Chambers Robert William
The Moonlit Way: A Novel
XIII
A MIDNIGHT TÊTE-À-TÊTE
When Dulcie had entered the studio that evening, her white face smeared with blood and a torn letter clutched in her hand, the gramophone was playing a lively two-step, and Barres and Thessalie Dunois were dancing there in the big, brilliantly lighted studio, all by themselves.
Thessalie caught sight of Dulcie over Barres’s shoulder, hastily slipped out of his arms, and hurried across the polished floor.
“What is the matter?” she asked breathlessly, a fearful intuition already enlightening her as her startled glance travelled from the blood on Dulcie’s face to the torn fragments of paper in her rigidly doubled fingers.
Barres, coming up at the same moment, slipped a firm arm around Dulcie’s shoulders.
“Are you badly hurt, dear? What has happened?” he asked very quietly.
She looked up at him, mute, her bruised mouth quivering, and held out the remains of the letter. And Thessalie Dunois caught her breath sharply as her eyes fell on the bits of paper covered with her own handwriting.
“There was a man hiding in the court,” said Dulcie. “He wore a white cloth over his face and he came up behind me and tried to snatch your letter out of my hand; but I held fast and he only tore it in two.”
Barres stared at the sheaf of torn paper, lying crumpled up in his open hand, then his amazed gaze rested on Thessalie:
“Is this the letter you wrote to me?” he inquired.
“Yes. May I have the remains of my letter?” she asked calmly.
He handed over the bits of paper without a word, and she opened her gold-mesh bag and dropped them in.
There was a moment’s silence, then Barres said:
“Did he strike you, Dulcie?”
“Yes, when he thought he couldn’t get away from me.”
“You hung on to him?”
“I tried to.”
Thessalie stepped closer, impulsively, and framed Dulcie’s pallid, blood-smeared face in both of her cool, white hands.
“He has cut your lower lip inside,” she said. And, to Barres: “Could you get something to bathe it?”
Barres went away to his own room. When he returned with a finger-bowl full of warm water, some powdered boric acid, cotton, and a soft towel, Dulcie was lying deep in an armchair, her lids closed; and Thessalie sat beside her on one of the padded arms, smoothing the ruddy, curly hair from her forehead.
She opened her eyes when Barres appeared, giving him a clear but inscrutable look. Thessalie gently washed the traces of battle from her face, then rinsed her lacerated mouth very tenderly.
“It is just a little cut,” she said. “Your lip is a trifle swelled.”
“It is nothing,” murmured Dulcie.
“Do you feel all right?” inquired Barres anxiously.
“I feel sleepy.” She sat erect, always with her grey eyes on Barres. “I think I will go to bed.” She stood 172 up, conscious, now, of her shabby clothes and slippers; and there was a painful flush on her face as she thanked Thessalie and bade her a confused good-night.
But Thessalie took the girl’s hand and retained it.
“Please don’t say anything about what happened,” she said. “May I ask it of you as a very great favour?”
Dulcie turned her eyes on Barres in silent appeal for guidance.
“Do you mind not saying anything about this affair,” he asked, “as long as Miss Dunois wishes it?”
“Should I not tell my father?”
“Not even to him,” replied Thessalie gently. “Because it won’t ever happen again. I am very certain of that. Will you trust my word?”
Again Dulcie looked at Barres, who nodded.
“I promise never to speak of it,” she said in a low, serious voice.
Barres took her down stairs. At the desk she pointed out, at his request, the scene of recent action. Little by little he discovered, by questioning her, what a dogged battle she had fought there alone in the whitewashed corridor.
“Why didn’t you call for help?” he asked.
“I don’t know… I didn’t think of it. And when he got away I was dizzy from the blow.”
At her bedroom door he took both her hands in his. The gas-jet was still burning in her room. On the bed lay her pretty evening dress.
“I’m so glad,” she remarked naïvely, “that I had on my old clothes.”
He smiled, drew her to him, and lightly smoothed the thick, bright hair from her brow.
“You know,” he said, “I am becoming very fond of you, Dulcie. You’re such a splendid girl in every 173 way… We’ll always remain firm friends, won’t we?”
“Yes.”
“And in perplexity and trouble I want you to feel that you can always come to me. Because – you do like me, don’t you, Dulcie?”
For a moment or two she sustained his smiling, questioning gaze, then laid her cheek lightly against his hands, which still held both of hers imprisoned. And for one exquisite instant of spiritual surrender her grey eyes closed. Then she straightened herself up; he released her hands; she turned slowly and entered her room, closing the door very gently behind her.
In the studio above, Thessalie, still wearing her rose-coloured cloak, sat awaiting him by the window.
He crossed the studio, dropped onto the lounge beside her, and lighted a cigarette. Neither spoke for a few moments. Then he said:
“Thessa, don’t you think you had better tell me something about this ugly business which seems to involve you?”
“I can’t, Garry.”
“Why not?”
“Because I shall not take the risk of dragging you in.”
“Who are these people who seem to be hounding you?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You trust me, don’t you?”
She nodded, her face partly averted:
“It isn’t that. And I had meant to tell you something concerning this matter – tell you just enough so that I might ask your advice. In fact, that is what 174 I wrote you in that letter – being rather scared and desperate… But half my letter to you has been stolen. The people who stole it are clever enough to piece it out and fill in what is missing – ”
She turned impulsively and took his hands between her own. Her face had grown quite white.
“How much harm have I done to you, Garry? Have I already involved you by writing as much as I did write? I have been wondering… I couldn’t bear to bring anything like that into your life – ”
“Anything like what?” he asked bluntly. “Why don’t you tell me, Thessa?”
“No. It’s too complicated – too terrible. There are elements in it that would shock and disgust you… And perhaps you would not believe me – ”
“Nonsense!”
“The Government of a great European Power does not believe me to be honest!” she said very quietly. “Why should you?”
“Because I know you.”
She smiled faintly:
“You’re such a dear,” she murmured. “But you talk like a boy. What do you really know about me? We have met just three times in our entire lives. Do any of those encounters really enlighten you? If you were a business man in a responsible position, could you honestly vouch for me?”
“Don’t you credit me with common sense?” he insisted warmly.
She laughed:
“No, Garry, dear, not with very much. Even I have more than you, and that is saying very little. We are inclined to be irresponsible, you and I – inclined to take the world lightly, inclined to laugh, inclined to tread the moonlit way! No, Garry, neither 175 you nor I possess very much of that worldly caution born of hardened wisdom and sharpened wits.”
She smiled almost tenderly at him and pressed his hands between her own.
“If I had been worldly wise,” she said, “I should never have danced my way to America through summer moonlight with you. If I had been wiser still, I should not now be an exile, my political guilt established, myself marked for destruction by a great European Power the instant I dare set foot on its soil.”
“I supposed your trouble to be political,” he nodded.
“Yes, it is.” She sighed, looked at him with a weary little smile. “But, Garry, I am not guilty of being what that nation believes me to be.”
“I am very sure of it,” he said gravely.
“Yes, you would be. You’d believe in me anyway, even with the terrible evidence against me… I don’t suppose you’d think me guilty if I tell you that I am not – in spite of what they might say about me – might prove, apparently.”
She withdrew her hands, clasped them, her gaze lost in retrospection for a few moments. Then, coming to herself with a gesture of infinite weariness:
“There is no use, Garry. I should never be believed. There are those who, base enough to entrap me, now are preparing to destroy me because they are cowardly enough to be afraid of me while I am alive. Yes, trapped, exiled, utterly discredited as I am to-day, they are still afraid of me.”
“Who are you, Thessa?” he asked, deeply disturbed.
“I am what you first saw me – a dancer, Garry, and nothing worse.”
“It seems strange that a European Government should desire your destruction,” he said.
“If I really were what this Government believes me to be, it would not seem strange to you.”
She sat thinking, worrying her under lip with delicate white teeth; then:
“Garry, do you believe that your country is going to be drawn into this war?”
“I don’t know what to think,” he said bitterly. “The Lusitania ought to have meant war between us and Germany. Every brutal Teutonic disregard of decency since then ought to have meant war – every unarmed ship sunk by their U-boats, every outrage in America perpetrated by their spies and agents ought to have meant war. I don’t know how much more this Administration will force us to endure – what further flagrant insult Germany means to offer. They’ve answered the President’s last note by canning Von Tirpitz and promising, conditionally, to sink no more unarmed ships without warning. But they all are liars, the Huns. So that’s the way matters stand, Thessa, and I haven’t the slightest idea of what is going to happen to my humiliated country.”
“Why does not your country prepare?” she asked.
“God knows why. Washington doesn’t believe in it, I suppose.”
“You should build ships,” she said. “You should prepare plans for calling out your young men.”
He nodded indifferently:
“There was a preparedness parade. I marched in it. But it only irritated Washington. Now, finally, the latest Mexican insult is penetrating official stupidity, and we are mobilising our State Guardsmen for service on the border. And that’s about all we are doing. We are making neither guns nor rifles; we are building no ships; the increase in our regular army is of little account; some of the most vital of the great 177 national departments are presided over by rogues, clowns, and fools – pacifists all! – stupid, dull, grotesque and impotent. And you ask me what my country is going to do. And I tell you that I don’t know. For real Americans, Thessa, these last two years have been years of shame. For we should have armed and mobilised when the first rifle-shot cracked across the Belgian frontier at Longwy; and we should have declared war when the first Hun set his filthy hoof on Belgian soil.
“In our hearts we real Americans know it. But we had no leader – nobody of faith, conviction, vision, action, to do what was the only thing to do. No; we had only talkers to face the supreme crisis of the world – only the shallow noise of words was heard in answer to God’s own summons warning all mankind that hell’s deluge was at hand.”
The intense bitterness of what he said had made her very grave. She listened silently, intent on his every expression. And when he ended with a gesture of hopelessness and disgust, she sat gazing at him out of her lovely dark eyes, deep in reflection.
“Garry,” she said at length, “do you know anything about the European systems of intelligence?”
“No – only what I read in novels.”
“Do you know that America, to-day, is fairly crawling with German spies?”
“I suppose there are some here.”
“There are a hundred thousand paid German spies within an hour’s journey of this city.”
He looked up incredulously.
“Let me tell you,” she said, “how it is arranged here. The German Ambassador is the master spy in America. Under his immediate supervision are the so-called diplomatic agents – the personnel of the embassy 178 and members of the consular service. These people do not class themselves as agents or as spies; they are the directors of spies and agents.
“Agents gather information from spies who perform the direct work of investigating. Spies usually work alone and report, through local agents, to consular or diplomatic agents. And these, in turn, report to the Ambassador, who reports to Berlin.
“It is all directed from Berlin. The personal source of all German espionage is the Kaiser. He is the supreme master spy.”
“Where have you learned these things, Thessa?” he asked in a troubled voice.
“I have learned, Garry.”
“Are you – a spy?”
“No.”
“Have you been?”
“No, Garry.”
“Then how – ”
“Don’t ask me; just listen. There are men here in your city who are here for no good purpose. I do not mean to say that merely because they seek also to injure me – destroy me, perhaps, – God knows what they wish to do to me! – but I say it because I believe that your country will declare war on Germany some day very soon. And that you ought to watch these spies who move everywhere among you!
“Germany also believes that war is near. And this is why she strives to embroil your country with Japan and Mexico. That is why she discredits you with Holland, with Sweden. It is why she instructs her spies here to set fires in factories and on ships, blow up powder mills and great industrial plants which are manufacturing munitions for the Allies of the Triple Entente.
“America may doubt that there is to be war between her and Germany, but Germany does not doubt it.
“Let me tell you what else Germany is doing. She is spreading insidious propaganda through a million disloyal Germans and pacifist Americans, striving to poison the minds of your people against England. She secretly buys, owns, controls newspapers which are used as vehicles for that propaganda.
“She is debauching the Irish here who are discontented with England’s rule; she spends vast sums of money in teaching treachery in your schools, in arousing suspicion among farmers, in subsidising mercantile firms.
“Garry, I tell you that a Hun is always a Hun; a Boche is always a Boche, call him what else you will.
“The Germans are the monkeys of the world; they have imitated the human race. But, Garry, they are still what they always have been at heart, barbarians who have no business in Europe.
“In their hearts – and for all their priests and clergymen and cathedrals and churches – they still believe in their old gods which they themselves created – fierce, bestial supermen, more cruel, more powerful, more treacherous, more beastly than they themselves.
“That is the German. That is the Hun under all his disguises. No white man can meet him on his own ground; no white man can understand him, appeal to anything in common between himself and the Boche. He is brutal and contemptuous to women; he is tyrannical to the weak, cringing to the strong, fundamentally bestial, utterly selfish, intolerant of any civilisation which is not his conception of civilisation – his monkey-like conception of Christ – whom, in his pagan soul, he secretly sneers at – not always secretly, now!”
She straightened up with a quick little gesture of 180 contempt. Her face was brightly flushed; her eyes brilliant with scorn.
“Garry, has not America heard enough of ‘the good German,’ the ‘kindly Teuton,’ the harmless, sentimental and ‘excellent citizen,’ whose morally edifying origin as a model emigrant came out of his own sly mouth, and who has, by his own propaganda alone, become an accepted type of good-natured thrift and erudition in your Republic?
“Let me say to you what a French girl thinks! A hundred years ago you were a very small nation, but you were homogeneous and the average of culture was far higher in America then than it is at present. For now, your people’s cultivation and civilisation is diluted by the ignorance of millions of foreigners to whom you have given hospitality. And, of these, the Germans have done you the most deadly injury, vulgarising public taste in art and literature, affronting your clean, sane intelligence by the new decadence and perversion in music, in painting, in illustration, in fiction.
“Whatever the normal Hun touches he vulgarises; whatever the decadent Boche touches he soils and degrades and transforms into a horrible abomination. This he has done under your eyes in art, in literature, in architecture, in modern German music.
“His filthy touch is even on your domestic life – this Barbarian who feeds grossly, whose personal habits are a by-word among civilised and cultured people, whose raw ferocity is being now revealed to the world day by day in Europe, whose proverbial clumsiness and stupidity have long furnished your stage with its oafs and clowns.
“This is the thing that is now also invading you with thousands of spies, betraying you with millions of traitors, 181 and which will one day turn on you and tear you and trample you like an enraged hog, unless you and your people awake to what is passing in the world you live in!”
She was on her feet now, flushed, lovely, superb in her deep and controlled excitement.
“I’ll tell you this much,” she said. “It is Germany that wishes my destruction. Germany trapped me; Germany would have destroyed me in the trap had I not escaped. Now, Germany is afraid of me, knowing what I know. And her agents follow me, spy on me, thwart me, prevent me from earning my living, until I – I can scarcely endure it – this hounding and persecution – ” Her voice broke; she waited to control it:
“I am not a spy. I never was one. I never betrayed a human soul – no, nor any living thing that ever trusted me! These people who hound me know that I am not guilty of that for which another Government is ready to try me – and condemn me. They fear that I shall prove to this other Government my innocence. I can’t. But they fear I can. And the Hun is afraid of me. Because, if I ever proved my innocence, it would involve the arrest and trial and certain execution of men high in rank in the capital of this other country. So – the Hun dogs me everywhere I go. I do not know why he does not try to kill me. Possibly he lacks courage, so far. Possibly he has not had any good opportunity, because I am very careful, Garry.”
“But this – this is outrageous!” broke out Barres. “You can’t stand this sort of thing, Thessa! It’s a matter for the police – ”
“Don’t interfere!”
“But – ”
“Don’t interfere! The last thing I want is publicity. The last thing I wish for is that your city, state, or national government should notice me at all or have any curiosity concerning me or any idea of investigating my affairs.”
“Why?”
“Because, although as soon as your country is at war with Germany, my danger from Germany ceases, on the other hand another very deadly danger begins at once to threaten me.”
“What danger?”
“It will come from a country with which your country will be allied. And I shall be arrested here as a German spy, and I shall be sent back to the country which I am supposed to have betrayed. And there nothing in the world could save me.”
“You mean – court-martial?”
“A brief one, Garry. And then the end.”
“Death?”
She nodded.
After a few moments she moved toward the door. He went with her, picking up his hat.
“I can’t let you go with me,” she said with a faint smile.
“Why not?”
“You are involved sufficiently already.”
“What do I care for – ”
“Hush, Garry. Do you wish to displease me?”
“No, but I – ”
“Please! Call me a taxicab. I wish to go back alone.”
In spite of argument she remained smilingly firm. Finally he rang up a taxi for her. When it signalled he walked down stairs, through the dim hall and out to the grilled gateway beside her.
“Good-bye,” she said, giving her hand. He detained it:
“I can’t bear to have you go alone – ”
“I’m perfectly safe, mon ami. I’ve had a delightful time at your party – really I have. This affair of the letter does not spoil it. I’m accustomed to similar episodes. So now, good-night.”
“Am I to see you again soon?”
“Soon? Ah, I can’t tell you that, Garry.”
“When it is convenient then?”
“Yes.”
“And will you telephone me on your safe arrival home to-night?”
She laughed:
“If you wish. You’re so sweet to me, Garry. You always have been. Don’t worry about me. I am not in the least apprehensive. You see I’m rather a clever girl, and I know something about the Boche.”
“You had your letter stolen.”
“Only half of it!” she retorted gaily. “She is a gallant little thing, your friend Dulcie. Please give her my love. As for your other friends, they were amusing… Mr. Mandel spoke to me about an engagement.”
“Why don’t you consider it? Corot Mandel is the most important producer in New York.”
“Is he, really? Well, if I’m not interfered with perhaps I shall go to call on Mr. Mandel.” She began to laugh mischievously to herself: “There was one man there who never gave me a moment’s peace until I promised to lunch with him at the Ritz.”
“Who the devil – ”
“Mr. Westmore,” she said demurely.
“Oh, Jim Westmore! Well, Thessa, he’s a corker. 184 He’s really a splendid fellow, but look out for him! He’s also a philanderer.”
“Oh, dear. I thought he was just a sculptor and a rather strenuous young man.”
“I wasn’t knocking him,” said Barres, laughing, “but he falls in love with every pretty woman he meets. I’m merely warning you.”
“Thank you, Garry,” she smiled. She gave him her hand again, pulled the rose-coloured cloak around her bare shoulders, ran across the sidewalk to the taxi, and whispered to the driver.
“You’ll telephone me when you get home?” he reminded her, baffled but smiling.
She laughed and nodded. The cab wheeled out into the street, backed, turned, and sped away eastward.
Half an hour later his telephone rang:
“Garry, dear?”
“Is it you, Thessa?”
“Yes. I’m going to bed… Tell Mr. Westmore that I’m not at all sure I shall meet him at the Ritz on Monday.”
“He’ll go, anyway.”
“Will he? What devotion. What faith in woman! What a lively capacity for hope eternal! What vanity! Well, then, tell him he may take his chances.”
“I’ll tell him. But I think you might make a date with me, too, you little fraud!”
“Maybe I will. Maybe I’ll drop in to see you unexpectedly some morning. And don’t let me catch you philandering in your studio with some pretty woman!”
“No fear, Thessa.”
“I’m not at all sure. And your little model, Dulcie, is dangerously attractive.”
“Piffle! She’s a kid!”
“Don’t be too sure of that, either! And tell Mr. Westmore that I may keep my engagement. And then again I may not! Good-night, Garry, dear!”
“Good-night!”
Walking slowly back to extinguish the lights in the studio before retiring to his own room for the night, Barres noticed a piece of paper on the table under the lamp, evidently a fragment from the torn letter.
The words “Ferez Bey” and “Murtagh” caught his eye before he realised that it was not his business to decipher the fragment.
So he lighted a match, held the shred of letter paper to the flame, and let it burn between his fingers until only a blackened cinder fell to the floor.
But the two names were irrevocably impressed on his mind, and he found himself wondering who these men might be, as he stood by his bed, undressing.
