And would Satan do his damnedest to love and cherish Dolores?
Hell helping him, he would.
Almost before her change of estate could be realized, she who had been despised of men stood before the Lower World with a crown upon her head and a scepter in her hand.
Her lord’s first marital word had been a complaint. Why hadn’t she worn the glittering amethystine costume which he had ordered as her bridal robe? Did she think herself still the shopgirl who had walked, once upon a time, into Vincent Seff’s “slaughter of the innocents” that she should come to her nuptials unadorned by any of the stage jewelry which he had heaped upon her? Or had her late-learned humor dictated her dress of virgin white?
She suspected indulgence, if not actual approval, behind his show of displeasure. Himself he had arrayed faultlessly in cutaway effect. His two departures from Earth’s accepted mode lay in a scarlet cravat and his boutonnière. In lieu of the conventional orange-blossom bud, he wore a tiny illuminated nectarine.
As to so many women-souls before her sacrificed upon the matrimonial altar, the subsequent feast was to Dolores a tedious affair. Toasted in varied high-volt mixtures, praised for her vices in the retroactive terms of the damned, applauded uproariously for her inability to make brazen reply as the arch-mistress of deceit, she had striven through course after course to keep up appearances. What though in the illusion of passion flowers that banked the board as a centerpiece she saw only the reproach in the dark eyes of John Cabot? What though her only taste from the adroit food-phantasies was the unsatisfying reminder that she must not regret her deception—must not allow herself to long for him, lest her thought-clutch deter him from the brave deeds that he must do? What though the only spirituous effect of the wine she quaffed was the realization that, with every half-hour now, the little party saved by her surrender must be nearer that boundary over which not even the Prince of the Power of the Air might recall them? With her black demi-watt she sipped the conviction that, in the emergency, she had done the best she could; with her electro-cordial frappé, the hope that already John might understand—that all might yet be well.
Now, with her gaze up-hung on the royal coat-of-arms, that conviction became as “sackcloth of hair” and the moon of her desire “as blood.” The stars of her hope-heaven fell unto the Earth, “even as a figtree casteth her untimely figs when shaken by a mighty wind.” All be well? “As a scroll ... when rolled away” was that sanguine possibility. Out of their places were moved her every mountain of resolve and island of faith.
She had declared herself ready to pay. Above was writ the price.
From out the design, as of ebony and amethyst, still shone the giant’s crown in bas-relief. The names of Japheth, Shem and Ham continued to drip in ruby lights from the horns of their respective lines. The caption beneath blazed brilliantly through its sardonyx-thin lettering. Except for the omission of two words the text read as before, “SATAN THE FIRST AND LAST” had been cut to “SATAN THE FIRST.”
That so bold an announcement could be made by elision! No longer did Satan the First boast himself the Last. Through what roiled channels did his reasoning run?