Valentine Corliss had nothing to do
but to wait for the money his friend Antonio would
send him by cable. His own cable, anticipating
his letter, had been sent yesterday, when he came
back to the hotel, after lunching in the country with
Cora.
As he walked down Corliss Street,
after his tumultuous interview with her, he was surprised
to find himself physically tremulous: he had
not supposed that an encounter, however violent, with
an angry woman could so upset his nerves. It
was no fear of Pryor which shook him. He knew
that Pryor did not mean to cause his arrest certainly
not immediately. Of course, Pryor knew that Cora
would tell him. The old fellow’s move was
a final notification. It meant: “Get
out of town within twenty-four hours.” And
Corliss intended to obey. He would have left
that evening, indeed, without the warning; his trunk
was packed.
He would miss Cora. He had kept
a cool head throughout their affair until the last;
but this morning she had fascinated him: and
he found himself passionately admiring the fury of
her. She had confused him as he had never been
confused. He thought he had tamed her; thought
he owned her; and the discovery of this mistake was
what made him regret that she would not come away with
him. Such a flight, until to-day, had been one
of his apprehensions: but now the thought that
it was not to be, brought something like pain.
At least, he felt a vacancy; had a sense of something
lacking. She would have been a bright comrade
for the voyage; and he thought of gestures of hers,
turns of the head, tricks of the lovely voice; and
sighed.
Of course it was best for him that
he could return to his old trails alone and free;
he saw that. Cora would have been a complication
and an embarrassment without predictable end, but she
would have been a rare flame for a while. He wondered
what she meant to do; of course she had a plan.
Should he try again, give her another chance?
No; there was one point upon which she had not mystified
him: he knew she really hated him.
. . . The wind was against the
smoke that day; and his spirits rose, as he walked
in the brisk air with the rich sky above him.
After all, this venture upon his native purlieus had
been fax from fruitless: he could not have expected
to do much better. He had made his coup; he knew
no other who could have done it. It was a handsome
bit of work, in fact, and possible only to a talented
native thoroughly sophisticated in certain foreign
subtleties. He knew himself for a rare combination.
He had a glimmer of Richard Lindley
beginning at the beginning again to build a modest
fortune: it was the sort of thing the Richard
Lindleys were made for. Corliss was not troubled.
Richard had disliked him as a boy; did not like him
now; but Corliss had not taken his money out of malice
for that. The adventurer was not revengeful;
he was merely impervious.
At the hotel, he learned that Moliterno’s
cable had not yet arrived; but he went to an agency
of one of the steamship lines and reserved his passage,
and to a railway ticket office and secured a compartment
for himself on an evening train. Then he returned
to his room in the hotel.
The mirror over the mantelpiece, in
the front room of his suite, showed him a fine figure
of a man: hale, deep-chested, handsome, straight
and cheerful.
He nodded to it.
“Well, old top,” he said,
reviewing and summing up his whole campaign, “not
so bad. Not so bad, all in all; not so bad, old
top. Well played indeed!”
At a sound of footsteps approaching
his door, he turned in casual expectancy, thinking
it might be a boy to notify him that Moliterno’s
cable had arrived. But there was no knock, and
the door was flung wide open.
It was Vilas, and he had his gun with
him this time. He had two.
There was a shallow clothes-closet
in the wall near the fireplace, and Corliss ran in
there; but Vilas began to shoot through the door.
Mutilated, already a dead man, and
knowing it, Corliss came out, and tried to run into
the bedroom. It was no use.
Ray saved his last shot for himself. It did the
work.