“It seems to me most unfair,” Saxon reflected, more in sadness than anger.
“That is your quarrel with the world, not with me,” Mercedes rejoined sharply, then immediately softened with one of her quick changes. “We mustn't quarrel, my dear. I like you so much. La la, it is nothing to you, who are young and strong with a man young and strong. Listen, I am an old woman. And old Barry can do little for me. He is on his last legs. His kidneys are 'most gone. Remember, 'tis I must bury him. And I do him honor, for beside me he'll have his last long sleep. A stupid, dull old man, heavy, an ox, 'tis true; but a good old fool with no trace of evil in him. The plot is bought and paid for—the final installment was made up, in part, out of my commissions from you. Then there are the funeral expenses. It must be done nicely. I have still much to save. And Barry may turn up his toes any day.”
Saxon sniffed the air carefully, and knew the old woman had been drinking again.
“Come, my dear, let me show you.” Leading Saxon to a large sea chest in the bedroom, Mercedes lifted the lid. A faint perfume, as of rose-petals, floated up. “Behold, my burial trousseau. Thus I shall wed the dust.”
Saxon's amazement increased, as, article by article, the old woman displayed the airiest, the daintiest, the most delicious and most complete of bridal outfits. Mercedes held up an ivory fan.
“In Venice 'twas given me, my dear.—See, this comb, turtle shell; Bruce Anstey made it for me the week before he drank his last bottle and scattered his brave mad brains with a Colt's 44.—This scarf. La la, a Liberty scarf—”
“And all that will be buried with you,” Saxon mused, “Oh, the extravagance of it!”
Mercedes laughed.
“Why not? I shall die as I have lived. It is my pleasure. I go to the dust as a bride. No cold and narrow bed for me. I would it were a coach, covered with the soft things of the East, and pillows, pillows, without end.”
“It would buy you twenty funerals and twenty plots,” Saxon protested, shocked by this blasphemy of conventional death. “It is downright wicked.”