Truly this departure in infernal propaganda must have been fearsome. Also fearsome was Dolores’ wonder over why she alone had not been bidden to attend. Adeline was inclined to attribute the omission to stage fright. M’lord, remembering the standard to which his entertainer had been educated, feared to fall short. Having successfully tried out his “delivery,” however, he probably would ask her to the second sermon of the seven.
But what of the two intervening nights? Why this surcease of interest in the griefs which so had diverted him?
Dolores was forced to the conclusion that she had ceased to entertain. Perhaps, even then, the evil eye was sighting her fate and the fate of her babe.
Desperation shook her from the stupor of waiting. He had preached action in his sermon, according to report. She must do something to re-arouse his curiosity. In the late afternoon, as she knew, he often strolled in his favorite garden of Bad Luck. She dared not ask for an appointment; no. Yet why not “happen” to meet him?
In selecting the rays in which to dress, she remembered his preference for purples and scarlets, rather than the more delicate half-lights in which she would have clothed herself. But even while thanking Adeline for a grudging compliment over the blend of her robe with the purplish shadows of her eyes, she realized the depths to which she was sinking. For the first time she understood those women of earth who adorned themselves to enslave men whom they had come to hate. Those they feared most, they must charm. Poor, poor women of Earth!
In the lower reaches of the garden she came upon an illustration of her thought—a fountain effect whose central figure was the sculped, naked body of a woman bent beneath the club of her man and master, on her lips a seductive smile, from her eyes spouting twin founts of electric spray—tears of terror.
Hearing footsteps behind, Dolores stopped, as if in admiration of the ghoulish conceit. The throb of her temples was not cooled by the hot winds with which the tropical foliage illusions of the garden were artificially fanned. The sinking sensation at her heart was no sickness from the too-intense odors of the lavish-looking bloom. The hurt of her ears could not be blamed on shrieks of the peacocks, parrakeets and tanagers which soundlessly strutted and winged about. No winds of Gehenna might discomfort her, except in her own acknowledgment. No odors, except from memory, might penetrate her senses from poinsettias or rhododendrons. No sound, except as she imagined it, might swell the throats of the birds. From the rubber plants grouped at the entrance gate, through the lane of Spanish bayonets whose barbs were a menace to one who strolled, to the fountain called “Fate of the Fair,” the garden was one vast stage set, a master chimera. Bad luck, then—that too must be hallucination.
Courage came to Dolores with the thought. She, an immortal woman soul, would not bow the neck to an undeserved club. She must lift her head believing that even the winds of Hell would cool her brow; must delight in fragrances, strong from her own expectation; must open wide her ears to the Seraphs’ song of hope.
Ready to meet His Majesty, she turned. Her disappointment was keen as her courage to see in him who was approaching the lame old soldier-soul, Samuel Cummings. At first only his face and crutch were recognizable, so resplendent was he in the uniform of an officer of the Hadean Hordes. When he drew up before her with his old-time salute, she counted on his forehead, branded blood-red, the stars of a general.
Her maid had told him he’d find her out here, the old chap explained. He had come to tell her the news. His Majesty had called him to an interview night before last and promoted him because it was beneath the Royal dignity to confer in private with a corporal.