Part 30 (2/2)

Giulio!”

The fat waiter awoke instantly at the call, looked, nodded, went out, and returned immediately with another bottle.

”Is this the sixth or the seventh?” asked Dalrymple, slowly.

”Eight with Signor Reanda's,” answered the man. ”But Signor Reanda paid for his as he went out. You have therefore seven. It might be enough.”

Giulio smiled.

”Bring seven more, Giulio,” said the Scotchman, gravely. ”It will save you six journeys.”

”Does the Signore speak in earnest?” asked the servant, and he glanced at Griggs, who was impa.s.sive as marble.

”You flatter yourself,” said Dalrymple, impressively, to the man, ”if you imagine that I would make even a bad joke to amuse you. Bring seven bottles.” Giulio departed.

”That is a Homeric order,” observed Griggs.

”I think--in fact, I am almost sure--that seven bottles more will produce an impression upon one of us. But I have a decidedly melancholic disposition, and I accustomed myself to Italian wine when I was very young. Melancholy people can drink more than others. Besides, what does such a bottle hold? I will show you. A tumbler to you, and one to me.

Drink; you shall see.”

He emptied his gla.s.s and poured the remainder of the bottle into it.

”Do you see? Half a tumbler. Two and a half are a bottle. Seven bottles are seventeen and a half gla.s.ses. What is that for you or me in a long evening? My blue devils are large. It would take an ocean to float them all. I insist upon going to bed in a good humour to-night, for once, in honour of my daughter's engagement. By the bye, Griggs, what do you think of Reanda?”

”He is a first-rate artist. I like him very well.”

”A good man, eh? Well, well--from the point of view of discretion, Griggs, I am doing right. But then, as you may very wisely object, discretion is only a point of view. The important thing is the view, and not the point. Here comes Ganymede with the seven vials of wrath! Put them on the table, Giulio,” he said, as the fat waiter came noiselessly up, carrying the bottles by the necks between his fingers, three in one hand and four in the other. ”They make a fine show, all together,” he observed thoughtfully, with his bony head a little on one side.

”And may G.o.d bless you!” said Giulio, solemnly. ”If you do not die to-night, you will never die again.”

”I regard it as improbable that we shall die more than once,” answered Dalrymple. ”I believe,” he said, turning to Griggs, ”that when men are drunk they make mistakes about money. We will pay now, while we are sober.”

Griggs insisted on paying his share. They settled, and Giulio went away happy.

The two strong men sat opposite to each other, under the high lamp in the small room, drinking on and on. There was something terrifying in the Scotchman's determination to lose his senses--something grimly horrible in the younger man's marble impa.s.siveness, as he swallowed gla.s.s for gla.s.s in time with his companion. His face grew paler still, and colder, but there was a far-off gleaming in the shadowy eyes, like the glimmer of a light over a lonely plain through the dark.

Dalrymple's spirits did not rise, but he talked more and more, and his sentences became long and involved, and sometimes had no conclusion. The wine was telling on him at last. He had never been so strong as Griggs, at his best, and he was no match for him now. The younger man's strangely dual nature seemed to place his head beyond anything which could affect his senses.

Dalrymple talked on and on, rambling from one subject to another, and not waiting for any answer when he asked a question. He quoted long ballads and long pa.s.sages from Shakespeare, and then turned suddenly off upon a scientific subject, until some word of his own suggested another quotation.

Griggs sat quietly in his seat, drinking as steadily, but paying little attention now to what the Scotchman said. Something had got hold of his heart, and was grinding it like grain between the millstones, grinding it to dust and ashes. He knew that he could not sleep that night. He might as well drink, for it could not hurt him. Nothing material had power to hurt him, it seemed. He felt the pain of longing for the utterly unattainable, knowing that it was beyond him forever. The widowhood of the unsatisfied is h.e.l.l, compared with the bereavement of complete possession. He had not so much as told Gloria that he had loved her. How could he, being but one degree above a beggar? The unspoken words burned furrows in his heart, as molten metal scores smoking channels in living flesh. Gloria would laugh, if she knew. The torture made his face white. There was the scorn of himself with it, because a mere child could hurt him almost to death, and that made it worse. A mere child, barely out of the schoolroom, petulant, spoiled, selfis.h.!.+

But she had the glory of heaven in her voice, and in her face the fatal beauty of her dead mother's deadly sin. He need not have despised himself for loving her. Her whole being appealed to that in man to which no woman ever appealed in vain since the first Adam sold heaven to Satan for woman's love.

Dalrymple, leaning on his elbow, one hand in his streaked beard, the other grasping his gla.s.s, talked on and quoted more and more.

”'The flame took fast upon her cheek, Took fast upon her chin, Took fast upon her fair body Because of her deadly sin.'”

His voice dropped to a hoa.r.s.e whisper at the last words, and suddenly, regardless of his companion, his hand covered his eyes, and his long fingers strained desperately on his bony forehead. Griggs watched him, thinking that he was drunk at last.

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