The Slave of the Lamp Part 40

"Why do you not sit down?" he suggested coldly. "There are none of your--_People_--here to be impressed."

Again the Vicomte smiled.

"Yes," he said smoothly, "we work on different lines, do we not? I wonder which of us has dirtied his hands the most. Which of the two--the two fools who quarrelled about a woman. Ha? And she married a third--a dolt. Thus are they made--these women!"

"And yet," said the Jesuit, "you have not forgotten."

The Vicomte looked up slowly. It seemed that his eyelids were heavy, requiring an effort to lift them.

"I do not like to hear the rooks call--that is all," he said.

The other turned away his soft, slow glance, the glance that had failed to overcome Christian Vellacott's quiet defiance--

"Nor I," he said. "It makes one remember."

There was a short silence, and then the Jesuit spoke--sharply and suddenly.

"Sit down, you fool!" he said. "You are fainting."

The Vicomte obeyed, and at the same moment the door opened and the tobacconist appeared, pus.h.i.+ng before him a mattress.

The Jesuit laid aside his hat, revealing the tonsure gleaming whitely amidst his jetty hair, and helped to lay the mattress upon the table.

Then the two men, the Provincial and the tobacconist of the Rue St.

Gingolphe, lifted the wounded aristocrat gently and placed him upon the improvised bed. True to his blood, the Vicomte d'Audierne uttered no sound of agony, but as his brother began to unb.u.t.ton the butcher's blouse in which he was disguised he fainted quietly. Presently the doctor arrived. He was quite a young man, with s.h.i.+fting grey eyes, and he saluted the Provincial with a nervous obsequity which was unpleasant to look upon. The deftness with which he completed the task of laying bare the wound was notable. His fingers were too clever to be quite honest. When, however, he was face to face with the little blue-rimmed orifice that disfigured the Vicomte's muscular chest, the expression of his face--indeed his whole manner--changed. His eyes lost their s.h.i.+ftiness--he seemed to forget the presence of the great man standing at the other side of the table.

While he was selecting a probe from his case of instruments the Vicomte d'Audierne opened his eyes.

"Ah!" said the doctor, noting this at once. "You got this on the Boulevard?"

"Yes."

"How did you get here?" He was feeling the wounded man's pulse now.

"Cab."

"All the way?"

"Of course."

"Who carried you into this room?" asked the doctor, returning to his case of instruments.

"No one! I walked." The doctor's manner, quick and nonchalant, evidently aggravated his patient.

"Why did you do that?"

He was making his preparations while he spoke, and never looked at the Vicomte.

"In order to avoid attracting attention."

This brought the doctor's glance to his face, and the result was instantaneous. The young man started, and into his eyes there came again the s.h.i.+fty expression, as he looked from the face of the patient to that of the Provincial standing motionless at the other side of the table. He said nothing, however, and returned with a peculiar restraint to his preparations. It is probable that his silence was brought about by the persistent gaze of two pairs of deep velvety eyes which never left his face.

"Will Monsieur take chloroform," he asked, unfolding a clean pocket-handkerchief, and taking from his waistcoat pocket a small phial.

"No!"

"But--I beg of you------"

"It is not necessary," persisted the Vicomte calmly.

The doctor looked across to the Provincial and made a hopeless little movement of the shoulders, accompanied by an almost imperceptible elevation of the eyebrows.

The Jesuit replied by looking meaningly at the small gla.s.s-stoppered bottle.

Then the doctor muttered:

"As you will!"

He had laid his instruments out upon the mattress--the gas was turned up as high as it would go. Everything was ready. Then he turned his back a moment and took off his coat, which he laid upon a chair, returning towards the bed with one hand behind his back.

Quick as thought, he suddenly darted forward and pressed the clean handkerchief over the wounded man's mouth and nose. The Vicomte d'Audierne gave a little smothered exclamation of rage, and raised his arms; but the Jesuit was too quick for him, and pinned him down upon the mattress.

After a moment the doctor removed the handkerchief, and the Vicomte lay unconscious and motionless, his delicate lips drawn back in anger, so that the short white teeth gleamed dangerously.

"It is possible," said the surgeon, feeling his pulse again, "that Monsieur has killed himself by walking into this room."

Like a cat over its prey, the young doctor leant across the mattress.

Without looking round he took up the instruments he wanted, knowing the order in which they lay. He had been excellently taught. The noiseless movements of his white fingers were marvellously dexterous--neat, rapid, and finished. The evil-looking instruments gleamed and flashed beneath the gaslight. He had a peculiar little habit of wiping each one on his s.h.i.+rt-sleeve before and after use, leaving a series of thin red stripes there.

After the lapse of a minute he raised his head, wiped something which he held in his fingers, and pa.s.sed it across to the Provincial.

"That is the bullet, my father," he said, without ceasing his occupation, and without raising his eyes from the wounded man.

"Will he live?" asked the Jesuit casually, while he examined the bullet.

"If he tries, my father," was the meaning reply.

The young doctor was bandaging now, skilfully and rapidly.

"This would be the death of a dog," said the Provincial, as if musing aloud; for the surgeon was busy at his trade, and the tobacconist had withdrawn some time before.

"Better than the life of a dog," replied the Vicomte, in his smoothly mocking way, without opening his eyes.

It was very easy to blame one woman, and to cast reflections upon the entire s.e.x. If these brothers had not quarrelled about that woman, they would have fallen out over something else. Some men are so: they are like a strong spirit--light and yet potent--that floats upon the top of all other liquids and will mingle with none.

It would seem that these two could not be in the same room without quarrelling. It was only with care that (as the Jesuit had coldly observed) they could exist in the same world without clas.h.i.+ng. Never was the Vicomte d'Audierne so cynical, so sceptical, as in the presence of his brother. Never was Raoul d'Audierne so cold, so heartless, so Jesuitical, as when meeting his brother's scepticism.

Sixteen years of their life had made no difference. They were as far apart now as on one grey morning sixteen years ago, when the Vicomte d'Audierne had hurried away from the deserted sh.o.r.e of the Cote du Nord, leaving his brother lying upon the sand with an ugly slit in his neck.

That slit had healed now, but the scar was always at his throat, and in both their hearts.