Flames. Robert Hichens
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his mind, and thought of her as a strange female David of the streets sent to make a cockney music in his ears that his soul might be rid of its evil spirit.
"Never you mind why," the lady answered.
She shivered suddenly, violently, as a dog just come out of water.
"Have another cup?" Julian said.
"And a bun, dearie," the lady again rejoined. She shook her head till all the feathers danced.
"Never you mind why," she said, reverting again to his vagrant question.
"There's some things as don't do to talk about."
"I'm sure I've no wish to pry into your private affairs," Julian rejoined carelessly.
But again he noticed the worn terror of her face. Surely that night she, too, had passed through some unwonted experience, which had written its sign-manual amid the paint and powder of her shame.
The lady stared back at him. Beneath her tinted eyelids the fear seemed to grow like a weed. Tears followed, rolling over her cheeks and mingling with the coffee in her cup.
"Oh dear," she murmured lamentably. "Oh, dear, oh!"
"What's the matter?" said Julian.
But she only shook her head, with the peevish persistence of weak obstinacy, and continued vaguely to weep as one worn down by chill circumstance.
Julian turned his eyes from her to the coffee-stall, in which the sharp-featured youth now negligently leant, well satisfied with the custom he had secured. Behind the youth's head it seemed to Julian that the phantom flame hung trembling, as if blown by the light wind of the morning. He laid his hand on the lady's left arm and unconsciously closed his fingers firmly over the flesh, while, in a low voice, he said to her:
"Look there!"
The lady of the feathers stopped crying abruptly, as if her tears were suddenly frozen at their source.
"Where, dearie?" she said jerkily. "Whatever do you mean?"
"There where the cups are hung up. Don't you see anything?"
But the lady was looking at him, and she now dropped her cup with a crash to the pavement.
"There's a go," said the sharp-featured youth. "You're a nice one, you are!"
Without regarding his protest, the lady violently wrenched her arm from
Julian's grasp and recoiled from the stall.
"Le-go my arm," she babbled hysterically. "Le-go, I say. I can't stand any more—no, I can't."
"I'm not going to hurt you," said Julian, astonished at her outburst.
But she only repeated vehemently:
"Let go, let me go!"
Backing away, she trod the fallen coffee-cup to fragments on the pavement, and began to drift down Piccadilly, her face under the feathers set so completely round over her shoulder, in observation of Julian, that she seemed to be promenading backwards. And as she went she uttered deplorable wailing sounds, which gradually increased in volume. Apparently she considered that her life had been in imminent danger, and that she saved herself by shrieks; for, still keeping her face toward the coffee-stall, she faded away in the morning, until only the faint noise of her retreat betokened her existence any longer.
The sharp-featured youth winked wearily at Julian from the midst of his grove of coffee-cups.
"Nice things, women, sir," he ejaculated. "Good ayngels the books calls 'm. O Gawd!"
Julian paid him and walked away.
And as he went he found himself instinctively watching for the fleeting shadow of a flame, trying to perceive it against the grey face of a house, against the trunk of a tree, the dark green of a seat. But the light of the mounting morning grew ever stronger and the flame-shaped shadow did not reappear.
Julian reached his chambers, undressed abstractedly and went to bed. Before he fell asleep he looked at Rip reposing happily at the foot of the bed, and had a moment of shooting wonder that the little dog was so completely comfortable with him. That it had flown at its master, who had always been kind to it, whom it had always seemed to love hitherto, puzzled Julian.
But then so many things had puzzled him within the last few days.
He stroked Rip with a meditative hand and lay down. Soon his mind began to wander in the maze whose clue is sleep. He was with Valentine, with Doctor Levillier, with the sharp-featured youth and the lady of the feathers. They sat round a table and it was dark; yet he could see. And the lady's feathers grew like the beanstalk of Jack the Giant-killer towards heaven and the land of ogres. Then Julian climbed up and up till he reached the top of the ladder. And it seemed to him that the feather ladder ended in blue space and in air, and that far away he saw the outline of a golden bar. And on this bar two figures leaned. One seemed an angel, one a devil. Yet they had faces that were alike, and were beautiful. They faded.
Julian seemed vaguely to hear the sharp-featured youth say, "Good ayngels! O Gawd!"
Was that the motto of his sleep?
CHAPTER III
A DRIVE IN THE RAIN
When Julian returned from Angelo's the next morning he found lying upon the breakfast table a note, and, after the custom of many people, before opening it he read the address on the envelope two or three times and considered who the writer might be. It struck him at once that the writing ought to be familiar to him and capable of instant identification. The name of his correspondent was literally on the tip of his mind. Yet he could not utter it. And so at last he broke the seal. Before reading the note he glanced at the signature: "Valentine."
Julian was surprised. He knew now why he had seemed to remember, yet had not actually remembered, the handwriting. Regarding it again, he found it curiously changed from Valentine's usual hand, yet containing many points of resemblance. After a while he came to the conclusion that it was like a bad photograph of the original, imitating, closely enough, all the main points of the original, yet leaving out all the character, all the delicacy of it. For Valentine's handwriting had always seemed to Julian to express his nature. It was rather large and very clear, but delicate, the letters exquisitely formed, the lines perfectly even, neither depressed nor slanting upwards. This note was surely much more coarsely written than usual. And yet, of course, it was Valentine's writing. Julian wondered he had not known. He read the note at last:
"DEAR JULIAN,
"I am coming over to see you this afternoon about five, and shall try and persuade Rip to restore me to his confidence. I hope you will be in. Are you tired after last night's experiences? I never felt better.
"Ever yours,
"VALENTINE."
"And yet," Julian thought, "I should have guessed by your writing that you were in some unusual frame of mind, either tired, or—or—" he looked again, and closely, at the writing—"or in a temper less delightfully calm and seraphic than usual. Yes, it looks actually a bad-tempered hand. Valentine's!" Then he laughed, and tossed the note carelessly into the fire that was crackling upon the hearth. Rip lay by it, quietly sleeping.
Punctually at five o'clock Valentine appeared. Rip was still lying happily before the fire, but directly the dog caught sight of its master all the hair along the middle of its back bristled on end, and it showed every symptom of acute distress and fury. Julian was obliged to put it out of the room.
"What can have come over Rip, Valentine?" he said, as he came back. "This sudden hatred of you is inexplicable."
"Absolutely," Valentine answered. "But it