VI
DULCIE

One warm afternoon late in spring, Dulcie Soane, returning from school to Dragon Court, found her father behind the desk, as usual, awaiting his daughter’s advent, to release him from duty.

A tall, bony man with hectic and sunken cheeks and only a single eye was standing by the desk, earnestly engaged in whispered conversation with her father.

He drew aside instantly as Dulcie came up and laid her school books on the desk. Soane, already redolent of Grogan’s whiskey, pushed back his chair and got to his feet.

“G’wan in f’r a bite an’ a sup,” he said to his daughter, “while I talk to the gintleman.”

So Dulcie went slowly into the superintendent’s dingy quarters for her mid-day meal, which was dinner; and between her and a sloppy scrub-woman who cooked for them, she managed to warm up and eat what Soane had left for her from his own meal.

When she returned to the desk in the hall, the one-eyed man had gone. Soane sat on the chair behind the desk, his face over-red and shiny, his heels drumming the devil’s tattoo on the tessellated pavement.

“I’ll be at Grogan’s,” he said, as Dulcie seated herself in the ancient leather chair behind the desk telephone, and began to sort the pile of mail which the postman evidently had just delivered.

“Very well,” she murmured absently, turning around 79 and beginning to distribute the letters and parcels in the various numbered compartments behind her. Soane slid off his chair to his feet and straightened up, stretching and yawning.

“Av anny wan tilliphones to Misther Barres,” he said, “listen in.”

“What!”

“Listen in, I’m tellin’ you. And if it’s a lady, ask her name first, and then listen in. And if she says her name is Quellen or Dunois, mind what she says to Misther Barres.”

“Why?” enquired Dulcie, astonished.

“Becuz I’m tellin’ ye!”

“I shall not do that,” said the girl, flushing up.

“Ah, bother! Sure, there’s no harm in it, Dulcie! Would I be askin’ ye to do wrong, asthore? Me who is your own blood and kin? Listen then: ’Tis a woman what do be botherin’ the poor young gentleman, an’ I’ll not have him f’r to be put upon. Listen, m’acushla, and if airy a lady tilliphones, or if she comes futtherin’ an’ muttherin’ around here, call me at Grogan’s and I’ll be soon dishposen’ av the likes av her.”

“Has she ever been here – this lady?” asked the girl, uncertain and painfully perplexed.

“Sure has she! Manny’s the time I’ve chased her out,” replied Soane glibly.

“Oh. What does she look like?”

“God knows – annything ye don’t wish f’r to look like yourself! Sure, I disremember what make of woman she might be – her name’s enough for you. Call me up if she comes or rings. She may be a dangerous woman, at that,” he added, “so speak fair to her and listen in to what she says.”

Dulcie slowly nodded, looking at him hard.

Soane put on his faded brown hat at an angle, fished 80 a cigar with a red and gold band from his fancy but soiled waistcoat, scratched a match on the seat of his greasy pants, and sauntered out through the big, whitewashed hallway into the street, with a touch of the swagger which always characterised him.

Dulcie, both hands buried in her ruddy hair and both thin elbows on the desk, sat poring over her school books.

Graduation day was approaching; there was much for her to absorb, much to memorise before then.

As she studied she hummed to herself the air of the quaint song which she was to sing at her graduation exercises. That did not interfere with her concentration; but as she finished one lesson, cast aside the book, and opened another to prepare the next lesson, vaguely happy memories of her evening party with Barres came into her mind to disturb her thoughts, tempting her to reverie and the delicious idleness she knew only when alone and absorbed in thoughts of him.

But she resolutely put him out of her mind and opened her book.

The hall clock ticked loudly through the silence; slanting sun rays fell through the street grille, across the tessellated floor where flies crawled and buzzed.

The Prophet sat full in a bar of sunlight and gravely followed the movements of the flies as though specialising on the study of those amazing insects.

Tenants of Dragon Court passed out or entered at intervals, pausing to glance at their letter-boxes or requesting their keys.

Westmore came down the eastern staircase, like an avalanche, with a cheery:

“Hello, Dulcie! Any letters? All right, old dear! If you see Mr. Mandel, tell him I’ll be at the club!”

Corot Mandel came in presently, and she gave him Westmore’s message.

“Thanks,” he said, not even glancing at the thin figure in the shabby dress too small for her. And, after peering into his letter-box, he went away with the indolent swing of a large and powerful plantigrade, gazing fixedly ahead of him out of heavy, oriental eyes, and twisting up his jet black, waxed moustache.

A tall, handsome girl called and enquired for Mr. Trenor. Dulcie returned her amiable smile, unhooked the receiver, and telephoned up. But nobody answered from Esmé Trenor’s apartment, and the girl, whose name was Damaris Souval, and whose profession varied between the stage and desultory sitting for artists, smiled once more on Dulcie and sauntered out in her very charming summer gown.

The shabby child looked after her through the sunny hallway, the smile still curving her lips – a sensitive, winning smile, untainted by envy. Then she resumed her book, serenely clearing her youthful mind of vanity and desire for earthly things.

Half an hour later Esmé Trenor sauntered in. His was a sensitive nature and fastidious, too. Dinginess, obscurity – everything that was shabby, tarnished, humble in life, he consistently ignored. He had ignored Dulcie Soane for three years: he ignored her now.

He glanced indifferently into his letter-box as he passed the desk. Dulcie said, with the effort it always required for her to speak to him:

“Miss Souval called, but left no message.”

Trenor’s supercilious glance rested on her for the fraction of a second, then, with a bored nod, he continued on his way and up the stairs. And Dulcie returned to her book.

The desk telephone rang: a Mrs. Helmund desired 82 to speak to Mr. Trenor. Dulcie switched her on, rested her chin on her hand, and continued her reading.

Some time afterward the telephone rang again.

“Dragon Court,” said Dulcie, mechanically.

“I wish to speak to Mr. Barres, please.”

“Mr. Barres has not come in from luncheon.”

“Are you sure?” said the pretty, feminine voice.

“Quite sure,” replied Dulcie. “Wait a minute – ”

She called Barres’s apartment; Aristocrates answered and confirmed his master’s absence with courtly effusion.

“No, he is not in,” repeated Dulcie. “Who shall I say called him?”

“Say that Miss Dunois called him up. If he comes in, say that Miss Thessalie Dunois will come at five to take tea with him. Thank you. Good-bye.”

Startled to hear the very name against which her father had warned her, Dulcie found it difficult to reconcile the sweet voice that came to her over the wire with the voice of any such person her father had described.

Still a trifle startled, she laid aside the receiver with a disturbed glance toward the wrought-iron door at the further end of the hall.

She had no desire at all to call up her father at Grogan’s and inform him of what had occurred. The mere thought of surreptitious listening in, of eavesdropping, of informing, reddened her face. Also, she had long since lost confidence in the somewhat battered but jaunty man who had always neglected her, although never otherwise unkind, even when intoxicated.

No, she would neither listen in nor inform on anybody at the behest of a father for whom, alas, she had no respect, merely those shreds of conventional feeling 83 which might once have been filial affection, but had become merely an habitual solicitude.

No, her character, her nature refused such obedience. If there was trouble between the owner of the unusually sweet voice and Mr. Barres, it was their affair, not hers, not her father’s.

This settled in her mind, she opened another book and turned the pages slowly until she came to the lesson to be learned.

It was hard to concentrate; her thoughts were straying, now, to Barres.

And, as she leaned there, musing above her dingy school book, through the grilled door at the further end of the hall stepped a young girl in a light summer gown – a beautiful girl, lithe, graceful, exquisitely groomed – who came swiftly up to the desk, a trifle pale and breathless:

“Mr. Barres? He lives here?”

“Yes.”

“Please announce Miss Dunois.”

Dulcie flushed deeply under the shock:

“Mr. – Mr. Barres is still out – ”

“Oh. Was it you I talked to over the telephone?” asked Thessalie Dunois.

“Yes.”

“Mr. Barres has not returned?”

“No.”

Thessalie bit her lip, hesitated, turned to go. And at the same instant Dulcie saw the one-eyed man at the street door, peering through the iron grille.

Thessalie saw him, too, stiffened to marble, stood staring straight at him.

He turned and went away up the street. But Dulcie, to whom the incident signified nothing in particular except the impudence of a one-eyed man, was not prepared 84 for the face which Thessalie Dunois turned toward her. Not a vestige of colour remained in it, and her dark eyes seemed feverish and too large.

“You need not give Mr. Barres any message from me,” she said in an altered voice, which sounded strained and unsteady. “Please do not even say that I came or mention my name… May I ask it of you?”

Dulcie, very silent in her surprise, made no reply.

“Please may I ask it of you?” whispered Thessalie. “Do you mind not telling anybody that I was here?”

“If – you wish it.”

“I do. May I trust you?”

“Y-yes.”

“Thank you – ” A bank bill was in her gloved fingers; intuition warned her; she took another swift look at Dulcie. The child’s face was flaming scarlet.

“Forgive me,” whispered Thessalie… “And thank you, dear – ” She bent over quickly, took Dulcie’s hand, pressed it, looking her in the eyes.

“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I am not asking you to do anything you shouldn’t. Mr. Barres will understand it all when I write to him… Did you see that man at the street door, looking through the grating?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know who he is?” whispered Thessalie.

“No.”

“Have you never before seen him?”

“Yes. He was here at two o’clock talking to my father.”

“Your father?”

“My father’s name is Lawrence Soane. He is superintendent of Dragon Court.”

“What is your name?”

“Dulcie Soane.”

Thessalie still held her hand tightly. Then with a quick but forced smile, she pressed it, thanking the girl for her consideration, turned and walked swiftly through the hall out into the street.

Dulcie, dreaming over her closed books in the fading light, vaguely uneasy lest her silence might embrace the faintest shadow of disloyalty to Barres, looked up quickly at the sound of his familiar footsteps on the pavement.

“Hello, little comrade,” he called to her on his way to the stairs. “Didn’t we have a jolly party the other evening? I’m going out to another party this evening, but I bet it won’t be as jolly as ours!”

The girl smiled happily.

“Any letters, Sweetness?”

“None, Mr. Barres.”

“All the better. I have too many letters, too many visitors. It leaves me no time to have another party with you. But we shall have another, Dulcie – never fear. That is,” he added, pretending to doubt her receptiveness of his invitation, “if you would care to have another with me.”

She merely looked at him, smiling deliciously.

“Be a good child and we’ll have another!” he called back to her, running on up the western staircase.

Around seven o’clock her father came in, steady enough of foot but shiny-red in the face and maudlin drunk.

“That woman was here,” he whined, “an’ ye never called me up! I am b-bethrayed be me childer – wurra the day – ”

“Please, father! If any one sees you – ”

“An’ phwy not! Am I ashamed o’ the tears I shed? 86 No, I am not. No Irishman need take shame along av the tears he sheds for Ireland – God bless her where she shtands! – wid the hob-nails av the crool tyrant foreninst her bleeding neck an’ – ”

“Father, please – ”

“That woman I warned ye of! She was here! ’Twas the wan-eyed lad who seen her – ”

Dulcie rose and took him by his arm. He made no resistance; but he wept while she conducted him bedward, as the immemorial wrongs of Ireland tore his soul.