The Tempting of Tavernake Part 5

Tavernake paid him and he went away. Already the shadow of the tragedy was pa.s.sing. The chemist had joined his a.s.sistant and was busy dispensing drugs behind his counter.

"You can go in to the young lady, if you like," he remarked to Tavernake. "I dare say she'll feel better to have some one with her."

Tavernake pa.s.sed slowly into the inner room, closing the door behind him. He was scarcely prepared for so piteous a sight. The girl's face was white and drawn as she lay upon the couch to which they had lifted her. The fighting spirit was dead; she was in a state of absolute and complete collapse. She opened her eyes at his coning, but closed them again almost immediately--less, it seemed, from any consciousness of his presence than from sheer exhaustion.

"I am glad that you are better," he whispered crossing the room to her side.

"Thank you," she murmured almost inaudibly.

Tavernake stood looking down upon her, and his sense of perplexity increased. Stretched on the hard horsehair couch she seemed, indeed, pitifully thin and younger than her years. The scowl, which had pa.s.sed from her face, had served in some measure as a disguise.

"We shall have to leave here in a few minutes," he said, softly. "They will want to close the shop."

"I am so sorry," she faltered, "to have given you all this trouble. You must send me to a hospital or the workhouse--anywhere."

"You are sure that there are no friends to whom I can send?" he asked.

"There is no one!"

She closed her eyes and Tavernake sat quite still on the end of her couch, his elbow upon his knee, his head resting upon his hand.

Presently, the rush of customers having ceased, the chemist came in.

"I think, if I were you, I should take her home now," he remarked.

"She'll probably drop off to sleep very soon and wake up much stronger.

I have made up a prescription here in case of exhaustion."

Tavernake stared at the man. Take her home! His sense of humor was faint enough but he found himself trying to imagine the faces of Mrs. Lawrence or Mrs. Fitzgerald if he should return with her to the boardinghouse at such an hour.

"I suppose you know where she lives?" the chemist inquired curiously.

"Of course," Tavernake a.s.sented. "You are quite right. I dare say she is strong enough now to walk as far as the pavement."

He paid the bill for the medicines, and they lifted her from the couch.

Between them she walked slowly into the outer shop. Then she began to drag on their arms and she looked up at the chemist a little piteously.

"May I sit down for a moment?" she begged. "I feel faint."

They placed her in one of the cane chairs facing the door. The chemist mixed her some sal volatile.

"I am sorry," she murmured, "so sorry. In a few minutes--I shall be better."

Outside, the throng of pedestrians had grown less, but from the great restaurant opposite a constant stream of motor-cars and carriages was slowly bringing away the supper guests. Tavernake stood at the door, watching them idly. The traffic was momentarily blocked and almost opposite to him a motor-car, the simple magnificence of which filled him with wonder, had come to a standstill. The chauffeur and footman both wore livery which was almost white. Inside a swinging vase of flowers was suspended from the roof. A man and a woman leaned back in luxurious easy-chairs. The man was dark and had the look of a foreigner. The woman was very fair. She wore a long ermine cloak and a tiara of pearls.

Tavernake, whose interest in the pa.s.sing throngs was entirely superficial, found himself for some reason curiously attracted by this glimpse into a world of luxury of which he knew nothing; attracted, too, by the woman's delicate face with its uncommon type of beauty. Their eyes met as he stood there, stolid and motionless, framed in the doorway. Tavernake continued to stare, unmindful, perhaps unconscious, of the rudeness of his action. The woman, after a moment, glanced away at the shopwindow. A sudden thought seemed to strike her. She spoke through the tube at her side and turned to her companion. Meanwhile, the footman, leaning from his place, held out his arm in warning and the car was slowly backed to the side of the pavement. The lady felt for a moment in a bag of white satin which lay upon the round table in front of her, and handed a slip of paper through the open window to the servant who had already descended and was standing waiting. He came at once towards the shop, pa.s.sing Tavernake, who remained in the door-way.

"Will you make this up at once, please?" he directed, handing the paper across to the chemist.

The chemist took it in his hand and turned away mechanically toward the dispensing room. Suddenly he paused, and, looking back, shook his head.

"For whom is this prescription required?" he asked.

"For my mistress," the man answered. "Her name is there."

"Where is she?"

"Outside; she is waiting for it."

"If she really wants this made up to-night," the chemist declared, "she must come in and sign the book."

The footman looked across the counter, for a moment, a little blankly.

"Am I to tell her that?" he inquired. "It's only a sleeping draught. Her regular chemist makes it up all right."

"That may be," the man behind the counter replied, "but, you see, I am not her regular chemist. You had better go and tell her so."

The footman departed upon his errand without a glance at the girl who was sitting within a few feet of him.

"I am very sorry, madam," he announced to his mistress, "that the chemist declines to make up the prescription unless you sign the book."

"Very well, then, I will come," she declared.

The woman, handed from the automobile by her servant, lifted her white satin skirts in both hands and stepped lightly across the pavement.

Tavernake stood on one side to let her pa.s.s. She seemed to him to be, indeed, a creature of that other world of which he knew nothing. Her slow, graceful movements, the s.h.i.+mmer of her skirt, her silk stockings, the flas.h.i.+ng of the diamond buckles upon her shoes, the faint perfume from her clothes, the soft touch of her ermine as she swept by--all these things were indeed strange to him. His eyes followed her with rapt interest as she approached the counter.

"You wish me to sign for my prescription?" she asked the chemist. "I will do so, with pleasure, if it is necessary, only you must not keep me waiting long."

Her voice was very low and very musical; the slight smile which had parted her tired lips, was almost pathetic. Even the chemist felt himself to be a human being. He turned at once to his shelves and began to prepare the drug.

"I am sorry, madam, that it should have been necessary to fetch you in,"

he said, apologetically. "My a.s.sistant will give you the book if you will kindly sign it."

The a.s.sistant dived beneath the counter, reappearing almost immediately with a black volume and a pen and ink. The chemist was engrossed upon his task; Tavernake's eyes were still riveted upon this woman, who seemed to him the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in life. No one was watching the girl. The chemist was the first to see her face, and that only in a looking gla.s.s. He stopped in the act of mixing his drug and turned slowly round. His expression was such that they all followed his eyes. The girl was sitting up in her chair, with a sudden spot of color burning in her cheeks, her fingers gripping the counter as though for support, her eyes dilated, unnatural, burning in their white setting with an unholy fire. The lady was the last to turn her head, and the bottle of eau-de-cologne which she had taken up from the counter, slipped with a crash to the floor. All expression seemed to pa.s.s from her face; the very life seemed drawn from it. Those who were watching her saw suddenly an old woman looking at something of which she was afraid.

The girl seemed to find an unnatural strength. She dragged herself up and turned wildly to Tavernake.

"Take me away," she cried, in a low voice. "Take me away at once."

The woman at the counter did not speak. Tavernake stepped quickly forward and then hesitated. The girl was on her feet now and she clutched at his arms. Her eyes besought him.

"You must take me away, please," she begged, hoa.r.s.ely. "I am well now--quite well. I can walk."

Tavernake's lack of imagination stood him in good stead then. He simply did what he was told, did it in perfectly mechanical fas.h.i.+on, without asking any questions. With the girl leaning heavily upon his arm, he stepped into the street and almost immediately into a pa.s.sing taxicab which he had hailed from the threshold of the shop. As he closed the door, he glanced behind him. The woman was standing there, half turned towards him, still with that strange, stony look upon her lifeless face. The chemist was bending across the counter towards her, wondering, perhaps, if another incident were to be drawn into his night's work. The eau-de-cologne was running in a little stream across the floor.

"Where to, sir?" the taxicab driver asked Tavernake.

"Where to?" Tavernake repeated.

The girl was clinging to his arm.