The Second Class Passenger Part 29

While he pondered, he was none the less watchful; he saw the change on the still face as soon as it showed. With a quick exclamation he crossed to the bed. Regnault's jaw had set; his eyes were wide and rigid. On the instant his forehead shone with sweat. Deftly and swiftly O'Neill laid his hands on a capsule, crushed it in his palm, and held it to the sick man's face. The volatile drug performed its due miracle.

The face that had been a livid sh.e.l.l slackened again; the fixed glare sank down; and Regnault shuddered and sighed. Buscarlet, trembling but officious, wiped his brow and babbled commiserations.

"Ah!" said Regnault, putting up a thin hand to stop him. "It takes one by the throat, this affair."

Though he spoke quietly, his voice had yet the conscious fullness, the deliberate inflection, of a man accustomed to speak to an audience.

"Yes," said O'Neill. "Were you sleeping?"

The sick man smiled. "A peu pres," he answered.

"I was remembering certain matters--dreaming, in effect."

He s.h.i.+fted his head on his pillow, and his eyes traveled to and fro about the great room.

"If this goes on," he said, "I shall have to ask a favor of somebody." His quick look, with its suggestion of mockery, rested on O'Neill. "And that would be dreadful," he concluded.

"If it's anything I can do, I'll do it, of course," said O'Neill awkwardly.

He aided Buscarlet to set the bed to rights and change the pillow- cover, conscious that Regnault was watching him all the time with a smile.

"One should have a nun here," remarked Buscarlet. "They come for so much a day, and do everything."

"Yes," said Regnault;--"everything. Who could stand that!"

He s.h.i.+fted in his bed cautiously, for he knew that any movement might provoke another spasm.

"Now, tell me, O'Neill," he said, in the tone of commonplace conversation. "That doctor--the one that walked like a duck--he was impressive, eh?"

O'Neill sat down on the foot of the bed.

"He's the best man in Paris," he answered. "He did his best to be impressive. He thought we weren't taking your illness seriously enough."

"Well," said Regnault, his fingers fidgeting on the coverlet, "I can be serious when I like. I'm serious now, foi de gentilhomme. Did he say when I should die!"

"Yes," replied O'Neill. "He said you'd break like the stem of a pipe at the first strain."

Regnault's eyes were half closed. "Metaphor, eh?" he suggested dreamily.

"He said," continued O'Neill, "that you were not to move sharply, not to laugh or cry, not to be much amused or surprised--in fact, you were to keep absolutely quiet. He suggested, too, that you'd had your share of emotions, and would be better without them now."

Regnault smiled again. "Wonderful," he said softly. "They teach them all that in the hospitals. Then, in effect, I hold this appointment during good Conduct?"

"That's the idea," said O'Neill gravely.

There was a long pause; Regnault seemed to be thinking deeply. The amyl had brought color back to his face; except for the disorder of his long white hair he seemed to be his normal self.

"It will not be amusing," he said at length. "For you, I mean."

"Oh, I shall be all right," answered O'Neill, but the same thought had occurred to him.

"No, it will not be amusing to you," repeated Regnault. "For this good Buscarlet it is another thing. I shall keep him busy. You like that, don'it you, Emile?"

Poor Buscarlet choked and gurgled. Regnault laughed softly.

"Take the lamp, Emile," he said, "and carry it to 'The Dancer.' I want to see it."

Buscarlet was eager to do his bidding. O'Neill frowned as he picked up the lamp.

"Careful," he said, in a low voice to Regnault.

"Oh," said Regnault, "this is not an emotion." He laughed again.

Across the room Buscarlet lifted the shade from the lamp and held it up. Again there came into view the white and scarlet of the picture, the high light on the bare shoulder, the warm tint of the naked arm, the cheap diablerie of the posture, the splendid rebellion of the face. Regnault turned and stared at it under drawn brows.

"Thank you, Emile," he said at last, and lay back on his pillow. For an instant of forgetfulness his delicate face was ingenuous and expressive; he caught himself back to control as he met O'Neill's eyes.

"Il est un age dans la vie Ou chaque reve doit finir, Un age ou l'ame recueillie A besoin de se souvenir,"

he quoted softly. Buscarlet was fitting the shade on the lamp again.

"I think," Regnault went on, "that I have come to that, after all. He told you, eh? Buscarlet told you that she--Lola--is my wife?"

"Yes," answered O'Neill. "Would you like me to send for her?"

"She would not come for that," said Regnault. He was studying the young man's face with bright eyes. "Ah," he sighed; "you don't know these things. We parted--of course; but not in weariness, not in the grey staleness of fatigue and boredom. No; but in a splendid wreck of wrath and jealousy and hatred. We did not run aground tamely; we split in vehemence on the very rock of discord. She would not come for a letter."

"Is she in Paris?" asked O'Neill.

"No, in Spain," answered Regnault. "At Ronda, in a great house on the edge of the hill, a house of small windows and strong doors. She is religious, Lola is; she fears h.e.l.l. Let me see; she must be near to fifty now. It is twenty years and more since I saw her."

"But if I wrote," began O'Neill again.

"She would not come for a letter," persisted Regnault. "What would you write? 'He is dying,' you would say, 'Poof!' she would answer, 'he has been dead this twenty years to me.'"

"Well, then, what do you suggest?"

Regnault opened his eyes and looked up sharply. He stretched out one long slender hand in a sudden gesture of urgency. His face, upon the moment, recovered its wonted vivacity.

"Go to her," he said. "Go to her, O'Neill; you are young and long- legged; you have the face of one to whom adventures are due. She will receive you. Speak to her; tell her--tell her of this gloomy room and its booming echoes and the little white bed in the middle of it. Make your voice warm, O'Neill, and tell her of all of it. Then, perhaps, she will come."

There was no mistaking his earnestness. O'Neill stared at him in astonishment. Regnault moistened his lips, breathing hard.

"Really," said O'Neill, "I don't quite know how to answer you, Regnault."

Regnault put the empty phrase from him with a movement of impatience.

"Go to her," he said again, and his brows creased in effort. "Is it because she is religious that you hesitate! You think I am an offence to her religion? O'Neill, I will offer it no offence. I have myself an instinct that way now. It is true. I have."