The Cost Part 34

When he was alone he poured out brandy and gulped it down a drink that might have eaten the lining straight out of a stomach less powerful than his. He went from door to door, locking them all. Then he seated himself in a lounging-chair before the long mirror. He stared toward the image of himself but was so dim-eyed that he could see nothing but spinning black disks. "Life's not such a good game even when a man's winning," he said aloud. "A rotten bad game when he's losing."

His head wabbled to fall forward but he roused himself. "Wife gone--"

The tears flooded his eyes--tears of pity for himself, an injured and abandoned husband. "Wife gone," he repeated. "Friends gone--" He laughed sardonically. "No, never had friends, thank G.o.d, or I shouldn't have lasted this long. No such thing as friends--a man gets what he can pay for. Grip gone--luck gone! What's the use?"

He dozed off, presently to start into acute, shuddering consciousness.

At the far end of the room, stirring, slowly oozing from under the divan was a--a Thing! He could not define its shape, but he knew that it was vast, that it was scaly, with many short fat legs tipped with claws; that its color was green, that its purpose was hideous, gleaming in craft from large, square, green-yellow eyes. He wiped the sticky sweat from his brow. "It's only the brandy," he said loudly, and the Thing faded, vanished. He drew a deep breath of relief.

He went to a case of drawers and stood before it, supporting himself by the handles of the second drawer. "Yes," he reflected, "the revolver's in that drawer." He released the handles and staggered back to his chair. "I'm crazy," he muttered, "crazy as a loon. I ought to ring for the doctor."

In a moment he was up again, but instead of going toward the bell he went to the drawers and opened the second one. In a compartment lay a pearl-handled, self-c.o.c.king revolver. He put his hand on it, s.h.i.+vered, drew his hand away--the steel and the pearl were cold. He closed the drawer with a quick push, opened it again slowly, took up the revolver, staggered over to his desk and laid it there. His face was chalk-white in spots and his eyes were stiff in their sockets. He rested his aching, burning, reeling head on his hands and stared at the revolver.

"But," he said aloud, as if contemptuously dismissing a suggestion, "why should I shoot myself? I can smash 'em all--to powder--grind 'em into the dirt."

He took up the revolver. "What'd be the use of smas.h.i.+ng 'em?" he said wearily. He felt tired and sick, horribly sick.

He laid it down. "I'd better be careful," he thought. "I'm not in my right mind. I might--"

He took it in his hand and went to the mirror and put the muzzle against his temple. He laughed crazily. "A little pressure on that trigger and--bang! I'd be in kingdom come and shouldn't give a d.a.m.n for anybody." He caught sight of his eyes in the mirror and hastily dropped his arm to his side. "No, I'd never shoot myself in the temple. The heart'd be better. Just here"--and he pressed the muzzle into the soft material of his coat--"if I touched the trigger--"

And his finger did touch the trigger. Pains shot through his chest like cracks radiating in gla.s.s when a stone strikes it. He looked at his face--white, with wild eyes, with lips blue and ajar, the sweat streaming from his forehead.

"What have I done?" he shrieked, mad with the dread of death. "I must call for help." He turned toward the door, plunged forward, fell unconscious, the revolver flung half-way across the room.

When he came to his senses he was in his bed--comfortable, weak, lazy.

With a slight effort he caught the thread of events. He turned his eyes and saw a nurse, seated at the head of his bed, reading. "Am I going to die?" he asked--his voice was thin and came in faint gusts.

"Certainly not," replied the nurse, putting down her book and standing over him, her face showing genuine rea.s.surance and cheerfulness.

"You'll be well very soon. But you must lie quiet and not talk."

"Was it a bad wound?"

"The fever was the worst. The bullet glanced round just under the surface."

"It was an accident," he said, after a moment's thought. "I suppose everybody is saying I tried to kill myself."

"'Everybody' doesn't know anything about it. Almost n.o.body knows.

Even the servants don't know. Your secretary sent them away, broke in and found you."

He closed his eyes and slept.

When he awoke again he felt that a long time had pa.s.sed, that he was much better, that he was hungry. "Nurse!" he called.

The woman at the head of the bed rose and laid a cool hand upon his forehead. "How good that feels," he mumbled gratefully. "What nice hands you have, nurse," and he lifted his glance to her face. He stared wonderingly, confusedly. "I thought I was awake and almost well," he murmured. "And instead, I'm out of my head."

"Can I do anything for you?" It certainly was HER voice.

"Is it you, Pauline?" he asked, as if he feared a negative answer.

"Yes--John."

A long silence, then he said: "Why did you come?"

"The doctor wrote me that--wrote me the truth."

"But haven't you heard? Haven't you seen the papers? Don't they say I'm ruined?"

"Yes, John."

He lay silent for several minutes. Then he asked hesitatingly: "And--when--do you--go back--West?"

"I have come to stay," she replied. Neither in her voice nor in her face was there a hint of what those five words meant to her.

He closed his eyes again. Presently a tear slid from under each lid and stood in the deep, wasted hollows of his eye-sockets.

XXVI.

A DESPERATE RALLY.

When he awoke again he felt that he should get well rapidly. He was weak, but it seemed the weakness of hunger rather than of illness. His head was clear, his nerves tranquil; his mind was as hungry for action as his body was for food.

"As soon as I've had something to eat," he said to himself, "I'll be better than for years. I needed this." And straightway he began to take hold of the outside world.

"Are you there, Pauline?" he asked, after perhaps half an hour during which his mind had swiftly swept the whole surface of his affairs.

The nurse rose from the lounge across the foot of the bed. "Your wife was worn out, Mr. Dumont," she began. "She has--"

"What day is it?" he interrupted.

"Thursday."

"Of the month, I mean."

"The seventeenth," she answered, smiling in antic.i.p.ation of his astonishment.

But he said without change of expression,

"Then I've been ill three weeks and three days. Tell Mr. Culver I wish to see him at once."

"But the doctor--"

"d.a.m.n the doctor," replied Dumont, good-naturedly. "Don't irritate me by opposing. I shan't talk with Culver a minute by the clock. What I say will put my mind at rest. Then I'll eat something and sleep for a day at least."

The nurse hesitated, but his eyes fairly forced her out of the room to fetch Culver. "Now remember, Mr. Dumont--less than a minute," she said. "I'll come back in just sixty seconds."

"Come in forty," he replied. When she had closed the door he said to Culver: "What are the quotations on Woolens?"