He turned eyes of childlike appeal to the dismal eyes of the physician, who was more helpless than his victims since he knew better than they how much woe is abroad.
Dr. Marlowe laid a hand on RoBards’ shoulder as a man might say: “I will go to the guillotine with you. The only dignity left is bravery. Let us not forget our etiquette.”
But to be brave for another’s doom! To be plucky about the fact that his wife, his sweetheart, the infanta of his love, was to be torn to pieces slowly by the black leopard of that death—this was a cowardly bravery to his thinking. He was brave enough to confess his utter, abject terror. He went through what thousands had once felt when their beloved were summoned to the torture chamber.
He fought his panic down lest Patty be alarmed. He wrestled with the mouth muscles that wanted to scream protests and curses; and he made them smile when he went out and sank in the carriage beside her and told the driver “Home!” as one might say “To the Inquisition!”
And Patty smiled at him and hummed:
“We-e-e-eave no mo-o-ore silks, ye Ly-y-ons loo-oo-oo-ooms.”
She knew that the doctor was glazing over his fatal discovery. She knew that her husband’s smile was but the grimace of one poisoned with the sardonic weed. She was afraid, though, to reveal her intuition lest she lose control of her own terrors, leaping and baying like mad hounds at the leashes of her nerves.
The only hope the coupled humans had of maintaining a decent composure was in keeping up the lie. They were calm as well-bred people are when a theatre catches fire and they disdain to join the shrieking, trampling herd.
They had tickets for a play that night. It seemed best to go. The play was sad at times and Patty wept softly. RoBards’ hand hunted for hers and found it, and the two hands clung together, embracing like the Babes in the Wood with night and the wild beasts gathering about them.
After a dreadful delay, there was a more dreadful operation, and once more RoBards blessed the names of Morton, Jackson, and Wells for the sleep they gave his beloved during the nightmare of the knives. But only for a while, since the pain, after a brief frustration, flowed back like a dammed river when the dam gives way.