Once Upon A Time | Page 8

sun, all light and lustre had
departed. He thought of them as always wearing boots to protect their
ankles from mosquitoes, and army helmets.
When he came on deck for dinner, he saw a woman who looked as
though she was posing for a photograph by Reutlinger. She appeared to
have stepped to the deck directly from her electric victoria, and the Rue

de la Paix. She was tall, lithe, gracefully erect, with eyes of great
loveliness, and her hair brilliantly black, drawn, _à la_ Merode, across
a broad, fair forehead. She wore a gown and long coat of white lace, as
delicate as a bridal veil, and a hat with a flapping brim from which, in a
curtain, hung more lace. When she was pleased, she lifted her head and
the curtain rose, unmasking her lovely eyes. Around the white, bare
throat was a string of pearls. They had cost the lives of many elephants.
Cuthbert, only a month from home, saw Madame Ducret just as she
was--a Parisienne, elegant, smart, _soigné_. He knew that on any night
at Madrid or d'Armenonville he might look upon twenty women of the
same charming type. They might lack that something this girl from
Maxim's possessed--the spirit that had caused her to follow her husband
into the depths of darkness. But outwardly, for show purposes, they
were even as she.
But to Everett she was no messenger from another world. She was
unique. To his famished eyes, starved senses, and fever-driven brain,
she was her entire sex personified. She was the one woman for whom
he had always sought, alluring, soothing, maddening; if need be, to be
fought for; the one thing to be desired. Opposite, across the table, her
husband, the ex-wrestler, _chasseur d'Afrique_, elephant poacher,
bulked large as an ox. Men felt as well as saw his bigness. Captain
Hardy deferred to him on matters of trade. The purser deferred to him
on questions of administration. He answered them in his big way, with
big thoughts, in big figures. He was fifty years ahead of his time. He
beheld the Congo open to the world; in the forests where he had hunted
elephants he foresaw great "factories," mining camps, railroads, feeding
gold and copper ore to the trunk line, from the Cape to Cairo. His ideas
were the ideas of an empire-builder. But, while the others listened,
fascinated, hypnotized, Everett saw only the woman, her eyes fixed on
her husband, her fingers turning and twisting her diamond rings. Every
now and again she raised her eyes to Everett almost reproachfully, as
though to say, "Why do you not listen to him? It is much better for you
than to look at me."
When they had gone, all through the sultry night, until the sun drove

him to his cabin, like a caged animal Everett paced and repaced the
deck. The woman possessed his mind and he could not drive her out.
He did not wish to drive her out. What the consequences might be he
did not care. So long as he might see her again, he jeered at the
consequences. Of one thing he was positive. He could not now leave
the Congo. He would follow her to Brazzaville. If he were discreet,
Ducret might invite him to make himself their guest. Once established
in her home, she must listen to him. No man ever before had felt for
any woman the need he felt for her. It was too big for him to conquer. It
would be too big for her to resist.
In the morning a note from Ducret invited Everett and Cuthbert to join
him in an all-day excursion to the water-fall beyond Matadi. Everett
answered the note in person. The thought of seeing the woman calmed
and steadied him like a dose of morphine. So much more violent than
the fever in his veins was the fever in his brain that, when again he was
with her, he laughed happily, and was grandly at peace. So different
was he from the man they had met the night before, that the Frenchman
and his wife glanced at each other in surprise and approval. They found
him witty, eager, a most charming companion; and when he announced
his intention of visiting Brazzaville, they insisted he should make their
home his own.
His admiration, as outwardly it appeared to be, for Madame Ducret,
was evident to the others, but her husband accepted it. It was her due.
And, on the Congo, to grudge to another man the sight of a pretty
woman was as cruel as to withhold the few grains of quinine that might
save his reason. But before the day passed, Madame Ducret was aware
that the American could not be lightly dismissed as an admirer. The
fact