay
For a pleasant dream on a summer's day?
"Why did I give? I do not know.
Surely the passing years will show.
"Why did I give my love away—
Give it in April, give it in May,
For a young man's smile on a summer's day?
"Why did I love? I do not know.
Perhaps the passing years will show.
"Why did I give my soul away—
Give it so gaily, give it to pay
For a sigh and a kiss on a summer's day?
"Perhaps the passing years may show;
My heart and I, we do not know."
She broke off short, swung on the revolving chair, and called: "Mr. Berkley, are you going to see me home?"
"Last jack, Miss Carew," said Berkley, "I'm opening it for the limit. Give me one round of fixed ammunition, Arthur."
"There's no use drawing," observed another man, laying down his hand, "Berkley cleans us up as usual."
He was right; everything went to Berkley, as usual, who laughed and turned a dissipated face to Casson.
"Cold decks?" he suggested politely. "Your revenge at your convenience, Jack."
Casson declined. Cortlandt, in his brilliant zouave uniform, stood up and stretched his arms until the scarlet chevrons on the blue sleeves wrinkled into jagged lightning.
"It's been very kind of you all to come to my last 'good-bye party,'" he yawned, looking sleepily around him through the smoke at his belongings.
For a week he had been giving a "good-bye party" every evening in his handsome house on Twenty-third Street. The four men and the three young girls in the other room were the residue of this party, which was to be the last.
Arthur Wye, wearing the brand-new uniform, red stripes and facings, of flying artillery, rose also; John Casson buttoned his cavalry jacket, grumbling, and stood heavily erect, a colossus in blue and yellow.
"You have the devil's luck, Berkley," he said without bitterness.
"I need it."
"So you do, poor old boy. But—God! you play like a professional."
Wye yawned, thrust his strong, thin hands into his trousers pockets, and looked stupidly at the ceiling.
"I wish to heaven they'd start our battery," he said vacantly.
"I'm that sick of Hamilton!"
Casson grumbled again, settling his debts with Berkley.
"Everybody has the devil's own luck except the poor God-forsaken cavalry. Billy Cortlandt goes tomorrow, your battery is under orders, but nobody cares what happens to the cavalry. And they're the eyes and ears of an army–"
"They're the heels and tail of it," observed Berkley, "and the artillery is the rump."
"Shut up, you sneering civilian!"
"I'm shutting up—shop—unless anybody cares to try one last cold hand—" He caught the eye of the girl at the piano and smiled pallidly. "'Quid non mortalia pectora cogis, auri sacra fames!' Also I have them all scared to death, Miss Carew—the volunteer army of our country is taking water."
"It doesn't taste like water," said the pretty singer on the sofa, stretching out her bubbling glass, "try it yourself, Mr. Berkley."
They went toward the music room; Cortlandt seated himself on top of the piano. He looked rather odd there in his zouave jacket, red trousers, white-gaitered legs hanging.
"Oh the Zou-zou-zou!
Oh the Zou-zou-zou!
Oh the boys of the bully Zouaves!"
he hummed, swinging his legs vigorously. "Ladies and gentlemen, it's all over but the shooting. Arthur, I saw your battery horses; they belong in a glue factory. How arc you going to save your guns when the rebs come after you?"
"God knows, especially if the Zouaves support us," replied Wye, yawning again. Then, rising:
"I've got to get back to that cursed fort. I'll escort anybody who'll let me."
"One more glass, then," said Cortlandt. "Berkley, fill the parting cup! Ladies of the Canterbury, fair sharers of our hospitality who have left the triumphs of the drama to cheer the unfortunate soldier on his war-ward way, I raise my glass and drink to each Terpsichorean toe which, erstwhile, was pointed skyward amid the thunder of metropolitan plaudits, and which now demurely taps my flattered carpet. Gentlemen—soldiers and civilians—I give you three toasts! Miss Carew, Miss Lynden, Miss Trent! Long may they dance! Hurrah!"
"Get on the table," said Casson amid the cheering, and climbed up, spurs jingling, glass on high.
"Will it hold us all?" inquired Letty Lynden, giving her hands to Berkley, who shrugged and swung her up beside him. "Hurrah for the Zouaves!" she cried; "Hurrah for Billy Cortlandt!—Oh, somebody spilled champagne all over me!"
"Hurrah for the artillery!" shouted Arthur Wye, vigorously cheering himself and waving his glass, to the terror of Ione Carew, who attempted to dodge the sparkling rain in vain.
"Arthur, you look like a troop of trained mice," observed Berkley gravely. "Has anybody a toy cannon and a little flag?"
Wye descended with a hop, sprang astride a chair, and clattered around the room, imitating his drill-master.
"Attention! By the right of batteries, break into sections, trot. Mar-r-rch! Attention-n-n! By section from the right of batteries—front into column. Mar-r-rch!"
"By section from the right, front into column, march!" repeated Cortlandt, jumping down from the table and seizing another chair. "Everybody mount a chair!" he shouted. "This is the last artillery drill of the season. Line up there, Letty! It won't hurt your gown. Berkley'll get you another, anyway! Now, ladies and gentlemen, sit firmly in your saddles. Caissons to the rear—march! Caissons, left about—pieces forward—march!"
Wye's chair buckled and he came down with a splintering crash; Casson galloped madly about, pretending his chair had become unmanageable. It, also, ultimately collapsed, landed him flat on his back, whence he surveyed the exercises of the haute ecole in which three flushed and laughing young girls followed the dashing lead of Cortlandt, while Berkley played a cavalry canter on the piano with one hand and waved his cigar in the other.
Later, breathless, they touched glasses to the departing volunteers, to each other, to the ladies ("God bless them! Hear! He-ah!"), to the war, to every regiment going, to each separate battery horse and mule in Arthur's section. And then began on the guns,
"I prophesy a quick reunion!" said Berkley. "Here's to it! Full glasses!
"Speech! Speech—you nimble-witted, limber-legged prophet!" roared John Casson, throwing a pack of cards at Berkley. "Read the cards for us!"
Berkley very gracefully caught a handful, and sorting them, began impromptu:
"Diamonds for you,
Little Miss Carew,
Strung in a row,
Tied in a bow—
What would you do
If they came true?
"What can it be?
Hearts! for Miss Letty—
Sweethearts and beaux,
Monarchs in rows,
Knaves on their knees—
Choose among these!
"Clubs now, I see!
Ace! for Miss Betty—
Clubman and swell,
Soldier as well.
Yes, he's all three;
Who can he be?
"Ione, be kind
To monarch and knave,
But make up your mind
To make 'em behave.
And when a man finds you
The nicest he's met, he
Is likely to marry you,
Letty and Betty!"
Tremendous cheering greeted these sentiments; three more cheers were proposed and given for the Canterbury.
"Home of the 'ster arts, m-music an' 'r' drama-r-r—" observed Casson hazily—"I'm going home."
Nobody seemed to hear him.
"Home—ser-weet home," he repeated sentimentally—"home among the horses—where some Roman-nosed, camel-backed, slant-eared nag is probably waitin' to kick daylight out'r me! Ladies, farewell!" he added, tripping up on his spurs and waving his hand vaguely. "Cav'lry's eyes 'n' ears 'f army! 'Tain't the hind legs' No—no! I'm head 'n' ears—army! 'n' I wan' t' go home."
For a while he remained slanting against the piano, thoughtfully attempting to pry out the strings; then Wye returned from putting Miss Carew and Miss Trent into a carriage.
"You come to the fort with me," he said. "That'll sober you. I sleep near the magazine."
Berkley's face looked dreadfully battered and white, but he was master of himself, careful of his equilibrium, and very polite to everybody.
"You're—hic!—killin' yourself," said Cortlandt, balancing himself carefully in the doorway.
"Don't put it that way," protested Berkley. "I'm trying to make fast time, that's all. I'm in a hurry."
The other wagged his head: "You won't last long if you keep this up. The—hic!—trouble with you is that you can't get decently drunk. You just turn blue and white. That's what's—matter—you! And it kills the kind of—hic!—of man you are. B-b'lieve me," he added shedding tears, "I'm fon' 'v' you, Ber—hic!—kley."
He shed a few more scalding tears, waved his hand in resignation, bowed his head, caught sight of his own feet, regarded them with surprise.
"Whose?" he inquired naively.
"Yours," said Berkley reassuringly. "They don't want to go to bed."
"Put 'em to bed!" said Cortlandt in a stem voice. "No business wand'ring 'round here this time of night!"
So Berkley escorted Cortlandt to bed, bowed him politely into his room, and turned out the gas as a precaution.
Returning, he noticed the straggling retreat of cavalry and artillery, arms fondly interlaced; then, wandering back to the other room in search of his hat, he became aware of Letty Lynden, seated at the table.
Her slim, childish body lay partly across the table, her cheek was pillowed on one outstretched arm, the fingers of which lay loosely around the slender crystal stem of a wine-glass.
"Are you asleep?" he asked. And saw that she was.
So he roamed about, hunting for something or other—he forgot what—until he found it was her mantilla. Having found it, he forgot what he wanted it for and, wrapping it around his shoulders, sat down on the sofa, very silent, very white, but physically master of the demoralisation that sharpened the shadows under his cheek-bones and eyes.
"I guess," he said gravely to himself, "that I'd better become a gambler. It's—a—very, ve—ry good 'fession—no," he added cautiously, "per—fession—" and stopped short, vexed with his difficulties of enunciation.
He tried several polysyllables; they went better. Then he became aware of the mantilla on his shoulders.
"Some time or other," he said to himself with precision, "that little dancer girl ought to go home."
He rose steadily, walked to the table:
"Listen to me, you funny little thing," he said.
No answer.
The childlike curve of the cheek was flushed; the velvet-fringed lids lay close. For a moment he listened to the quiet breathing, then touched her arm lightly.
The girl stirred, lifted her head, straightened up, withdrawing her fingers from the wine-glass.
"Everybody's gone home," he said. "Do you want to stay here all night?"
She rose, rubbing her eyes with the backs of her hands, saw the mantilla he was holding, suffered him to drop it on, her shoulders, standing there sleepy and acquiescent. Then she yawned.
"Are you going with me, Mr. Berkley?"
"I'll—yes. I'll see you safe."
She yawned again, laid a small hand on his arm, and together they descended the stairs, opened the front door, and went out into Twenty-third Street. He scarcely expected to find a hack at that hour, but there was one; and it drove them to her lodgings on Fourth Avenue, near Thirteenth Street. Spite of her paint and powder she seemed very young and very tired as she stood by the open door, looking drearily at the gray pallor over the roofs opposite, where day was breaking.
"Will you—come in?"
He had prepared to take his leave; he hesitated.
"I think I will," he said. "I'd like to see you with your face washed."
Her room was small, very plain, very neat. On the bed lay folded a white night gown; a pair of knitted pink slippers stood close together on the floor beside it. There was a cheap curtain across the alcove; she drew it, turned, looked at him; and slowly her oval face crimsoned.
"You needn't wash your face," he said very gently.
She crept into the depths of a big arm-chair and lay back watching him with inscrutable eyes.
He did not disturb her for a while. After a few moments he got up and walked slowly about, examining the few inexpensive ornaments on wall and mantel; turned over the pages of an album, glanced at a newspaper beside it, then came back and stood beside her chair.
"Letty?"
She opened her eyes.
"I suppose that this isn't the—first time."
"No."
"It's not far from it, though." She was silent, but her eyes dropped.
He sat down on the padded arm of the chair.
"Do you know how much money I've made this week?" he said gaily.
She looked up at him, surprised, and shook her head; but her velvet eyes grew wide when he told her.
"I won it fairly," he said. "And I'm going to stake it all on one last bet."
"On—what?"
"On—you. Now, what do you think of that, you funny little thing?"
"How—do you mean, Mr. Berkley?" He looked down into the eyes of a hurt child.
"It goes into the bank in your name—if you say so."
"For—what?"
"I don't know," he said serenely, "but I am betting it will go for rent, and board, and things a girl needs—when she has no man to ask them of—and nothing to pay for them."
"You mean no man–excepting—you?"
"No," he said wearily, "I'm not trying to buy you."
She crimsoned. "I thought—then why do you–"
"Why? Good God, child! I don't know! How do I know why I do anything? I've enough left for my journey. Take this and try to behave yourself if you can—in the Canterbury and out of it! . . . And buy a new lock for that door of yours. Good night."
She sprang up and laid a detaining hand on his sleeve as he reached the hallway.
"Mr. Berkley! I—I can't–"
He said, smiling: "My manners are really better than that–"
"I didn't mean–"
"You ought to. Don't let any man take his leave in such a manner. Men believe a woman to be what she thinks she is. Think well of yourself. And go to bed. I never saw such a sleepy youngster in my life! Good night, you funny, sleepy little thing."
"Mr. Berkley—I can't take—accept–"
"Oh, listen to her!" he said, disgusted. "Can't I make a bet with my own money if I want to? I am betting; and you are holding the stakes. It depends on how you use them whether I win or lose."
"I don't understand—I don't, truly," she stammered; "d-do you wish me to—leave—the Canterbury? Do you—what is it you wish?"
"You know better than I do. I'm not advising you. Where is your home? Why don't you go there? You have one somewhere, I suppose, haven't you?"
"Y-yes; I had."
"Well—where is it?"
"In Philadelphia."
"Couldn't you stand it?" he inquired with a sneer.
"No." She covered her face with her hands.
"Trouble?"
"Y-yes."
"Man?"
"Y-y-yes."
"Won't they take you back?"
"I—haven't written."
"Write. Home is no stupider than the Canterbury. Will you write?"
She nodded, hiding her face.
"Then—that's settled. Meanwhile—" he took both her wrists and drew away her clinging hands:
"I'd rather like to win this bet because—the odds are all against me." He smiled, letting her hands swing back and hang inert at her sides.
But she only closed her eyes and shook her head, standing there, slim and tear-stained in her ruffled, wine-stained dinner dress. And, watching her, he retreated, one step after another, slowly; and slowly closed the door, and went out into the dawn, weary, haggard, the taste of life bitter in his mouth.
"What a spectacle," he sneered, referring to himself, "the vicious god from the machine! Chorus of seraphim. Apotheosis of little Miss Turveydrop–"
He swayed a trine as he walked, but it was not from the wine.
A policeman eyed him unfavourably,
"No," said Berkley, "I'm not drunk. You think I am. But I'm not.
And I'm too tired to tell you how I left my happy, happy home."
In the rosy gray of the dawn he sat down on the steps of his new lodgings and gazed quietly into space.
"This isn't going to help," he said. "I can stand years of it yet. And that's much too long."
He brooded for a few moments.
"I hope she doesn't write me again. I can't stand everything."
He got up with an ugly, oblique glance at the reddening sky.
"I'm what he's made me—and I've got to let her alone. . . . Let her alone. I—" He halted, laid his hand heavily on the door, standing so, motionless.
"If I—go—near her, he'll tell her what I am. If he didn't, I'd have to tell her. There's no way—anywhere—for me. And he made me so. . . . And—by God! it's in me—in me—to—to—if she writes again—" He straightened up, turned the key calmly, and let himself in.
Burgess was asleep, but Berkley went into his room and awoke him, shining a candle in his eyes.
"Burgess!"
"S-sir?"
"Suppose you knew you could never marry a woman. Would you keep away from her? Or would you do as much as you could to break her heart first?"
Burgess yawned: "Yes, sir."
"You'd do all you could?"
"Yes, sir."
There was a long silence; then Berkley laughed. "They drowned the wrong pup," he said pleasantly. "Good night."
But Burgess was already asleep again.
CHAPTER IX
And now at last she knew what it was she feared. For she was beginning to understand that this man was utterly unworthy, utterly insensible, without character, without one sympathetic trait that appealed to anything in her except her senses.
She understood it now, lying there alone in her room, knowing it to be true, admitting it in all the bitter humiliation of self-contempt. But even in the light of this new self-knowledge her inclination for him seemed a thing so unreasonable, so terrible, that, confused and terrified by the fear of spiritual demoralisation, she believed that this bewildering passion was all that he had ever evoked in her, and fell sick in mind and body for the shame of it.
A living fever was on her night and day; disordered memories of him haunted her, waking; defied her, sleeping; and her hatred for what he had awakened in her grew as her blind, childish longing to see him grew, leaving no peace for her.
What kind of love was that?—founded on nothing, nurtured on nothing, thriving on nothing except what her senses beheld in him. Nothing higher, nothing purer, nothing more exalted had she ever learned of him than what her eyes saw; and they had seen only a man in his ripe youth, without purpose, without ideals, taking carelessly of the world what he would one day return to it—the material, born in corruption, and to corruption doomed.
It was night she feared most. By day there were duties awaiting, or to be invented. Also, sometimes, standing on her steps, she could hear the distant sound of drums, catch a glimpse far to the eastward of some regiment bound South, the long rippling line of bayonets, a flutter of colour where the North was passing on God's own errand. And love of country became a passion.
Stephen came sometimes, but his news of Berkley was always indefinite, usually expressed with a shrug and emphasised in silences.
Colonel Arran was still in Washington, but he wrote her every day, and always he asked whether Berkley had come. She never told him.
Like thousands and thousands of other women in New York she did what she could for the soldiers, contributing from her purse, attending meetings, making havelocks, ten by eight, for the soldiers' caps, rolling bandages, scraping lint in company with other girls of her acquaintance, visiting barracks and camps and "soldiers' rests," sending endless batches of pies and cakes and dozens of jars of preserves from her kitchen to the various distributing depots.
Sainte Ursula's Church sent out a call to its parishioners; a notice was printed in all the papers requesting any women of the congregation who had a knowledge of nursing to meet at the rectory for the purpose of organisation. And Ailsa went and enrolled herself as one who had had some hospital experience.
Sickness among the thousands of troops in the city there already was, also a few cases of gunshots in the accident wards incident on the carelessness or ignorance of raw volunteers. But as yet in the East there had been no soldier wounded in battle, no violent death except that of the young colonel of the 1st Fire Zouaves, shot down at Alexandria.
So there was no regular hospital duty asked of Ailsa Paige, none required; and she and a few other women attended a class of instruction conducted by her own physician, Dr. Benton, who explained the simpler necessities of emergency cases and coolly predicted that there would be plenty of need for every properly instructed woman who cared to volunteer.
So the ladies of Sainte Ursula's listened very seriously; and some had enough of it very soon, and some remained longer, and finally only a small residue was left—quiet, silent, attentive women of various ages who came every day to hear what Dr. Benton had to tell them, and write it down in their little morocco notebooks. And these, after a while, became the Protestant sisterhood of Sainte Ursula, and wore, on duty, the garb of gray with the pectoral scarlet heart.
May went out with the booming of shotted guns beyond the, Southern horizon, amid rumours of dead zouaves and cavalrymen somewhere beyond Alexandria. And on that day the 7th Regiment returned to garrison the city, and the anxious city cheered its return, and people slept more soundly for it, though all day long the streets echoed with the music of troops departing, and of regiments parading for a last inspection before the last good-byes were said.
Berkley saw some of this from his window. Never perfectly sober now, he seldom left his rooms except at night; and all day long he read, or brooded, or lay listless, or as near drunk as he ever could be, indifferent, neither patient nor impatient with a life he no longer cared enough about to either use or take.
There were intervals when the deep despair within him awoke quivering; instants of fierce grief instantly controlled, throttled; moments of listless relaxation when some particularly contemptible trait in Burgess faintly amused him, or some attempted invasion of his miserable seclusion provoked a sneer or a haggard smile, or perhaps an uneasiness less ignoble, as when, possibly, the brief series of letters began and ended between him and the dancing girl of the Canterbury.
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Could you come for me after the theatre this evening?
"LETITIA LYNDEN."
"DEAR LETTY:
"I'm afraid I couldn't.
"Very truly yours,
"P. O. BERKLEY."
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Am I not to see you again? I think perhaps you might care to hear that I have been doing what you wished ever since that night. I have also written home, but nobody has replied. I don't think they want me now. It is a little lonely, being what you wish me to be. I thought you might come sometimes. Could you?
"LETITIA LYNDEN."
"DEAR LETITIA:
"I seem to be winning my bet, but nobody can ever tell. Wait for a while and then write home again. Meantime, why not make bonnets? If you want to, I'll see that you get a chance.
"P. O. BERKLEY."
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I don't know how. I never had any skill. I was assistant in a physician's office—once. Thank you for your kind and good offer—for all your goodness to me. I wish I could see you sometimes. You have been better to me than any man. Could I?
"LETTY."
"DEAR LETTY:
"Why not try some physician's office?"
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"Do you wish me to? Would you see me sometimes if I left the Canterbury? It is so lonely—you don't know, Mr. Berkley, how lonely it is to be what you wish me to be. Please only come and speak to me.
"LETTY."
"DEAR LETTY:
"Here is a card to a nice doctor, Phineas Benton, M.D. I have not seen him in years; he remembers me as I was. You will not, of course, disillusion him. I've had to lie to him about you—and about myself. I've told him that I know your family in Philadelphia, that they asked me about the chances of a position here for you as an assistant in a physician's office, and that now you had come on to seek for such a position. Let me know how the lie turns out.
"P. O. BERKLEY."
A fortnight later came her last letter:
"DEAR MR. BERKLEY:
"I have been with Dr. Benton nearly two weeks now. He took me at once. He is such a good man! But—I don't know—sometimes he looks at me and looks at me as though he suspected what I am—and I feel my cheeks getting hot, and I can scarcely speak for nervousness; and then he always smiles so pleasantly and speaks so courteously that I know he is too kind and good to suspect.
"I hold sponges and instruments in minor operations, keep the office clean, usher in patients, offer them smelling salts and fan them, prepare lint, roll bandages—and I know already how to do all this quite well. I think he seems pleased with me. He is so very kind to me. And I have a little hall bedroom in his house, very tiny but very neat and clean; and I have my meals with his housekeeper, an old, old woman who is very deaf and very pleasant.
"I don't go out because I don't know where to go. I'm afraid to go near the Canterbury—afraid to meet anybody from there. I think I would die if any man I ever saw there ever came into Dr. Benton's office. The idea of that often frightens me. But nobody has come. And I sometimes do go out with Dr. Benton. He is instructing a class of ladies in the principles of hospital nursing, and lately I have gone with him to hold things for him while he demonstrates. And once, when he was called away suddenly, I remained with the class alone, and I was not very nervous, and I answered all their questions for them and showed them how things ought to be done. They were so kind to me; and one very lovely girl came to me afterward and thanked me and said that she, too, had worked a little as a nurse for charity, and asked me to call on her.
"I was so silly—do you know I couldn't see her for the tears, and I couldn't speak—and I couldn't let go of her hands. I wanted to kiss them, but I was ashamed.
"Some day do you think I might see you again? I am what you have asked me to be. I never wanted to be anything else. They will not believe that at home because they had warned me, and I was such a fool—and perhaps you won't believe me—but I didn't know what I was doing; I didn't want to be what I became—This is really true, Mr. Berkley. Sometime may I see you again?
Yours sincerely,
"LETITIA A. LYNDEN."
He had replied that he would see her some day, meaning not to do so. And there it had rested; and there, stretched on his sofa, he rested, the sneer still edging his lips, not for her but for himself.
"She'd have made some respectable man a good—mistress," he said. "Here is a most excellent mistress, spoiled, to make a common-place nurse! . . . Gaude! Maria Virgo; gaudent proenomine molles auriculoe. . . . Gratis poenitet esse probum. Burgess!"
"Sir?"
"What the devil are you scratching for outside my door?"
"A letter, sir."
"Shove it under, and let me alone."
The letter appeared, cautiously inserted under the door, and lay there very white on the floor. He eyed it, scowling, without curiosity, turned over, and presently became absorbed in the book he had been reading:
"Zarathustra asked Ahura-Mazda: 'Heavenly, Holiest, Pure, when a pure man dies where does his soul dwell during that night?'
"Then answered Ahura-Mazda: 'Near his head it sits itself down. On this night his soul sees as much joy as the living world possesses.'
"And Zarathustra asked: 'Where dwells the soul throughout the second night after the body's death?'
"Then answered Ahura-Mazda: 'Near to his head it sits itself down.'
"Zarathustra spake: 'Where stays the soul of a pure roan throughout the third night, O Heavenly, Holiest, Pure?'
"And thus answered Ahura-Mazda, Purest, Heavenly: 'When the Third Night turns Itself to Light, the soul arises and goes forward; and a wind blows to meet it; a sweet-scented one, more sweet-scented than other winds.'
"And in that wind there cometh to meet him His Own Law in the body of a maid, one beautiful, shining, with shining arms; one powerful, well-grown, slender, with praiseworthy body; one noble, with brilliant face, as fair in body as the loveliest.
"And to her speaks the soul of the pure man, questioning her who she might truly be. And thus replies to him His Own Law, shining, dove-eyed, loveliest: 'I am thy thoughts and works; I am thine own Law of thine own Self. Thou art like me, and I am like thee in goodness, in beauty, in all that I appear to thee. Beloved, come!'
"And the soul of the pure man takes one step and is in the First Paradise, Humata; and takes a second step, and is in the Second Paradise, Hukhta; and takes a third step, and is in the Third Paradise, Hvarsta.
"And takes one last step into the Eternal Lights for ever."
His haggard eyes were still fixed vacantly on the printed page, but he saw nothing now. Something in the still air of the room had arrested his attention—something faintly fresh—an evanescent hint of perfume.
Suddenly the blood surged up in his face; he half rose, turned where he lay and looked back at the letter on the floor. "Damn it," he said. And rising heavily, he went to it, picked it up, and broke the scented seal.
"Will you misunderstand me, Mr. Berkley? They say that the pages of friendship are covered with records of misunderstandings.
