Grey Face/Chapter 23

ADAME SABINOV idly inspected the books in the library. It was the only sane room in Trepniak's house, or appeared so until one's researches went farther. On inspection, its appointments, without being laboured productions in the grotesque, all proved to be distressingly original; but the open bookcases afforded a restful note and the beautiful bindings of the many volumes led one to expect them to contain classics of permanent interest to the human race. She had never troubled even to open one of the volumes before, but now, idly, she took down several, and immediately recognized that the seeming sanity of the room was illusory. Trepniak's obsession was observable here as elsewhere, with a curious difference; or, rather, the way in which it operated was not so obvious as usual.

The handsome books on examination proved to be bound in unfamiliar materials. Some were beautiful, some were bizarre. There were books bound in painted ivory, in crocodile skin, in rare woods, in zebra hide, in Chinese tapestry, in materials incredible when so employed; and the works contained in these invariably costly wrappings afforded the high note of astonishment. Here was the cheapest kind of novel, here were romances of the sort which issue still-born from the press, or which live their little hour of life and are forgotten: works by unknown and unknowing authors; essays produced at the writers' expense; poems privately printed. All were modern and all must automatically have found their way to the wastepaper basket of any self-respecting editor or publisher.

She was in the act of replacing a vacuous novel, bearing the imprint of one of those firms whose sole source of income is the enthusiasm of incompetent amateurs, when Trepniak came in.

Madame turned, and they faced one another across the length of the room.

"Your visit is delightful but unexpected," he said.

Madame Sabinov dropped back into the chair from which she had arisen to pursue her enquiries. She wore a long cape, not unlike a cavalry cloak, carried out in black and gold but having an upstanding collar resembling an Elizabethan ruff. Her black hat, which, as was her habit, completely concealed her hair, boasted a golden feather and resembled one of those hats which appear in some of the pictures of Charles IX of France. Gauntlet gloves lay upon the floor beside her.

She turned her slumbrous eyes once more in the direction of the speaker, as Trepniak pulled a chair forward and sat down near her.

"You did not expect me!" she suggested.

"Frankly, no," he replied. "But you are welcome, nevertheless."

"In short," Madame continued languidly, "although you did not expect me, you are not surprised to find me here. Oh! I beg of you—don't apologize. But I am not used to neglect."

"Neglect?" Trepniak exclaimed. "You think I have neglected your"

Madame Sabinov made an idle gesture with her hand, as if to dismiss this topic, and:

"What does it matter?" she continued. "Friendship such as ours always ends the same; one or the other tires. You have tired—and, perhaps a little bit, so have I. No, please let me go on."

Trepniak had stood up, physical energy evidenced in every movement of his strong body. He was almost a forbidding figure as he locked down at her.

Lowering her eyes, she turned her head aside slowly, and gazed across the room as if unconscious of his imperious regard. Her disdain wounded him. He clenched his hands, which were so curiously slender, and his teeth glittered as his lips were drawn slightly back from them. The pale face, set upon the powerful column of his neck and surmounted by tight auburn curls, might have been that of Nero suffering a sartorial criticism from Petronius.

"In Paris," Madame Sabinov resumed, "we were mutually attracted. Vulgarity I despise, but you had raised vulgarity to an art, and I worship Art. You imagined perhaps, that it was your wealth which won me. It was not. Any courtesan who has not totally lost her attractions can find a wealthy friend, if grossness, ill-breeding, do not offend her."

Trepniak interrupted.

"This is ancient history," he said angrily; "it is a point upon which we shall never see eye to eye. Why labour it? Do you reproach me? In what have I failed? I have provided for you so well that you are assured, not merely of comfort, but of luxury, whilst you live. Do you reproach me?"

He drew his chair forward, endeavouring to detain the glance of Madame Sabinov.

"Believe that I have always been sincere," he continued, "although I have never spoken to you of marriage, Poppæa."

Now, that which he sought was accomplished.

The eyes of Madame Sabinov were turned in his direction, and the curious, slumbrous gaze met his own.

"You know so little of me," he went on, "and I so little of you. You have always regarded me as a poseur who sought to dazzle with his greater wealth, his higher accomplishments. Very well: I shall abase myself. If marriage had been the price of your friendship, I would have bought you at that price, gladly. I hesitated to offer it, only because I thought that in your eyes it counted for nothing."

There was silence for a while. Madame Sabinov's gaze became slightly diverted.

Across the speaker's shoulder she was regarding a velvet curtain draped between two bookcases and, possibly, concealing a door. This curtain had moved very slightly, not as if stirred by a draught of air, but rather as though someone who had been standing very close to it upon the other side had moved away, noiselessly and secretly.

Now the movement ceased, leaving her doubtful whether to ascribe it to an unduly active imagination, stimulated by a vague fear which she always experienced in this house, or to the presence of someone who had been listening to her conversation with Trepniak. Then:

"You insult me!" she said sharply, again meeting the gaze of those greenish-brown eyes which could inspire terror; "I know you for a man of intellect, and so I know that you jest. Marriage! How dare you offer me marriage! You did well to hesitate, Anton. You may speak of it now without fear, but had you spoken of it then"—she shrugged her shoulders and smiled contemptuously—"we should never have become friends. I am Madame Sabinov, a widow, and as Madame Sabinov, the lonely, I do as I choose. It is my right. To whom do my actions give sorrow? To no one. I offend against no creed in which I believe. I keep my pride in the company of any woman, because I keep my convictions. But before I could give them up, before I could sign them away, be no longer Poppæa Sabinov, I should have to love, not only with my mind and my body, but also with my soul."

Trepniak's expression, his pose, were danger signals, but, composing himself:

"What has inspired this particular outburst." he enquired, speaking very softly: "the discovery of your—soul?"

"Perhaps," she replied. "Who knows? But if the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain. Your fancies amused me because they differed from those of any man I had ever known. The house which you generously allowed me to use (your generosity I shall always remember) is wonderful. So are the servants whom you installed there. But the schemes of decoration, based upon descriptions in Arab legends; upon memoirs of Versailles; upon dreams of what Atlantis might have been like; upon a thousand and one fancies—weary me. I am tired of receiving you, dressed as Cleopatra, in an Egyptian temple; as a Greek slave in a room of marble; as Madame de Pompadour in a cabinet having neither doors nor windows but served by a supper table which sinks through the floor; as Boadicea, in an ancient British bower; as Thais; as Semiramis in a sea of roses costing as much as would keep a poor man for a year. It amused me for a while; your sensuous imagination was inspiring. But now it wearies me."

She opened a bag looped over the arm of her chair, taking out a number of legal-looking documents.

"These are the leases and deeds," she said, "and the other dreadful formalities of the law which entitle me to live in the house to the end of my days, or indeed, to live luxuriously anywhere. Please allow me to return them. No, it is not a mood; it is not pique; it is something which I have thought out. I really mean it."

Trepniak spoke hoarsely.

"Some rumour has reached you?"

Madame Sabinov shook her head.

"Please understand," she said, almost wearily, "that this decision has nothing whatever to do with any action of yours. It is due"

"Yes," Trepniak interrupted: "to whom is it due?"

"It is due," Madame Sabinov replied, "to the living influence of someone who is dead."

Her words, which must have seemed mere poetic imagery to many, produced an extraordinary effect upon the man to whom they were addressed.

Trepniak's eyes opened widely, and then closed as though a spasm of pain had pierced his body; his fingers twitched; he stepped back from Madame Sabinov as from a menace. He groaned and, raising his hands to his face in a gesture of despair, turned and walked to the end of the library. There, facing her, he lowered his hands, and:

"Do you mean," he asked, "can you mean, that you have no wish to see me again?"

"I mean nothing of the kind," Madame Sabinov declared, standing up and collecting gloves and handbag and placing the documents upon a little table. "I have gone to the Ritz. I shall be pleased to see you at any time." She walked toward the door. "This interview has been very difficult," she said. "I think it would be wise if we ended it. Come and see me to-morrow. Perhaps I shall be able to make you understand." She went out, closing the door behind her; but Trepniak did not stir. He was as a man so battered by warring emotions as to be incapable of decision. Then, as he stood there, fists clenched, his expression, his pose, tortured—something—a faint sound, an instinct—restored in a moment the masterful man who had astonished latter-day London. He fixed an imperious gaze upon the velvet curtain draped between the two bookcases, and:

"Krauss!" he called.

His powerful voice, fully raised, boomed around the room. None replied, and Trepniak walked in the direction of the curtain, and again:

"Krauss!" he cried; but there was silence.

Trepniak, grasping the curtain, drew it aside, revealing a door which it had concealed. He grasped the handle and turned it. The door was locked.