Dolores

“ Pierre Leduc loved Dolores! And he was looking at her as a man looks at the woman he loves.
Lupin felt a murderous instinct rise up within him, blindly and furiously. That look, that look of love cast upon Dolores, maddened him. He received an impression of the great silence that enveloped Dolores and Pierre Leduc; and in silence, in the stillness of their attitude there was nothing living but that look of love, that dumb and sensuous hymn in which the eyes told all the passion, all the desire, all the transport, all the yearning that one being can feel for another. ”

“ Dolores' eyes were invisible under their lowered lids, the silky eyelids with the long black lashes. But how she seemed to feel that look of love which sought for hers! How she quivered under that impalpable caress!
"She loves him... she loves him," thought Lupin, burning with jealousy. ”

“ Dolores listened, her glowing eyes riveted upon Philip's face, her bosom heaving with emotion. The words; "We are free now in the shadow of death," rang in her ears. She felt that she could not refuse her lover the last joy and consolation that he claimed; and that she, whose past had been one long sacrifice of her happiness and of her hopes, had a right to reveal the secret so long buried in her soul. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The very first mind I sought was that of a girl who calls herself Maria Dolores. Often her mind turns in upon itself and she reflects like this, 'Maria Dolores, you have behaved badly to your papa today. Now you must go and ask him to forgive you and give him a kiss.' In this way she scolds herself for small misdemeanors. Her world is composed of happy, innocent trivialities, though as her purity touches on them and causes them to glow briefly before they are left behind, it seems that there are no more divine and lovely things in existence than those in the world of my Maria Dolores. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Then Dolores turned to Antoinette and Philip. Their despair verged upon madness. That of Antoinette was violent, and vented itself in moans and tears; that of Philip was still more terrible, for the wretched man seemed to have grown ten years older in the past few hours.
"Farewell, my dear friends," said Dolores, cheerfully. "Do not mourn. Try to think that I am going on a journey, and to a country where you will soon come to join me. In its relations to life, death is nothing more." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ What had looked a low mountain proved to be a dome-shaped enclosure of such size that the curve on its either side sloped gradually into the perspective. Through the interstices of its barbed wall thousands upon thousands of manes, more female than male, could be seen moving within. From it blew a wind so malignant that Dolores’ eyes smarted and her ears roared—a wind of whispers from countless tongues all breathing forth hate at once. ”

“ When he turned round, Dolores was close to him and looking at him with eyes which he had never seen in her before, the eyes of a woman who hates and who is incensed with rage. Could this possibly be Dolores, the weak, ailing Dolores?
She stammered:
"What are you doing?... How dare you?... And he.... Then it's true?... lied to me?..."
"Lied to you?" cried Lupin, grasping the humiliation which she had suffered as a woman. "Lied to you? He, a grand-duke! A puppet, that's all, a puppet of which I pulled the string... an instrument which I tuned, to play upon as I chose! Oh, the fool, the fool!" ”

“ Dolores opens her pretty eyes in shocked astonishment. Then Mrs. St. James rises from her kneeling posture, draws the black shawl over her handsome shoulders, and paces the long room hurriedly; then stops in front of Dolores, and says, with a half smile:
"Miss Litchfield, if I entreat you to silence, and entrust to you a secret, will you help me, for my dead boy's sake, to keep it?" She draws an easy chair beside Dolores, and goes on. "Yes, yes, you will promise, for the child's sake, will you not, Dolores? will you not?" and Dolores, with tears in her eyes, promises. ”

“ It was not the thought that Dolores—for it was no more Mercedes—that Dolores Villa-Señor was in the keeping of brutal brigands! It had pained me as much—perhaps more—to think of her in the keeping of Francisco Moreno!
Truth compels me to the sad, disgraceful confession: that I listened to the tale with a sort of satisfaction! Jealousy was still alive—anger not dead—within my heart! ”

“ 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? ”

“ Her mind opened to her master’s mind, her eyes to his eyes, her lips to his lips. A hideous impulse moved her, like the mania to leap from some incalculable height. Thought-pulse for thought-pulse, her sensation roused to his. A moan of torturing expectance escaped her.... She closed her eyes....
She wanted to want him.
In the blackness, Dolores saw the blacker truth. Her swooning sense of obligation to self was shocked into revival. Not him so much as something in herself must she resist—that desire put in woman to be mothers of men. Response meant utter degradation. ”

“ And now you would dirty the reputation of Dolores! And she's a saint! A saint, do you hear! And a woman like you isn't good enough to kiss the bottom of her shoe, you snake! And now, get out of here, and do it quick, damn quick! Get out of here, or I'll kill you like a rat!"
But Rosario stood there impassively. The calm determination in her did not shrink before those insults and those menacing fists.
"Pascualo, Dolores is not being true to you," she repeated slowly, and with despairing firmness. "She is making a fool of you. And the man ... is ... Tonet!" ”

“ Strangely enough, his egotism did not offend her. An expression of power, it bade fair to convince her. Warning herself that she must not be convinced, she tried to get from his grasp.
But he held her. “I’d love to love you, sweet Grief,” he murmured close to her lips. “Ask me to kiss you, Dolores, as once you asked a man of Earth. Beg me to take you, you devil’s desire. Let our moment of forever start now.”
His reminder helped her to tear her will from his and throw it, like a tangible thing, to the thought of John. Pushing him away, she found voice to defy him. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ The merest girl knows the tone of a man whose genuine admiration breaks out unconsciously in plain words, and Dolores was a grown woman. A faint colour rose in her cheek, and her lips parted to smile, but her eyes were grave and anxious, for the doubt had returned, and would not be thrust away. ”

“ Sometimes, Dolores, I do not feel that I am. Sometimes the fears that you may one day repent our independent course of action, together with the fact that we are obliged to hide so much of our companionship from the world, weighs upon me like a burden. ”

“ Rose Dolores
THE moan of Rose Dolores, she made her plaint to me,
“My hair is lifted by the wind that sweeps in from the sea;
I taste its salt upon my lips—O jailer, set me free!”
“Content thee, Rose Dolores; content thee, child of care!
There’s satin shoon upon thy feet and emeralds in thy hair,
And one there is who hungers for thy step upon the stair.”
The moan of Rose Dolores, “O jailer, set me free! ”

“ Long ago, when first she had become an object of diabolic clemency, Dolores had supposed that, come a day, she was to pay a price. When, after all the public pomp and private pose of her regal rites, her new lord escorted her into the throne-room—— Not until he stretched his arm in prideful gesture toward the escutcheon over the dais—— Soul-sick, she realized then the sum and coinage of that price. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sir Barry says solemnly.
Dolores gives one swift side glance at the handsome face of the man walking the other side of Blondine. He happens, at the same instant, to be looking at her. Dolores is angry at the blush she feels rising to her face. The idea of his watching her that way; it is too bad he cannot find some one else to gaze at all the time. ”

“ There are sorrows that kill; but, if they do not kill when they first fall upon us, we recover; and this would be the case with Philip. The certainty that Dolores would never belong to another, that she had refused him only to give herself to God, was of all circumstances the one most likely to console him. The presence of Antoinette—who honestly believed all Dolores had said concerning the state of her heart and the purely sisterly affection she felt for her adopted brother—and the timid, shrinking love of the young girl also aided not a little in assuaging his grief. ”