Dope

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"What a strange woman!" whispered Rita to Pyne. "Is she an oriental?"

"Cuban-Jewess," he replied in a low voice.

Mrs. Sin carefully lighted the lamp, which burned with a short, bluish
flame, and, opening the lacquered box, she dipped the spatula into the
thick gummy substance which it contained and twisted the little
instrument round and round between her fingers, presently withdrawing
it with a globule of chandu, about the size of a bean, adhering to the
end. She glanced aside at Kilfane.

"Chinese way, eh?" she said.

She began to twirl the prepared opium above the flame of the lamp.
From it a slight, sickly smelling vapor arose. No one spoke, but all
watched her closely; and Rita was conscious of a growing, pleasurable
excitement. When by evaporation the chandu had become reduced to the
size of a small pea, and a vague spirituous blue flame began to dance
round the end of the spatula, Mrs. Sin pressed it adroitly into the
tiny bowl of one of the ivory pipes, having first held the bowl
inverted for a moment over the lamp. She turned to Rita.

"The guest of the evening," she said. "Do not be afraid. Inhale--oh,
so gentle--and blow the smoke from the nostrils. You know how to
smoke?"

"The same as a cigarette?" asked Rita excitedly, as Mrs. Sin bent over
her.

"The same, but very, very gentle."

Rita took the pipe and raised the mouthpiece to the lips.

CHAPTER XIV

IN THE SHADE OF THE LONELY PALM

Persian opium of good quality contains from ten to fifteen percent
morphine, and chandu made from opium of Yezd would contain perhaps
twenty-five per cent of this potent drug; but because in the act of
smoking distillation occurs, nothing like this quantity of morphine
reaches the smoker. To the distilling process, also, may be due the
different symptoms resulting from smoking chandu and injecting morphia
--or drinking tincture of opium, as De Quincey did.

Rita found the flavor of the preparation to be not entirely
unpleasant. Having overcome an initial aversion, caused by its marked
medicinal tang, she grew reconciled to it and finished her first smoke
without experiencing any other effect than a sensation of placid
contentment. Deftly, Mrs. Sin renewed the pipe. Silence had fallen
upon the party.

The second "pill" was no more than half consumed when a growing
feeling of nausea seized upon the novice, becoming so marked that she
dropped the ivory pipe weakly and uttered a faint moan.

Instantly, silently, Mrs. Sin was beside her.

"Lean forward--so," she whispered, softly, as if fearful of intruding
her voice upon these sacred rites. "In a moment you will be better.
Then, if you feel faint, lie back. It is the sleep. Do not fight
against it."

The influence of the stronger will prevailed. Self-control and
judgment are qualities among the first to succumb to opium. Rita
ceased to think longingly of the clean, fresh air, of escape from
these sickly fumes which seemed now to fill the room with a moving
vacuum. She bent forward, her chin resting upon her breast, and
gradually the deathly sickness passed. Mentally, she underwent a
change, too. From an active state of resistance the ego traversed a
descending curve ending in absolute passivity. The floor had seemingly
begun to revolve and was moving insidiously, so that the pattern of
the carpet formed a series of concentric rings. She found this
imaginary phenomenon to be soothing rather than otherwise, and
resigned herself almost eagerly to the delusion.

Mrs. Sin allowed her to fall back upon the cushions--so gently and so
slowly that the operation appeared to occupy several minutes and to
resemble that of sinking into innumerable layers of swansdown. The
sinuous figure bending over her grew taller with the passage of each
minute, until the dark eyes of Mrs. Sin were looking down at Rita from
a dizzy elevation. As often occurs in the case of a neurotic subject,
delusion as to time and space had followed the depression of the
sensory cells.

But surely, she mused, this could not be Mrs. Sin who towered so
loftily above her. Of course, how absurd to imagine that a woman could
remain motionless for so many hours. And Rita thought, now, that she
had been lying for several hours beneath the shadow of that tall,
graceful, and protective shape.

Why--it was a slender palm-tree, which stretched its fanlike foliage
over her! Far, far above her head the long, dusty green fronds
projected from the mast-like trunk. The sun, a ball of fiery brass,
burned directly in the zenith, so that the shadow of the foliage lay
like a carpet about her feet. That which she had mistaken for the
ever-receding eyes of Mrs. Sin, wondering with a delightful vagueness
why they seemed constantly to change color, proved to be a pair of
brilliantly plumaged parrakeets perched upon a lofty branch of the
palm.

This was an equatorial noon, and even if she had not found herself to
be under the influence of a delicious abstraction Rita would not have
moved; for, excepting the friendly palm, not another vestige of
vegetation was visible right away to the horizon; nothing but an ocean
of sand whereon no living thing moved. She and the parrakeets were
alone in the heart of the Great Sahara.

But stay! Many, many miles away, a speck on the dusty carpet of the
desert, something moved! Hours must elapse before that tiny figure,
provided it were approaching, could reach the solitary palm.
Delightedly, Rita contemplated the infinity of time. Even if the
figure moved ever so slowly, she should be waiting there beneath the
palm to witness its arrival. Already, she had been there for a period
which she was far too indolent to strive to compute--a week, perhaps.
She turned her attention to the parrakeets. One of them was moving,
and she noted with delight that it had perceived her far below and was
endeavoring to draw the attention of its less observant companion to
her presence. For many hours she lay watching it and wondering why,
since the one bird was so singularly intelligent, its companion was
equally dull. When she lowered her eyes and looked out again across
the sands, the figure had approached so close as to be recognizable.

It was that of Mrs. Sin. Rita appreciated the fitness of her presence,
and experienced no surprise, only a mild curiosity. This curiosity was
not concerned with Mrs. Sin herself, but with the nature of the burden
which she bore upon her head.

She was dressed in a manner which Rita dreamily thought would have
been inadequate in England, or even in Cuba, but which was appropriate
in the Great Sahara. How exquisitely she carried herself, mused the
dreamer; no doubt this fine carriage was due in part to her wearing
golden shoes with heels like stilts, and in part to her having been
trained to bear heavy burdens upon her head. Rita remembered that Sir
Lucien had once described to her the elegant deportment of the Arab
women, ascribing it to their custom of carrying water-jars in that
way.

The appearance of the speck on the horizon had marked the height of
her trance. Her recognition of Mrs. Sin had signalized the decline of
the chandu influence. Now, the intrusion of a definite, uncontorted
memory was evidence of returning cerebral activity.

Rita had no recollection of the sunset; indeed, she had failed to
perceive any change in the form and position of the shadow cast by the
foliage. It had spread, an ebony patch, equally about the bole of the
tree, so that the sun must have been immediately overhead. But, of
course, she had lain watching the parrakeets for several hours, and
now night had fallen. The desert mounds were touched with silver, the
sky was a nest of diamonds, and the moon cast a shadow of the palm
like a bar of ebony right across the prospect to the rim of the sky
dome.

Mrs. Sin stood before her, one half of her lithe body concealed by
this strange black shadow and the other half gleaming in the moonlight
so that she resembled a beautiful ivory statue which some iconoclast
had cut in two.

Placing her burden upon the ground, Mrs. Sin knelt down before Rita
and reverently kissed her hand, whispering: "I am your slave, my poppy
queen."

She spoke in a strange language, no doubt some African tongue, but one
which Rita understood perfectly. Then she laid one hand upon the
object which she had carried on her head, and which now proved to be a
large lacquered casket covered with Chinese figures and bound by three
hoops of gold. It had a very curious shape.

"Do you command that the chest be opened?" she asked.

"Yes," answered Rita languidly.

Mrs. Sin threw up the lid, and from the interior of the casket which,
because of the glare of the moon light, seemed every moment to assume
a new form, drew out a bronze lamp.

"The sacred lamp," she whispered, and placed it on the sand. "Do you
command that it be lighted?"

Rita inclined her head.

The lamp became lighted; in what manner she did not observe, nor was
she curious to learn. Next from the large casket Mrs. Sin took another
smaller casket and a very long, tapering silver bodkin. The first
casket had perceptibly increased in size. It was certainly much larger
than Rita had supposed; for now out from its shadowy interior Mrs. Sin
began to take pipes--long pipes and short pipes, pipes of gold and
pipes of silver, pipes of ivory and pipes of jade. Some were carved to
represent the heads of demons, some had the bodies of serpents
wreathed about them; others were encrusted with precious gems, and
filled the night with the venomous sheen of emeralds, the blood-rays
of rubies and golden glow of topaz, while the spear-points of diamonds
flashed a challenge to the stars.

"Do you command that the pipes be lighted?" asked the harsh voice.

Rita desired to answer, "No," but heard herself saying, "Yes."

Thereupon, from a thousand bowls, linking that lonely palm to the
remote horizon, a thousand elfin fires arose--blue-tongued and
spirituous. Grey pencilings of smoke stole straightly upward to the
sky, so that look where she would Rita could discern nothing but these
countless thin, faintly wavering, vertical lines of vapor.

The dimensions of the lacquered casket had increased so vastly as to
conceal the kneeling figure of Mrs. Sin, and staring at it
wonderingly, Rita suddenly perceived that it was not an ordinary
casket. She knew at last why its shape had struck her as being
unusual.

It was a Chinese coffin.

The smell of the burning opium was stifling her. Those remorseless
threads of smoke were closing in, twining themselves about her throat.
It was becoming cold, too, and the moonlight was growing dim. The
position of the moon had changed, of course, as the night had stolen
on towards morning, and now it hung dimly before her. The smoke
obscured it.

But was this smoke obscuring the moon? Rita moved her hands for the
first time since she had found herself under the palm tree, weakly
fending off those vaporous tentacles which were seeking to entwine
themselves about her throat. Of course, it was not smoke obscuring the
moon, she decided; it was a lamp, upheld by an ivory figure--a lamp
with a Chinese shade.

A subdued roaring sound became audible; and this was occasioned by the
gas fire, burning behind the Japanese screen on which gaily plumaged
birds sported in the branches of golden palms. Rita raised her hands
to her eyes. Mist obscured her sight. Swiftly, now, reality was
asserting itself and banishing the phantasmagoria conjured up by
chandu.

In her dim, cushioned corner Mollie Gretna lay back against the wall,
her face pale and her weak mouth foolishly agape. Cyrus Kilfane was
indistinguishable from the pile of rugs amid which he sprawled by the
table, and of Sir Lucien Pyne nothing was to be seen but the
outstretched legs and feet which projected grotesquely from a recess.
Seated, oriental fashion, upon an improvised divan near the grand
piano and propped up by a number of garish cushions, Rita beheld Mrs.
Sin. The long bamboo pipe had fallen from her listless fingers. Her
face wore an expression of mystic rapture like that characterizing the
features of some Chinese Buddhas.

Fear, unaccountable but uncontrollable, suddenly seized upon Rita. She
felt weak and dizzy, but she struggled partly upright.

"Lucy!" she whispered.

Her voice was not under control, and once more she strove to call to
Pyne.

"Lucy!" came the hoarse whisper again.

The fire continued its muted roaring, but no other sound answered to
the appeal. A horror of the companionship in which she found herself
thereupon took possession of the girl. She must escape from these
sleepers, whose spirits had been expelled by the potent necromancer,
opium, from these empty tenements whose occupants had fled. The idea
of the cool night air in the open streets was delicious.

She staggered to her feet, swaying drunkenly, but determined to reach
the door. She shuddered, because of a feeling of internal chill which
assailed her, but step by step crept across the room, opened the door,
and tottered out into the hallway. There was no sound in the flat.
Presumably Kilfane's man had retired, or perhaps he, too, was a
devotee.

Rita's fur coat hung upon the rack, and although her fingers appeared
to have lost all their strength and her arm to have become weak as
that of an infant, she succeeded in detaching the coat from the hook.
Not pausing to put it on, she opened the door and stumbled out on to
the darkened landing. Whereas her first impulse had been to awaken
someone, preferably Sir Lucien, now her sole desire was to escape
undetected.

She began to feel less dizzy, and having paused for a moment on the
landing, she succeeded in getting her coat on. Then she closed the
door as quietly as possible, and clutching the handrail began to grope
her way downstairs. There was only one flight, she remembered, and a
short passage leading to the street door. She reached the passage
without mishap, and saw a faint light ahead.

The fastenings gave her some trouble, but finally her efforts were
successful, and she found herself standing in deserted Duke Street.
There was no moon, but the sky was cloudless. She had no idea of the
time, but because of the stillness of the surrounding streets she knew
that it must be very late. She set out for her flat, walking slowly
and wondering what explanation she should offer if a constable
observed her.

Oxford Street showed deserted as far as the eye could reach, and her
light footsteps seemed to awaken a hundred echoes. Having proceeded
for some distance without meeting anyone, she observed--and
experienced a childish alarm--the head-lights of an approaching car.
Instantly the idea of hiding presented itself to her, but so rapidly
did the big automobile speed along the empty thoroughfare that Rita
was just passing a street lamp as the car raced by, and she must
therefore have been clearly visible to the occupants.

Never for a moment glancing aside, Rita pressed on as quickly as she
could. Then her vague alarm became actual terror. She heard the brakes
being applied to the car, and heard the gritty sound of the tires upon
the roadway as the vehicle's headlong progress was suddenly checked.
She had been seen--perhaps recognized, and whoever was in the car
proposed to return to speak to her.

If her strength had allowed she would have run, but now it threatened
to desert her altogether and she tottered weakly. A pattering of
footsteps came from behind. Someone was running back to overtake her.
Recognizing escape to be impossible, Rita turned just as the runner
came up with her.

"Rita!" he cried, rather breathlessly. "Miss Dresden!"

She stood very still, looking at the speaker.

It was Monte Irvin.

CHAPTER XV

METAMORPHOSIS

As Irvin seized her hands and looked at her eagerly, half-fearfully,
Rita achieved sufficient composure to speak.

"Oh, Mr. Irvin," she said, and found that her voice was not entirely
normal, "what must you think--"

He continued to hold her hands, and:

"I think you are very indiscreet to be out alone at three o'clock in
the morning," he answered gently. "I was recalled to London by urgent
business, and returned by road--fortunately, since I have met you."

"How can I explain--"

"I don't ask you to explain--Miss Dresden. I have no right and no
desire to ask. But I wish I had the right to advise you."

"How good you are," she began, "and I--"

Her voice failed her completely, and her sensitive lips began to
tremble. Monte Irvin drew her arm under his own and led her back to
meet the car, which the chauffeur had turned and which was now
approaching.

"I will drive you home," he said, "and if I may call in the morning. I
should like to do so."

Rita nodded. She could not trust herself to speak again. And having
placed her in the car, Monte Irvin sat beside her, reclaiming her hand
and grasping it reassuringly and sympathetically throughout the short
drive. They parted at her door.

"Good night," said Irvin, speaking very deliberately because of an
almost uncontrollable desire which possessed him to take Rita in his
arms, to hold her fast, to protect her from her own pathetic self and
from those influences, dimly perceived about her, but which
intuitively he knew to be evil.

"If I call at eleven will that be too early?"

"No," she whispered. "Please come early. There is a matinee tomorrow."

"You mean today," he corrected. "Poor little girl, how tired you will
be. Good night."

"Good night," she said, almost inaudibly.

She entered, and, having closed the door, stood leaning against it for
several minutes. Bleakness and nausea threatened to overcome her anew,
and she felt that if she essayed another step she must collapse upon
the floor. Her maid was in bed, and had not been awakened by Rita's
entrance. After a time she managed to grope her way to her bedroom,
where, turning up the light, she sank down helplessly upon the bed.

Her mental state was peculiar, and her thoughts revolved about the
journey from Oxford Street homeward. A thousand times she mentally
repeated the journey, speaking the same words over and over again, and
hearing Monte Irvin's replies.

In those few minutes during which they had been together her
sentiments in regard to him had undergone a change. She had always
respected Irvin, but this respect had been curiously compounded of the
personal and the mercenary; his well-ordered establishment at Prince's
Gate had loomed behind the figure of the man forming a pleasing
background to the portrait. Without being showy he was a splendid
"match" for any woman. His wife would have access to good society, and
would enjoy every luxury that wealth could procure. This was the
picture lovingly painted and constantly retouched by Rita's mother.

Now it had vanished. The background was gone, and only the man
remained; the strong, reserved man whose deep voice had spoken so
gently, whose devotion was so true and unselfish that he only sought
to shield and protect her from follies the nature of which he did not
even seek to learn. She was stripped of her vanity, and felt loathsome
and unworthy of such a love.

"Oh," she moaned, rocking to and fro. "I hate myself--I hate myself!"

Now that the victory so long desired seemed at last about to be won,
she hesitated to grasp the prize. One solacing reflection she had. She
would put the errors of the past behind her. Many times of late she
had found herself longing to be done with the feverish life of the
stage. Envied by those who had been her companions in the old chorus
days, and any one of whom would have counted ambition crowned could
she have played The Maid of the Masque, Rita thought otherwise. The
ducal mansions and rose-bowered Riviera hotels through which she moved
nightly had no charm for her; she sighed for reality, and had wearied
long ago of the canvas palaces and the artificial Southern moonlight.
In fact, stage life had never truly appealed to her--save as a means
to an end.

Again and yet again her weary brain reviewed the episodes of the night
since she had left Cyrus Kilfane's flat, so that nearly an hour had
elapsed before she felt capable of the operation of undressing.
Finally, however, she undressed, shuddering although the room was
warmed by an electric radiator. The weakness and sickness had left
her, but she was quite wide awake, although her brain demanded rest
from that incessant review of the events of the evening.

She put on a warm wrap and seated herself at the dressing-table,
studying her face critically. She saw that she was somewhat pale and
that she had an indefinable air of dishevelment. Also she detected
shadows beneath her eyes, the pupils of which were curiously
contracted. Automatically, as a result of habit, she unlocked her
jewel-case and took out a tiny phial containing minute cachets. She
shook several out on to the palm of her hand, and then paused, staring
at her reflection in the mirror.

For fully half a minute she hesitated, then:

"I shall never close my eyes all night if I don't!" she whispered, as
if in reply to a spoken protest, "and I should be a wreck in the
morning."

Thus, in the very apogee of her resolve to reform, did she drive one
more rivet into the manacles which held her captive to Kazmah and
Company.

Upon a little spirit-stove stood a covered vessel containing milk,
which was placed there nightly by Rita's maid. She lighted the burner
and warmed the milk. Then, swallowing three of the cachets from the
phial, she drank the milk. Each cachet contained three decigrams of
malourea, the insidious drug notorious under its trade name of
Veronal.

She slept deeply, and was not awakened until ten o'clock. Her
breakfast consisted of a cup of strong coffee; but when Monte Irvin
arrived at eleven Rita exhibited no sign of nerve exhaustion. She
looked bright and charming, and Irvin's heart leapt hotly in his
breast at sight of her.

Following some desultory and unnatural conversation:

"May I speak quite frankly to you?" he said, drawing his chair nearer
to the settee upon which Rita was seated.

She glanced at him swiftly. "Of course," she replied. "Is it--about my
late hours?"

He shook his head, smiling rather sadly.

"That is only one phase of your rather feverish life, little girl," he
said. "I don't mean that I want to lecture you or reproach you. I only
want to ask you if you are satisfied?"

"Satisfied?" echoed Rita, twirling a tassel that hung from a cushion
beside her.

"Yes. You have achieved success in your profession." He strove in vain
to banish bitterness from his voice. "You are a 'star,' and your
photograph is to be seen frequently in the smartest illustrated
papers. You are clever and beautiful and have hosts of admirers. But--
are you satisfied?"

She stared absently at the silk tassel, twirling it about her white
fingers more and more rapidly. Then:

"No," she answered softly.

Monte Irvin hesitated for a moment ere bending forward and grasping
her hands.

"I am glad you are not satisfied," he whispered. "I always knew you
had a soul for something higher--better."

She avoided his ardent gaze, but he moved to the settee beside her and
looked into the bewitching face.

"Would it be a great sacrifice to give it all up?" he whispered in a
yet lower tone.

Rita shook her head, persistently staring at the tassel.

"For me?"

She gave him a swift, half-frightened glance, pressing her hands
against his breast and leaning, back.

"Oh, you don't know me--you don't know me!" she said, the good that
was in her touched to life by the man's sincerity. "I--don't deserve
it."

"Rita!" he murmured. "I won't hear you say that!"

"You know nothing about my friends--about my life--"

"I know that I want you for my wife, so that I can protect you from
those 'friends.'" He took her in his arms, and she surrendered her
lips to him.

"My sweet little girl," he whispered. "I cannot believe it--yet."

But the die was cast, and when Rita went to the theatre to dress for
the afternoon performance she was pledged to sever her connection with
the stage on the termination of her contract. She had luncheon with
Monte Irvin, and had listened almost dazedly to his plans for the
future. His wealth was even greater than her mother had estimated it
to be, and Rita's most cherished dreams were dwarfed by the prospects
which Monte Irvin opened up before her. It almost seemed as though he
knew and shared her dearest ambitions. She was to winter beneath real
Southern palms and to possess a cruising yacht, not one of boards and
canvas like that which figured in The Maid of the Masque.

Real Southern palms, she mused guiltily, not those conjured up by
opium. That he was solicitous for her health the nature of his schemes
revealed. They were to visit Switzerland, and proceed thence to a
villa which he owned in Italy. Christmas they would spend in Cairo,
explore the Nile to Assouan in a private dahabiyeh, and return home
via the Riviera in time to greet the English spring. Rita's delicate,
swiftly changing color, her almost ethereal figure, her intense
nervous energy he ascribed to a delicate constitution.

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