E. S. Dorrance

“ Never should he know, hence should not fear defeat. With a super-divine intolerance, he would accept and hold his sovereignty. Although of the spirit, he should inherit a talent for strong visibility, taking his form from his father and from his mother a subtlety of appeal such as god nor man yet had possessed. A beauty of countenance irresistible should be his—features of marble pale as the ghosts of Dolores’ victims—lips that quivered from the very delicacy of the lies they lied, eyes that veiled in mists of mercy the utmost truculence. ”

“ In a way we belong to you as well as to our dear Dolores.”
“Dolores?” John snatched at the name. “You can tell us where she is?”
“Let me prepare you”—in pity, Amor. “I owe my life to you, John Cabot. I was, in fact, born of your heart beats that day you first saw her in Seff’s shop. Not consciously—of course mortals realize only the half of what they do—you sent me to her side to guide her. I have done what I could. But earthlings have no care for love. They never think to spare it until after it is dead.” ”

“ You weaken your capacity for sin with every such thought. Good as you are, I’ll make you in time bad as I am. As the queen-consort you shall become the wickedest thought of my mind, the most vicious desire of my soul. Deadlier than death, you shall give and keep giving life to my love. Undying love—that would be a delicate morsel, would it not, little gourmet of the hearts of men?”
“All real love is undying,” she maintained.
Her eyes held on the distant curtain. Its alternating electric stripes were writhing like snakes, as if tormented by a wind stronger than its dynamo. ”

“ As if by chance, his boyish smile left Catherine’s pleased face and strayed Dolores’ way. With a kiss of the rim, he replaced the tall glass upon the cloth. His fingers loosed its slender stem; found a smaller glass; raised it.
“Once in a lifetime you meet a woman who is like this deep red Burgundy. Does it need to speak—the wine—to boast its color, its fragrance, its power? See, it is too rich for the eye to penetrate; there is not a bubble in it to suggest its life; it is topped by no froth. All too quietly, it offers us sensation. ”

“ Sinking to one knee he lowered his lips to her bare ankle. The spot they pressed stung as though from nettles, then turned redder than the rose-bud tied against her instep.
“I am a suppliant, Queen Dolores—I who never was a suppliant before.” His lips increased in ardor through the contact. “I need you. I want you. But I want you to acknowledge the need of me. Always have I jeered at mortal men who plead for favor. I don’t know what’s come over me. I could take you and make you and break you all in one flash of my will. And yet—I ask you, Dolores. I ask you.” ”

“ Courage came to Dolores with the thought. She, an immortal woman soul, would not bow the neck to an undeserved club. She must lift her head believing that even the winds of Hell would cool her brow; must delight in fragrances, strong from her own expectation; must open wide her ears to the Seraphs’ song of hope.
Ready to meet His Majesty, she turned. Her disappointment was keen as her courage to see in him who was approaching the lame old soldier-soul, Samuel Cummings. At first only his face and crutch were recognizable, so resplendent was he in the uniform of an officer of the Hadean Hordes. ”

“ No longer need she fear for the fate of the Universe. The All-Power which had restrained itself toward her that she might work out her own development, would strike when the souls of men cried out, even as she had cried, their dependence. Come The Day, His Majesty would fail of his own impotency. Faith, then, was not the fear of fools. Faith was the courage of gods and men, a heritage divine.
No voice of sad women or of sobbing winds was Dolores’ as, peering and hurrying, her joy lifted in fragments of lines learned from a singer on Earth. ”

“ Since Madame is so good as to inquire, I do hate the man I loved. I hate him the more, perhaps, for controlling his hate of me—for his pretense of continued love.”
To Dolores, the strange creature’s will to hurt her by twisting her hair was kind compared with this unintentional squeezing of the hope-drops from her heart. Would every one about the court have power to make her suffer for her past? When he whose companionship the lost soul of her craved so unutterably should one day be sentenced to this realm for their common social crime, would he also hide hate in a pretense still to love? ”

“ Dolores, too, shook with fear. She knew what John did not know—just who was opposing him. Indignation over the unequal struggle steadied her; cleared her thoughts. Why was all the power given to sin and none to rightness? By what method had the Foul Fiend projected his spirit to Earth to slay the courage of the man she would have suffered any death to save? Surely, what could be done for evil purposes could be done for good! Why was will given to woman if not to augment the will of man—why her mite of strength if not to incite greater strength? ”

“ The loudening laughter of the vast audience deadened her consciousness; seemed to be at her, rather than the spectacle that so diverted them. She sought to fortify herself. What though John did turn coward? The flesh was heir to the fear of death. At each apologetic thought, the mirth of the helliot crowd crackled louder. What could be happening on the doomed craft so to delight them? With a dread for the spiritual debasement of her loved one of Earth greater than had been her own dread of physical death, she looked and looked. ”

“ Without daring to look up, he tugged at the hem of Dolores’ robe.
“You’re to go—to leave Gehenna,” he upflung in his immortal fright. “Don’t wait to prepare. Take this signet ring. It will pass you through the gates. Hurry, lest you ruin me with the rest of those that craved you. Go, Dolores. As you love me—as you hate—for Hell’s sake, go!”
For long after she had gone he lay. Only his lips moved, muttering.
“He could have finished me that time. He must have certain powers of His own, like—like her. Since He can come and go at will, I wonder why He waits. ”

“ Even before she had come to Shadow Land, he confessed, he had felt the need of a second-worst emotion. That night of the tale of her surrender to John Cabot he’d decided on its nature. To think of the thousands of years he’d wasted! To have been the two ultimates, archangel and arch-fiend, without having been intermediate man!
As the lasciviousness of his look intensified, Dolores realized in herself a certain sympathy. Appalled by its drawing power, she reminded herself that only chaste aspirations might conquer the crave for evil to which all mankind is heir. ”

“ The while, in imagination, he heard the Spring Song of Mendelssohn, vaguely passionate, played by the pure-yearning notes of a flute. The fragrance that accompanies the aspirations of youth filled his nostrils. A thought of apple-blossoms hurt his mind with midsummer weariness.
From his heart, as if aroused by its increasing beat, uprose response to the vision. Not as if born of the moment—rather as if long protected from impious eyes—an emotion new to him seemed to take form. He felt that the girl, as well as he, must see and recognize. ”

“ The tortured protest of the spirit-girl Dolores was as the breath of a blower to her demon audience. It fanned the tinder of their evil imaginations and inflamed their desires for intimate details.
A clamor of profanity arose as the marble-pale, but fervid face which had wrought such grief among men lowered to the shield of hands that looked too weak to have torn to bits a strong man’s honor. The shudder of crucified modesty caused the jewel-like lights that adorned her hair, her throat, her breast to wink, as from carnal thoughts “indestructible” as their source of life. ”

“ She followed him and stood with her gold-gloried head hung low over her twisting hands. “You say I have lost all kindness, John. I think you have. You are not what you used to be, any more than am I. You haven’t had a thought for me in what you ask. Perhaps a man cannot realize what it means to a woman to—to be faced with a demand like yours of to-day. For me to divorce you for deserting me—to admit to our world that you have tired of me—— Even supposing there is nothing to me but what you say, don’t you know that would crucify my vanity? But there is more to me, John. ”

“ Then he gulps from pleasure at the desirable sight of her; lurches toward her; makes a clutch at her scant draperies.
But not for a moment does she allow herself to be caught to his moist, palpitant breast. Something immediate demands her attention. She makes excuse—a monster beetle without wings then appearing from the direction of land. With sweet-soft adjurations that her lazy old Sea fall not again into a doze, she hurries to meet and greet the gleaming thing.
Nothing had Dolores seen of the dirigibles of Earth, save far-up glimpses of those which occasionally passed over her New York. ”

“ In an ague of undefined terror, Dolores felt herself further shaken by the clutch on her arm; heard the Prince of the Power of the Air again give himself over to mirth.
“Fool fiends, they hear my voice and think it is That Day! Not bad for an impromptu practice drive, eh? Once all fear is drilled out of them, once their numbers are complete, once the full force of that gas is turned on—Ah, nothing and none may stand against the hate of Hell!” ”

“ She had to fight her first impulses of extravagance. Her tendency was to tip unwisely and too well, to order a superfluity of the disguising veils she had taken to wearing on the long river-side tramps which were the anticipation of the Airedale’s mornings and the reminiscences of his puppy dreams at night; to let him grow too fat. Unable to decide what name for the dog Jack’s old-young mind would have hit upon, she continued to call him “puppy” or “pups,” as certain unimaginative people she had known were satisfied with “kittie” for their cat or “baby” for their child. ”

“ For the first time she understood those women of earth who adorned themselves to enslave men whom they had come to hate. Those they feared most, they must charm. Poor, poor women of Earth!
In the lower reaches of the garden she came upon an illustration of her thought—a fountain effect whose central figure was the sculped, naked body of a woman bent beneath the club of her man and master, on her lips a seductive smile, from her eyes spouting twin founts of electric spray—tears of terror.
Hearing footsteps behind, Dolores stopped, as if in admiration of the ghoulish conceit. ”

“ And why continue in a career of perpetual exertion after his utmost had been done? As though human nature could not be trusted to increase in evil of its own impetus, once punitive bars were laid! Should not he be freed to tread the path of dalliance—to realize some such gentle vices as he had seen to satisfy the doughtiest devils of Earth?
Desire for an heir-apparent to his throne of late had grown in him. Could she not imagine the outcome of his ambition—a youthful demon born to dominance, bred to brutality, schooled to undreamt possibilities of fiendishness? ”

“ The four, tall, pineapple sentinels guarded her—they and someone else.
John sat beside the bed, the puppy drowsing in his arms. She was glad that he had become reconciled to the poor little beast; that the guiltless cause of Jack’s death was not to pay the price which she had paid in early life for an equally unintentional fault.
But was John reconciled?
The look on his face brought her to acute consciousness. It was a dreadful look.
“Try not to begrudge the price,” she murmured. “For the least thing in life you have to pay, you know. To me, love is inestimable.” ”

“ That was before I learned—you.”
“To think that you, John, should learn anything from me!”
“Egotism is the most acquiring force in the world. All great men have it, but in them it is covered or excused by their greatness. All women successful with men have it to the degree of a sort of hypnotism. They blind men to what they are with the bright light of what they think they are. You, for instance, think so well of yourself that one needs strong lenses to see your faults. I used to hope that you’d dim some day—have a doubt of yourself. But you never did. You are all strength in your egotism.” ”

“ Stiffly, as if compelled against their inclination by his will, his lips moved.
“So fragrant and pure is the soul of you, but fragile as the rose that Jack destroyed. You must not be wasted on me.
“But he said, John, that nothing is ever really wasted, not even the tears of dew on a rose. They have only their day—roses. And hearts have only their day. Why not enjoy them the more for their little life? Tell me again and read your answer in my happiness. Is it true—true that you love me?”
His eyes closed that he might not read; then opened at once lest he fail. ”

“ Dolores faltered, “why not help yourself?”
“Don’t you know that a bad habit soon masters one? The damnable thing has got me, that’s why. It will take something stronger than contempt for myself to get me out. That something is my respect for you. The fact that I didn’t—that I simply couldn’t——” His fingers forward-stretching, but clutching only air, his face again florid from a return rush of blood, he urged: “You—I need you. God, I am mad for you. Have been all along. But I want you to keep. I want you enough to change my whole life to have you. ”

“ Dolores’ eyes gazed out over the garden with a waiting look. It was as if, within their shadows of a purple that shamed the bourgainvillae bloom, hope was hiding in the arbor.
The King watched her in his considering way. His arm stretched along the back of the bench. When convinced that she had forgotten his presence, he suddenly snapped his strong, long fingers around the nape of her neck.
With a smothered scream, Dolores tried to shake off his clutch. Never from a mortal man had she felt a touch so offensive, yet so loathsomely attracting. ”

“ Not to its cruder phases do I invite your attention—to the reproductive instinct of the mortal male. That is ever awake, unashamed, engaging chiefly through its strength.
“But sleeping passion! Too few are given the dear delight of arousing it. To breathe open the eyes searching through their mist of dreams—to kiss into consciousness the sweet-thick lips—to feel one’s sluggish pulse speeding to match the beat of youth’s startled heart——
“Ah, what man-brute of Earth, what god of Heaven or fiend of Hell would not gladly give the wealth of three worlds to incite the divine awakening! ”

“ When Dolores’ eyes had recovered from their momentary confusion, she saw His Majesty standing just without. His pleased look reminded her of the fearing wretch she had saved from a like attack yesterday. Only the hope born of her happiness had defeated his power to hurt her. Although not happy now, she was far from despair. Should he turn next on her, only faith could save her. She must believe that, despite appearances on Earth and in Shadow Land, good was stronger than evil. ”

“ An aged female manes, sear-looking and fate-limned as would have been a relief map of this Erubian Realm, had tottered up behind them unheard. Her silvered hair writhed backward in the blast from The Well. Her hands shook toward it as shake withered grasses over a dry creek bed.
“Sire, she cannot stand it much longer down there, my Millie,” the crone-soul quavered.
“Ha, Grandma Nuisance again!” Unconventionally Satan introduced her to Dolores. “An oldish lady who has seen better days. Ever notice that most oldish ladies have seen better days?” ”

“ But then—the Airedale, after all, had not asked Jack’s life any more than she had asked her mother’s.... She arose, tottered to the door, took him by the nape of the neck and thrust him into the pure air of the hall.
Fortunately the babe was too young to realize or complain; would never know about life—never know. Dolores held the small form to her heart and shuddered anew over what life might have meted out to so tiny and helpless a creature. ”

“ Before she fell asleep she realized that the puppy had followed her into the room. He had hidden under the bed, evidently, until eased of fear over his temerity. Her resistance of the whimpers with which he soon grew emboldened kept her awake for a time. What was he—stupid, brute atom—that he presumed to offer comfort for her human loss? And had not he himself deprived her? Quite roughly she pushed away his exaggeratedly shivering body and repulsed his suggestion that he, too, was lonely. Let him continue to hide from her sight—let him die of his loneliness! ”