I. A. R. Wylie

“ How? She, at any rate, danced as though there was nothing in the world but life. At the end the band broke into the old doggerel gallop.
"I'm Gyp Labelle-"
She catherine-wheeled round the stage, sweeping it with her plumes, just as she had done that first night. And in two months' time she would be dead.
As the curtain fell she stood there in the footlights. He could see the pulse of pain in her throat. Her arms were raised joyously. ”

“ In that deliberation the woman in the hospital, Keith McManus and Frances Wilmot and a host of men who had gone under the chariot wheels had their devious, sinister parts. He became in his own eyes the figure of the law, pronouncing sentence.
"You do it on purpose," she said. "You made me cough."
He arranged the papers on his table with precise hands. "Medical science," he said, "is not an exact science. We doctors are never absolutely certain of anything until it is done. ”

“ In the center a fountain of the modern-primitive school, banked with flowers, played noisily. There was something rather magnificent in the room's absurdity.
She herself sat on the edge of her fountain and fed a gorgeous macaw. But as Uloth entered, she sprang up and ran to him.
"Ah, it's droll—I think about you—just when you ring up. I wonder what you want of me," she remarked.
She went back to her place on the fountain edge, sitting amidst the flowers.
"Do people usually want things of you?" he asked. ”

“ From that moment Uloth was possessed by a purpose. McManus, his friend, was not to end like those others.
He chose his table so that he faced her. McManus turned in her direction as though hypnotized.
Twice she met Uloth's eyes, still with a faintly puzzled amusement. Then she spoke to McManus, laughingly, and McManus turned, and a moment later he came across. He was radiant.
"What luck your being here, old man! I didn't know you went in for frivolity of this sort. Come over and join us. We're just having a bite before the show. You remember Mlle. Labelle, don't you?" ”

“ For a week they tramped the hills together, stalked deer and fished in the salmon river. McManus was like, a man who hugs a secret pleasure—whose eyes are continually turned inward on a desire.
On the eighth day he disappeared. He left a note behind him. He had to go back to town. Uloth was not to bother. Uloth followed in three days. ”

“ So many men and women had received their final sentence here in this room, and each had met it in his own way. Some had stormed and raved and pleaded. Some had risen to an impregnable dignity finer than their lives. One or two had laughed.
And this woman—?
He looked up at last. He thought—with a thrill not of pity—of a bird hit in full flight and mortally hurt, panting its life out in the heather, its gay plumage limp and disheveled. ”

“ The curtain fell.
"I want to get out," said McManus sharply. "It's this closeness."
The audience had begun to stream out. Two men who loitered in front of Uloth in the aisle exchanged laconic comments.
"A live wire, eh, what?"
The face of the second man who spoke was bloated and full of a weary intelligence.
"Life itself, my dear fellow; life itself."
****
ULOTH took a month's holiday and McManus went with him down to the house on the Scotch moors where he was to have spent his honeymoon. ”

“ The one thought that flashed clear of his intense anger was that the action was childishly theatrical.
"I am a mere mortal," she said. "I don't see how a mere mortal and you, who consider yourself above mortal limitations, can work in partnership."
****
WALTER ULOTH had fought his way alone up a steep and cruel road to success. When some hope or other was shattered, he simply put his heel on his desire and went on. So that he left the hospital that night without a sigh, without conscious suffering, and without protest. The episode was finished.
He resigned from the hospital. ”

“ He had a conviction that he was fighting her for his sanity, for the very ground on which he had built his life, and that he dared not yield by so much as a kindly word. He did what lay in his power for her, with a heart shut and barred.
She brought a little of her world and her whole outlook with her. On the last few days that she was able to sit up, she dressed herself in a gay mandarin's coat. By the open fire the old woman embroidered an elaborate nightgown. ”

“ I killed a patient and lost a wife on the same day. I'm a free lance—quite free. What do you want to do? We neither of us need count the barbees now. Make a night of it? I've not done such a thing in my life—it's probably what you want."
McManus, too, was staring across the road with his dead eyes. "Good Lord. If I only knew! I'd be so thankful to want something."
His voice cracked. Uloth took him by the arm, much as he had taken Frances Wilmot by the arm months ago.
"We'll try first what the devil can do for you," he cried.
****
ABRUPTLY, the orchestra caught hold of Uloth. ”

“ Uloth stirred uneasily. He knew now that his hatred was apart from his friend, a bitter, personal hatred.
"It can't be done like that. You can't take drugs away from a drug fiend at one swoop. All I ask is that you should let him down gently—treat him as a friend till he gets his balance."
"No," she said, "1 can't be bothered. I was born in ze gutter—I crawl out of ze gutter by myself—I keep out of ze gutter—always. And I don't cry and wring my hands when people try to kick me back again. ”

“ She leaned across to Uloth, speaking earnestly. "You saw me dance, hein? Monaier le docteur is an artist, perhaps. 'E know I can't dance at all. Nor sing. Nor nozzlngs. Just enjoy myself. You think I don't deserve all I get, hein?"
"I think," said Uloth, smiling, "that there are others in your profession who are less fortunate, mademoiselle."
"Zat's true. I 'ave been lucky. I shall always be lucky. Everybody knows that. Zey say, 'Our Gyp, she will have a good time at 'er funeral.' No, no, Monsieur Uloth, I will not drink. ”

“ Uloth left his table at once, his manner composed and suave.
"It's Dr. Uloth, my old captain," McManus said. "We don't need to introduce you, mademoiselle."
"Ce cher docteur ('e don't like me) ," she complained pathetically to McManus. "'E sit opposite and glare like a 'ungry tiger. Believe me, I grow quite cold with fear. Tell me why you don't like me, monsieur."
"He was only waiting to be asked," McManus broke in, laughing.
She jerked a jeweled thumb at him, appealing to Uloth. "'E 'as cheek, that young man. 'E send in 'is card to my dressing room, saying 'e got to meet me. ”

“ I look after myself, Monsieur Ulot' and all these others, they must look after themselves, too. They want fun and life from me—and I give them that. When they want more, they can—'ow you say?—get out."
He bowed. "Thank you. I've wasted your time. You are infamous."
She kissed her fingers to him in good-humored farewell.
****
THAT night McManus tried to force an entrance to the Kensington house, and the old woman, seconded by a Japanese servant, flung him down the steps into the arms of a policeman, who promptly arrested him. Uloth bailed him out. ”

“ He foresaw the moment, perhaps before the footlights, she would break down. It will be in all the papers. 8he would make use of her own death as she had used Keith McManus' miserable infatuation.
And yet he was sick in heart and brain. He had begun to realize that no man can trample on his strongest instincts with impunity. ”

“ If I drink I might dance 'ere on the table—and ze company is so ver' respectable."
Obviously she knew that the severely elegant men and women on either hand watched her with a covert, chilly hostility. But there was something oddly simple in her acceptance of their attitude. Therein lay her power. She was herself. She didn't care.
She rose to go at last.
"I'm coming with you," McManus said quietly.
She shrugged her shoulders. "Eh bien—what can I do? Zey are all the same. Good-bye, Monsieur le docteur. You scare me stiff. But I like you."
****
PROBABLY she had expected him. ”