As In A Looking-glass

: The Doomsman

Arcadia House, while it certainly stood in need of the repairer's hand,

was by no means uninhabitable, a fact which spoke well for the honesty

of its old-time builders. Its oak beams, fastened together with

tree-nails instead of iron spikes, were still sound, and its brick

walls, unusually massive in construction, were without a crack. Most

important of all, the roof, shingled with the best cypress, remained

water-tigh , and so protected the interior from the ruinous effects of

moisture. In outward appearance, however, Arcadia House had sadly

degenerated. The stucco that originally covered the outer walls had

fallen away here and there, leaving unsightly patches to vex the eye,

and in many of the windows the glazing had been destroyed either wholly

or in part.



Some years before Quinton Edge had taken possession of this abandoned

Eden. The summers in the city were usually warm, and the Doomsmen were

in the habit of seeking the upper stories of the tall buildings for

relief, just as in the twentieth century people went to the mountains

for the heated term. Quinton Edge, having accidentally discovered

Arcadia House recognized its advantages as a summer residence, and he

had his own reasons for desiring the privacy that its secluded

situation afforded. He was satisfied with putting three or four of the

rooms into livable condition, and as for the rest it was only necessary

to repair the wall surrounding the grounds and stock the storehouses

with fuel and provisions to make of Arcadia House the proverbial castle.

That it was his castle was his own affair, and he had taken care that

only the fewest possible number should be in the secret. Old Kurt and a

couple of negro slave women made up the ordinary domestic staff of the

establishment, and until the advent of Esmay and Nanna, some three

months before, Arcadia House had received no visitors. And he would be a

foolish man who called upon Quinton Edge without an invitation.



Esmay, after parting from Constans, paused a moment at the side entrance

of the house. She wanted to look back, but a stronger instinct forbade

it; she opened the door and passed into the hall.



It was a broad, low-ceilinged apartment, and served as a common

living-room to the master of Arcadia House and his guests. A few embers

burned on the hearth, and a solitary candle set in a wall-sconce strove

with its feeble glimmer against the full tide of silver moonshine that

poured in through the uncurtained windows facing on the river. Quinton

Edge himself was sitting at the corner of the fireplace smoking a

red-clay pipe with a reed stem. He rose as Esmay entered, detaining her

with a gesture as she would have passed him.



"One moment, if you will."



The girl stopped and waited for him to continue. He considered a moment,

looking her over coolly. And indeed she made an attractive picture as

she stood there, the firelight glinting redly in her tawny eyes and her

cheeks incarnadined with excitement. Quinton Edge told himself that he

had made no mistake. Then he spoke:



"You have waited most patiently for me to announce my intentions. Let me

see; it is nearly three months since you came to Arcadia House?"



The girl made no reply. Alert and keeping herself well in hand, she

would force him to the first move. And Quinton Edge realized that he

would have to make it.



"It won't be any news to you that there are several people who would be

glad to be informed of your whereabouts. There's Boris, for one, and

young Ulick--we spoke of them some time ago."



"But to no purpose, sir; you remember that."



"Perfectly. Still, in three months a woman may change her mind many

times."



"But only for her own satisfaction."



"Then it is hopeless to expect a decision from you?"



"Evidently."



"In that case it may become necessary for me to act for you."



"Oh!"



The exclamation told its own story, and the girl in her vexation bit the

lip that had betrayed her. Quinton Edge smiled.



"Don't distress yourself," he said, smoothly. "I am only giving you the

warning that courtesy entitles you to receive."



Esmay reflected. Whatever his intentions concerning her, she could not

be the worse off for knowing them. So she went on, steadily:



"Since you have already decided upon my future, argument would be

useless. But perhaps I may assume that you have acted with some small

regard for my interests."



"Not the least in the world," returned Quinton Edge, and Esmay smiled

involuntarily at frankness so unblushing. Whereupon and curiously

enough, Quinton Edge became suddenly of a great gravity, the flippancy

of his accustomed manner falling from him as a cloak drops unnoticed

from a man's shoulders. He rose to his feet, strode to a window, and

stood there for perhaps a minute looking out upon the moonlit waters of

the Lesser river. When he turned again to the girl there were lines of

hardness about his mouth that she had never noticed before. Yet, in

speaking, his voice was soft, almost hesitating.



"Why should I tell you of these things, and then again why not? We are

both children of the Doomsmen, and the matter concerns us nearly. Not

equally, of course, but listen and draw your own conclusions."



"There are clouds in the political sky, and our little ship of state is

in danger of going upon the rocks, coincident with the death of Dom

Gillian, its old-time helmsman. And that contingency in the natural

course of events cannot be long delayed.



"Now there are two nominal heirs--Boris and Ulick. Each deems himself

the chosen successor to his great-grandfather, and each is incompetent

to play the part. In the past the reins of power have been held by the

man who stands between them. I am that third man."



"As everybody knows now."



"No; and for the simple reason that there are few to care who rules so

long as the figure-head remains a presentable one. But let me continue.



"Dom Gillian will formally nominate one of his grandsons as his heir. It

makes no difference whether Boris or Ulick succeeds--the outcome must be

the same. Both have personal followings, and that of the disappointed

one will form a minority insignificant in numerical strength, but

capable of being kneaded by strong hands into a compact mass."



"A revolution, then?"



"By no means. I accept the situation as it is and simply turn it to my

own advantage--as third man. This makes it necessary that the

disappointed one should become my absolute property. Now I hold the

price that he will demand for the surrender of his rights and

freedom--nothing less than yourself."



"I shall not affect to be surprised," said the girl, coolly. "But are

you quite sure that I am valued at so high a figure? It would be

mortifying for you to go into the market and find that your currency had

depreciated on your hands."



"I am not afraid," he answered. "The passion with Boris and Ulick alike

is genuine enough, albeit of somewhat different sort. As you care for

neither, it should be a matter of indifference whose property you

become."



The blood burned redly under the girl's brown skin. "No one but a woman

could know how unforgivable is that insult," she said. Then, with a

suddenly conceived appeal to the man himself:



"But why a bargain at all? You have the strength, the courage, the

brains--why chaffer when you have but to strike once to win all? You

stand between Boris and Ulick; crush them both in a single embrace and

take their birthright of power."



"Bah!" said the Doomsman, contemptuously. "Do you think that the mere

possession of the wolf-skin is the object of the hunt? It is the game

that amuses me and not the final distribution of the stakes. The game, I

say, and it happens to suit my humor to play it in this particular way.

You are simply a piece on the board, and I may win with you or lose with

you, or conclude to throw you back in the box without playing you at

all--just as it pleases me."



"The means are at least nobler than the end," retorted the girl. "A

lofty ambition, truly, to stand behind a screen and pull the strings of

a puppet, who in turn lords it over a handful of rick burners and cattle

reivers. Even my uncle Hugolin, Councillor Primus of Croye, cuts a

better figure when, clad in his state robe of silver-fox fur, he

presides over his parliament of shopkeepers."



"Granted," returned Quinton Edge, "but one and all dance together when I

choose to pipe. Is it such a contemptible thing to rule a small world,

if, indeed, it be the world? I take all that there is to be taken. Could

Alexander or Caesar do more?"



"I am beginning to comprehend," she said, slowly. "An ambition that

confessedly overleaps all bounds is at least not an ignoble one."



He turned and searched her eyes.



"You will play the game with me?"



"No."



"Yet a moment ago you were considering it--the possibility, I mean."



"For the moment--yes. After three months of Arcadia House dulness

almost any amusement would seem worth while. But, frankly speaking, it

is the nature of the risk that appalls me. I cannot afford to lose my

stake nor even to adventure it."



"To speak plainly?"



"Well, then, you contribute to the common capital but one thing--your

brains. Later on, if the play goes against us, you may have to throw on

the table your liberty, and, in the last extremity, your life. But that

is the utmost limit of your losses. I, on the contrary, must contribute

myself to the hazard, and no man understands what that means to a

woman."



"How long is it since the woman has understood?" he asked, mockingly,

but Esmay was silent.



"Well, then, if I cannot have you with me I want you actively against

me--the more balls in the air, the better sport for the juggler. And at

least we understand each other."



"There is just the one question--perhaps an obvious one."



"Yes."



"Boris or Ulick? For of course you know which of them is to be the old

Dom's heir."



"I do."



"I am to be informed of my purchaser's name--after the bargaining is

over? And only then?"



"Since you choose to put it in that way--yes."



Neither chose to break the silence that fell between them, and Esmay,

catching up her skirt, turned to go.



"Good-night," she said, but Quinton Edge did not answer. Apparently he

had forgotten her very existence; he sat with feet out-stretched to the

fire, his eyes fixed upon the curl of blue smoke that hung above his

pipe bowl.



Esmay went up to the room on the second floor which she shared with her

sister. Nanna was already in bed and asleep, but she started up as Esmay

entered, like a dog that has been listening in its dreams for its

master's footsteps. "Are you coming to bed?" she asked, drowsily, and

fell back among the pillows without even waiting for the answer.



Esmay, unconscious of the cold, remained seated at the window looking

out upon the river, her mind busy with the ultimatum which had just been

presented to it. That it was an ultimatum, she could not doubt; Quinton

Edge had been in deadly earnest in confronting her with her fate--a

double-faced one, as she thought, with a little shiver. She could not

avoid seeing it, no matter which way she turned.



A waning moon in a clouding sky. Even as she looked the two faces seemed

to start out from the uncertain shadows--Boris, the Butcher--involuntarily,

she shrank back from the window--never that!



Ulick? Yes, she had been fond of Ulick; they had been comrades and

friends for so long as she could remember. But Ulick in this new

light--ah, that was different again. Strangely enough she found herself

contemplating this last possibility even more fearfully than she had the

first. If the "Butcher" but laid a finger upon her, surely her arm was

strong enough to drive the dagger home. But if it were Ulick, what could

she do but turn the weapon against her own breast.



Plan and counterplan, and the argument invariably came back to where it

began--she must call upon Constans for the aid which he had promised to

place at her disposal. Hardly two hours had passed since they had made

the compact, and now she was come to ask for its fulfilment. What would

he think of her? How interpret a precipitancy so foreign to the cool

assurance of her bearing in the garden? She frowned; the instinct that

urges a woman to any folly short of the supreme blunder of unveiling

herself to masculine eyes took possession of her. But only for a moment,

for again the imminence of the peril in which she stood broke over her

like a wave. There was but one thing to do; the signal must be set this

very night. The returning expedition from the south might even now be

encamped at the High Bridge, and if Constans could help her at all it

must be at once.



Without waiting to parley further with herself, Esmay went to the door

opening into the hall and looked out. The hour must be close upon

midnight; the house was quiet and dark.



A piece of white cloth had been the signal agreed upon, and a fluttering

handkerchief should answer the purpose well enough without being too

conspicuous to alien eyes. Nanna still slept, and Esmay, slipping into

the hallway, stood listening for a moment. Then she went on boldly; the

moon was still high, and she would not need a light.



It had been arranged that the signal should be displayed from the

southwestern window of the cupola crowning the main roof. But the stairs

to the third story and attic were in a wing; to reach them she must

traverse a long corridor which led past the apartments occupied by

Quinton Edge. Esmay noticed a gleam of yellow light upon the threshold

of his half-closed door as she passed it on winged feet, but there was

nothing extraordinary in that--it often burned there throughout the

entire night. But he was talking to somebody; she could hear distinctly

the opposition of the two voices. Who could it be? for none of the

servants ever entered these rooms, and she had never known of any

stranger being invited thither. She stopped and listened for a moment or

two. But she could make out nothing distinctly, and then she flushed

hotly to think that she had been tempted to eavesdropping. Let her be

satisfied in knowing that Quinton Edge was in his room and busily

engaged; at least, he would not disturb her.



The upper stories of the house had not been occupied for many years, and

it took all the girl's courage to carry her through the shadow-haunted

garret and up the ladder leading to the cupola proper. But she

accomplished the task of putting the signal-cloth in position, and,

still shaking with cold and excitement, began to retrace her steps.



At the entrance to Quinton Edge's room she stopped again, not out of

curiosity, but as though yielding to the pressure of an invisible hand.

The door still stood ajar, but there was no sound of voices. Again it

was the invisible hand that seemed to draw the door away, permitting the

girl to look within. An empty room, save for the figure that sat at the

table, his head buried in his hands, the whole attitude one of intense

weariness and dejection. Even as she stood there he looked up, and she

saw his face mirrored in the glass that hung suspended from the opposite

wall. It was Quinton Edge's face, indisputably; but could she ever have

imagined that such capacity of pain lay behind the mask she knew so

well? The dark eyes seemed to seize and hold her fast; then she realized

that they saw nothing beyond their own mirrored reflection. Again the

head sank forward into the hollowed hands, and only the slow heave of

the shoulders made certain that it was a living man who sat there in the

silence.



Noiselessly closing the door, Esmay regained her room and, all clothed

as she was, crept into bed. Nanna stirred sleepily and put out a

protecting arm. How blessed the comfort of that strong, warm clasp!