The Danger Mark Part 52

He stepped nearer:

"The girl is Sylvia Quest. _Now_, do you understand, d.a.m.n you!"

A stray glimmer from the distant lanterns fell across Dysart's masked visage. The skin around the mouth was loose and ashy, the dry lips worked.

"That was a dirty trick of yours," he stammered; "a scoundrelly thing to do."

"Do you suppose that I dreamed for an instant that she was convicting herself and you?" said Duane in bitter contempt. "Go and manufacture some explanation of my conduct as though it were your own. Let her have that much peace of mind, anyway."

"You young sneak!" retorted Dysart. "I suppose you think that what you have heard will warrant your hanging around my wife. Try it and see."

"Good G.o.d, Dysart!" he said, "I never thought you were anything more vicious than what is called a 'dancing man.' What are you, anyhow?"

"You'll learn if you tamper with my affairs," said Dysart. He whipped off his mask and turned a corpse-like visage on the younger man. Every feature of his face had altered: his good looks were gone, the youth in his eyes had disappeared, only a little evil l.u.s.tre played over them; and out of the drawn pallor Duane saw an old man peering, an old man's lips twitching back from uneven and yellowed teeth.

"Mallett," he said, "you listen to me. Keep your investigating muzzle out of my affairs; forget what you've ferreted out; steer clear of me and mine. I want no scandal, but if you raise a breath of it you'll have enough concerning yourself to occupy you. Do you understand?"

"No," said Duane mechanically, staring at the man before him.

"Well, then, to be more precise, if you lift one finger to injure me you'll cut a figure in court.... And you can marry her later."

"Who?"

"My wife. I don't think Miss Seagrave will stand for what I'll drag you through if you don't keep clear of me!"

Duane gazed at him curiously:

"So _that_ is what you are, Dysart," he said aloud to himself.

Dysart's temples reddened.

"Yes, and then some!... I understand that you have given yourself the privilege of discussing my financial affairs in public. Have you?"

Duane said in a dull voice: "The Algonquin Trust was mentioned, I believe. I did say that you are a director."

"You said I was hard hit and that the Clearing House meant to weed out a certain element that I represented in New York."

"I did not happen to say that," said Duane wearily, "but another man did."

"Oh. _You_ didn't say it?"

"No. I don't lie, Dysart."

"Then add to that negative virtue by keeping your mouth shut," said Dysart between his teeth, "or you'll have other sorts of suits on your hands. I warn you now to keep clear of me and mine."

"Just what _is_ yours?" inquired Duane patiently.

"You'll find out if you touch it."

"Oh. Is--is Miss Quest included by any hazard? Because if the right chance falls my way, I shall certainly interfere."

"If you do, I shall begin suit for alienation within twenty-four hours."

"Oh, no, you won't. You're horribly afraid, Dysart. This grimacing of yours is fear. All you want is to be let alone, to burrow through the society that breeds your sort. Like a maggot in a chestnut you feed on what breeds you. I don't care. Feed! What bred you is as rotten as you are. I'm done with it--done with all this," turning his head toward the flare of light. "Go on and burrow. What nourishes you can look out for itself.... Only"--he wheeled around and looked into the darkness where, unseen, Sylvia Quest awaited him--"only, in this set, the young have less chance than the waifs of the East Side."

He walked slowly up to Dysart and struck him across the face with open palm.

"Break with that girl or I'll break your head," he said.

Dysart was down on the leaves, struggling up to his knees, then to his feet, the thin blood running across his chin. The next instant he sprang at Duane, who caught him by both arms and forced him savagely into quivering inertia.

"Don't," he said. "You're only a thing that dances. Don't move, I tell you.... Wipe that blood off and go and set the silly girl's heart at rest.... And keep away from her afterward. Do you hear?"

He set his teeth and shook him so wickedly that Dysart's head rolled and his wig fell off.

"I know something of your sloppy record," he continued, still shaking him; "I know about your lap-dog fawning around Miss Seagrave. It is generally understood that you're as s.e.xless as any other of your kind. I thought so, too. Now I know you. Keep clear of _me_ and _mine_, Dysart.... And that will be about all."

He left him planted against a tree and walked toward the lights once more, breathing heavily and in an ugly mood.

On the edge of the glade, just outside the lantern glow, he stood sombre, distrait, inspecting the torn lace on his sleeve, while all around him people were unmasking amid cries of surprise and shouts of laughter, and the orchestra was sounding a march, and multicoloured Bengal fires rolled in clouds from the water's edge, turning the woods to a magic forest and the people to tinted wraiths.

Behind him he heard Rosalie's voice, caressing, tormenting by turns; and, glancing around for her victim, beheld Grandcourt at heel in calflike adoration.

Kathleen's laughter swung him the other way.

"Oh, Duane," she cried, the pink of excitement in her cheeks, "isn't it all too heavenly! It looks like Paradise afire with all those rosy clouds rolling under foot. Have you ever seen anything quite as charming?"

"It's rotten," said Duane brusquely, tearing the tattered lace free and tossing it aside.

"Wh-what!" she exclaimed.

"I say it's all rotten," he repeated, looking up at her. "All this--the whole thing--the stupidity of it--the society that's driven to these kind of capers, dreading the only thing it ever dreads--ennui! Look at us all! For G.o.d's sake, survey us d.a.m.n fools, herded here in our pinchbeck mummery--forcing the sanctuary of these decent green woods, polluting them with smoke and noise and dirty little intrigues! I'm sick of it!"

"Duane!"

"Oh, yes; I'm one of 'em--dragging my idleness and viciousness and my stupidity and my money at my heels. I tell you, Kathleen, this is no good. There's a stench of money everywhere; there's a staler aroma in the air, too--the dubious perfume of decadence, of moral atrophy, of stupid recklessness, of the ennui that breeds intrigue! I'm deadly tired of it--of the sort of people I was born among; of their women folk, whose sole intellectual relaxation is in pirouetting along the danger mark without overstepping, and in concealing it when they do; of the overgroomed men who can do nothing except what can be done with money, who think nothing, know nothing, sweat nothing but money and what it can buy--like horses and yachts and prima donnas----"

She uttered a shocked exclamation, but he went on:

"Yes, prima donnas. Which of our friends was it who bought that pretty one that sang in 'La Esmeralda'?"

"Duane!" she exclaimed in consternation; but he took her protesting hands in his and held her powerless.

"You happen to be a darling," he said; "but you were not born to this environment. Geraldine was--and she is a darling. G.o.d bless her. Outside of my sister, Nada, and you two--with the exception of the newly fledged and as yet mercifully unregurgitated with vicious wisdom--who are all these people? Ciphers, save for their balances at their banks; nameless, save for the noisy reiteration of their hard-fisted forebears'

names; without any ambition, except financial and social; without any objective, save the escape from ennui--without any taste, culture, inspiration, except that of physical gratification! Oh, Lord, I'm one of them, but I resign to-night."

"Duane, you're quite mad," she said, wrenching her hands free and gazing at him rather fearfully.