The King in Yellow - Robert W. Chambers (latest books to read .txt) 📗

her innocence and she worshipped his. She spoke again: “Take me or cast me away;—what matters it? Now with a word you can kill me, and it might be easier to die than to look upon happiness as great as mine.”

He took her in his arms, “Hush, what are you saying? Look,—look out at the sunlight, the meadows and the streams. We shall be very happy in so bright a world.”

She turned to the sunlight. From the window, the world below seemed very fair to her.

Trembling with happiness, she sighed: “Is this the world? Then I have never known it”

“Nor have I, God forgive me,” he murmured.

Perhaps it was our gentle Lady of the Fields who forgave them both.

 

RUE BARRÉE

“For let Philosopher and Doctor preach Of what they will and what they will not,—each Is but one link in an eternal chain That none can slip nor break nor over-reach.”

“Crimson nor yellow roses nor The savour of the mounting sea Are worth the perfume I adore That clings to thee. The languid-headed lilies tire, The changeless waters weary me; I ache with passionate desire Of thine and thee. There are but these things in the world— Thy mouth of fire, Thy breasts, thy hands, thy hair upcurled And my desire.”

I

One morning at Julian’s, a student said to Selby, “That is Foxhall Clifford,” pointing with his brushes at a young man who sat before an easel, doing nothing.

Selby, shy and nervous, walked over and began: “My name is Selby,—I have just arrived in Paris, and bring a letter of introduction—” His voice was lost in the crash of a falling easel, the owner of which promptly assaulted his neighbour, and for a time the noise of battle rolled through the studios of MM. Boulanger and Lefebvre, presently subsiding into a scuffle on the stairs outside. Selby, apprehensive as to his own reception in the studio, looked at Clifford, who sat serenely watching the fight.

“It’s a little noisy here,” said Clifford, “but you will like the fellows when you know them.” His unaffected manner delighted Selby. Then with a simplicity that won his heart, he presented him to half a dozen students of as many nationalities. Some were cordial, all were polite. Even the majestic creature who held the position of Massier, unbent enough to say: “My friend, when a man speaks French as well as you do, and is also a friend of Monsieur Clifford, he will have no trouble in this studio. You expect, of course, to fill the stove until the next new man comes?”

“Of course.”

“And you don’t mind chaff?”

“No,” replied Selby, who hated it.

Clifford, much amused, put on his hat, saying, “You must expect lots of it at first.”

Selby placed his own hat on his head and followed him to the door.

As they passed the model stand there was a furious cry of “Chapeau! Chapeau!” and a student sprang from his easel menacing Selby, who reddened but looked at Clifford.

“Take off your hat for them,” said the latter, laughing.

A little embarrassed, he turned and saluted the studio.

“Et moi?” cried the model.

“You are charming,” replied Selby, astonished at his own audacity, but the studio rose as one man, shouting: “He has done well! he’s all right!” while the model, laughing, kissed her hand to him and cried: “À demain beau jeune homme!”

All that week Selby worked at the studio unmolested. The French students christened him “l’Enfant Prodigue,” which was freely translated, “The Prodigious Infant,” “The Kid,” “Kid Selby,” and “Kidby.” But the disease soon ran its course from “Kidby” to “Kidney,” and then naturally to “Tidbits,” where it was arrested by Clifford’s authority and ultimately relapsed to “Kid.”

Wednesday came, and with it M. Boulanger. For three hours the students writhed under his biting sarcasms,—among the others Clifford, who was informed that he knew even less about a work of art than he did about the art of work. Selby was more fortunate. The professor examined his drawing in silence, looked at him sharply, and passed on with a non-committal gesture. He presently departed arm in arm with Bouguereau, to the relief of Clifford, who was then at liberty to jam his hat on his head and depart.

The next day he did not appear, and Selby, who had counted on seeing him at the studio, a thing which he learned later it was vanity to count on, wandered back to the Latin Quarter alone.

Paris was still strange and new to him. He was vaguely troubled by its splendour. No tender memories stirred his American bosom at the Place du Châtelet, nor even by Notre Dame. The Palais de Justice with its clock and turrets and stalking sentinels in blue and vermilion, the Place St. Michel with its jumble of omnibuses and ugly water-spitting griffins, the hill of the Boulevard St. Michel, the tooting trams, the policemen dawdling two by two, and the table-lined terraces of the Café Vacehett were nothing to him, as yet, nor did he even know, when he stepped from the stones of the Place St. Michel to the asphalt of the Boulevard, that he had crossed the frontier and entered the student zone,—the famous Latin Quarter.

A cabman hailed him as “bourgeois,” and urged the superiority of driving over walking. A gamin, with an appearance of great concern, requested the latest telegraphic news from London, and then, standing on his head, invited Selby to feats of strength. A pretty girl gave him a glance from a pair of violet eyes. He did not see her, but she, catching her own reflection in a window, wondered at the colour burning in her cheeks. Turning to resume her course, she met Foxhall Clifford, and hurried on. Clifford, open-mouthed, followed her with his eyes; then he looked after Selby, who had turned into the Boulevard St. Germain toward the rue de Seine. Then he examined himself in the shop window. The result seemed to be unsatisfactory.

“I’m not a beauty,” he mused, “but neither am I a hobgoblin. What does she mean by blushing at Selby? I never before saw her look at a fellow in my life,—neither has any one in the Quarter. Anyway, I can swear she never looks at me, and goodness knows I have done all that respectful adoration can do.”

He sighed, and murmuring a prophecy concerning the salvation of his immortal soul swung into that graceful lounge which at all times characterized Clifford. With no apparent exertion, he overtook Selby at the corner, and together they crossed the sunlit Boulevard and sat down under the awning of the Café du Cercle. Clifford bowed to everybody on the terrace, saying, “You shall meet them all later, but now let me present you to two of the sights of Paris, Mr. Richard Elliott and Mr. Stanley Rowden.”

The “sights” looked amiable, and took vermouth.

“You cut the studio to-day,” said Elliott, suddenly turning on Clifford, who avoided his eyes.

“To commune with nature?” observed Rowden.

“What’s her name this time?” asked Elliott, and Rowden answered promptly, “Name, Yvette; nationality, Breton—”

“Wrong,” replied Clifford blandly, “it’s Rue Barrée.”

The subject changed instantly, and Selby listened in surprise to names which were new to him, and eulogies on the latest Prix de Rome winner. He was delighted to hear opinions boldly expressed and points honestly debated, although the vehicle was mostly slang, both English and French. He longed for the time when he too should be plunged into the strife for fame.

The bells of St. Sulpice struck the hour, and the Palace of the Luxembourg answered chime on chime. With a glance at the sun, dipping low in the golden dust behind the Palais Bourbon, they rose, and turning to the east, crossed the Boulevard St. Germain and sauntered toward the École de Médecine. At the corner a girl passed them, walking hurriedly. Clifford smirked, Elliot and Rowden were agitated, but they all bowed, and, without raising her eyes, she returned their salute. But Selby, who had lagged behind, fascinated by some gay shop window, looked up to meet two of the bluest eyes he had ever seen. The eyes were dropped in an instant, and the young fellow hastened to overtake the others.

“By Jove,” he said, “do you fellows know I have just seen the prettiest girl—” An exclamation broke from the trio, gloomy, foreboding, like the chorus in a Greek play.

“Rue Barrée!”

“What!” cried Selby, bewildered.

The only answer was a vague gesture from Clifford.

Two hours later, during dinner, Clifford turned to Selby and said, “You want to ask me something; I can tell by the way you fidget about.”

“Yes, I do,” he said, innocently enough; “it’s about that girl. Who is she?”

In Rowden’s smile there was pity, in Elliott’s bitterness.

“Her name,” said Clifford solemnly, “is unknown to any one, at least,” he added with much conscientiousness, “as far as I can learn. Every fellow in the Quarter bows to her and she returns the salute gravely, but no man has ever been known to obtain more than that. Her profession, judging from her music-roll, is that of a pianist. Her residence is in a small and humble street which is kept in a perpetual process of repair by the city authorities, and from the black letters painted on the barrier which defends the street from traffic, she has taken the name by which we know her,—Rue Barrée. Mr. Rowden, in his imperfect knowledge of the French tongue, called our attention to it as Roo Barry—”

“I didn’t,” said Rowden hotly.

“And Roo Barry, or Rue Barrée, is to-day an object of adoration to every rapin in the Quarter—”

“We are not rapins,” corrected Elliott.

“I am not,” returned Clifford, “and I beg to call to your attention, Selby, that these two gentlemen have at various and apparently unfortunate moments, offered to lay down life and limb at the feet of Rue Barrée. The lady possesses a chilling smile which she uses on such occasions and,” here he became gloomily impressive, “I have been forced to believe that neither the scholarly grace of my friend Elliott nor the buxom beauty of my friend Rowden have touched that heart of ice.”

Elliott and Rowden, boiling with indignation, cried out, “And you!”

“I,” said Clifford blandly, “do fear to tread where you rush in.”

II

Twenty-four hours later Selby had completely forgotten Rue Barrée. During the week he worked with might and main at the studio, and Saturday night found him so tired that he went to bed before dinner and had a nightmare about a river of yellow ochre in which he was drowning. Sunday morning, apropos of nothing at all, he thought of Rue Barrée, and ten seconds afterwards he saw her. It was at the flower-market on the marble bridge. She was examining a pot of pansies. The gardener had evidently thrown heart and soul into the transaction, but Rue Barrée shook her head.

It is a question whether Selby would have stopped then and there to inspect a cabbage-rose had not Clifford unwound for him the yarn of the previous Tuesday. It is possible that his curiosity was piqued, for with the exception of a hen-turkey, a boy of nineteen is the most openly curious biped alive. From twenty until death he tries to conceal it. But, to be fair to Selby, it is also true that the market was attractive. Under a cloudless sky the flowers were packed and heaped along the marble bridge to the parapet. The air was soft, the sun spun a shadowy lacework among the palms and glowed in the hearts of a thousand roses. Spring had come,—was in full tide. The watering carts and sprinklers spread freshness over the Boulevard, the sparrows had become vulgarly obtrusive, and the credulous Seine