The Slayer of Souls

He continued, ignoring the question: "From the time you landed in San Francisco you have been threatened. You tried to earn a living by your magician's tricks, but in city after city, as you came East, your uneasiness grew into fear, and your fear into terror, because every day more terribly confirmed your belief that people were following you determined either to use you to their own purposes or to murder you – "

The girl turned quite white and half rose in her chair, then sank back, staring at him out of dilated eyes. Then Cleves smiled: "So you've got the nerve to do Government work," he said, "and you've got the intelligence, and the knowledge, and something else – I don't know exactly what to call it – Skill? Dexterity? Sorcery?" he smiled – "I mean your professional ability. That's what I want – that bewildering dexterity of yours, to help your own country in the fight of its life. Will you enlist for service?"

"W-what fight?" she asked faintly.

"The fight with the Red Spectre."

"Anarchy?"

"Yes… Are you ready to leave this place? I want to talk to you."

"Where?"

"In my own rooms."

After a moment she rose.

"I'll go to your rooms with you," she said. She added very calmly that she was glad it was to be his rooms and not some other man's.

Out of countenance, he demanded what she meant, and she said quite candidly that she'd made up her mind to live at any cost, and that if she couldn't make an honest living she'd make a living anyway.

He offered no reply to this until they had reached the street and he had called a taxi.

On their way to his apartment he re-opened the subject rather bluntly, remarking that life was not worth living at the price she had mentioned.

"That is the accepted Christian theory," she replied coolly, "but circumstances alter things."

"Not such things."

"Oh, yes, they do. If one is already damned, what difference does anything else make?"

He asked, sarcastically, whether she considered herself already damned.

She did not reply for a few moments, then she said, in a quick, breathless way, that souls have been entrapped through ignorance of evil. And asked him if he did not believe it.

"No," he said, "I don't."

She shook her head. "You couldn't understand," she said. "But I've made up my mind to one thing; even if my soul has perished, my body shall not die for a long, long time. I mean to live," she added. "I shall not let my body be slain! They shall not steal life from me, whatever they have done to my soul – "

"What in heaven's name are you talking about?" he exclaimed. "Do you actually believe in soul-snatchers and life-stealers?"

She seemed sullen, her profile turned to him, her eyes on the brilliantly lighted avenue up which they were speeding. After a while: "I'd rather live decently and respectably if I can," she said. "That is the natural desire of any girl, I suppose. But if I can't, nevertheless I shall beat off death at any cost. And whatever the price of life is, I shall pay it. Because I am absolutely determined to go on living. And if I can't provide the means I'll have to let some man do it, I suppose."

"It's a good thing it was I who found you when you were out of a job," he remarked coldly.

"I hope so," she said. "Even in the beginning I didn't really believe you meant to be impertinent" – a tragic smile touched her lips – "and I was almost sorry – "

"Are you quite crazy?" he demanded.

"No, my mind is untouched. It's my soul that's gone… Do you know I was very hungry when you spoke to me? The management wouldn't advance anything, and my last money went for my room… Last Monday I had three dollars to face the future – and no job. I spent the last of it to-night on violets, orange juice and cakes. My furs and my gold bag remain. I can go two months more on them. Then it's a job or – ." She shrugged and buried her nose in her violets.

"Suppose I advance you a month's salary?" he said.

"What am I to do for it?"

The taxi stopped at a florist's on the corner of Madison Avenue and 58th Street. Overhead were apartments. There was no elevator – merely the street door to unlock and four dim flights of stairs rising steeply to the top.

He lived on the top floor. As they paused before his door in the dim corridor:

"Are you afraid?" he asked.

She came nearer, laid a hand on his arm:

"Are you afraid?"

He stood silent, the latch-key in his hand.

"I'm not afraid of myself – if that is what you mean," he said.

"That is partly what I mean … you'll have to mount guard over your soul."

"I'll look out for my soul," he retorted dryly.

"Do so. I lost mine. I – I would not wish any harm to yours through our companionship."

"Don't you worry about my soul," he remarked, fitting the key to the lock. But again her hand fell on his wrist:

"Wait. I can't – can't help warning you. Neither your soul nor your body are safe if – if you ever do make of me a companion. I've got to tell you this!"

"What are you talking about?" he demanded bluntly.

"Because you have been courteous – considerate – and you don't know – oh, you don't realise what spiritual peril is! – What your soul and body have to fear if you – if you win me over – if you ever manage to make of me a friend!"

He said: "People follow and threaten you. We know that. I understand also that association with you involves me, and that I shall no doubt be menaced with bodily harm."

He laid his hand on hers where it still rested on his sleeves:

"But that's my business, Miss Norne," he added with a smile. "So, otherwise, it being merely a plain business affair between you and me, I think I may also venture my immortal soul alone with you in my room."

The girl flushed darkly.

"You have misunderstood," she said.

He looked at her coolly, intently; and arrived at no conclusion. Young, very lovely, confessedly without moral principle, he still could not believe her actually depraved. "What did you mean?" he said bluntly.

"In companionship with the lost, one might lose one's way – unawares… Do you know that there is an Evil loose in the world which is bent upon conquest by obtaining control of men's minds?"

"No," he replied, amused.