Part 12 (1/2)
She sat down, throwing back her heavy cloak on either side of her. Her hair had come partly unbound, and noticing a tress of it falling on her shoulder, she drew out the comb and let it fall altogether in a ma.s.s of gold-brown, like the tint of a dull autumn leaf, flecked here and there with amber. Catching it dexterously in one hand, she twisted it up again in a loose knot, thrusting the comb carelessly through.
”Drink--smoke--talk, Sergius!” she repeated, still smiling; ”Shall I ring?”
Sergius Thord stood looking at her irresolutely, with the half-angry, half-pleading expression of a chidden child.
”As you please, Lotys!” he answered. Whereupon she pressed an invisible spring under the table, which set a bell ringing in some lower quarter of the house.
”Pasquin Leroy, Axel Regor, Max Graub!” she said--”Take your places for to-night beside me--newcomers are always thus distinguished! And all of you sit down! You are grouped at present like hungry wolves waiting to spring. But you are not really hungry, except for something which is not food! And you are not waiting for anything except for permission to talk! I give it to you--talk, children! Talk yourselves hoa.r.s.e! It will do you good! And I will personate supreme wisdom by listening to you in silence!”
A kind of shamed laugh went round the company,--then followed the scuffling of feet, and grating of chairs against the floor, and presently the table was completely surrounded, the men sitting close up together, and Sergius Thord occupying his place at their head.
When they were all seated, they formed a striking a.s.sembly of distinctly marked personalities. There were very few mean types among them, and the stupid, half-vague and languid expression of the modern loafer or 'do nothing' creature, who just for lack of useful work plots mischief, was not to be seen on any of their countenances. A certain moroseness and melancholy seemed to brood like a delayed storm among them, and to cloud the very atmosphere they breathed, but apart from this, intellectuality was the dominant spirit suggested by their outward looks and bearing.
Plebeian faces and vulgar manners are, unfortunately, not rare in representative gatherings of men whose opinions are allowed to sway the destinies of nations, and it was strange to see a group of individuals who were sworn to upset existing law and government so distinguished by refined and even n.o.ble appearance. Their clothes were shabby,--their aspect certainly betokened long suffering and contention with want and poverty, but they were, taken all together, a set of men who, if they had been members of a recognized parliament or senate, would have presented a fine collection of capable heads to an observant painter.
As soon as they were gathered round the table under the presidency of Sergius Thord at one end, and the tranquil tolerance of the mysterious Lotys at the other, they broke through the silence and reserve which they had carefully maintained till their three new comrades had been irrecoverably enrolled among them, and conversation went on briskly.
The topic of 'The King _versus_ the Jesuits' was one of the first they touched upon, Sergius Thord relating for the benefit of all his a.s.sociates, how he had found Pasquin Leroy reading by lamplight the newspaper which reported his Majesty's refusal to grant any portion of Crown lands to the priests, and which also spoke of 'Thord's Rabble.'
”Here is the paper!” said Leroy, as he heard the narration; ”Whoever likes to keep it can do so, as a memento of my introduction to this Society!”
And he tossed it lightly on the table.
”Good!” exclaimed Paul Zouche; ”Give it to me, and I will cherish it as a kind of birthday card! What a rag it is! 'Thord's Rabble' eh! Sergius, what have you been doing that this little flea of an editor should jump out of his ink-pot and bite you? Does he hurt much?”
”Hurt!” Thord laughed aloud. ”If I had money enough to pay the man ten golden coins a week where his present employer gives him five, he would dance to any tune I whistled!”
”Is that so?” asked Leroy, with interest.
”Do you not know that it is so?” rejoined Thord. ”You tell me you write Socialistic works--you should know something concerning the press.”
”Ah!” said Max Graub, nodding his head sagely, ”He does know much, but not all! It would need more penetration than even _he_ possesses, to know all! Alas!--my friend was never a popular writer!”
”Like myself!” exclaimed Zouche, ”I am not popular, and I never shall be. But I know how to make myself reputed as a great genius, and all the very respectable literary men are beginning to recognize me as such. Do you know why?”
”Because you drink more than is good for you, my poor Zouche!” said Lotys tranquilly; ”That is one reason!”
”Hear her!” cried Zouche,--”Does she not always, like the Sphinx, propound enigmas! Lotys,--little, domineering Lotys, why in the name of Heaven should I secure recognition as a poet, through drunkenness?”
”Because your vice kills your genius,” said Lotys; ”Therefore you are quite safe! If you were less of a scamp you would be a great man,--perhaps the greatest in the country! That would never do! Your rivals would never forgive you! But you are a hopeless rascal, incapable of winning much honour; and so you are compa.s.sionately recognized as somebody who might do something if he only would--that is all, my Zouche! You are an excellent after-dinner topic with those who are more successful than yourself; and that is the only fame you will ever win, believe me!”
”Now by all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses!” cried Paul--”I do protest----”
”After supper, Zouche!” interrupted Lotys, as the door of the room opened, and a man entered, bearing a tray loaded with various eatables, jugs of beer, and bottles of spirituous liquors,--”Protest as much as you like then,--but not just now!”
And with quick, deft hands she helped to set the board. None of the men offered to a.s.sist her, and Leroy watching her, felt a sudden sense of annoyance that this woman should seem, even for a moment, to be in the position of a servant to them all.
”Can I do nothing for you?” he said, in a low tone--”Why should you wait upon us?”
”Why indeed!” she answered--”Except that you are all by nature awkward, and do not know how to wait properly upon yourselves!”
Her eyes had a gleam of mischievous mockery in them; and Leroy was conscious of an irritation which he could scarcely explain to himself.
Decidedly, he thought, this Lotys was an unpleasant woman. She was 'extremely plain,' so he mentally declared, in a kind of inward huff,--though he was bound to concede that now and then she had a very beautiful, almost inspired expression. After all, why should she not set out jugs and bottles, and loaves of bread, and hunks of ham and cheese before these men? She was probably in their pay! Scarcely had this idea flashed across his mind than he was ashamed of it. This Lotys, whoever she might actually be, was no paid hireling; there was something in her every look and action that set her high above any suspicion that she would accept the part of a salaried _comedienne_ in the Socialist farce.