George Barr McCutcheon

“ Let me say this to you, Mr Brood: you have brought Frederic up as a butcher fattens the calves and swine he prepares for slaughter. You are waiting for the hour to come when you can kill his very soul with the weapon you have held over him for so long, waiting, waiting, waiting! In God's name, what has he done that you should want to strike him down after all these years? It is in my heart to curse you, but somehow I feel that you are a curse to yourself. ”

“ She was a coward, after all, and Lydia despised a coward. The look of scorn deepened in her eyes, and out from her heart rushed all that was soft and tender in her nature, leaving it barren of all compassion.
“I do not want to hurt Frederic,” murmured Yvonne. “I—I am sorry if———”
“You are hurting him dreadfully,” said Lydia, suddenly choking up with emotion.
“He is not—not in love with me,” declared Yvonne,
“No,” said the girl, regaining control of herself, “he is not in love with you. That is the whole trouble. He is in love with me. ”

“ And he pitied himself so vastly that his throat contracted as with pain. His soul sickened. The truth was being revealed to him as he stood there and with aching eyes searched throughout the serried rows of backs. It came home to him all of a sudden that his quest was a gleaming white back and a small, exquisitely poised head crowned with black.
With a sharp execration, a word of disgust for himself, he tore himself away from the railing and rushed toward the doors. At the same instant a tremendous burst of applause filled the house and he whirled just in time to see the curtain descending. ”

“ I've been treating Lydia vilely for a long, long time, but—she's the finest, best, dearest girl in the world. You—even you, Yvonne—shall not utter a word against———”
“Aïe! What heroics!” she cried ironically. “You are splendid when you are angry, my son. Yes, you are almost as splendid as your father. He, too, has been angry with me. He, too, has made me shudder. But he, too, has forgiven me, as you shall this instant. Say it, Freddy. You do forgive me? I was mean, nasty, ugly, vile—oh, everything that's horrid. I take it all back. ”

“ The crystal chandelier in the long drawing-room had shed light for the Broods since the beginning of the nineteenth century; the great old sideboard was still covered with the massive plate of a hundred years ago; the tables, the chairs, the high-boys, the chests of drawers, and the huge four-posters were like satin to the eye and touch; the rugs, while older perhaps than the city itself, alone were new to the house of Brood. They had been installed by the present master of the house.
Age, distinction, quality attended one the instant he set foot inside the sober portals. ”

“ It was the way Mrs Brood held herself.
“He has known me since I was a little girl,” she said, as if to account for Brood's favourable estimate.
“And he knew your mother before you were born,” said the other. “She, too, is—shall I say pretty?”
“My mother isn't pretty, Mrs Brood,” said Lydia, conscious of a sudden feeling of resentment.
“She is handsome,” said Mrs Brood with finality. Sending a swift glance around the room, she went on: “My husband delights in having beautiful things about him. He doesn't like the ugly things of this world.” ”

“ There was something positively startling in her serene conviction that Frederic was not to die. No less a sceptic than the renowned Dr Hodder confided to Lydia and her mother that he now believed in the supernatural and never again would say “there is no God.”
Hodder had gone to James Brood at the end of the third day and, with the sweat of the haunted on his brow, had whispered hoarsely that the case was out of his hands. He was no longer the doctor, but an agent governed by a spirit that would not permit death to claim its own. ”

“ Never had luck served them on a golden platter. For twenty-five years and more these three men, Dawes, Riggs, and poor John Desmond, had thrashed through the world in quest of the pot of gold at the foot of the rainbow, only to find that the rainbow was for ever lifting, for ever shifting; yet they complained not. They throve on misfortune, they courted it along with the other things in life, and they were unhappy only when ill luck singled one of them out and spared the others.
What Brood told them of his life brought the grim smile of appreciation to the lips of each. ”

“ He—he is dying?” Her voice trailed off into a whisper.
“He will be a long time in dying. It will be slow. I struck him down, not with my hand, not with a weapon that he could parry, but with words—words! Do you hear? I have crushed his soul with words!”
“Oh, you coward!” she cried, leaning over the table, her eyes blazing. “I can understand it in you. You have no soul of your own. What have you done to your son, James Brood?”
He drew back as if from the impact of a blow. “Coward? If I have crushed his soul, it was done in time, Yvonne, to deprive you of the glory of doing it.” ”

“ He is not to be blamed for this thing that has happened to him. No one is to blame. It had to be. I can wait, Mr Brood. Frederic loves me. I know he does. He will come back to me. You have no right to say that he loves lightly, ignobly. You do not know him as I know him. You have never tried to know him, never wanted to know him. You—oh, I beg your pardon, Mr Brood. I—I am forgetting myself.”
“I am afraid you do not understand yourself, Lydia,” said he levelly. “You are young, you are trusting. Your lesson will cost you a great deal, my dear.” ”

“ You are a man—a strong, brave man, and yet you shrink and cringe when a voice whispers to you in the night. You sleep with your doubts awake. Yes, yes, I believe you when you say that you love me. I am sure that you do; but let me tell you what it is that I have divined. It is Matilde that you are loving through me. When you kiss me there is in the back of your mind somewhere the thought of kisses that were given long ago. When you hold me close to you it is the body of Matilde that you feel, it is her breath that warms your cheeks. I am Matilde, not Yvonne, to you. ”

“ Thank you, Frederic.” She smiled. “I am sure it will not be necessary for you to die for me, however. As for Lydia, you must live, not die, for her.”
“I'll do both,” he cried impulsively.
“Before you go in to breakfast I want to say something else to you, Frederic,” said she seriously. “Lydia has repeated everything you said to her last night. My dear boy, my husband has been dead for twelve years. I loved him, and he died loving me. I shall never marry another man. I am still the wife of John Desmond; I still consider myself bound to him. Can you understand?” ”

“ All this time Yvonne was crouching against the table, her horrified gaze upon the great red blotch that grew to terrible proportions as she watched. She had not moved, she had not breathed, she had not taken her hands from her ears where she had placed them at the sound of the explosion.
“Blood! It is blood!” she moaned, and for the first time since the shot was fired her husband glanced at the one for whom the bullet had originally been intended.
An expression of incredulity leaped into his face, as if he could not believe his senses. She was alive and unhurt! ”

“ Standing in this stream of light was the figure of a man. Slowly, as if drawn by a force he could not resist, the young man retraced his steps until he stood directly in front of the window. A questioning smile was on his lips. He was looking up into Ranjab's shadowy, unsmiling face, dimly visible in the glow from the distant street-lamp. For a long time they stared at each other, no sign of recognition passing between them. The Hindu's face was as rigid, as emotionless as if carved out of stone; his eyes were unwavering. Frederic could see them, even in the shadows. ”

“ Over all this fairylike splendour reigned the serene, melting influence of the god to whom James Brood was wont to confess himself. The spell of the golden image dominated everything.
In the midst of this magnificence moved the two women—one absurdly out of touch with her surroundings, yet a thing of beauty; the other blending intimately with the warm tones that enveloped her. She was lithe, sinuous, with the grace of the most seductive of dancers. Her dark eyes reflected the mysteries of the Orient; her pale, smooth skin shone with the clearness of alabaster ”

“ The gloomy, uneasy look deepened in his face. It was a farce, after all, this attempt to glorify an impulse conceived in desperation. A sense of utter loneliness came over him with a swiftness that sickened, nauseated him. The food was flat to his taste; he could not eat. Self-commiseration stifled him. He suddenly realised that he had never been so lonely, so unhappy, in all his life as he was at this moment.
His thoughts were of his father. A vast, inexplicable longing possessed his soul—a longing for the affection of this man who was never tender, who stood afar off and was lonely, too. ”

“ It seemed like a call for help, a cry out of the darkness.
“It is raining pitchforks,” he said, as if to explain his failure to respond at the first call.
“Oh, dear,” sighed Lydia uncomfortably.
“You can't go out in the storm, my dear,” cried Yvonne, tightening her grip on the girl's arm. “Draw up a chair, Freddy. Let's be cosy.
“Really, Mrs Brood, I should go at once. Mother———”
“Your mother is in bed and asleep,” protested Yvonne.
“We should all be in bed,” said Frederic.
“A bed is a sepulchre. We bury half our lives in it, Frederic. We spend too much time in bed. ”

“ He is your son. You owe another for his life, and you will never be out of her debt, not even in hell, James Brood!”
Slowly Frederic's eyes opened again. They wavered from one face to the other and there was in them the unsolvable mystery of divination. As the lids drooped once more, Brood's manner underwent a tremendous change. The stupefaction of horror and doubt fell away in a flash and he was again the clear-headed, indomitable man of action. The blood rushed back into his veins, his eyes flashed with the returning fire of hope, his voice was steady, sharp, commanding. ”

“ She was a tall, slender girl. Her eyes were almost on a level with his own. “Don't you want to tell me, dear?”
“He never gives me a thought,” he said, compressing his lips. “He thinks of no one but himself. God, what a father!”
“Freddy, dear! You must not speak——”
“Haven't I some claim on his consideration? Is it fair that I should be ignored in everything, in every way? I won't put up with it, Lydia! I'm not a child. I'm a man and I am his son. But I might as well be a dog in the street for all the thought he gives to me!” ”

“ Twenty years ago these two old cronies had met James Brood in one of the blackest holes of Calcutta, a derelict being swept to perdition with the swiftness and sureness of a tide that knows no pause. They found him when the dregs were at his lips and the stupor of defeat in his brain. Without meaning to be considered Samaritans, good or bad, they dragged him from the depths and found that they had revived a man. Those were the days when James Brood's life meant nothing to him, days when he was tortured by the thought that it would be all too long for him to endure ”

“ You are so good to me. You have given me so much joy and happiness, and—and you understand me so well. I could die for you, Yvonne. I would die for you. It's not the kind of love you are in the habit of commanding, you who are so glorious and so beautiful. It's the love of a dog for his master.”
She waited an instant, and then came toward him. He never could have explained the unaccountable impulse that forced him to fall back a few steps as she approached. Her eyes were gazing steadily into his, and her red lips were parted. ”

“ She was surprised to find Yvonne Brood standing close beside her, her eyes closed and her fingers telling the beads that ran through her fingers, her lips moving in voiceless prayer.
The girl watched her dully for a few moments, then with growing fascination. The incomprehensible creature was praying! To Lydia this seemed to be the most unnatural thing in all the world. She could not associate prayer with this woman's character; she could not imagine her having been in all her life possessed of a fervent religious thought. It was impossible to think of her as being even hypocritically pious. ”

“ You owe nothing but hatred to him, and you should pay. You owe vengeance for your mother's sake—for the sake of her whose face you have come to love, who loved you to the day she died, I am sure. He will proclaim to the world that you are not his son, he will brand you with the mark of shame, he will drive you out of New York. ”

“ Frederic's intense gaze was fixed on the stranger who was coming into his life. At a word from Brood she glanced up at the window. The smile still lingered on the young man's lips, but his eyes were charged with an expression of acute wonder. She smiled, but he was scarcely aware of the fact. He watched them cross the side-walk and mount the steps.
He had never looked upon a more beautiful creature in all his life. A kind of stupefaction held him motionless until he heard the door close behind them. ”

“ She smiled. “All women are sorceresses. They feel. Men only think. Poor Frederic! You try to hate him, James, but I have watched you when you were not aware. You search his face intently, almost in agony—for what? For the look that was his mother's—for the expression you loved in———”
He burst out violently.
“No! By Heaven, you are wrong there! I am not looking for Matilde in Frederic's face.” ”

“ He was silent.
“You are a dear boy, Frederic, but you are a foolish one,” she went on, the smile struggling back to her eyes.
“I suppose you'll send me away after—what I've said,” he muttered dully.
“Not at all!” she laughed. “I shall pay no attention to such nonsense. You are an honest fool, and I don't blame you. Wiser men than you have fallen in love with me, so why not you? I like you, Freddy; I like you very, very much. ”

“ Lydia worked steadily, almost doggedly, at the task she had undertaken to complete for the elder Brood. Every afternoon found her seated at the desk in the study opposite the stern-faced man who laboured with her over the seemingly endless story of his life. Something told her that there were secret chapters which she was not to write. She wrote those that were to endure; the others were to die with him.
He watched her as she wrote, and his eyes were often hard. He saw the growing haggardness in her gentle, girlish face; the wistful, puzzled expression in her dark eyes. ”