They stood together in the grove of bamboos, where they had talked about Nick, and about "old Grizzly Gaylor," on the May night when Nick was leaving for New York. Counting by time, that was not long ago. But Carmen's whole outlook on life was changed. She felt and looked years older.
"That's all right then, my lady," Simeon Harp answered. "The whole thing's all right. Don't you worry."
"Oh, I do worry. Every minute I'm in hell," she groaned. "Oh, Simeon, what will become of me?"
"You'll be happy, and marry the man you love, my lady," the old man soothed her, the red-rimmed eyes, which had once been handsome, sending out a faint gleam of the one emotion that still burned in the ashes of his wrecked soul: devotion to the woman who had saved his life, who had given him a roof and food, and—above all—drink.
"I can never be happy again, whatever happens," Carmen said, with anguish. "He loves some one else. He doesn't care for me."
"He'll learn to care. This slip of a thing that's come between you and 'im, my lady, will fly away out of his mind like a bit of thistledown. When I'm done with her—she's got rid of for good."
"Oh, but the horror of it—the getting rid of her! It don't weaken one bit, Simeon. I've brought her here for that, just that, and it shall be done. In some moods, for a minute or two, I rejoice in the thought of it. I want it. I'd even like to be there and see. Madame Vestris says that in my last incarnation I was a Roman Empress—that I used to go to the gladiator shows, and turn my thumb down, as a sign that the wounded ones who failed in the fight were to be killed by their conquerors in the arena. And that, once when I hated a Christian girl, I went to see her killed by lions. She—Madame Vestris—watched the whole scene in her crystal. Very likely it's true, what she says. I believe in her. She's wonderful. But I'm softer in this incarnation than in the last, I guess. It frightens me and turns me sick when I think how I shall dream and wake up nights afterward—even if I'm married to Nick. Oh, it's awful! But it's the only way. He was meant for me! He's mine. She'll have to go. And I don't care how much I suffer, if only I have him for my husband in the end."
"You'll have him," said Simeon Harp. "It's going to be. And there ain't no need for you to dream bad dreams. You ain't doing the thing. It's me. It was me thought of it. It's me who'll carry it out."
"Supposing you fail?" she whispered.
"I won't, if you'll do your part. Just the little part, my lady; we can't get on without your doin'. You send her there, to the right place; that's all. For the rest you can count on me."