The Eye of Dread

“What are you, monsieur, with that very strange dress that you wear, a Roman or a Greek?” asked his companion.

“I really don’t know–a sort of nondescript. I did not choose my costume; it was made up for me by my friends. They called me Mark Antony, but that was because they did not know what else to call me. But they promised me Cleopatra if I would come with them.”

“They would have done better to call you Petrarch, for I am Laura.”

“But I never could have taken that part. I could make a very decent sort of ass of myself, but not a poet.”

“What a very terrible voice your Lady Macbeth has!”

“Yes; but she was a terror, you know. Shall we follow the rest?”

They all trooped out of the café, and fiacres were called to take them to the house where the mask was held. The women were placed in their respective carriages, but the men walked. At the door of the house, as they entered the ballroom, they reunited, but again were soon scattered. Robert Kater wandered about, searching here and there for his very elusive Laura, so slim and elegant in her white and gold draperies, who seemed to be greatly in demand. He saw many whom he recognized; some by their carriage, some by their voices, but Laura baffled him. Had he ever seen her before? He could not remember. He would not have forgotten her–never. No, she was amusing herself with him.

“Monsieur does not dance?” It was a Spanish gypsy with her lace mantilla and the inevitable red rose in her hair. He knew the voice. It was that of a little model he sometimes employed.

“I dance, yes. But I will only take you out on the floor, my little Julie,–ha–ha–I know you, never fear–I will take you out on the floor, but on one condition.”

“It is granted before I know it.”

“Then tell me, who is she just passing?”

“The one whose clothing is so–so–as if she would pose for the–”

“Hush, Julie. The one in white and gold.”

“I asked if it were she. Yes, I know her very well, for I saw a gentleman unmask her on the balcony above there, to kiss her. It is she who dances so wonderfully at the Opéra Comique. You have seen her, Mademoiselle Fée. Ah, come. Let us dance. It is the most perfect waltz.”

At the close of the waltz the owl came and took the little gypsy away from Robert, and a moment later he heard the mellifluous voice of his companion of the banquet.

“I am so weary, monsieur. Take me away where we may refresh ourselves.”

The red-brown eyes looked pleadingly into his, and the slender fingers rested on his arm, and together they wandered to a corner of palms where he seated her and brought her cool wine jelly and other confections. She thanked him sweetly, and, drooping, she rested her head upon her hand and her arm on the arm of her chair.

“So dull they are, these fêtes, and the people–bah! They are dull to the point of despair.”

She was a dream of gold and white as she sat there–the red-gold hair and the red-brown eyes, and the soft gold and white draperies, too clinging, as the little gypsy had indicated, but beautiful as a gold and white lily. He sat beside her and gazed on her dreamily, but in a manner too detached. She was not pleased, and she sighed.

“Take the refreshment, mademoiselle; you will feel better. I will bring you wine. What will you have?”

“Oh, you men, who always think that to eat and drink something alone can refresh! Have you never a sadness?”

“Very often, mademoiselle.”

“Then what do you do?”

“I eat and drink, mademoiselle. Try it.”

“Oh, you strange man from the cold north! You make me shiver. Touch my hand. See? You have made me cold.”

“Cold? You are a flame from the crown of gold on your head to your shoes of gold.”

“Now that you are become a success, monsieur, what will you do? To you is given the heart’s desire.” She toyed with the quivering jelly, merely tasting it. It too was golden in hue, and golden lights danced in the heart of it.

“A great success? I am dreaming. It is so new to me that I do not believe it.”

“You are very clever, monsieur. You never tell your thoughts. I asked if you remembered me and you answered in a riddle. I knew you did not, for you never saw me before.”

“Did I never see you dance?”

“Ah, there you are again! To see me dance–in a great audience–one of many? That does not count. You but pretended.”

He leaned forward, looking steadily in her eyes. “Did I but pretend when I said I never could forget you? Ah, mademoiselle, you are too modest.”

She was maddened that she could not pique him to a more ardent manner, but gave no sign by so much as the quiver of an eyelid. She only turned her profile toward him indifferently. He noticed the piquant line of her lips and chin and throat, and the golden tones of her delicate skin.

“Did I not also tell you the truth when you asked me? And you rewarded me by calling me banal.”

“And I was right. You, who are so clever, could think of something better to say.” She gave him a quick glance, and placed a quivering morsel of jelly between her lips. “But you are so very strange to me. Tell me, were you never in love?”

“That is a question I may not answer.” He still smiled, but it was merely the continuation of the smile he had worn before she shot that last arrow. He still looked in her eyes, but she knew he was not seeing her. Then he rallied and laughed. “Come, question for question. Were you never in love–or out of love–let us say?”

“Oh! Me!” She lifted her shoulders delicately. “Me! I am in love now–at this moment. You do not treat me well. You have not danced with me once.”

“No. You have been dancing always, and fully occupied. How could I?”

“Ah, you have not learned. To dance with me–you must take me, not stand one side and wait.”

“Are you engaged for the next?”

“But, yes. It is no matter. I will dance it with you. He will be consoled.” She laughed, showing her beautiful, even teeth. “I make you a confession. I said to him, ‘I will dance it with you unless the cold monsieur asks me–then I will dance with him, for it will do him good.’”

Robert Kater rose and stood a moment looking through the palms. The silken folds of his toga fell gracefully around him, and he held his head high. Then he withdrew his eyes from the distance and turned them again on her,–the gold and white being at his feet,–and she seemed to him no longer human, but a phantom from which he must flee, if but he might do so courteously, for he knew her to be no phantom, and he could not be other than courteous.

“Will you accept from me my laurel crown?” He took the chaplet from his head and laid it at her feet. Then, lifting her hand to his lips, he kissed the tips of her pink fingers, bowing low before her. “I go to send you wine. Console your partner. It is better so, for I too am in love.” He smiled upon her as he had smiled at first, and was gone, walking out through the crowd–the weird, fantastic, bizarre company, as if he were no part of them. One and another greeted him as he passed, but he did not seem to hear them. He called a waiter and ordered wine to be taken to Mademoiselle Fée, and quickly was gone. They saw him no more.

It was nearly morning. A drizzling rain was falling, and the air was chill after the heat of the crowded ballroom. He drew it into his lungs in deep draughts, glad to be out in the freshness, and to feel the cool rain on his forehead. He threw off his encumbering toga and walked in his tunic, with bare throat and bare knees, and carried the toga over one bare arm, and swung the other bare arm free. He walked with head held high, for he was seeing visions, and hearing a far-distant call. Now at last he might choose his path. He had not failed, but with that call from afar–what should he do? Should he answer it? Was it only a call from out his own heart–a passing, futile call, luring him back?

Of one thing he was sure. There was the painting on which he had labored and staked his all now hanging in the Salon. He could see it, one of his visions realized,–David and Saul. The deep, rich shadows, the throne, the tiger skin, the sandaled feet of the remorseful king resting on the great fanged and leering head, the eyes of the king looking hungrily out from under his forbidding brows, the cruel lips pressed tightly together, and the lithe, thin hands grasping the carved arms of the throne in fierce restraint,–all this in the deep shadows between the majestic carved columns, their bases concealed by the rich carpet covering the dais and their tops lost in the brooding darkness above–the lowering darkness of purple gloom that only served to reveal the sinister outlines of the somber, sorrowful, suffering king, while he indulged the one pure passion left him–listening–gazing from the shadows out into the light, seeing nothing, only listening.

And before him, standing in the one ray of light, clothed only in his tunic of white and his sandals, a human jewel of radiant color and slender strength, a godlike conception of youth and grace, his harp before him, the lilies crushed under his feet that he had torn from the strings which his fingers touched caressingly, with sunlight in his crown of golden, curling hair and the light of the stars in his eyes–David, the strong, the simple, the trusting, the God-fearing youth, as Robert Kater saw him, looking back through the ages.

Ah, now he could live. Now he could create–work: he had been recognized, and rewarded–Dust and ashes! Dust and ashes! The hope of his life realized, the goblet raised to his lips, and the draft–bitter. The call falling upon his heart–imperative–beseeching–what did it mean?

Slowly and heavily he mounted the stairs to his studio, and there fumbled about in the darkness and the confusion left by his admiring comrades until he found candles and made a light. He was cold, and his light clothing clung to him wet and chilling as grave clothes. He tore them off and got himself into things that were warm and dry, and wrapping himself in an old dressing gown of flannel, sat down to think.

He took the money his friend had brought him and counted it over. Good old Ben Howard! Half of it must go to him, of course. And here were finished canvases quite as good as the ones that had sold. Ben might turn them to as good an account as the others,–yes,–here was enough to carry him through a year and leave him leisure to paint unhampered by the necessity of making pot boilers for a bare living.

“Tell me, were you never in love?” That soft, insinuating voice haunted him against his will. In love? What did she know of love–the divine passion? Love! Fame! Neither were possible to him. He bowed his head upon the table, hiding his face, crushing the bank notes beneath his arms. Deep in his soul the eye of his own conscience regarded him,–an outcast hiding under an assumed name, covering the scar above his temple with a falling lock of hair seldom lifted, and deep in his soul a memory of a love. Oh, God! Dust and ashes! Dust and ashes!