LOLA
Rubies ripped from altar cloths Leered a-down her rich attire; Her mad shoes were scarlet moths In a rose of fire.
A. T. Quiller-Couch.
From the briskness of the street, with its lamps aglitter in the lingering May evening, O'Neill entered to the sober gloom and the restless echoes of the great studio. He had come to hate the place of late. The high poise of its walls, like the sides of a well, the pale shine of the north light in the roof, the lumber of naked marble and formal armor and the rest, peopling its shadows, were like a tainted atmosphere to him; they embarrassed the lungs of his mind. Only the name of friendship exacted these visits from him; Regnault, dying where he had worked, was secure against desertion.
Buscarlet opened the door to him, his eyes wide and bewildered behind his spectacles.
"How is he?" asked O'Neill curtly, entering the great room.
"Ill," answered the other. "Very ill, so that one cannot tell whether he sleeps or wakes. There should be a nun here to nurse him, only—"
O'Neill nodded. The sick man's bed was set in the centre of the great room, shielded from the draughts of the door by a tall screen of gilt leather. From behind this screen, a shaded lamp by the bedside made an island of soft radiance in the darkness.
They went together past the screen and stopped to look at Regnault. He was lying on his back, with closed eyes, and his keen aquiline face upturned to the pallor of the "light" in the roof. The white hair tumbled on the pillow, and the long, beautiful hands that lay on the coverlet were oddly pathetic in contrast to the potency of the unconscious face. Even in sleep it preserved its cast of high assurance, its note of ideals outworn and discounted. It was the face of a man who had found a bitter answer for most of life's questions. By the bed sat Truelove, his servant, ex-corporal of dragoons. He rose noiselessly as O'Neill approached.
"No change, sir," he reported. "Talked a bit, an hour ago. Mr.
Buscarlet was then 'ere."