Part 45 (2/2)

Then the butler entered the room: ”Some one wishes to speak to your ladys.h.i.+p on the telephone, immediately,” he said.

And Zara forgot her usual dignity as she almost rushed across the hall to the library, to talk:--it was Mimo, of course, so her presence of mind came to her and as the butler held the door for her she said, ”Call a taxi at once.”

She took the receiver up, and it was, indeed, Mimo's voice--and in terrible distress.

It appeared from his almost incoherent utterances that little Agatha had teased Mirko and finally broken his violin. And that this had so excited him, in his feverish state, that it had driven him almost mad, and he had waited until all the household, including the nurse, were asleep, and, with superhuman cunning, crept from his bed and dressed himself, and had taken the money which his Cherisette had given him for an emergency that day in the Park, and which he had always kept hidden in his desk; and he had then stolen out and gone to the station--all in the night, alone, the poor, poor lamb!--and there he had waited until the Weymouth night mail had come through, and had bought a ticket, and got in, and come to London to find his father--with the broken violin wrapped in its green baize cover. And all the while coughing--coughing enough to kill him! And he had arrived with just enough money to pay a cab, and had come at about five o'clock and could hardly wake the house to be let in; and he, Mimo, had heard the noise and come down, and there found the little angel, and brought him in, and warmed him in his bed.

And he had waited to boil him some hot milk before he could come to the public telephone near, to call her up. Oh! but he was very ill--very, very ill--and could she come at once--but oh!--at once!

And Tristram, entering the room at that moment, saw her agonized face and heard her say, ”Yes, yes, dear Mimo, I will come now!” and before he could realize what she was doing she brushed past him and rushed from the room, and across the hall and down to the waiting taxicab into which she sprang, and told the man where to go, with her head out of the window, as he turned into Grosvenor Street.

The name ”Mimo” drove Tristram mad again. He stood for a moment, deciding what to do, then he seized his coat and hat and rushed out after her, to the amazement of the dignified servants. Here he hailed another taxi, but hers was just out of sight down to Park Street, when he got into his.

”Follow that taxi!” he said to the driver, ”that green one in front of you--I will give you a sovereign if you never lose sight of it.”

So the chase began! He must see where she would go! ”Mimo!” the ”Count Sykypri” she had telegraphed to--and she had the effrontery to talk to her lover, in her uncle's house! Tristram was so beside himself with rage he knew if he found them meeting at the end he would kill her. His taxi followed the green one, keeping it always in view, right on to Oxford Street, then Regent Street, then Mortimer Street. Was she going to Euston Station? Another of those meetings perhaps in a waiting-room, that Laura had already described! Unutterable disgust as well as blind fury filled him. He was too overcome with pa.s.sion to reason with himself even. No, it was not Euston--they were turning into the Tottenham Court Road--and so into a side street. And here a back tire on his taxi went, with a loud report, and the driver came to a stop. And, almost foaming with rage, Tristram saw the green taxi disappear round the further corner of a mean street, and he knew it would be lost to view before he could overtake it: there was none other in sight. He flung the man some money and almost ran down the road--and, yes, when he turned the corner he could see the green taxi in the far distance; it was stopping at a door. He had caught her then, after all! He could afford to go slowly now. She had entered the house some five or ten minutes before he got there. He began making up his mind.

It was evidently a most disreputable neighborhood. A sickening, nauseating revulsion crept over him: Zara--the beautiful, refined Zara--to be willing to meet a lover here! The brute was probably ill, and that was why she had looked so distressed. He walked up and down rapidly twice, and then he crossed the road and rang the bell; the taxi was still at the door. It was opened almost immediately by the little, dirty maid--very dirty in the early morning like this.

He controlled his voice and asked politely to be taken to the lady who had just gone in. With a snivel of tears Jenny asked him to follow her, and, while she was mounting in front of him, she turned and said: ”It ain't no good, doctor, I ken tell yer; my mother was took just like that, and after she'd once broke the vessel she didn't live a hour.” And by this time they had reached the attic door which, without knocking Jenny opened a little, and, with another snivel, announced, ”The doctor, missis.”

And Tristram entered the room.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

And this is what he saw.

The poor, mean room, with its scrupulous neatness slightly disturbed by the evidences of the boiling of milk and the warming of flannel, and Zara, kneeling by the low, iron bed where lay the little body of a child. For Mirko had dwindled, these last weeks of his constant fever, so that his poor, small frame, undersized for his age at any time, looked now no more than that of a boy of six years old. He was evidently dying. Zara held his tiny hand, and the divine love and sorrowful agony in her face wrung her husband's soul. A towel soaked with blood had fallen to the floor, and lay there, a ghastly evidence of the ”broken vessel” Jenny had spoken of. Mimo, with his tall, military figure shaking with dry sobs, stood on the other side, and Zara murmured in a tender voice of anguish: ”My little one! My Mirko!” She was oblivious in her grief of any other presence--and the dying child opened his eyes and called faintly, ”Maman!”

Then Mimo saw Tristram by the door, and advanced with his finger on his quivering lips to meet him.

”Ah, sir,” he said. ”Alas! you have come too late. My child is going to G.o.d!”

And all the manhood in Tristram's heart rose up in pity. Here was a tragedy too deep for human judgment, too deep for thoughts of vengeance, and without a word he turned and stole from the room. And as he stumbled down the dark, narrow stairs he heard the sound of a violin as it wailed out the beginning notes of the _Chanson Triste_, and he s.h.i.+vered, as if with cold.

For Mirko had opened his piteous eyes again, and whispered in little gasps:

”Papa--play to me the air _Mamam_ loved. I can see her blue gauze wings!” And in a moment, as his face filled with the radiance of his vision he fell back, dead, into Zara's arms.

When Tristram reached the street he looked about him for a minute like a blinded man; and then, as his senses came back to him, his first thought was what he could do for her--that poor mother upstairs, with her dying child. For that the boy was Zara's child he never doubted. Her child--and her lover's--had he not called her ”_Maman_.” So this was the awful tragedy in her life. He a.n.a.lyzed nothing as yet; his whole being was paralyzed with the shock and the agony of things: the only clear thought he had was that he must help her in whatever way he could.

The green taxi was still there, but he would not take it, in case she should want it. He walked on down the street and found a cab for himself, and got driven to his old rooms in St. James's Street: he must be alone to think.

The hall-porter was surprised to see him. Nothing was ready for his lords.h.i.+p--but his wife would come up--?

But his lords.h.i.+p required nothing, he wished to find something alone.

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