“She's dead,” he repeated sharply, as though that fact should impose silence on them; “you filthy curs!” But their approbation of the spectacle became only the more marked.
The Salvation Army man fastened his hectic gaze upon Anthony; he was, it was evident, unaware of the blood drying upon his face, of the throng about them. “There is no death,” he proclaimed. “There is no death!”
“But she is dead,” Anthony insisted; “pneumonia... with green eyes and foggy hands.” They began an insane argument: Eliza was gone, Anthony reiterated, the other could not deny that she was lost to life, to the sun. He recalled statements of Rufus Hardinge's, crisp iconoclasms of Annot's, and fitted them into the patchwork of his labored speech. Texts were flung aloft like flags by the other; ringing sentences in the incomparable English of King James echoed about the walls, the bottles of the saloon and beat upon the throng, the blank hearts, the beery brains, of the spectators. “Blessed are the pure in heart,” he orated, “for they... for they...”
LIV
THAT word—purity, rang like a gong in Anthony's thoughts: Eliza had emphasized it, questioning him. The term became inexplicably merged with Eliza into one shining whole—Eliza, purity; purity, Eliza. A swift impression of massed, white flowers swept before him, leaving a delicate and trailing fragrance. He had a vision of purity as something concrete, something which, like a priceless and fragile vase, he guarded in his hands. It had been a charge from her, a trust that he must keep unspotted, inviolable, that she would require—but she was gone, she was dead.
“... through the valley of the shadow,” the other cried.
She had left him; he stood alone, guarding a meaningless thing, useless as the money in his pocket.
A man with bare, corded arms and an apron, broke roughly through the circle; and with a hand on Anthony's back, a hand on the back of his opponent, urged them toward the door. “You'll have to take this outside,” he pronounced, “you're blocking the bar.”