It took but a cursory examination to convince Bently that both the Rajah and the Rajput were past rendering any account of their treachery on this earth, and a lack of response to his shouts made it plain that the Rajah’s retainers had promptly bolted when the tiger unexpectedly returned. The Rajah and the Rajput had thus been left to encounter the powerful beast unarmed.
How Bently regained the Residency was a matter he was unable to explain except by instinct, but daylight had already broken when he reached the compound. Then he acted with swift decision.
He sent orders for the Rajah’s retainers to appear at the Residency for an investigation, which eventually led to a thorough exploration of the temple. By another entrance the bottom of the abyss was gained, and sundry relics discovered there proved how the Rajah had relieved himself of the undesirable presence of those who had interfered with his dubious proceedings.
SOMETHING NEW
ell me something new,” she moaned, twisting in his arms on the sofa. “Say or do something original—and I’ll love you. Anything but the wheezy gags, the doddering compliments, the kisses that were stale before Antony passed them off on Cleopatra!”
“Alas,” he said, “there is nothing new in the world except the rose and gold and ivory of your perfect loveliness. And there is nothing original except my love for you.”
“Old stuff,” she sneered, moving away from him. “They all say that.”
“They?” he queried, jealously.
“The ones before you, of course,” she replied, in a tone of languid reminiscence. “It only took four lovers to convince me of the quotidian sameness of man. After that, I always knew what to expect. It was maddening: they came to remind me of so many cuckoo clocks, with the eternal monotony of their advances, the punctuality of their compliments. I soon knew the whole repertory. As for kissing—each one began with my hands, and ended with my lips. There was one genius, though, who kissed me on the throat the first time. I might have taken him, if he had lived up to the promise of such a beginning.”
“What shall I say?” he queried, in despair. “Shall I tell you that your eyes are the unwaning moons above the cypress-guarded lakes of dreamland? Shall I say that your hair is colored like the sunsets of Cocaigne?”
She kicked off one of her slippers, with a little jerk of disgust.
“You aren’t the first poet that I’ve had for a lover. One of them used to read me that sort of stuff by the hour. All about moons, and stars, and sunsets, and rose-leaves and lotus-petals.”
“Ah,” he cried hopefully, gazing at the slipperless foot. “Shall I stand on my head and kiss your tootsie-wootsies?”
She smiled briefly. “That wouldn’t be so bad. But you’re not an acrobat, my dear. You’d fall over and break something—provided you didn’t fall on me.”
“Well, I give it up,” he muttered, in a tone of hopeless resignation. “I’ve done my darndest to please you for the past four months; and I’ve been perfectly faithful and devoted, too; I haven’t so much as looked corner-wise at another woman—not even that blue-eyed brunette who tried to vamp me at the Artists’ Ball the other night.”
She sighed impatiently. “What does that matter? I am sure you needn’t be faithful unless you want to be. As for pleasing me—well, you did give a thrill once upon a time, during the first week of our acquaintance. Do you remember? We were lying out under the pines on the old rag that we had taken with us; and you suddenly turned to me and asked me if I would like to be a hamadryad…. Ah! there is a hamadryad in every woman; but it takes a faun to call it forth…. My dear, if you had only been a faun!”
“A real faun would have dragged you off by the hair,” he growled. “So you wanted some of that caveman stuff, did you? I suppose that’s what you mean by ‘something new.’”
“Anything, anything, providing it is new,” she drawled, with ineffable languor. Looking like a poem to Ennui by Baudelaire, she leaned back and lit another cigarette in her holder of carved ivory.
He looked at her, and wondered if any one female had ever before hidden so much perversity, capriciousness, and incomprehensibility behind a rose-bud skin and harvest-coloured hair. A sense of acute exasperation mounted in him—something that had smouldered for months, half-restrained by his natural instincts of chivalry and gentleness. He remembered an aphorism from Nietzsche: “When thou goest to women, take thy whip.”
“By Jove, the old boy had the right dope,” he thought. “Too bad I didn’t think to take my whip with me; but after all, I have my hands, and a little rough stuff can’t make matters any worse.”
Aloud, he said: “It’s a pity no one ever thought to give you a good paddling. All women are spoiled and perverse, more or less, but you—”
He broke off, and drew her across his knees like a naughty child, with a movement so muscular and sudden that she had neither the time nor the impulse to resist or cry out.
“I’m going to give you the spanking of your life,” he growled, as his right hand rose and descended…. The cigarette holder fell from her lips to the Turkish carpet, and began to burn a hole in the flowered pattern…. A dozen smart blows, with a sound like the clapping of shingles, and then he released her, and rose to his feet. His anger had vanished, and his only feeling was an overpowering sense of shame and consternation. He could merely wonder how and why he had done it.
“I suppose you will never forgive me,” he began.
“Oh, you are wonderful,” she breathed. “I didn’t think you had it in you. My faun! My cave-man! Do it again.”
Doubly dumbfounded as he was, he had enough presence of mind to adjust himself to the situation. “Women are certainly the limit,” he thought, dazedly. “But one must make the best of them, and miss no chances.”
Preserving a grim and mysterious silence, he picked her up in his arms.
THE FLIRT
omeone introduced him to her as she stepped from the surf at the bathing beach. She was blonde as a daffodil, and her one-piece suit of vivid green clung to her closely as a folded leaf to the flower bud. She smiled upon him with an air of tender and subtle sadness; and her slow, voluptuous eyelids fell before his gaze with the pensive languor of closing petals. There was diffidence and seduction in the curve of her cheek; she was modest and demure, with an undernote of elusive provocation; and her voice was a plaintive soprano.
Twenty minutes later, they sat among the dunes at the end of the beach, where a white wall of sand concealed them from the crowd. Her bathing suit, only half-dry, still clung and glistened; but their flirtation had already ripened and flourished with an ease that surprised him.
“Surely I knew you in ancient Greece,” he was saying. “Your hair retains the sunlight of the Golden Age, your eyes the blue of perished heavens that shone on the vale of Tempe. Tell me, what queen or goddess were you? In what fane of chalcedony, or palace of ebony and gold did I, a long-forgotten poet, sing before you the hymns or lyrics of my adoration? … Do you not remember me?”
“Oh, yes, I remember you,” she said, in her plaintive soprano. “But I was not a queen or a goddess: I was only a yellow lily, growing in a forest glade on the banks of some forgotten stream; and you were the faun who passed by and trampled me.”
“Poor little flower!” he cried, with a compassion he did not need to feign. It was impossible to resist the dovelike mournful cadence of her voice, the submissive sorrow and affection of her gaze. She said nothing, but her head drooped nearer to his shoulder, and her lips took on a more sorrowful and seductive curve. Even if she were not half so lovely and desirable, he felt that it would be unpardonably brutal not to kiss her…. Her lips were cool as flowers after an April rain, and they clung softly to his, as if in gratitude for his tenderness and pity….
The next day, he looked for her in vain among the bathers at the beach. She had promised to be there—had promised with many lingering kisses and murmurs. Disconsolate, remembering with a pang the gentle pressure of her mouth, the light burden of her body so l
oath to part from his arms, he strolled toward the dune in whose shelter they had sat. He paused, hearing voices from behind it, and listened involuntarily, for one of the voices was hers. The other, low and indistinct, with a note of passion, was a man’s voice…. With the dove-like soprano whose tones were so fresh and vibrant in his memory, he heard her say:
“I was only a yellow lily, growing in a forest glade by the banks of some forgotten stream; and you were the faun who passed by and trampled me.”
THE PERFECT WOMAN
nce there was an idealist who sought for the Perfect Woman. In the course of his search, which lasted many years, and was thorough and painstaking, he acquired the reputation of a rake, and lost his youth, his hair, his illusions, and most of his money. He made love to actresses, ingénues, milkmaids, nurses, nuns, typists, trollops, and married women. He acquired an expert knowledge of hairpins and lingerie, and much data on feminine cussedness. Also, he sampled every known variety of lipstick. But still he failed to find the Ideal.
One day, to continue the weary tale, he lost whatever reason his experiences had left (or given) him; and, seized with the fury of a fiercer mania, threw a Charlotte Russ at the perfectly nice debutant with whom he was drinking. Two days later he received a membership in a home for the Mentally Exalted. Whether his insanity came from disappointment, excess, prohibition, booze, or a Streptococcic infection, the M.D.’s were never quite able to determine.
On his way to the asylum, guided by two stalwart keepers, he saw a rubber doll in a shop window, and fell in love with it like a college-boy with a soubrette. He had the price of the doll in his purse, so the keepers kindly permitted him to buy it, and bring it with him to enliven his sojourn in the Refuge for the Ecstatic.
“Gee, ain’t he the nut?” they grinned.
However, he was happy at last, and did not mind. He believed he had found the Perfect Woman.
He still believes it, for the doll (one of the squeekless and unmechanized kind) has never said or done anything to disillusion him. He loves it with an absolute and ideal devotion, and believes his love is returned. He is perfectly happy.
A PLATONIC ENTANGLEMENT
hey were sitting a fairly proper distance apart, on their favorite moss-grown boulder, at the end of the leaf-strewn autumn trail they had taken so often.
“Do you know that people are talking about us?” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper, failing on a mournful cadence almost inaudible, and he moved nearer, to catch the faint silver of its tones. As always, he found something vaguely pleasurable in the nearness of the plump olive neck under its coil of unbobbed hair, and the tender oval cheek that was exquisitely innocent of rouge.
“We have been seen together too often,” she continued, with trouble and sadness in the droop of her eyelids, in the fall of her voice. “This town is full of cats, like all villages, and they are all the more willing to tear me in shreds because I am living apart from my husband. I am sorry, Geoffry … because our friendship has meant so much to me.”
“It has meant much to me, too, Anita,” he responded. He felt disturbed and even a little conscience-stricken. It had been very pleasant, in his loneliness, to call upon her with increasing frequency throughout the summer, and to take these little walks in the autumn woods, now that the air was cooling and the leaves were aflame with saffron and crimson. It had all been so harmless and platonic, he assured himself—the natural drifting together of two lonely people with certain tastes in common. But assuredly he was not in love with her nor she with him: his attitude toward her had always been rather shy and respectful, and it was she who had somehow increased the familiarity of their friendship by subtle and imperceptible degrees. Indeed, had she not urged him, he would never have had the boldness to call her by her first name. She was a little the older and much the maturer of the two.
“Those horrid tattle-cats!” she went on, raising her voice in a silver burst of indignation. “If they would only be content to do their ripping and rending and clawing behind my back! But some of them must always come and tell me about it—‘My dear, I think you ought to know what people are saying!’” She made an exquisite little moue of disgust. He reflected, not for the first time, that her mouth was eminently kissable; but, being a somewhat shy and modest young man, and not at all in love with her, he put the thought away as speedily as he could.
“What will your husband do if he hears the gossip?” he queried cautiously.
“Oh, George wouldn’t care.” Her tone was reckless, with an undertone of contempt. “As long as I leave him alone, he will leave me alone…. He wouldn’t have the decency to give me a divorce; but, on the other hand, he is too indifferent to make trouble. George doesn’t matter, one way or the other: what I hate and dread is this dirty small-town gossip; I feel as if unclean hands were pawing me all the time.”
Shuddering a little, she pressed against him, ever so gently. Her mournful eyelids fluttered, and she gave him a brief and almost furtive glance, in which he could read nothing but sadness. She lowered her eyes hastily, as tears crept out and hung on the thick lashes.
“Oh! it is hateful—hateful!” There was a melodious break in her voice. “I don’t know what to do…. But I can’t give up seeing you, Geoffry; and you don’t want to give me up, do you?”
“Of course not,” he hastened to reassure her. “But I can’t see what all the excitement is about. We are good friends, of course, but—” He broke off, for she was sobbing openly, seeming not to hear him. Somehow—he never quite knew how it all happened—her head fell on his shoulder, and her white arms, clinging forlornly and tenaciously, were about his neck. Slightly terrified, in a turmoil of sensations that were by no means unpleasant, he returned the embrace and kissed her. It seemed to be the thing to do.
Afterwards, as she rearranged the coil of her disordered hair, she murmured:
“I have always loved you, Geoffry…. It simply had to happen, I suppose…. Do you love me?”
“Of course I love you.” He put the correct period to his reply with another kiss. After all, what else could he say or do?
THE EXPERT LOVER
om is terribly in love with you, Dora. He’d stand on his head in a thistle-patch if you told him to. You won’t find a better provider in Auburn.”
“Yes, I know Tom is fond of me. But, Annabelle, he is such a complete dud when it comes to love-making. All he can say is: ‘Gee, but you’re pretty, Dora,’ or: ‘I’m sure crazy about you,’ or: ‘Dora, you’re the only girl for me.’”
“I suppose Tom isn’t much on romantic conversation. But what do you expect? Most men aren’t.”
“Well,” sighed Dora, impatiently, “I’d really like a little romance. And I can’t see it in Tom. He’s about as romantic as potatoes with onions. Everything about him is so obvious and commonplace—even his name. And when he tries to hug me, he makes me think of a grocer grabbing a sack of flour.”
“All the same, there are worse fish in the sea, dearie.”
Dora Cahill, a dreamy-looking blonde, and her bosom-friend, Annabelle Rivers, a vivacious and alert brunette, were sitting out a dance at Rock Creek hall. Tom Masters, the object of their discussion, who was Dora’s escort, had been sent off to dance with one of the wallflowers. Dora was a little tired, and, as usual, more than a little bored. She knew that Tom’s eyes, eager and imploring, were often upon her as he whirled past in the throng on the dance-floor; but vouchsafing him only an occasional languid glance, she continued to chat with Annabelle.
“I wish I could meet a real lover,” she mused—“someone with snap and verve and technique—someone who was eloquent and poetic and persuasive, and could carry me away, in spite of myself.”
“That kind has usually had a lot of practice,” warned Annabelle. “And practice means that they have the habit.”
“Well, I’d rather have a Don Juan than a dumbbell.”
“You can take your choice, dear. Personally, I’d prefer something dependable and solid, ev
en if he didn’t scintillate.”
“Pardon me, Miss Cahill.” The two girls looked up. The speaker was Jack Barnes, a man whom Dora knew slightly; another man, whom she was sure she had never seen before, stood beside him.
“Permit me to introduce my friend, Mr. Colin—Lancelot Colin,” said Barnes. Dora’s eyes met the eyes of the stranger, and she acknowledged the introduction, a little breathlessly. Her first thought was: “What a heavenly name!” and then: “What a heavenly man!” Mr. Colin, who stood bowing with a perfect suavity and an ease that was Continental rather than American, was really enough to have taken away the breath of more than one girl with romantic susceptibilities. He was dark and immaculate, with the figure of a soldier and the face of an artist. There was an indefinite air of gallantry about him, a sense of mystery, of ardour and poetry. Dora contrasted him with Tom, who was broad and ruddy, and about whom there was nothing to excite one’s imagination or tease one’s curiosity. She was frankly thrilled.
Annabelle was now included in the introduction, but, beyond a courteous murmur of acknowledgment, the newcomer seemed to show no interest in her. His eyes, large and full-lidded, with a hint of weariness and sophistication in their brown depths, were fixed with a sparkling intensity upon Dora.
“May I have the pleasure of dancing with you, Miss Cahill?” His voice, a musical and vibrant baritone, completed the impression of a consummately romantic personality.
Dora consented, without her usual languid hesitation, and found herself instantly whirled away in the paces of a fox-trot. She decided at once that Mr. Colin was a superb dancer; also that he was what is commonly known as a “quick worker,” for no sooner were they on the floor than he murmured in her ear:
The Miscellaneous Writings of Clark Ashton Smith Page 12
