Part 46 (1/2)
The landlady brushed into place some flying strands of hair. ”Well, now, Miss Frome, he's better to-day. The nurse is with him. If you'll jist knock at the door 'twill be all right.”
While they were in the pa.s.sage James interposed an objection. ”My dear Miss Frome, I really don't think--”
She interrupted brightly. ”I'm glad you don't. You're not expected to, you know. I'm commanding this expedition. Yours not to answer why. Yours but to do and die.” And she knocked on the door of the room at which they had stopped.
It was opened by a nurse in uniform. James observed that she, too, like Mrs. Maloney, brightened at sight of the visitor.
”Mr. Marchant will be pleased to see you, Miss Frome.”
He was. His gladness illuminated the white face through the skin of which the cheek bones appeared about to emerge. A thin blue-veined hand shot forward to meet hers.
”Oh, comrade, but I'm glad to meet you.”
”I think you know Mr. Farnum.”
The man propped up in bed nodded a little grin at the lawyer. ”We've met. It was years ago in Jeff's rooms.”
”Oh--er--yes. Yes, I remember.”
Presently Jeff and Sam Miller dropped in to see the invalid. From chance remarks the lawyer gathered that the little cobbler had brought himself so low by giving his overcoat one bitter night to a poor girl he had found s.h.i.+vering in the streets.
The frankness with which they discussed before Alice Frome things never referred to in good society shocked James.
It appeared that the story of this little factory girl who had been led astray was still urgent in Marchant's mind. At the time of their arrival he had just finished scribbling some verses hot from his heart. Jeff read them aloud, in spite of the poet's modest insistence that they were only a first draft.
”This is a story that two may tell, I am the one, the other's in h.e.l.l; A story of pa.s.sionate amorous fire, With the glamor of love to attune the lyre.
She traveled the road at breakneck speed, I opened the gates and saddled the steed; ”Ride free!” I cried as we dashed along.
Her sweet voice echoed a mocking song.”
”'Fraid it doesn't always scan. They seldom do,” apologized the author of the verses.
Jeff rapped for order. ”The sense of the meeting is that the blus.h.i.+ng poet will please not interrupt.”
”Nights of the wildest revel and mirth, Days of sorrow, remorse, and dearth, A heaven of love and a h.e.l.l of regret-- But there's always the woman to pay my debt.
'Sin,' says the preacher, 'shall be washed free, The blood of the Lamb was shed for thee.'
Smugly I pa.s.s the sacred wine, The woman in h.e.l.l pays toll for mine.
'I am a pillar of Church and State, She but the broken sport of Fate; This is a story that two may tell, I am the one, the other's in h.e.l.l.'”
There was a moment's silence after Jeff had finished.
”What are you going to call your verses?” the nurse asked.
”I'll call them, 'She Pays.' That's the idea of it.”
James was distinctly uneasy. There was positively something indecent about this. He had an aversion to thinking about unpleasant things.
Every well-regulated mind ought to have. He would like to make a protest, but he could not very well do that here. He promised himself to let Alice Frome know as soon as they were alone what he thought about her escapades into this world below the dead line.