"That was the period of my apotheosis, when I appeared to myself as a god,—last year, the year before last, even this winter," he said, presently, "before the pain came and while still I myself was greater than my art. But now, now, to-day, I do not laugh any more, nor can I make others laugh. My art is greater than I. It has grown unruly, arrogant. I am unequal to its demands. It asks of me what I am no longer able to give. It hounds me along. It storms at me—'Go further yet, imagine the unimaginable, pass all known limits. You are too squeamish, too fastidious, too modest, too nice. There yet remain sanctities to be defiled, shames to be depicted, agonies to be stewed in the vitriol juice of sarcasm. Go forward. You are lazy. Exert yourself. Discover fresh subjects. Invent new profanities. Turn the spit on which you have impaled humanity faster and faster. Draw better—you grow lethargic, indolent—draw better and better yet.'—But I cannot, I cannot," René Dax said, the corners of his mouth drooping like those of a tired baby. "We have changed places, my art and I. It is greater than me. It masters me instead of my mastering it. Like some huge brazen Moloch, with burning, brazen arms it presses me against its burning, brazen breast, scorching me to a cinder. It has squeezed me dry—dry—I am no longer able to collect my ideas, to memorize that which I see. My imagination is sterile. My hand refuses to obey my brain. My line, my beloved, my unexampled line, wavers, is broken, uncertain, loses itself. I scrabble unmeaning nonsense upon the paper."

He unbuttoned the wristband of his blouse and stripped up the sleeve of it.

"See," he went on, "how my muscles have deteriorated. My arm resembles some withered, sapless twig. Soon I shall not possess sufficient strength to hold a pencil or a bit of charcoal. Yes, yes, I know what you would say. Others have already said it. Travel, try change of scene, rest, consult doctors. But pah! Butchers, carrion-feeders, what can they tell me which I do not know already? For—for—"

He rose, came nearer to Gabrielle St. Leger, pointing to the inner corner of the great room in a line with the door.

"There," he said, with a singular sly gleefulness, "there—you see, Madame, behind the port folio-wagon? Yes?—It has its lair there, its retreat in which it conceals itself. It always says one thing, and it always tells the truth. It has once been a man; now it has no skin. You can observe all the muscles and sinews in action, which is extremely instructive. But naturally it is red—red all over. And it is highly varnished, otherwise, of course, it would feel the cold too much. It places its red hands on the edges of the portfolios—thus—and it vaults into the room. It is astonishingly agile. I think it may formerly have been, by profession, an acrobat, it runs so very swiftly. Its contortions are infinite. It avoids the pieces of furniture with extraordinary dexterity. Sometimes it leaps over them. The rapidity of its movements excites me. The pain—here at the base of my skull—always increases when I see it. I cannot restrain myself. I pursue it with frenzy. I hurl books, pictures, firewood, anything I can lay hands upon, at it—even my precious daggers and javelins from off the wall. But it sustains no injury. They—these objects which I throw—pass clean through it; yet they leave no aperture, no mark. My servant afterward finds them scattered upon the ground quite clean and free from moisture. And, as it runs, it screams to me, over its red shoulder, in a rasping voice like the cutting of stone with a saw, 'You are going mad, René Dax. You are going mad—mad.'"

Madame St. Leger raised both hands in mute horror, pity, protest. Her lips trembled. The tears ran down her cheeks. The young man watched her for some seconds, the strangest expression of triumph upon his solemn little face. Then, with a great sigh, he backed away and sat down on the divan once more.

"Ah! Ah!" he said, quite calmly and gently. "It is so adorable to see you weep! Better even than that you should step down off the easel, as you sometimes do at night, and, crossing the room, bend over me and give me sleep. Still the red man speaks truth, Madame, accurate, unassailable truth. It comes just to this. Very soon now the final act of this infernal comedy will be reached. I shall be mad—unless—"

CHAPTER III
IN WHICH THE STORM BREAKS

"Unless—unless—what?"