The Power of Darkness | Page 4

tone stung him. 'I bet you wouldn't spend a night alone in that place.'
'I bet you five pounds I do!'
'Done,' said Edward, briskly. 'At least, I would if you'd got five pounds.'
'But I have. I'm simply rolling. I've sold my Dejanira; didn't you know? I shall win your money though, anyway. But you couldn't do it, old man. I suppose you'll never outgrow that childish scare.'
'You might shut up about that,' said Edward, shortly.
'Oh, it's nothing to be ashamed of; some women are afraid of mice or spiders. I say, does Rose know you're a coward?'
'Vincent!'
'No offence, old boy. One may as well call a spade a spade. Of course, you've got tons of moral courage and all that. But you are afraid of the dark--and waxworks!'
'Are you trying to quarrel with me?'
'Heaven in its mercy forbid. But I bet you wouldn't spend a night in the Mus��e Gr��vin and keep your senses.'
'What's the stake?'
'Anything you like.'
'Make it that if I do you'll never speak to Rose again, and, what's more, that you'll never speak to me,' said Edward, white-hot, knocking down a chair as he rose.
'Done,' said Vincent. 'But you'll never do it. Keep your hair on. Besides, you're off home.'
'I shall be back in ten days. I'll do it then,' said Edward, and was off before the other could answer.
Then Vincent, left alone, sat still, and over his third absinthe remembered how, before she had known Edward, Rose had smiled on him more than the others, he thought. He thought of her wide, lovely eyes, her wild-rose cheeks, the scented curves of her hair, and then and there the devil entered into him.
In ten days Edward would undoubtedly try to win his wager. He would try to spend the night in the Mus��e Gr��vin. Perhaps something could be arranged before that. If one knew the place thoroughly! A little scare would serve Edward right for being the man to whom that last glance of Rose's had been given.
Vincent dined lightly, but with conscientious care--and as he dined he thought. Something might be done by tying a string to one of the figures and making it move when Edward was going through that impossible night among the effigies that are so like life--so like death. Something that was not the devil said:
'You may frighten him out of his wits.'
And the devil answered: 'Nonsense; do him good. He oughtn't to be such a schoolgirl.'
Anyway, the five pounds might as well be won tonight as any other night. He would take a greatcoat, sleep sound in the place of horrors, and the people who opened it in the morning to sweep and dust would bear witness that he had passed the night there. He thought he might trust to the French love of a sporting wager to keep him from any bother with the authorities.
So he went in among the crowd, and looked about among the waxworks for a place to hide in. He was not in the least afraid of these lifeless images. He had always been able to control his nervous tremors in his time. He was not even afraid of being frightened, which, by the way, is the worst fear of all.
As one looks at the room of the poor little Dauphin one sees a door to the left. It opens out of the room on to blackness. There were few people in the gallery. Vincent watched, and, in a moment when he was alone, stepped over the barrier and through this door. A narrow passage ran round behind the wall of the room. Here he hid, and when the gallery was deserted he looked out across the body of little Capet to the gaoler at the window. There was a soldier at the window too. Vincent amused himself with the fancy that this soldier might walk round the passage at the back of the room and tap him on the shoulder in the darkness. Only the head and shoulders of the soldier and the gaoler showed, so, of course, they could not walk, even if they were something that was not waxwork.
Presently he himself went along the passage and round to the window where they were. He found that they had legs. They were full-sized figures, dressed completely in the costume of the period.
'Thorough the beggars are, even the parts that don't show-- artists, upon my word,' said Vincent, and went back to his doorway, thinking of the hidden carving behind the capitals of Gothic cathedrals.
But the idea of the soldier who might come behind him in the dark stuck in his mind. Though still a few visitors strolled through the gallery, the closing hour was near. He supposed it would be quite dark. Then--and now he had allowed himself to be amused by the thought of