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Solange choked back a sob. She leaned nearer and opened her eyes wider. De Launay's gaze remained lost in the depths of hers. But he saw at last to the bottom of them; saw there unutterable sorrow and love. "Don't worry, fair lady!" he gasped. "It's been something to live for once more! And the mine you'll not need that after all!"
Snake Murphy, who was polishing the rough bar in front of him, glanced quickly up, as though hearing something vaguely familiar. But he saw nothing but De Launay's thoughtful eyes and sober face with its small, pointed mustache. "'Scuse me, gents," he murmured. "What'll it be?" "A very little girl," said De Launay, absently looking into and through Murphy. "A sort of little fairy."
Her eyes were half closed now. "Will you kill him, monsieur? If you do, you may have of me anything that you ask!" The words were faltered out in utter weariness. For one instant De Launay's eyes flickered toward her, but Sucatash had already sprung to her side and was easing her to a seat on the edge of the bunk. Her head drooped forward. "Ma'am," said Sucatash, earnestly, "you got me wrong.
His eyes slowly closed but he was not unconscious, for he spoke again. "It's nothing much. That rat couldn't kill Louisiana!" The man who was examining De Launay made an impatient gesture and Sucatash drew her gently away. She rose slowly, bending dumbly over the physician, as he seemed to be. "Reckon he's right," said this man, grimly, as he bared De Launay's chest. "Huh!
I have merely wondered why they called you that." "It is on account of my eyes. They are queer, perhaps. And my hair, which I also hide under the cap. The poor soldiers ascribe all sorts of of virtues to them. Magic qualities, which, of course, is silly. And others are not so kind." In De Launay's mind was running a verse from William Morris' "Earthly Paradise."
When he is in average circumstances, he dines at Launay's, waxes his mustache, and brushes his hair back from his face. But when he dines at the Cafe Riche, my boy, when he has dyed his mustache, and tips his hat over his ear, and deports himself in that arrogant fashion, why, he has at least five or six thousand francs in his pocket, and all is well with him." "Where does he get his money from?"
A smile, somewhat bitter, crossed De Launay's face. "Unhappy!" he repeated; "She! You mistake her, little girl! She does not know what it is to be unhappy; nothing so weak and slight as poor humanity affects the shining iceberg of her soul! For it is an iceberg, Teresa! The sun shines on it all day, fierce and hot, and never moves or melts one glittering particle!"
Comfort and even luxury surrounded her, and the law stalked the streets openly in the person of a uniformed policeman. That fact, indeed, spelled a misgiving to her, for, where the law held sway, a private vengeance became a different thing from what she had imagined it to be. Only De Launay's careless gibe as he had left her at the hotel held promise of performance.
De Launay's immediate guard, at this moment, said something to the uniformed policeman who sat near the center of the room. The other glanced perfunctorily in De Launay's direction and nodded, and the man stepped out into the hall. De Launay whispered an intimation that he was interested in the bail suggestion.
He had had his fill of that in the last four years, yet he did not seem satisfied. Of course, Mr. Doolittle had heard rumors, as had many others, but they seemed hardly enough to account for De Launay's depression and general seediness.
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