Queer Classics – 10 Novels Collection. Radclyffe Hall

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      “Have I waked you fully, Byng?” he asked.

      “Mr. Churm?” said I.

      He nodded. We shook hands. The touch dissipated my brief insanity.

      “You have been in a state of coma so long over that wine,” said he, “that I thought I would give you a fillip of help.”

      I tried to laugh.

      “No,” resumed Churm. “Only escaped dangers show their comic side. You are not safe from Densdeth yet. You would have yielded just now if I had not spilled the glass.”

      “Yielded!” I rejoined. “Not exactly; I was proposing to test his mysterious influence.”

      “Never try that! Don’t dive into temptation to show how stoutly you can swim. Once fairly under water in Acheron, and you never come to the top again.”

      “Face Satan, and he flies, is not your motto, then.”

      “Face him when you must; fly him when you may.”

      “But really, — Devil and Densdeth; is it quite polite to identify them?” I asked.

      “If you do not wish to see them melt into one, keep yourself from both.”

      “And stay in a pretty paradise of innocence?”

      “I cannot jest about this, Byng. I knew a fresh, strong, pure soul, — fresher, stronger, purer than the fairest dreams of perfection. It was the destiny of such a soul to battle with Densdeth and be beaten. Yes; defeated, and driven to madness or despair.”

      “You are speaking of Clara Denman.”

      “I am.”

      As he replied, I looked up and caught Densdeth’s eye. He took my glance and carried it with his to the upper end of the table. A flamboyant demirep was seated there. Densdeth marked that I observed her, and then smiled sinister, as if to say: “Byng, the romantic, there is the type of American women; look at her, and correct your boyish ideal.”

      Churm noticed this by-play.

      “But better madness and death for my dear child,” said he, sadly, “than Densdeth!”

      Then waiving the subject, he continued: “You were surprised to find me at your side.”

      “It was an odd chance, certainly.”

      “No chance. Locksley told me that you had moved in from the Chuzzlewit, as Stillfleet’s successor. I knocked at Rubbish Palace door. You were out. I thought you might be dining here. I looked in, saw you, and took my seat at your side. I did not hurry recognition. I was curious to see if you would know an old friend.”

      “I have called upon you already,” said I. “I am a big boy, but I wanted to put myself under tutelage.”

      “Well, we are in the same Chrysalis; we will try to take care of each other till our wing.”

      My lively interest in the name Cecil Dreeme recurred to me.

      “Are there others worth knowing in Chrysalis?” I asked.

      “No. Bright fellows like brighter places. Only an old troglodyte like myself burrows in such a cavern. Nobody but Stillfleet could have kept in jolly health there. Take care it does not make you sombre.”

      “It will suit my sober, plodding habits. But tell me, do you know anything of a Mr. Dreeme, a painter, fellow-lodger of ours? I saw his name on a door as I was looking for yours? Is he a rising genius? Must I know him?”

      As I asked these questions, it happened that Densdeth laughed in reply to some joke of his guest.

      Densdeth’s smile, unless he chose to let it pass into a sneer, was gentlemanly and winning. A little incredulous and inattentive I had found it when I spoke of heroism, charity, or self-sacrifice. It pardoned belief in such whimsies as a juvenility. His laugh, however, expressed a riper cynicism. It was faithless and cruel, — I had sometimes thought brutally so.

      Breaking in at this moment, rather loudly for the public place, it seemed to strike at the romantic interest I had felt in the name Cecil Dreeme. What would a man of the world think of such idle fancies as I had indulged apropos of the painter’s door-card? I really hoped Churm would be able to reply, “O, Dreeme! He is a creature with a seedy velvet coat, frowzy hair, big pipe, — rank Düsseldorf. Don’t know him!”

      “There is a young fellow of that name in the building,” said Churm. “I have never happened to see him. Locksley says he is a quiet, gentlemanly youth from the country, who lives retired, works hard, and minds his own business.”

      Neither my friend nor I ventured upon serious topics for the rest of the dinner.

      “I have an errand down town,” said he. “You shall walk with me, and afterwards we will discuss your prospects over a cigar at Chrysalis.”

      So we talked Europe — a light subject to Americans — until dessert was over, and the Chuzzlewit guests began to file out, wishing they had not taken so much pie and meringue on top of the salad, and had given to the Tract Society the two dollars now racking their several brains, and rioting in their several stomachs, in the form of sherry or champagne.

      Churm and I joined the procession. We were battling for our hats in the lobby with a brace of seedy gents who proposed to appropriate them, when Densdeth came out.

      He saluted me cordially and Churm distantly.

      No love between these two. Apart from any moral contrast, their temperaments were too opposite to combine. Antagonistic natures do not necessarily make man and woman hostile, even when they are imprisoned for life in matrimony; domestic life stirs and stirs, slow and steady, and at last the two mix, like the oil and mustard in a mayonnaise. But the more contact, the more repulsion, in two men of such different quality as Churm and Densdeth.

      Both were quiet and self-possessed, and yet it seemed to me that, if a thin shell of decorum and restraint between them should be broken by any outer force, the two would clash together like explosive gases, and the weaker be utterly consumed away. I had already had hints, as I have stated, that they had causes for dislike. I could not wonder, as I saw them standing side by side. They were as different as men could be and yet be men.

      I observed them with a certain premonition that I was to be in some way drawn into the battle they must fight or were fighting. With which captain was I to be ranged?

      Densdeth was a man of slight, elegant, active figure, and of clear, colorless, olive complexion. His hair was black and studiously arranged. He was shaved, except a long drooping moustache, — that he could not have spared; it served sometimes to conceal, sometimes to emphasize, a sneer. His nose was a delicate aquiline, and his other fine-cut features corresponded. His eyes were yellow, feline, and restless, — the only restless thing about him. They glanced from your lips to your eyes and back, while you talked with him, as if to catch each winged word, and compare it with the expression perched above. Quick and sidelong looks detect a swarm of Pleiads where the steady gaze sees only six. Densdeth seemed to have learnt this lesson from astronomy; he shot his glance across your face to catch expressions which fancied themselves latent. Keen eyes Densdeth’s to recognize a villain.

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