The Long Night - Stanley Weyman (free novel 24 .txt) 📗

aspect of the man who sat with Grio; a man of great height and vast bulk, with a large plump face and small grey eyes. It struck Mercier as he met the fixed stare of those eyes, that he had entered with less ceremony than was becoming, and that he ought to make amends for it; and, in the act of sitting down in the vacant seat, he turned and bowed politely to the two at the other table.

"Tissotius timuit, jam peregrinus adest!" the big man murmured in a voice at once silky and sonorous. Then ignoring Mercier, but looking blandly at the young man who sat facing him at the table, "What is this of Tissot?" he continued. "Can it be," with a side-glance at the newcomer, "that we have lost our--I may not call him our quintessence or alcahest--rather shall I say our baser ore, that at the virgin touch of our philosophical stone blushed into ruddy gold? And burned ever brighter and hotter in her presence! Tissot gone, and with him all those fair experiments! Is it possible?"

The young man's grin showed that he savoured a jest. But, "I know nothing," he muttered sheepishly. "'Tis new to me."

"Tissot gone!" the big man repeated in a tone humorously melancholy. "No more shall we

Upon his viler metal test our purest pure, And see him transmutations three endure!

Tissot gone! And you, sir, come in his place. What change is here! A stranger, I believe?"

"In Geneva, yes," Claude answered, wondering and a little abashed. The man spoke with an air of power and weight.

"And a student, doubtless in our Academia? Like our Tissot? Yes. It may be," he continued in the same smooth tones wherein ridicule and politeness appeared to be so nicely mingled that it was difficult to judge if he spoke in jest or earnest, "like him in other things! It may be that we have gained and not lost. And that qualities finer and more susceptible underlie an exterior more polished and an ease more complete," he bowed, "than our poor Tissot could boast! But here is

Our stone angelical whereby All secret potencies to light are brought!

Doubtless"--with a wave of the hand he indicated the girl who had that moment entered--"you have met before?"

"I could not otherwise," Claude answered coldly--he began to resent both the man and his manner--"have engaged the lodging." And he rose to take from the girl's hand the broth she was bringing him. She, on her side, made no sign that she noticed a change, or that it was no longer Tissot she served. She gave him what he needed, mechanically and without meeting his eyes. Then turning to the others, she waited on them after the same fashion. For a minute or two there was silence in the room.

A strange silence, Claude thought, listening and wondering: as strange and embarrassing as the talk of the man who shared with Grio the table by the fireplace: as strange as the atmosphere about them, which hung heavy, to his fancy, and oppressive, fraught with unintelligible railleries, with subtle jests and sneers. The girl went to and fro, from one to another, her face pale, her manner quiet. And had he not seen her earlier with another look in her eyes, had he not detected a sinister something underlying the big man's good humour, he would have learned nothing from her; he would have fancied that all was as it should be in the house and in the company.

As it was he understood nothing. But he felt that a something was wrong, that a something overhung the party. Seated as he was he could not without turning see the faces of the two at the other table, nor watch the girl when she waited on them. But the suspicion of a smile which hovered on the lips of the young man who sat opposite him--whom he could see--kept him on his guard. Was a trick in preparation? Were they about to make him pay his footing? No, for they had no notice of his coming. They could not have laid the mine. Then why that smile? And why this silence?

On a sudden he caught the sound of a movement behind him, the swirl of a petticoat, and the clang of a pewter plate as it fell noisily to the floor. His companion looked up swiftly, the smile on his face broadening to a snigger. Claude turned too as quickly as he could and looked, his face hot, his mind suspecting some prank to be played on him; to his astonishment he discovered nothing to account for the laugh. The girl appeared to be bending over the embers on the hearth, the men to be engaged with their meal; and baffled and perplexed he turned again and, his ears burning, bent over his plate. He was glad when the stout man broke the silence for the second time.

"Agrippa," he said, "has this of amalgams. That whereas gold, silver, tin are valuable in themselves, they attain when mixed with mercury to a certain light and sparkling character, as who should say the bubbles on wine, or the light resistance of beauty, which in the one case and the other add to the charm. Such to our simple pleasures"--he continued with a rumble of deep laughter--"our simple pleasures, which I must now also call our pleasures of the past, was our Tissot! Who, running fluid hither and thither, where resistance might be least of use, was as it were the ultimate sting of enjoyment. Is it possible that we have in our friend a new Tissot?"

The young man at the table giggled. "I did not know Tissot!" Claude replied sharply and with a burning face--they were certainly laughing at him. "And therefore I cannot say."

"Mercury, which completes the amalgam," the stout man muttered absently and as if to himself, "when heated sublimes over!" Then turning after a moment's silence to the girl, "What says our Quintessential Stone to this?" he continued. "Her Tissot gone will she still work her wonders? Still of base Grios and the weak alloys red bridegrooms make? Still--kind Anne, your hand!"

Silence! Silence again. What were they doing? Claude, full of suspicion, turned to see what it meant; turned to learn what it was on which the greedy eyes of his table-fellow were fixed so intently. And now he saw, more or less. The stout man and Grio had their heads together and their faces bent over the girl's hand, which the former held. On them, however, Claude scarcely bestowed a glance. It was the girl's face which caught and held his eyes, nay, made them burn. Had it blushed, had it showed white, he had borne the thing more lightly, he had understood it better. But her face showed dull and apathetic; as she stood looking down at the men, suffering them to do what they would with her hand, a strange passivity was its sole expression. When the big man (whose name Claude learned later was Basterga), after inspecting the palm, kissed it with mock passion, and so surrendered it to Grio, who also pressed his coarse lips to it, while the young man beside Claude laughed, no change came over her. Released, she turned again to the hearth, impassive. And Claude, his heart beating, recognised that this was the hundredth performance; that so far from being a new thing it was a thing so old as to be stale to her, moving her less, though there were insult and derision in every glance of the men's eyes, than it moved him.

And noting this he began in a dim way to understand. This was the thing which Tissot had not been able to bear; which in the end had driven the young man with the small chin from the house. This was the pleasantry to which his feeble resistance, his outbursts of anger, of jealousy, or of protest had but added piquancy, the ultimate sting of pleasure to the jaded palate of the performers. This was the obsession under which she lay, the trial and persecution which she had warned him he would find it hard to witness.

Hard? He believed her, trifling as was the thing he had seen. For behind it he had a glimpse of other and worse things, and behind all of some shadowy brooding mystery which compelled her to suffer them and forbade her to complain. What that was he could not conceive, what it could be he could not conceive: nor had he long to consider the question. He found the shifty eyes of his table-fellow fixed upon him, and, though the moment his own eyes met them they were averted, he fancied that they sped a glance of intelligence to the table behind him, and he hastened to curb, if not his feelings, at least the show of them. He had his warning. It was not as Tissot he must act if he would help her, but more warily, more patiently, biding her time, and letting the blow, when the time came, precede the word. Unwarned, he had acted it is probable as Tissot had acted, weakly and stormily: warned, he had no excuse if he failed her. Young as he was he saw this. The fault lay with him if he made the position worse instead of better.

Whether, do what he would, his feelings made themselves known--for the shoulders can speak, and eloquently, on occasion--or the reverse was the case, and his failure to rise to the bait disappointed the tormentor, the big man, Basterga, presently resumed the attack.

"Tissotius pereat, Tissotianus adest!" he muttered with a sneer. "But perhaps, young sir, Latinity is not one of your subjects. The tongue of the immortal Cicero----"

"I speak it a little," Claude answered quietly. "It were foolish to approach the door of learning without the key."

"Oh, you are a wit, young sir! Well, with your wit and your Latinity can you construe this:--

Stultitiam expellas, furca tamen usque recurret Tissotius periit terque quaterque redit!"

"I think so," Claude replied gravely.

"Good, if it please you! And the meaning?"

"Tissot was a fool, and you are another!" the young man returned. "Will you now solve me one, reverend sir, with all submission?"

"Said and done!" the big man answered disdainfully.

"Nec volucres plumae faciunt nec cuspis Achillem! Construe me that then if you will!"

Basterga shrugged his shoulders. "Fine feathers do not make fine birds!" he said. "If you apply it to me," he continued with a contemptuous face, "I----"

"Oh, no, to your company," Claude answered. Self-control comes hardly to the young, and he had already forgotten his _role_. "Ask him what happened last night at the 'Bible and Hand,'" he continued, pointing to Grio, "and how he stands now with his friend the Syndic!"

"The Syndic?"

"The Syndic Blondel!"

The moment the words had passed his lips, Claude repented. He saw that he had struck a note more serious than he intended. The big man did not move, but over his fat face crept a watching expression; he was plainly startled. His eyes, reduced almost to pin-points, seemed for an instant the eyes of a cat about to spring. The effect was so evident indeed that it bewildered Claude and so completely diverted his attention from Grio, the real target, that when the bully, who had listened stupidly to the exchange of wit, proved by a brutal oath his comprehension of the reference to himself, the