The Cream of the Jest, James Branch Cabell [smart ebook reader .TXT] 📗

She was silent for a moment. “You look your latest role in life so well, too, Felix. You are the respectable married gentleman to the last detail. Why, you are an old man now, Felix,” she said wistfully. “Your hair is gray about the ears, and you are fat, and there are wrinkles under your eyes⁠—But are you happy, dear?” she asked, with the grave tender speech that he remembered. And momentarily the man forgot the people about them, and the fact that his wife’s train was due any minute.

“Happier than I deserve to be, Muriel.” His voice had quavered⁠—not ineffectively, it appeared to him.

“That’s true, at least,” the woman said, as in reflection. “You treated me rather abominably, you know⁠—like an old shoe.”

“I am not altogether sorry you take that view of it. For I wouldn’t want you to regret⁠—anything⁠—not even that which, to me at least, is very sacred. But there was really nothing else to do save just to let things end. It was as hard,” he said, with a continuous flight of imagination, “it was as hard on me as you.”

“Sometimes I think it was simply because you were afraid of Leonard. I put that out of my mind, though, always. You see, I like to keep my memories. I have nothing else now, Felix⁠—” She opened the small leather bag she carried, took out a handkerchief, and brushed her lips. “I am a fool, of course. Oh, it is funny to see your ugly little snub nose again! And I couldn’t help wanting to speak to you, once more⁠—”

“It has been delightful. And some day I certainly do hope⁠—But there’s your train, I think. The gates are going down.”

“And here is Avis coming. So goodbye, Felix. It is really forever this time, I think⁠—”

It seemed to him that she held in her left hand the sigil of Scoteia.⁠ ⁠… He stared at the gleaming thing, then raised his eyes to hers. She was smiling. Her eyes were the eyes of Ettarre. All the beauty of the world seemed gathered in this woman’s face.⁠ ⁠…

“Don’t let it be forever! Come with me, Felix! There is only you⁠—even now, there is only you. It is not yet too late⁠—” Astounding as were the words, they came quite clearly, in a pleading frightened whisper.

The man was young for just that one wonderful moment of inexplicable yearning and self-loathing. Then, “I⁠—I am afraid my wife would hardly like it,” he said, equably. “So goodbye, Muriel. It has been very delightful to see you again.”

“I was mistaken, though, of course. It was the top of a vanity-box, or of a toilet water flask, or of something else, that she took out of the bag, when she was looking for her handkerchief. It was just a silly coincidence. I was mistaken, of course.⁠ ⁠… And here is Kathleen’s train. Thank goodness, it was late enough.⁠ ⁠…”

Thus Kennaston, as he went to receive his wife’s cool kiss. And⁠—having carefully mentioned as a matter of no earthly importance that he had just seen Muriel Allardyce, and that she had gone off terribly in looks, and that none of them seem to hold their own like you, dear⁠—he disbarred from mind that awkward moment’s delusion, and tried not to think of it any more.

So Kennaston seemed to have got only disappointment and vexation and gainless vague regret from his love-affairs in the flesh; and all fleshly passion seemed to flicker out inevitably, however splendid the brief blaze. For you loved and lost; or else you loved and won: there was quick ending either way. And afterward unaccountable women haunted you, and worried you into unreasonable contrition, in defiance of common-sense.⁠ ⁠…

But for Ettarre, who embodied all Kennaston was ever able to conceive of beauty and fearlessness and strange purity, all perfections, all the attributes of divinity, in a word, such as his slender human faculties were competent to understand, he must hunger always in vain. Whatever happened, Ettarre stayed inaccessible, even in dreams: her beauty was his to look on only; and always when he came too near that radiant loveliness which was Ettarre’s⁠—that perfect beauty which was so full of troubling reticences, and so, was touched with something sinister⁠—the dream would end, and the universe would seem to fold about him, just as a hand closes. Such was the law, the kindly law, as Kennaston now believed, through which love might thrive even in the arid heart of a poet.

Sometimes, however, this law would lead to odd results, and left the dream an enigma. For instance, he had a quaint experience upon the night of that day during which he had talked with Muriel Allardyce.⁠ ⁠…

“You are in all things a fortunate man, Master⁠—ah⁠—whatever your true name may be,” said the boy, pettishly flinging down the cards.

“Ods life, and have we done?” says Kennaston.⁠ ⁠…

The two sat in a comfortable paneled room. There was a big open fire behind Kennaston; he could see its reflections flicker about the woodwork. The boy facing him was glowingly attired in green and gold, an ardent comely urchin, who (as Kennaston estimated) might perhaps be a page to Queen Elizabeth, or possibly was one of King James’s spoilt striplings. Between them was a rough deal table, littered with playing-cards; and upon it sat a tallish blue pitcher half-full of wine, four lighted candles stuck like corks in as many emptied bottles, and two coarse yellow mugs.⁠ ⁠…

“Yes, we have done,” the boy answered; and, rising, smiled cherubically. “May I ask what the object may be that you conceal with such care in your left hand?” says he.

“To be candid,” Kennaston returned, “it is the King of Diamonds, that swarthy bearded Spaniard. I had intended it should serve as a corrective and encourager of Lady Fortune, when I turned it, my next deal, as the trump card. I’faith, I thank God I have found the jade is to be influenced by such feats of manual activity. Oh,