Temporal Power: A Study in Supremacy Part 12

She sat down, throwing back her heavy cloak on either side of her. Her hair had come partly unbound, and noticing a tress of it falling on her shoulder, she drew out the comb and let it fall altogether in a ma.s.s of gold-brown, like the tint of a dull autumn leaf, flecked here and there with amber. Catching it dexterously in one hand, she twisted it up again in a loose knot, thrusting the comb carelessly through.

"Drink--smoke--talk, Sergius!" she repeated, still smiling; "Shall I ring?"

Sergius Thord stood looking at her irresolutely, with the half-angry, half-pleading expression of a chidden child.

"As you please, Lotys!" he answered. Whereupon she pressed an invisible spring under the table, which set a bell ringing in some lower quarter of the house.

"Pasquin Leroy, Axel Regor, Max Graub!" she said--"Take your places for to-night beside me--newcomers are always thus distinguished! And all of you sit down! You are grouped at present like hungry wolves waiting to spring. But you are not really hungry, except for something which is not food! And you are not waiting for anything except for permission to talk! I give it to you--talk, children! Talk yourselves hoa.r.s.e! It will do you good! And I will personate supreme wisdom by listening to you in silence!"

A kind of shamed laugh went round the company,--then followed the scuffling of feet, and grating of chairs against the floor, and presently the table was completely surrounded, the men sitting close up together, and Sergius Thord occupying his place at their head.

When they were all seated, they formed a striking a.s.sembly of distinctly marked personalities. There were very few mean types among them, and the stupid, half-vague and languid expression of the modern loafer or 'do nothing' creature, who just for lack of useful work plots mischief, was not to be seen on any of their countenances. A certain moroseness and melancholy seemed to brood like a delayed storm among them, and to cloud the very atmosphere they breathed, but apart from this, intellectuality was the dominant spirit suggested by their outward looks and bearing.

Plebeian faces and vulgar manners are, unfortunately, not rare in representative gatherings of men whose opinions are allowed to sway the destinies of nations, and it was strange to see a group of individuals who were sworn to upset existing law and government so distinguished by refined and even n.o.ble appearance. Their clothes were shabby,--their aspect certainly betokened long suffering and contention with want and poverty, but they were, taken all together, a set of men who, if they had been members of a recognized parliament or senate, would have presented a fine collection of capable heads to an observant painter.

As soon as they were gathered round the table under the presidency of Sergius Thord at one end, and the tranquil tolerance of the mysterious Lotys at the other, they broke through the silence and reserve which they had carefully maintained till their three new comrades had been irrecoverably enrolled among them, and conversation went on briskly.

The topic of 'The King _versus_ the Jesuits' was one of the first they touched upon, Sergius Thord relating for the benefit of all his a.s.sociates, how he had found Pasquin Leroy reading by lamplight the newspaper which reported his Majesty's refusal to grant any portion of Crown lands to the priests, and which also spoke of 'Thord's Rabble.'

"Here is the paper!" said Leroy, as he heard the narration; "Whoever likes to keep it can do so, as a memento of my introduction to this Society!"

And he tossed it lightly on the table.

"Good!" exclaimed Paul Zouche; "Give it to me, and I will cherish it as a kind of birthday card! What a rag it is! 'Thord's Rabble' eh! Sergius, what have you been doing that this little flea of an editor should jump out of his ink-pot and bite you? Does he hurt much?"

"Hurt!" Thord laughed aloud. "If I had money enough to pay the man ten golden coins a week where his present employer gives him five, he would dance to any tune I whistled!"

"Is that so?" asked Leroy, with interest.

"Do you not know that it is so?" rejoined Thord. "You tell me you write Socialistic works--you should know something concerning the press."

"Ah!" said Max Graub, nodding his head sagely, "He does know much, but not all! It would need more penetration than even _he_ possesses, to know all! Alas!--my friend was never a popular writer!"

"Like myself!" exclaimed Zouche, "I am not popular, and I never shall be. But I know how to make myself reputed as a great genius, and all the very respectable literary men are beginning to recognize me as such. Do you know why?"

"Because you drink more than is good for you, my poor Zouche!" said Lotys tranquilly; "That is one reason!"

"Hear her!" cried Zouche,--"Does she not always, like the Sphinx, propound enigmas! Lotys,--little, domineering Lotys, why in the name of Heaven should I secure recognition as a poet, through drunkenness?"

"Because your vice kills your genius," said Lotys; "Therefore you are quite safe! If you were less of a scamp you would be a great man,--perhaps the greatest in the country! That would never do! Your rivals would never forgive you! But you are a hopeless rascal, incapable of winning much honour; and so you are compa.s.sionately recognized as somebody who might do something if he only would--that is all, my Zouche! You are an excellent after-dinner topic with those who are more successful than yourself; and that is the only fame you will ever win, believe me!"

"Now by all the G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses!" cried Paul--"I do protest----"

"After supper, Zouche!" interrupted Lotys, as the door of the room opened, and a man entered, bearing a tray loaded with various eatables, jugs of beer, and bottles of spirituous liquors,--"Protest as much as you like then,--but not just now!"

And with quick, deft hands she helped to set the board. None of the men offered to a.s.sist her, and Leroy watching her, felt a sudden sense of annoyance that this woman should seem, even for a moment, to be in the position of a servant to them all.

"Can I do nothing for you?" he said, in a low tone--"Why should you wait upon us?"

"Why indeed!" she answered--"Except that you are all by nature awkward, and do not know how to wait properly upon yourselves!"

Her eyes had a gleam of mischievous mockery in them; and Leroy was conscious of an irritation which he could scarcely explain to himself.

Decidedly, he thought, this Lotys was an unpleasant woman. She was 'extremely plain,' so he mentally declared, in a kind of inward huff,--though he was bound to concede that now and then she had a very beautiful, almost inspired expression. After all, why should she not set out jugs and bottles, and loaves of bread, and hunks of ham and cheese before these men? She was probably in their pay! Scarcely had this idea flashed across his mind than he was ashamed of it. This Lotys, whoever she might actually be, was no paid hireling; there was something in her every look and action that set her high above any suspicion that she would accept the part of a salaried _comedienne_ in the Socialist farce.

Annoyed with himself, though he knew not why, he turned his gaze from her to the man who had brought in the supper,--a hunchback, who, notwithstanding his deformity, was powerfully built, and of a countenance which, marked as it was with the drawn pathetic look of long-continued physical suffering, was undeniably handsome. His large brown eyes, like those of a faithful dog, followed every movement of Lotys with anxious and wistful affection, and Leroy, noticing this, began to wonder whether she was his wife or daughter? Or was she related in either of these ways to Sergius Thord? His reflections were interrupted by a slight touch from Max Graub who was seated next to him.

"Will you drink with these fellows?" said Graub, in a cautious whisper--"Expect to be ill, if you do!"

"You shall prescribe for me!" answered Leroy in the same low tone--"I faithfully promise to call in your a.s.sistance! But drink with them I must, and will!"

Graub gave a short sigh and a shrug, and said no more. The hunchback was going the round of the table, filling tall gla.s.ses with light Bavarian beer.

"Where is the little Pequita?" asked Zouche, addressing him--"Have you sent her to bed already, Sholto?"

Sholto looked timorously round till he met the bright rea.s.suring glance of Lotys, and then he replied hesitatingly--

"Yes!--no--I have not sent the little one to bed;--she returned from her work at the theatre, tired out--quite tired out, poor child! She is asleep now."

"Ha ha! A few years more, and she will not sleep!" said Zouche--"Once in her teens--"

"Once in her teens, she leaves the theatre and comes to me," said Lotys, "And you will see very little of her, Zouche, and you will know less!

That will do, Sholto! Good-night!"

"Good-night!" returned the hunchback--"I thank you, Madame!--I thank you, gentlemen!"

And with a slight salutation, not devoid of grace, he left the room.

Zouche was sulky, and pus.h.i.+ng aside his gla.s.s of beer, poured out for himself some strong spirit from a bottle instead.

"You do not favour me to-night, Lotys," he said irritably--"You interrupt and cross me in everything I say!"

"Is it not a woman's business to interrupt and cross a man?" queried Lotys, with a laugh,--"As I have told you before, Zouche, I will not have Sholto worried!"

"Who worries him?" grumbled Zouche--"Not I!"

"Yes, you!--you worry him on his most sensitive point--his daughter,"

said Lotys;--"Why can you not leave the child alone? Sholto is an Englishman," she explained, turning to Pasquin Leroy and his companions--"His history is a strange one enough. He is the rightful heir to a large estate in England, but he was born deformed. His father hated him, and preferred the second son, who was straight and handsome.

So Sholto disappeared."

"Disappeared!" echoed Leroy--"You mean----"

"I mean that he left his father's house one morning, and never returned.

The clothes he wore were found floating in the river near by, and it was concluded that he had been drowned while bathing. The second son, therefore, inherited the property; and poor Sholto was scarcely missed; certainly not mourned. Meanwhile he went away, and got on board a Spanish trading boat bound for Cadiz. At Cadiz he found work, and also something that sweetened work--love! He married a pretty Spanish girl who adored him, and--as often happens when lovers rejoice too much in their love--she died after a year's happiness. Sholto is all alone in the world with the little child his Spanish wife left him, Pequita. She is only eleven years old, but her gift of dancing is marvellous, and she gets employment at one of the cheap theatres here. If an influential manager could see her performance, she might coin money."

"The influential manager would probably cheat her," said Zouche,--"Things are best left alone. Sholto is content!"

"Are you content?" asked Johan Zegota, helping himself from the bottle that stood near him.

"I? Why, no! I should not be here if I were!"

"Discontent, then, is your chief bond of union?" said Axel Regor, beginning to take part in the conversation.

"It is the very knot that ties us all together!" said Zouche with enthusiasm.--"Discontent is the mother of progress! Adam was discontented with the garden of Eden,--and found a whole world outside its gates!"