The Eye of Dread

“They are addressed to you, Robert Kater, and the news is published and you leave them here unopened.”

“He does not know–I told you so.”

“You have the packet in your hand. Open it. Take it from him and decorate him. He is in a dream. It is the great medal. We will wake him.”

They began to cheer and cheer again, each after the manner of the character he had assumed. The ass brayed, the owl hooted, the ghost groaned. The ape leaped on the back of the throne whereon the young man still sat, and seized him by the hair, chattering idiotically after the manner of apes, and began to wag his head back and forth. In the midst of the uproar Demosthenes stepped forward and took the envelopes from the palette, and, tearing them open, began reading them aloud by the light of a candle held for him by Lady Macbeth, who now and then interrupted with the remark that “her little hand was stained with blood,” stretching forth an enormous, hairy hand for their inspection. But as Demosthenes read on the uproar ceased, and all listened with courteous attention. The ape leaped down from the back of the throne, the owl ceased hooting, and all were silent until the second envelope had been opened and the contents made known–that his exhibit had been purchased by the Salon.

“Robert Kater, you are at the top. We congratulate you. To be recognized by the ‘Salon des Artistes Francaises’ is to be recognized and honored by all the world.”

They all came forward with kindly and sincere words, and the young man stood to receive them, but reeling and swaying, weary with emotion, and faint with hunger.

“Were you not going to the mask?”

“I was weary; I had not thought.”

“Then wake up and go. We come for you.”

“I have no costume.”

“Ah, that is nothing. Make one; it is easy.”

“He sits there like his own Saul, enveloped in gloom. Come, I will be your David,” cried one, and snatched a guitar and began strumming it wildly.

While the company scattered and searched the studio for materials with which to create for him a costume for the mask, the ghost came limping up to the young man who had seated himself again wearily on the throne, and spoke to him quietly.

“The tide’s turned, Kater; wake up to it. You’re clear of the breakers. The two pictures you were going to destroy are sold. I brought those Americans here while you were away and showed them. I told you they’d take something as soon as you were admitted. Here’s the money.”

Robert Kater raised himself, looking in the eyes of his friend, and took the bank notes as if he were not aware what they really might be.

“I say! You’ve enough to keep you for a year if you don’t throw it away. Count it. I doubled your price and they took them at the price I made. Look at these.”

Then Robert Kater looked at them with glittering eyes, and his shaking hand shut upon them, crushing the bank notes in a tight grip. “We’ll halve it, share and share alike,” he whispered, staring at the ghost without counting it. “As for this,” his finger touched the decoration on his breast–“it is given to a–You won’t take half? Then I’ll throw them away.”

“I’ll take them all until you’re sane enough to know what you’re doing. Give them to me.” He took them back and crept quietly, ghostlike, about the room until he found a receptacle in which he knew they would be safe; then, removing one hundred francs from the amount, he brought it back and thrust it in his friend’s pocket. “There–that’s enough for you to throw away on us to-night. Why are you taking off your decoration? Leave it where it is. It’s yours.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.” Robert Kater brushed his hand across his eyes and stepped down from the throne. Then lifting his head and shoulders as if he threw off a burden, he leaped from the dais, and with one long howl, began an Indian war dance. He was the center and life of the hilarious crowd from that moment. The selection of materials had been made. A curtain of royal purple hung behind the throne, and this they threw around him as a toga, then crowned him as Mark Antony. They found for him also a tunic of soft wool, and with a strip of gold braid they converted a pair of sheepskin bedroom slippers into sandals, bound on his feet over his short socks.

“I say! Mark Antony never wore things like these,” he shouted. “Give me a mask. I’ll not wear these things without a mask.” He snatched at the head of the owl, who ducked under his arm and escaped. “Go then. This is better. Mark, the illustrious, was an ass.” He made a dive for the head of his braying friend and barely missed him.

“Come. We waste time. Cleopatra awaits him at ‘la Fourchette d’or’; all our Cleopatras await us there.”

“Surely?”

“Surely. Madame la Charne is there and the sisters Lucie and Bertha,–all are there,–and with them one very beautiful blonde whom you have never seen.”

“She is for you–you cold Scotchman! That stone within you, which you call heart, to-night it will melt.”

“You have everything planned then?”

“Everything is made ready.”

“Look here! Wait, my friends! I haven’t expressed myself yet.” They were preparing to lift him above their heads. “I wish to say that you are all to share my good fortune and allow–”

“Wait for the champagne. You can say it then with more force.”

“I say! Hold on! I ask you to–”

“So we do. We hold on. Now, up–so.” He was borne in triumph down the stairs and out on the street and away to the sign of the Golden Fork, and seated at the head of the table in a small banquet room opening off from the balcony at one side where the feast which had been ordered and prepared was awaiting them.

A group of masked young women, gathered on the balcony, pelted them with flowers as they passed beneath it, and when the men were all seated, they trooped out, and each slid into her appointed place, still masked.

Then came a confusion of tongues, badinage, repartee, wit undiluted by discretion–and rippling laughter as one mask after another was torn off.

“Ah, how glad I am to be rid of it! I was suffocating,” said a soft voice at Robert Kater’s side.

He looked down quickly into a pair of clear, red-brown eyes–eyes into which he had never looked before.

“Then we are both content that it is off.” He smiled as he spoke. She glanced up at him, then down and away. When she lifted her eyes an instant later again to his face, he was no longer regarding her. She was piqued, and quickly began conversing with the man on her left, the one who had removed her mask.

“It is no use, your smile, mademoiselle. He is impervious, that man. He has no sense or he could not turn his eyes away.”

“I like best the impervious ones.” With a light ripple of laughter she turned again to her right. “Monsieur has forgotten?”

“Forgotten?” Robert was mystified until he realized in the instant that she was pretending to a former acquaintance. “Could I forget, mademoiselle? Permit me.” He lifted his glass. “To your eyes–and to your–memory,” he said, and drank it off.

After that he became the gayest of them all, and the merriment never flagged. He ate heartily, for he was very hungry, but he drank sparingly. His brain seemed supplied with intellectual missiles which he hurled right and left, but when they struck, it was only to send out a rain of sparks like the balls of holiday fireworks that explode in a fountain of brilliance and hurt no one.

“Monsieur is so gay!” said the soft voice of the blonde at his side.

“Are we not here for that, to enjoy ourselves?”

“Ah, if I could but believe that you remember me!”

“Is it possible mademoiselle thinks herself one to be so easily forgotten?”

“Monsieur, tell me the truth.” She glanced up archly. “I have one very good reason for asking.”

“You are very beautiful.”

“But that is so banal–that remark.”

“You complain that I tell you the truth when you ask it? You have so often heard it that the telling becomes banal? Shall I continue?”

“But it is of yourself that I would hear.”

“So? Then it is as I feared. It is you who have forgotten.”

They were interrupted at that moment, for he was called upon for a story, and he related one of his life as a soldier,–a little incident, but everything pleased. They called upon him for another and another. The hour grew late, and at last the banqueters rose and began to remask and assume their various characters.