The Mischief Maker | Page 3

my name. Pray be seated."
She waved away the chair he offered.
"My automobile is in the street below," she said. "I wish you to come
with me at once to see a poor girl who is dying."
He looked at her in amazement.
"Are you serious, madame?"
"I am very serious indeed," she replied. "The girl's name is Lucie
Rénault."
For the moment he seemed perplexed. Then his eyebrows were slowly
raised.
"Lucie Rénault," he repeated. "What do you know about her?"

"Only that she is a poor child who has suffered at your hands and who
is dying in a private hospital," Madame Christophor answered. "She
has been taken there out of charity. She has no friends, she is dying
alone. Come with me. I will take you to her. You shall save her at least
from that terror."
It was the aim of the man with whom she spoke to be considered
modern. A perfect and invincible selfishness had enabled him to reach
the topmost heights of callousness, and to remain there without
affectation.
"If the little girl is dying," he said, "I am sorry, for she was pretty and
companionable, although I have lost sight of her lately. But as to my
going out to see her, why, that is absurd. I hate illness of all sorts."
The woman looked at him steadfastly, looked at him as though she had
come into contact with some strange creature.
"Do you understand what it is that I am saying?" she demanded. "This
girl was once your little friend, is it not so? It was for your sake that she
gave up the simple life she was living when you first knew her, and
went upon the stage. The life was too strenuous for her. She broke
down, took no care of herself, developed a cough and alas!
tuberculosis."
The man sighed. He had adopted an expression of abstract sympathy.
"A terrible disease," he murmured.
"A terrible disease indeed," Madame Christophor repeated. "Do you
not understand what I mean when I tell you that she is dying of it? Very
likely she will not live a week--perhaps not a day. She lies there alone
in the garden of the hospital and she is afraid. There are none who
knew her, whom she cares for, to take her into their arms and to bid her
have no fear. Is it not your place to do this? You have held her in your
arms in life. Don't you see that it is your duty to cheer her a little way
on this last dark journey?"

The man threw away his cigarette and moved to the mantelpiece, where
he helped himself to a fresh one from the box.
"Madame," he said, "I perceive that you are a sentimentalist."
She did not speak--she could not. She only looked at him.
"Death," he continued, lighting his cigarette, "is an ugly thing. If it
came to me I should probably be quite as much afraid--perhaps
more--than any one else. But it has not come to me just yet. It has come,
you tell me, to little Lucie. Well, I am sorry, but there is nothing I can
do about it. I have no intention whatever of making myself miserable. I
do not wish to see her. I do not wish to look upon death, I simply wish
to forget it. If it were not, madame," he added, with a bow and a
meaning glance from his dark eyes, "that you bring with you something
of your own so well worth looking upon, I could almost find myself
regretting your visit."
She still regarded him fixedly. There was in her face something of that
shrinking curiosity with which one looks upon an unclean and horrible
thing.
"That is your answer?" she murmured.
The man had little understanding and he replied boldly.
"It is my answer, without a doubt. Lucie, if what you tell me is true, as I
do not for a moment doubt, is dying from a disease the ravages of
which are hideous to watch, and which many people believe, too, to be
infectious. Let me advise you, madame, to learn also a little wisdom.
Let me beg of you not to be led away by these efforts of sentiment,
however picturesque and delightful they may seem. The only life that is
worth considering is our own. The only death that we need fear is our
own. We ought to live like that."
The woman stood quite still. She was tall and she was slim. Her figure
was exquisite. She was famous throughout the city for her beauty. The
man's eyes dwelt upon her and the eternal expression crept slowly into

his face. He seemed to understand nothing of the shivering horror with
which she was regarding