HOW STARTLING IS TRUTH

Bedient entered _The Pleiad_, and with relief breathed the coolness of the vast shadowed halls. One does not ride for pleasure on a June afternoon in Equatoria, and Bedient was far from fit.... There were no guests about. A pale, slender, sad-eyed gentleman appeared in a sort of throne of marble and mahogany, and perceiving the arrival, his look became fixed and gla.s.sy.

"Just give me your name, please, if you wish," the pale one said, clearing as dry a throat as ever gave pa.s.sage to words. Indeed, Bedient could only think of some one stepping upon nut-sh.e.l.ls to compare with that voice. The sentence was spoken in answer to his glance about for a register or something of the sort.... No questions were asked regarding price, baggage, nor the nature of the quarters desired. A Chinese servant appeared, and took the case from Bedient's man, who was sent down to quarter in the city. The guest followed the Oriental. The stillness and vast proportions of the structure; the endless darkened halls robed in tapestries and animate with oils; the heavy fragrance from the gardens, crushed out of blossoms by the fierce heat; rugs of all the world's weaving, from the golden fleeces of Persia to fire-lit Navajos; a glimpse to the left, of a room walled with books, and sunk into an Egypt of silence; an acreage of covered billiard-tables through a vast door to the right--a composite of such impressions made the moment memorable. Bedient could only think of a king's winter palace--in summer.... He left the servant to return a moment to the desk.

"Have you a list of the men-guests?" he asked.

The pale one looked disturbed; or possibly it was disappointment that his colorless features expressed, as if such affairs were for the lesser servants of the establishment, and not in the province of gentlemanly dealings.

"No, we have no such list," he said. "Later in the day, when it is cooler, however, most of our guests are abroad, and you will doubtless have little difficulty in finding him whom you seek. You will become familiar in a few hours with our little peculiarities of management.

There is little to complain of in the way of service, I believe----"

Rejoining the Chinese, Bedient was led to an apartment, the elegance of detail and effect of which was imperial, no less. With relief he stepped out of his riding clothes, bathed in a deliciously tempered shower, and sat down to think. The chair folded about him like a cool soft arm. The whole atmosphere was to him embarra.s.singly sensuous. The city was below, shadowed in the swift-falling night; the harbor lay in purple silence, the sun had sunk in a blood-orange sky.

A smile came to his lips at the heavy seriousness of life all about him; vice clinging tenaciously to world-forms, and leaning upon the purchasable beauty of marble and figured walls, its hollowness sustained with the perfections of service. Then he looked across the dark harbor to the sweep of deep red which alone remained of the sunset, thinking of Beth and the dividing sea and the dividing world, and why it had happened so. He was ashamed because he could not think of the great work he had dreamed of doing for women, because Beth meant _Women_ to him now, and he was not for her.... Would the visions of service ever come back?

This brought his mind to the thing he had come to _The Pleiad_ to do, and the revolution all around it, in the very air. What a queer post--in the very fortress of insurrection. It was all boyish stuff.

Many adventures might accrue. Would they be enough to keep his mind from realities?... He feared not. For an hour he sat there, regarding the lights of the city and harbor, until his thoughts grew too heavy, and the manacled lover within him was spent and blood-drawn from straining against his chains--the captive that would not die.... He arose wearily to find that a letter had been thrust beneath his door, and so silently that he had not been aroused from his thoughts. The paper was of palest blue and heavy-laid. His name was written with a blunt pen in an angular, eccentric hand, and the contents proved unique:

MR. ANDREW BEDIENT,

SIR: Many of my guests have caught the spirit of _The Pleiad_ more readily and pleasurably, after making the acquaintance of one elsewhere designated, I believe, the proprietor. We do not use the word here, as we are friends together. The fact that my manager showed you apartments is enough to make me glad to welcome you. He makes few mistakes. Will you not dine with me at eight this evening in the Shield Room. If you have a previous engagement, pray do not permit me to disturb it, as I shall be ready at your good time.

With unwonted regard,

CELESTINO REY.

Bedient sat down again. The systems of the house moved him to amus.e.m.e.nt and marvelling. To think that the pale creature at the desk had weighed him from all angles of desirability; and like some more or less infallible Peter had allowed him to enter into the abiding peace of _The Pleiad_. It was rather a morsel, that he had not been turned away.

Then to be invited to dine the first evening with the establishment's presiding individuality, who did not approve of the term, "proprietor."

There was a tropic, an orient, delight about the affair.

"To think a stranger must lose or win caste in Equatoria, on the glance of that Tired-eyed," he mused. "I really must master this atmosphere."

Bedient thought of _Treasure Island Inn_, in the lower city, where a stranger would probably go, if denied entrance at _The Pleiad_.

"Infested" was the word Captain Carreras had once used to depict its denizens.... A few minutes before eight Bedient left the room and descended. From the staircase, he perceived that the guests had, indeed, gathered at this hour. The company was not large, but rather distinguished at first glance. So various were the nationalities represented that Bedient thought the picture not unlike a court-ball with attaches present. The hum of voices was quickened with half the tongues of Europe, and now and then an intonation of Asia. There were more men than women, but this only accentuated the attractions of the latter, of which there were two or three sense-stirring blooms.

For just an instant on the staircase, Bedient stood among the punkah-blown palms to scan the faces below. Framtree was not there, but Miss Mallory appeared in a discussion with an elderly gentleman, and her usual animation was apparent. Bedient was struck with the fact that he had been singularly remiss. In the thirty hours which had pa.s.sed since their parting, her likeness had not once entered his mind, and he had offered to see that she was comfortably ensconced. Her eyes turned to him now, but as quickly turned away. He had tried to bow.... And at this moment, Bedient perceived the languid eye of the man at the desk, cooling itself upon him. Crossing the tiles from the stairs toward this gentleman, moreover, he was covered with glances from the guests, eyes of swift, searching intensity. "How interested they are in a stranger,"

he thought. There was a sharpness of needles and acid in the air.

Low chimes from an indefinite source now struck the hour of eight. A Chinese stepped up to the desk beside Bedient.

"You are dining with Senor Rey?" the manager inquired lazily.

Bedient nodded, and turned to greet Miss Mallory. She caught his eye and intent, and promptly turned her back. For the first time, Bedient felt himself a little inadequate to cope with the psychological activities of this establishment. Reverting to the desk, the manager appeared dazed and absent-minded as usual.

"The boy," he said, indicating the Chinese, "will show you to the Shield Room."

Bedient trailed the soft-footed oriental through the bewildering hall, until he saw Senor Rey standing in a doorway--and behind him a low-lit arcanum of leather and metal.... The face of the Spaniard was startling, like the discovery of a crime. It was lean and livid as a cadaver. The pallor of the entire left cheek, including the corner of the lips, had the shine of an old burn, the pores run together in a sort of changeless glaze. In the haggard, bloodless face, eyes shone with black brilliance. The teeth were whole and prominent, as was the entire bony structure of the face and skull. Senor Rey had a tall, attenuated figure, with military shoulders. He moved with great difficulty, as if lacking control of his lower limbs, but in his hands was the contrast--long, white, swift and perfectly preserved. The scarred face and ruffled throat united to form in Bedient's mind the hideous suggestion that the Spaniard had once been tortured _full-length_--his flesh once thrawned in machinery of the devil....

Bedient's hand was grasped in a cold bony grip, and his eyes held for an instant in the bright unquiet gaze of the Spaniard.

"I welcome you, Mr. Bedient.... Do you plan to be with us some little time?" The Senor spoke in a low, monotonous way. His English was but little colored by native speech.

"I cannot tell yet," said Bedient. "I have long wanted to see your wonderful house, but this particular moment, I came to find a certain man----"

Bedient noted the yellow eyelids of the other droop a little. He understood perfectly that there were many men now at _The Pleiad_ who were badly wanted.

"Don't mistake me, Senor Rey," he added. "The man I wish to talk with can only prosper for my coming."

"Frequently it happens that the one searched for in Equatoria--is the last found," the Spaniard observed.

Linen, silver, crystal and candle-radiance were superbly blended upon the small round table between them. Rey, as a talker, was artful and inspiriting. His disordered body seemed an ancient cla.s.sic volume, done in scarred vellum--a book of perils, named Celestino Rey--and all things about, the spears, guns, skins, shields, even the grim shadows, were but references to the text. The dinner was perfect. A tray of wines and a sheaf of cheroots were placed upon the balcony, at length, with two chairs covered with puma skins. The Chinese a.s.sisted Rey thither, and when they were alone, he said:

"Do you feel at all like discussing the affair which really brings you to _The Pleiad_?... You neither eat nor drink nor smoke--perhaps you talk."

Bedient laughed. "Wouldn't it be the simplest way to believe me?" he asked. "I want to see Jim Framtree, and I heard he was here. The matter has nothing to do with Equatoria, the present unrest, nor with any relation of his or mine to the Island or to _The Pleiad_. You can make it possible for me to see him at once."

"Unfortunately, I cannot. My province in _The Pleiad_ is to cut down tension to a minimum. So many gentlemen present are of a highly nervous temperament. My best procedure many times is to act negatively....

Doubtless Dictator Jaffier was very glad of your return to the dreamiest of climates----"

"Yes," said Bedient.

"I noted this morning that he dispatched a convoy to your _hacienda_, bearing doubtless the official welcome----"

"Yes, I met the party."

Bedient perceived that the Spaniard missed little that was going on in the city and Island; also that he believed Jaffier's convoy had something to do with his own presence at _The Pleiad_; and finally that Celestino Rey was not trained to truth. In fact, Bedient had done more to disconcert the master of the establishment by stating the exact facts, than by any strategy he might have evolved.... Bedient arose at length and took the cold hand. He could not forbear a laugh.

"I am flexible enough to appreciate your position," he said. "As an acknowledged resource of the government, I suppose it is rather hard to see me--at this particular moment in the history of Equatoria--as carrying anything so simple as a friendly token."

"You are very absorbing to me, Mr. Bedient," the Senor said delicately.

"An old man may express his fondness.... I am glad _The Pleiad_ pleases you. I have built it out of the clods that the world has hurled at me, and have preserved enough vitality to laugh at it all. I find it best to keep down the tension----"

The younger man a.s.sisted the Spaniard to his feet.

"Ah, thank you," said the Senor, bowing. "I am dead below the knees."

Bedient strolled a bit in the gardens. Framtree, if anywhere in the establishment, did not show himself outside, nor in the buffet, library, billiard-hall, nor lobby. The extent and grandeur of the house was astonishing, as well as the extreme efficiency of the service. A Chinese was within hand-clap momentarily. There seemed scores of them, fleet, silent, immaculate, full of understanding. Their presence did not bore one, as a plethora of white servants might have done. Bedient reflected that the Chinese have not auras of the obtruding sort.... In his room finally, he drew a chair up to the window, and sat down without turning on light.

He had never felt wider awake than now, and midnight struck. He could not keep his thoughts upon the different facets of the present adventure, but back they carried him through the studio-days, one after another, steadily, relentlessly toward the end. It was like the beating of the ba.s.s in one of those remorseless Russian symphonies.... The ride--the halt upon the highway at high noon--the kiss in that glorious light--her wonderful feminine spirit ... and then the blank until they were at her mother's house. He never could drive his thoughts into that woodland path. From the first kiss to the tragedy and the open door, only glimpses returned, and they had nothing to do with his will ... He felt his heart in an empty rapid activity, and his scalp p.r.i.c.kled. The captive that would not die was full of insane energy that night....

Once Bedient went to the door, following an inexplicable impulse. At the far end of the hall, fully seventy yards away, stood Jim Framtree talking with a woman. A Chinese servant hurried forward to Bedient, as if risen from the floor.... Framtree and the woman separated. Bedient took a gold coin from his pocket, and thrust it hastily into the hand of the servant, saying: "Ask that gentleman to come here for a moment."

The Chinese did not return, nor did Framtree call that night.

But even this slight development could not hold his thoughts....

Bedient wondered if the captive would ever die; and if he should die, would he not rise again at the memory of that first kiss in the June sunlight?... And so he sat, until the day. Then he noted another letter had been slipped under his door. It was of course from Senor Rey:

May I trouble you, my really delightful friend (it read), not to bestow any favors larger than a _peso_ upon my servants? They are really very well paid, and do not expect it. Ten dollar gold-pieces for any slight service are disorganizing and increase the tension. I beg to be considered,