The Prophet watched him steadily. The studio became intensely still.

VIII

DULCIE ANSWERS

The studio door bell rang while Barres was at breakfast one morning late in June. Aristocrates leisurely answered the door, but shut it again immediately and walked out into the kitchenette without any explanation.

Selinda removed the breakfast cover and fetched the newspaper. Later, Aristocrates, having washed his master's brushes, brought them into the studio mincingly, upon a silver service-salver.

"No letters?" inquired Barres, glancing up over the morning paper and laying aside his cigarette.

"No letters, suh. No co'espondence in any shape, fo'm or manner, suh."

"Anybody to see me?" inquired Barres, always amused at Aristocrates'

flights of verbiage.

"n.o.body, suh, excusin' a persistless 'viduality inquihin' fo' you, suh."

"What persistless individuality was that?" asked Barres.

"A ve'y or-nary human objec', suh, pahshially afflicted with one bad eye."

"That one-eyed man? He's been here several times, hasn't he? Why does he come?"

"Fo' commercial puhposes, suh."

"Oh, a pedlar?"

"He mentions a desiah, suh, to dispose, commercially, of vahious impo'ted materials requiahed by ahtists."

"Didn't you show him the sign in the hall, 'No pedlars allowed'?"

"Yaas, suh."

"What did he say?"

"I would not demean myse'f to repeat what this human objec' said, suh."

"And what did you do then?"

"Mistuh Barres, suh, I totally igno'hed that man," replied Aristocrates languidly.

"Quite right. But you tell Soane to enforce the rule against pedlars.

Every day there are two or three of them ringing at the studio, trying to sell colours, laces, or fake oriental rugs. It annoys me. Selinda can't hear the bell and I have to leave my work and open the door.

Tell that persistless one-eyed man to keep away. Tell Soane to bounce him next time he enters Dragon Court. Do you understand?"

"Yaas, suh. But Soane, suh, he's a might friendly Irish. He's spo'tin'

'round Grogan's nights, 'longa this here one-eyed 'viduality. Yaas, suh. I done seen 'em co-gatherin' on vahious occasionalities."

"Oho!" commented Barres. "It's graft, is it? This one-eyed pedlar meets Soane at Grogan's and bribes him with a few drinks to let him peddle colours in Dragon Court! That's the Irish of it, Aristocrates.

I began to suspect something like that. All right. I'll speak to Soane myself.... Leave the studio door open; it's warm in here."

The month of May was now turning somewhat sultry as it melted into June. Every pivot-pane in the big studio window had been swung wide open. The sun had already clothed every courtyard tree with dense and tender foliage; hyacinth and tulip were gone and Soane's subscription geraniums blazed in their place like beds of coals heaped up on the gra.s.s plot of Dragon Court.

But blue sky, sunshine of approaching summer, gentle winds and freshening rains brought only restlessness to New Yorkers that month of May.

Like the first two years of the war, the present year seemed strange, unreal; its vernal breezes brought no balm, its blue skies no content.

The early summer sunlight seemed almost uncanny in a world where, beyond the sea, millions of men at arms swayed ceaselessly under sun and moon alike, interlocked in one gigantic death grip!--a horrible and blood-drenched human chain of butchery stretching half around the earth.

Into every Western human eye had come strange and subtle shadows which did not depart with moments of forgetful mirth, intervals of self-absorption, hours filled with familiar interests--the pa.s.sions, hopes, perplexities of those years which were now no more.

Those years of yesterdays! A vast and depthless cleft already divided them from to-day. They seemed as remote as dusty centuries--those days of an ordered and tranquil world--those days of little obvious faiths unshattered--even those days of little wars, of petty local strifes, of an almost universal calm and peace and trust in brotherhood and in the obligations of civilisation.

Familiar yesterday had vanished, its creeds forgotten. It was already decades away, and fading like a legend in the ever-increasing glare of the red and present moment.

And the month of May seemed strange, and its soft skies and sun seemed out of place in a world full of dying--a world heavy with death--a western world aloof from the raging h.e.l.l beyond the seas, yet already tense under the distant threat of three continents in flames--and all aquiver before the deathly menace of that horde of blood-crazed demons still at large, still unsubdued, still ranging the ruins of the planet which they had so insanely set on fire.

Entire nations were still burning beyond the ocean; other nations had sunk into cinders. Over the Eastern seas the furnace breath began to be felt along the out-thrust coast lines of the Western World. Inland, not yet; but every seaward city became now conscious of that first faint warning wave of heat from h.e.l.l. Millions of ears strained to catch the first hushed whisper of the tumult. Silent in its suspense the Great Republic listened. Only the priesthood of the deaf and wooden G.o.ds continued voluble. But Israel had already begun to lift up its million eyes; and its ancient faith began to glow again; and its trust was becoming once more a living thing--the half-forgotten trust of Israel in that half-forgotten Lord, who, in the beginning, had been their helper and their shield.

Through the open studio door came Dulcie Soane. The Prophet followed at her slender heels, gently waving an urbane tail.

After his first smiling greeting--he always rose, advanced, and took her hand with that pleasant appearance of formality so adored by femininity, youthful or mature--he resumed his seat and continued to write his letters.

These finished, he stamped them, rang for Aristocrates, picked up his palette and brushes, and pulled out the easel upon which was the canvas for the morning.

Dulcie, still in the hands of Selinda, had not yet emerged. The Prophet sat upright on the carved table, motionless as a cat of ebony with green-jewelled eyes.

"Well, old sport," said Barres, stepping across the rug to caress the cat, "you and your pretty mistress begin to look very interesting on my canvas."

The Prophet received the blandishments with dignified grat.i.tude. A discreet and feathery purring filled the room as Barres stroked the jet black, silky fur.

"Fine cat, you are," commented the young man, turning as Dulcie entered.

She laid one hand on his extended arm and sprang lightly to the model stand. And the next moment she was seated--a slim, gemmed thing glimmering with imperial jade from top to toe.

Barres laid the Prophet in her arms, stepped back while Dulcie arranged the docile cat, then retreated to his canvas.

"All right, Sweetness?"