“And the others––Kastner, Sondheim––and the other vermin? You were quite right. Why should I kill them––merely because to-day a real man died? What if they are the same species of vermin that slew Vanya Tchernov? They are not men to pay for it. My pistol could not make a dead man out of a live louse! No, you are quite correct. You know your own kind. It would be no compliment to Vanya if I should give these vermin the death that real men die!”
Puma stood close to the door, furtively passing a thick tongue over his dry, blanched lips.
“Then you will not interfere?” he asked softly.
She shrugged her shoulders: one was bare with the torn sleeve dangling. “No,” she said wearily. “Run home, painted pig. After all, the world is mostly swine.... I, too, it seems–––” She half raised her arms, but the gesture failed, and she stood thinking again and staring at the curtained window. She did not hear him leave.
CHAPTER XXIII
In the strange, springlike weather which prevailed during the last days of January, Vanya was buried under skies as fleecy blue as April’s, and Marya Lanois went back to the studio apartment where she and Vanya had lived together. And here, alone, in the first month of the new year, she picked up again the ravelled threads of life, undecided whether to untangle them or to cut them short and move on once more to further misadventure; or to Vanya; or somewhere––or perhaps nowhere. So, pending some decision, she left her pistol loaded.
Afternoon sunshine poured into the studio between antique silken curtains, now drawn wide to the outer day for the first time since these two young people had established for themselves a habitation.
And what, heretofore, even the lighted mosque-lamps had scarcely half revealed, now lay exposed to outer air and daylight, gilded by the sun––cabinets and chests of ancient lacquer; deep-toned carpets in which slumbered jewelled fires of Asia; carved gods from the East, crusted with soft gold; and tapestries of silk shot with amethyst and saffron, centred by dragons and guarded by the burning pearl.
Over all these, and the great mosque lantern drooping from above, the false-spring sunshine fell; and through every open window flowed soft, deceptive winds, 335 fluttering the leaves of music on the piano, stirring the clustered sheafs of growing jonquils and narcissus, so that they swayed in their Chinese bowls.