Murder in Any Degree | Page 8

of the younger men. He has really a genius for organization."
"It's a wonderful time, Britt," said Rantoul, resuming his place. "There's nothing like it anywhere on the face of the globe--the possibilities of concentration and simplification here in business. It's a great game, too, matching your wits against another's. We're building empires of trade, order out of chaos. I'm making an awful lot of money."
Herkimer remained obstinately silent during the rest of the dinner. Everything seemed to fetter him--the constraint of dining before the silent, flitting butler, servants who whisked his plate away before he knew it, the succession of unrecognizable dishes, the constant jargon of social eavesdroppings that Mrs. Rantoul pressed into action the moment her husband's recollections exiled her from the conversation; but above all, the indefinable enmity that seemed to well out from his hostess, and which he seemed to divine occasionally when the ready smile left her lips and she was forced to listen to things she did not understand.
When they rose from the table, Rantoul passed his arm about his wife and said something in her ear, at which she smiled and patted his hand.
"I am very proud of my husband, Mr. Herkimer," she said with a little bob of her head in which was a sense of proprietorship. "You'll see."
"Suppose we stroll out for a little smoke in the garden," said Rantoul.
"What, you're going to leave me?" she said instantly, with a shade of vague uneasiness, that Herkimer perceived.
"We sha'n't be long, dear," said Rantoul, pinching her ear. "Our chatter won't interest you. Send the coffee out into the rose cupola."
They passed out into the open porch, but Herkimer was aware of the little woman standing irresolutely tapping with her thin finger on the table, and he said to himself: "She's a little ogress of jealousy. What the deuce is she afraid I'll say to him?"
They rambled through sweet-scented paths, under the high-flung network of stars, hearing only the crunching of little pebbles under foot.
"You've given up painting?" said Herkimer all at once.
"Yes, though that doesn't count," said Rantoul, abruptly; but there was in his voice a different note, something of the restlessness of the old Don Furioso. "Talk to me of the Quarter. Who's at the Caf�� des Lilacs now? They tell me that little Ragin we used to torment so has made some great decorations. What became of that pretty girl in the creamery of the Rue de l'Ombre who used to help us over the lean days?"
"Whom you christened Our Lady of the Sparrows?" "Yes, yes. You know I sent her the silk dress and the earrings I promised her."
Herkimer began to speak of one thing and another, of Bennett, who had gone dramatically to the Transvaal; of Le Gage, who was now in the forefront of the younger group of landscapists; of the old types that still came faithfully to the Caf�� des Lilacs,--the old chess-players, the fat proprietor, with his fat wife and three fat children who dined there regularly every Sunday,--of the new revolutionary ideas among the younger men that were beginning to assert themselves.
"Let's sit down," said Rantoul, as though suffocating.
They placed themselves in wicker easy-chairs, under the heavy-scented rose cupola, disdaining the coffee that waited on a table. From where they were a red-tiled walk, with flower beds nodding in enchanted sleep, ran to the veranda. The porch windows were open, and in the golden lamplight Herkimer saw the figure of Tina Glover bent intently over an embroidery, drawing her needle with uneven stitches, her head seeming inclined to catch the faintest sound. The waiting, nervous pose, the slender figure on guard, brought to him a strange, almost uncanny sensation of mystery, and feeling the sudden change in the mood of the man at his side, he gazed at the figure of the wife and said to himself:
[Illustration: Our Lady of the Sparrows]
"I'd give a good deal to know what's passing through that little head. What is she afraid of?"
"You're surprised to find me as I am," said Rantoul, abruptly breaking the silence.
"Yes."
"You can't understand it?"
"When did you give up painting?" said Herkimer, shortly, with a sure feeling that the hour of confidences had come.
"Seven years ago."
"Why in God's name did you do it?" said Herkimer, flinging away his cigar angrily. "You weren't just any one--Tom, Dick, or Harry. You had something to say, man. Listen. I know what I'm talking about,--I've seen the whole procession in the last ten years,--you were one in a thousand. You were a creator. You had ideas; you were meant to be a leader, to head a movement. You had more downright savage power, undeveloped, but tugging at the chain, than any man I've known. Why did you do it?"
"I had almost forgotten," said Rantoul, slowly. "Are you sure?"
"Am I