San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1925-12-13

Satan. A world of DULLES, drunken
men-at-arms, smooth women with
cat-like claws of cruelty, street
folk with black or hostile faces
whips, prisons-and always, in the
threatening and sombre back
ground, the heavy smoke rolling
from burning faggots.
"Gervais! Gervaisv' She must
have pricked the image twenty or
thirty times. At any moment now
some one might enter. Some one.
1t came to her-for the first time
with vividness-that the young
lord was flesh and blood person
"a mana knight-whom she
must love in exchange for his body
and soul. A shrinking flashed
through her-the instructive recoil
of a girl. She was suddenly afraid,
though she did not question for an
instant that it must be so.
Steps in the gallery without
the tread of a man.
.Sidonia, giving the involuntary
little jump of thief caught touch
ing dropped thorn and image. She
was afraid to bend and grope for
them. Her lips were dry and they
flushed, for there was a nervous
trembling that she was unable to
control. She was alone.
The steps were right at hand.
They seemed to pause at the
threshold, and then faint crackle
of rushes. Out of the deep shad-
ows that marked the doorway a
figure was advancing, rather
slo' ly.
The moment had come. Sidonia
lifted the wine cup between her
two hands. She moved forward.
Her head was bent trifle and
she caught her underlip sharply
between her teeth before she
spoke.
"Sir, will you be pleased to
drink? lit is the Countess
wish. i. She will be with you pres
emily"
Her voice was not steady. 1t
sounded small and odd. Some dis
lance behind her the two lonely
candles burned. They shed no light
whatever upon her lowered face.
Gervais halted as soon as the
girl spoke her first word. He was
surprised. He had expected to find
the chamber empty. This girl was
strange to him-or appeared to be.
He could not see her clearly, for
there was not much light. He
would have to drink the wine, of
course good manners obliging
him to do so, though he did not
require it. There was nothing to
be said. As usual, in the face of
an unexpected woman, he was
tongue-tied.
The girl was within a foot of
him now and had. paused also. He
was aware of a vague, balsamic
odor, bearing the spirit to beds of
trodden herbs at the edge of pine
forest. He took the chalice-like
cup from her hands in complete
silence and drank.
Sidonia was conscious only of
her own suspense. She stood, as
it were, in a pause of nothingness
between action and action. The
height, the fair build, the dim face
of the young lord were reflected
in her mind as in an unthinking
mirror. She merely waited.
Gervais, bound by the rules of
courtesy, drank as deeply as he
was able. Then gave the cup back
into the hands of the girl. He
passed his tongue over his lips, for
there had been a peculiar flavor
and the after-taste was not quite
pleasant. For how long should he
stand where he was, like a fool?
Would the girl go or remain? How
soon would the Countess enter?
When the cup was returned to
her - still in silence - Sidonia
stayed stock-still for a long mo-
ment, and then mechanically
turned about, going back toward
the two candles, and set it care
fully upon the table that was COW
cred with a white cloth. Moving
still like a sleep-walker, she passed
behind the table and turned, rails
ing her face. The light of the
CdHuleS uWelI OH Hefs ana LDe eefle,
greenish silver /of the filtered
was an impalpable MIN
bus--a witch-halo.
Gervais had followed with his
eyes the subdued, forest-move-
ments of the dim girl because she
was Immediately before him and
there was nothing else to attract
his rather uncomfortable attention.
When she turned slowly to face
him, looking toward him, but with
but seeming seeing him, it was sew
aral moments before the signifi-
canoe of what he saw leaped from
MS brain to his heart.
Black hair, combed very smooth,
framing a face that seemed to be
nothing but an unutterable, dark,
fixed gaze, child-like, deer-like,
ipell-like.
Black hair falling like midnight
rain to the girls narrowly sloping