by Sax Rohmer
A subdued roaring sound became audible; and this was occasioned by the gas fire, burning behind the Japanese screen on which gaily plumaged birds sported in the branches of golden palms. Rita raised her hands to her eyes. Mist obscured her sight. Swiftly, now, reality was asserting itself and banishing the phantasmagoria conjured up by chandu.
In her dim, cushioned corner Mollie Gretna lay back against the wall, her face pale and her weak mouth foolishly agape. Cyrus Kilfane was indistinguishable from the pile of rugs amid which he sprawled by the table, and of Sir Lucien Pyne nothing was to be seen but the outstretched legs and feet which projected grotesquely from a recess. Seated, oriental fashion, upon an improvised divan near the grand piano and propped up by a number of garish cushions, Rita beheld Mrs. Sin. The long bamboo pipe had fallen from her listless fingers. Her face wore an expression of mystic rapture like that characterizing the features of some Chinese Buddhas.
Fear, unaccountable but uncontrollable, suddenly seized upon Rita. She felt weak and dizzy, but she struggled partly upright.
“Lucy!” she whispered.
Her voice was not under control, and once more she strove to call to Pyne.
“Lucy!” came the hoarse whisper again.
The fire continued its muted roaring, but no other sound answered to the appeal. A horror of the companionship in which she found herself thereupon took possession of the girl. She must escape from these sleepers, whose spirits had been expelled by the potent necromancer, opium, from these empty tenements whose occupants had fled. The idea of the cool night air in the open streets was delicious.
She staggered to her feet, swaying drunkenly, but determined to reach the door. She shuddered, because of a feeling of internal chill which assailed her, but step by step crept across the room, opened the door, and tottered out into the hallway. There was no sound in the flat. Presumably Kilfane’s man had retired, or perhaps he, too, was a devotee.
Rita’s fur coat hung upon the rack, and although her fingers appeared to have lost all their strength and her arm to have become weak as that of an infant, she succeeded in detaching the coat from the hook. Not pausing to put it on, she opened the door and stumbled out on to the darkened landing. Whereas her first impulse had been to awaken someone, preferably Sir Lucien, now her sole desire was to escape undetected.
She began to feel less dizzy, and having paused for a moment on the landing, she succeeded in getting her coat on. Then she closed the door as quietly as possible, and clutching the handrail began to grope her way downstairs. There was only one flight, she remembered, and a short passage leading to the street door. She reached the passage without mishap, and saw a faint light ahead.
The fastenings gave her some trouble, but finally her efforts were successful, and she found herself standing in deserted Duke Street. There was no moon, but the sky was cloudless. She had no idea of the time, but because of the stillness of the surrounding streets she knew that it must be very late. She set out for her flat, walking slowly and wondering what explanation she should offer if a constable observed her.
Oxford Street showed deserted as far as the eye could reach, and her light footsteps seemed to awaken a hundred echoes. Having proceeded for some distance without meeting anyone, she observed — and experienced a childish alarm — the head-lights of an approaching car. Instantly the idea of hiding presented itself to her, but so rapidly did the big automobile speed along the empty thoroughfare that Rita was just passing a street lamp as the car raced by, and she must therefore have been clearly visible to the occupants.
Never for a moment glancing aside, Rita pressed on as quickly as she could. Then her vague alarm became actual terror. She heard the brakes being applied to the car, and heard the gritty sound of the tires upon the roadway as the vehicle’s headlong progress was suddenly checked. She had been seen — perhaps recognized, and whoever was in the car proposed to return to speak to her.
If her strength had allowed she would have run, but now it threatened to desert her altogether and she tottered weakly. A pattering of footsteps came from behind. Someone was running back to overtake her. Recognizing escape to be impossible, Rita turned just as the runner came up with her.
“Rita!” he cried, rather breathlessly. “Miss Dresden!”
She stood very still, looking at the speaker.
It was Monte Irvin.
CHAPTER XV. METAMORPHOSIS
As Irvin seized her hands and looked at her eagerly, half-fearfully, Rita achieved sufficient composure to speak.
“Oh, Mr. Irvin,” she said, and found that her voice was not entirely normal, “what must you think—”
He continued to hold her hands, and:
“I think you are very indiscreet to be out alone at three o’clock in the morning,” he answered gently. “I was recalled to London by urgent business, and returned by road — fortunately, since I have met you.”
“How can I explain—”
“I don’t ask you to explain — Miss Dresden. I have no right and no desire to ask. But I wish I had the right to advise you.”
“How good you are,” she began, “and I—”
Her voice failed her completely, and her sensitive lips began to tremble. Monte Irvin drew her arm under his own and led her back to meet the car, which the chauffeur had turned and which was now approaching.
“I will drive you home,” he said, “and if I may call in the morning. I should like to do so.”
Rita nodded. She could not trust herself to speak again. And having placed her in the car, Monte Irvin sat beside her, reclaiming her hand and grasping it reassuringly and sympathetically throughout the short drive. They parted at her door.
“Good night,” said Irvin, speaking very deliberately because of an almost uncontrollable desire which possessed him to take Rita in his arms, to hold her fast, to protect her from her own pathetic self and from those influences, dimly perceived about her, but which intuitively he knew to be evil.
“If I call at eleven will that be too early?”
“No,” she whispered. “Please come early. There is a matinee tomorrow.”
“You mean today,” he corrected. “Poor little girl, how tired you will be. Good night.”
“Good night,” she said, almost inaudibly.
She entered, and, having closed the door, stood leaning against it for several minutes. Bleakness and nausea threatened to overcome her anew, and she felt that if she essayed another step she must collapse upon the floor. Her maid was in bed, and had not been awakened by Rita’s entrance. After a time she managed to grope her way to her bedroom, where, turning up the light, she sank down helplessly upon the bed.
Her mental state was peculiar, and her thoughts revolved about the journey from Oxford Street homeward. A thousand times she mentally repeated the journey, speaking the same words over and over again, and hearing Monte Irvin’s replies.
In those few minutes during which they had been together her sentiments in regard to him had undergone a change. She had always respected Irvin, but this respect had been curiously compounded of the personal and the mercenary; his well-ordered establishment at Prince’s Gate had loomed behind the figure of the man forming a pleasing background to the portrait. Without being showy he was a splendid “match” for any woman. His wife would have access to good society, and would enjoy every luxury that wealth could procure. This was the picture lovingly painted and constantly retouched by Rita’s mother.
Now it had vanished. The background was gone, and only the man remained; the strong, reserved man whose deep voice had spoken so gently, whose devotion was so true and unselfish that he only sought to shield and protect her from follies the nature of which he did not even seek to learn. She was stripped of her vanity, and felt loathsome and unworthy of such a love.
“Oh,” she moaned, rocking to and fro. “I hate myself — I hate myself!”
Now that the victory so long desired seemed at last about to be won, she hesitated to grasp the prize. One solacing refl
ection she had. She would put the errors of the past behind her. Many times of late she had found herself longing to be done with the feverish life of the stage. Envied by those who had been her companions in the old chorus days, and any one of whom would have counted ambition crowned could she have played The Maid of the Masque, Rita thought otherwise. The ducal mansions and rose-bowered Riviera hotels through which she moved nightly had no charm for her; she sighed for reality, and had wearied long ago of the canvas palaces and the artificial Southern moonlight. In fact, stage life had never truly appealed to her — save as a means to an end.
Again and yet again her weary brain reviewed the episodes of the night since she had left Cyrus Kilfane’s flat, so that nearly an hour had elapsed before she felt capable of the operation of undressing. Finally, however, she undressed, shuddering although the room was warmed by an electric radiator. The weakness and sickness had left her, but she was quite wide awake, although her brain demanded rest from that incessant review of the events of the evening.
She put on a warm wrap and seated herself at the dressing-table, studying her face critically. She saw that she was somewhat pale and that she had an indefinable air of dishevelment. Also she detected shadows beneath her eyes, the pupils of which were curiously contracted. Automatically, as a result of habit, she unlocked her jewel-case and took out a tiny phial containing minute cachets. She shook several out on to the palm of her hand, and then paused, staring at her reflection in the mirror.
For fully half a minute she hesitated, then:
“I shall never close my eyes all night if I don’t!” she whispered, as if in reply to a spoken protest, “and I should be a wreck in the morning.”
Thus, in the very apogee of her resolve to reform, did she drive one more rivet into the manacles which held her captive to Kazmah and Company.
Upon a little spirit-stove stood a covered vessel containing milk, which was placed there nightly by Rita’s maid. She lighted the burner and warmed the milk. Then, swallowing three of the cachets from the phial, she drank the milk. Each cachet contained three decigrams of malourea, the insidious drug notorious under its trade name of Veronal.
She slept deeply, and was not awakened until ten o’clock. Her breakfast consisted of a cup of strong coffee; but when Monte Irvin arrived at eleven Rita exhibited no sign of nerve exhaustion. She looked bright and charming, and Irvin’s heart leapt hotly in his breast at sight of her.
Following some desultory and unnatural conversation:
“May I speak quite frankly to you?” he said, drawing his chair nearer to the settee upon which Rita was seated.
She glanced at him swiftly. “Of course,” she replied. “Is it — about my late hours?”
He shook his head, smiling rather sadly.
“That is only one phase of your rather feverish life, little girl,” he said. “I don’t mean that I want to lecture you or reproach you. I only want to ask you if you are satisfied?”
“Satisfied?” echoed Rita, twirling a tassel that hung from a cushion beside her.
“Yes. You have achieved success in your profession.” He strove in vain to banish bitterness from his voice. “You are a ‘star,’ and your photograph is to be seen frequently in the smartest illustrated papers. You are clever and beautiful and have hosts of admirers. But — are you satisfied?”
She stared absently at the silk tassel, twirling it about her white fingers more and more rapidly. Then:
“No,” she answered softly.
Monte Irvin hesitated for a moment ere bending forward and grasping her hands.
“I am glad you are not satisfied,” he whispered. “I always knew you had a soul for something higher — better.”
She avoided his ardent gaze, but he moved to the settee beside her and looked into the bewitching face.
“Would it be a great sacrifice to give it all up?” he whispered in a yet lower tone.
Rita shook her head, persistently staring at the tassel.
“For me?”
She gave him a swift, half-frightened glance, pressing her hands against his breast and leaning, back.
“Oh, you don’t know me — you don’t know me!” she said, the good that was in her touched to life by the man’s sincerity. “I — don’t deserve it.”
“Rita!” he murmured. “I won’t hear you say that!”
“You know nothing about my friends — about my life—”
“I know that I want you for my wife, so that I can protect you from those ‘friends.’” He took her in his arms, and she surrendered her lips to him.
“My sweet little girl,” he whispered. “I cannot believe it — yet.”
But the die was cast, and when Rita went to the theatre to dress for the afternoon performance she was pledged to sever her connection with the stage on the termination of her contract. She had luncheon with Monte Irvin, and had listened almost dazedly to his plans for the future. His wealth was even greater than her mother had estimated it to be, and Rita’s most cherished dreams were dwarfed by the prospects which Monte Irvin opened up before her. It almost seemed as though he knew and shared her dearest ambitions. She was to winter beneath real Southern palms and to possess a cruising yacht, not one of boards and canvas like that which figured in The Maid of the Masque.
Real Southern palms, she mused guiltily, not those conjured up by opium. That he was solicitous for her health the nature of his schemes revealed. They were to visit Switzerland, and proceed thence to a villa which he owned in Italy. Christmas they would spend in Cairo, explore the Nile to Assouan in a private dahabiyeh, and return home via the Riviera in time to greet the English spring. Rita’s delicate, swiftly changing color, her almost ethereal figure, her intense nervous energy he ascribed to a delicate constitution.
She wondered if she would ever dare to tell him the truth; if she ought to tell him.
Pyne came to her dressing-room just before the performance began. He had telephoned at an early hour in the morning, and had learned from her maid that Rita had come home safely and was asleep. Rita had expected him; but the influence of Monte Irvin, from whom she had parted at the stage-door, had prevailed until she actually heard Sir Lucien’s voice in the corridor. She had resolutely refrained from looking at the little jewelled casket, engraved “From Lucy to Rita,” which lay in her make-up box upon the table. But the imminence of an ordeal which she dreaded intensely weakened her resolution. She swiftly dipped a little nail-file into the white powder which the box contained, and when Pyne came in she turned to him composedly.
“I am so sorry if I gave you a scare last night, Lucy,” she said. “But I woke up feeling sick, and I had to go out into the fresh air.”
“I was certainly alarmed,” drawled Pyne, whose swarthy face looked more than usually worn in the hard light created by the competition between the dressing-room lamps and the grey wintry daylight which crept through the windows. “Do you feel quite fit again?”
“Quite, thanks.” Rita glanced at a ring which she had not possessed three hours before. “Oh, Lucy — I don’t know how to tell you—”
She turned in her chair, looking up wistfully at Pyne, who was standing behind her. His jaw hardened, and his glance sought the white hand upon which the costly gems glittered. He coughed nervously.
“Perhaps” — his drawling manner of speech temporarily deserted him; he spoke jerkily— “perhaps — I can guess.”
She watched him in a pathetic way, and there was a threat of tears in her beautiful eyes; for whatever his earlier intentions may have been, Sir Lucien had proved a staunch friend and, according to his own peculiar code, an honorable lover.
“Is it — Irvin?” he asked jerkily.
Rita nodded, and a tear glistened upon her darkened lashes.
Sir Lucien cleared his throat again, then coolly extended his hand, once more master of his emotions.
“Congratulations, Rita,” he said. “The better man wins. I hope you will be very happy.”
He turned and w
alked quietly out of the dressing-room.
CHAPTER XVI. LIMEHOUSE
It was on the following Tuesday evening that Mrs. Sin came to the theatre, accompanied by Mollie Gretna. Rita instructed that she should be shown up to the dressing-room. The personality of this singular woman interested her keenly. Mrs. Sin was well known in certain Bohemian quarters, but was always spoken of as one speaks of a pet vice. Not to know Mrs. Sin was to be outside the magic circle which embraced the exclusively smart people who practiced the latest absurdities.
The so-called artistic temperament is compounded of great strength and great weakness; its virtues are whiter than those of ordinary people and its vices blacker. For such a personality Mrs. Sin embodied the idea of secret pleasure. Her bold good looks repelled Rita, but the knowledge in her dark eyes was alluring.
“I arrange for you for Saturday night,” she said. “Cy Kilfane is coming with Mollie, and you bring—”
“Oh,” replied Rita hesitatingly, “I am sorry you have gone to so much trouble.”
“No trouble, my dear,” Mrs. Sin assured her. “Just a little matter of business, and you can pay the bill when it suits you.”
“I am frightfully excited!” cried Mollie Gretna. “It is so nice of you to have asked me to join your party. Of course Cy goes practically every week, but I have always wanted another girl to go with. Oh, I shall be in a perfectly delicious panic when I find myself all among funny Chinamen and things! I think there is something so magnificently wicked-looking about a pigtail — and the very name of Limehouse thrills me to the soul!”
That fixity of purpose which had enabled Rita to avoid the cunning snares set for her feet and to snatch triumph from the very cauldron of shame without burning her fingers availed her not at all in dealing with Mrs. Sin. The image of Monte receded before this appeal to the secret pleasure-loving woman, of insatiable curiosity, primitive and unmoral, who dwells, according to a modern cynic philosopher, within every daughter of Eve touched by the fire of genius.
