XIII
Through muddy dreams he struggled into half-consciousness. He fought with naked spectres for the possession of Mona. There were centaurs but they battled among themselves. He ran through endless vistas of magnificent halls, as full of flowers as a hothouse, and as he ran, himself naked, the flowers became alluring nude women, each with a pie and gluttonously eating. It was a nightmare full of mare's nests. Nothing happened, yet every moment was fraught with tragedy—the tragedy of indigestion. Ulick struggled. He put out a hand. It touched human flesh, a face, a nose. His chest was oppressed by a strange weight. Something living lay across him, the owner of the face. He could feel regular breathing. Releasing an arm he rubbed his eyes trying hard to locate himself. Who the woman so closely embracing him? A woman without peradventure of a doubt. It was not the first time that he had awakened in the company of a stranger; toujours la femme! Such happenings are not unusual in the life of adventurous youth. If he had been a drinking man he could have understood his slippery memory. Drinking? Wine? There was a distinct scent of stale alcohol about him, and then he realized that it was the hot breath of Dora. He gently lifted her head and placed it on the pillow. She murmured, nothing intelligible. Ulick greatly desired to know the time, greatly desired to bathe, dress and escape. It is an instinct of a healthy animal that as soon as it has coupled with its female it hastens away to sleep elsewhere. Homo sapiens invented affection, and then followed sentimentality. He got out of bed without disturbing the girl. The room was in semi-obscurity. Tip-toeing, he reached one of the heavily-curtained windows. Peeping out he saw that it must be midday, or later. What to do? He tried several door-knobs, finally found himself in a bath-room where he speedily switched on light. His clock told him a quarter past eleven, but it had run down. Some one tried the door and asked: "Are you up dearie? What time is it, I wonder? Oh! my poor head! I must have a cup of tea or I'll go crazy." Dearie! It was the classic phrase in all its perfection, consecrated by the generations of women, thought Ulick, and he called out: "All right, Dora I'll be with you in two minutes."
But if he was in prime condition after a cold dip and a rub, his lady friend was not. The dainty Dora of the bacchanale had given place to a girl with puffy eyelids, discoloured complexion, bloated cheeks, sagging mouth, bad breath and tarnished glance. She was suffering, and hardly took time to twist her abundant hair into shape. Withal, a charming creature, as she stood in the daylight before her glass. An expression of discontent, bred of late hours and dissipation was contradicted by her young eyes, which incessantly smiled. She couldn't have been more than eighteen and her figure was nubile in its firm flesh and flowing contours. Decidedly a treasure-trove for an erotic man. Ulick went to her and she met him half-way. They embraced so desperately that she cried: "You are such a dear, you are such a man!" And again they made the eternal gesture which mankind shares in common with his simian cousins at the Zoo or of the jungle. Youth must have its fling and the almighty has set his seal upon the multiplication of the species. And youth is better so employed than killing, or swindling, or guzzling, believed Ulick. Dora and Ulick were now thoroughly satisfied with one another and they made room in their consciousness for the play of a still more powerful instinct than reproduction. They were both hungry at the same time. Dora declared her headache vanished; Ulick, glad of the news, nevertheless wished she wouldn't address him with the inevitable "dearie." It sounded as naked as a cornet solo, this familiar appellation of the bordel. How unoriginal is man, how little he changes with the ages. In every tongue since the Babel scandal there is the equivalent of "dearie"; only, it is the property, this vocable, of the women of whom Dante wrote: "As the rill that runs from Bulicamé, to be portioned out among the sinful women...." Ulick felt relieved when breakfast was announced.
Dora, thanks to her invincible youth, had partly recovered. Last night was a thousand years ago for her; only the present existed. Eternity is now. She wore a morning-gown as pretty as herself. And she was pretty; in his eyes she kept growing prettier each time he looked at her. He said so. She rushed round the table to kiss him. A tempestuous temperament. The breakfast-room was also the living-room. It was in a tasteful key, the furnishing banal. The view gave on a sea of roofs and spires. The park, with its sunburnt foliage, even then a green that had decayed for want of proper soil, lay across the west prospect. Dora informed him that the apartment was in the tallest building on upper Lexington Avenue. He believed her. There was one balcony, and of stone. Together they stood upon it smoking their first cigarette. Both were in an expansive mood. Strong tea, buttered toast and marmalade unloosed their tongues. Before they left the room she had rung and another pretty girl entered. She was a quadroon, lovely of hair, complexion, and with a profile that would not have been out of place on an antique medal. Ulick, who Paris born and bred, had no "democratic" prejudices on the score of colour, admiringly stared at the girl as she noiselessly went about her task. Dora didn't like his look. "I see," she primly remarked, "you for the black-and-tan!" His inquiring expression, for he didn't understand, caused her to jerk her head in the direction of the maid. "I mean the slavey." "Oh!" he carelessly confessed, "I had a little chocolate-coloured mistress from Mauritius when I lived in Paris, and she wasn't half as pretty as this girl. Since Baudelaire set the fashion young French poets and artists have gone in for dusky concubines. I hear that at the time there was such a demand that the Isle de France was positively emptied of those young women. You know, Dora, Manet painted a marvellous negress in his Olympe, the slim, nude courtesan with the depraved eyes in the Luxembourg. It ought to be in the Louvre—perhaps it will be some day—"
Dora pouted. "I don't care a snap for your old poets and their nigger brides. Give me a cigarette. Be nice to me. Can't you cuddle me a little bit?" Perfect, said he, mentally. The type, he reasoned, is confined to no particular race. Customs differ; women, never. He became impatient. He mentioned an afternoon engagement at 5 o'clock. It must be all that now, and he kissed Dora good-bye. She was nettled. "You are just a man, after all. You are all alike as peas in a pod. I expected you to take me out to dinner, then to some show. What a dull night I've before me." He was sorry. "I'll be back by seven," he assured her, and she gave a little cry of mingled joy and triumph. "You are a dear, Ulick. I'll be ready for you. Change your clothes. You look a sight in those togs." "Thanks—one reason why I must get down town. Fresh linen, my love." "Where do you live?" He gave the Utopian Club address. He didn't like women to track him home; unless it were Easter or Mona. What were those two girls doing now? And why did he dream of Mona Milton, Mona of all girls, instead of Easter—or Dora? Dreams are silly, meaningless, and you can't rationalize them. He started to go, when Dora significantly said: "Don't forget the mantelpiece." For the second time that afternoon he was puzzled. "The mantelpiece," he echoed and searched for one with his eyes. Dora was not embarrassed. "The rent, angel-child, must be punctually paid on the first of the month. Our landlord is a terror. This apartment house is filled with well kept ladies. No questions are asked. The elevator runs all night. We don't bother with the police. So, my sweet laddybuck plank down the mazuma, or must I make a noise like a dollar-mark for this stupid young chap from Paris?" He understood. He opened his wallet and gave her a handful of notes; thereat she ecstatically screamed and hugged him. He escaped.
XIV
Ulick was fond of Dora. No mistake as to the order of his sentiment. She was the average lust-cat of commerce; yet she was "different." Yes, he quoted Stendhal to her, and after he had related a certain anecdote of Stendhal's life in Milan, she put fingers in her ears; "Don't tell me another thing about the dirty old man, or I'll hate you." "Dirty old man" was a critical pronouncement that wouldn't please the Stendhalians. Nevertheless it somehow suits Henry Beyle, who, genius that he was, must have been precisely what Dora called him. Well, most men are that; they don't have to be old, either. "What is life? A dirty business. Birth is repulsive, death horrible. You can't escape either, though you can cheat the worms by cremation—that foretaste of the lower regions." They went out to dinner. Ulick had hoped to see again the dark girl with the soft strange eyes. How often he had tried to analyze that expression to be found only in the eyes of a negress. A touch of melancholy, a hint of fear, a sweet submissiveness, and the naiveté of a child—these, with the heavy, slumberous lids, the full cup of the eyeball and the unconcealed languourous passion, pleased the aesthetic sense of the young man. Alas! she was not in sight. She had been released for the evening. Dora knew her business. The young man was entirely too susceptible; besides, she didn't like a "coon" servant, as she called her, butting-in. The girl's fate was assured.
They dined in the city, then visited a music-hall. He was mildly amused though sleepy and he made up his mind not to spend that night under Dora's roof. He went out during the entr'acte for a puff of fresh air and was annoyed on his return to find Paul Godard planted in the box beside Dora and calmly twisting the rings on her left hand. The men bowed; Ulick distantly. But good-tempered, irrepressible Paul exclaimed: "I say, Invern, we do coincide in our tastes, don't we?" Ulick nodded, not in the gayest spirit. Dora divined his irritation and was flattered. He is jealous of me, she thought, and plucked at his sleeve. "Old cross-patch, sit nearer. Mr. Godard won't mind." (The hell he won't! muttered Ulick.) "You won't mind, Paul, will you? Ulick is such a bear—no, I mean a dear. Ulick," she shook his listless arm, "Ulick, you ought to have heard Paul sing your praises just before you came back. He said you were the only critic whose criticisms he read. Now, be good—old crank!" The atmosphere became frigid. Paul felt it, and he was not exactly thin-skinned. He kissed Dora's hand, whispered, and inclining his head in Ulick's direction, went away. Silent, Ulick accompanied Dora to her apartment and excused himself. To his slight surprise she accepted his excuse, and pleaded sleepiness herself; to his jealously acute perception there was an absence of heartiness in their final embrace, but perhaps that was because the chauffeur was watching them. She named a day and he promised. As he left the taxi at the club the man confidentially whispered: "Some girl, that?" Ulick wasn't annoyed. Why should he be? Dora belonged to the public. She came from the people. Her daintiness was superficial. A pretty vulgarian, her appeal was universal to males in rut. The wealthy Paul and the humble mechanician both longed for her. So had Ulick, and he would again. She was aware of her attractions and like the busy little merchant she was she sold her wares to the highest bidder. But a demure harlot in demeanor occasionally refined. Silver plate that showed prosaic brass when she was angry or offguard; then her language darkened the air; profanity, abuse, obscenity. The filthiest words in the mud-lard vocabulary hurtled by the heads of her antagonist, whether a sister-cocotte, a chauffeur, or a clubman. Ulick was yet to pass through that verbal ordeal; but it would surely come to him as it did to the rest. She drank too much, and that was her vice. Her profession was in her estimation as honourable as any other. What's the difference between me and the poor dirty wife with a dozen brats? A woman is always kept by a man, wedding-ring or no. Don't I love babies? I dote on them. Thus her philosophy and her preference. She adored children. She loved all the nice young chaps who made her presents and helped to pay her steadily mounting household expenses. If she could only put aside a few dollars every week for the rainy day sure to come. But she never could. The weekly bills were so numerous and so tame, that they ate out of her hands, she would joke. And Paul Godard would surely sleep under her roof this very night, said Ulick, as he wearily undressed himself. I shan't worry much. Dora is a commodity. So is Paul. So am I—for Dora. So is Mona. We are all chattels of chance.