ned raised himself unsteadily and balanced on the table edge.
"it happened in new orleans last winter," he answered. "i'd finished up my business and was on the loose, and thought i'd walk alone through the vieux carré—the old french quarter. i'd had dinner at antoine's and stopped around at the old absinthe house for a few drinks, then strolled down to the french market for a cup of chicory coffee and some doughnuts. finally i walked down royal street to look at madame lalaurie's old mansion; that's the famous haunted house, you know. i wanted to see if i could find a ghost. good lord, i wanted to!
"the moon was full that night, but the house was still as old saint denis cemetery, so after peering through the iron grilles that shut the courtyard from the street for half an hour or so, i started back toward canal street.
"i'd almost reached bienville street when just as i passed one of those funny two-storied iron-grilled balconies so many of the old houses have i heard something drop on the sidewalk at my feet. it was a japonica, one of those rose-like flowers they grow in the courtyard gardens down there. when i looked up, a girl was laughing at me from the second story of the balcony. 'mon fleuron, monsieur, s'il vous plait,' she called, stretching down a white arm for the bloom.
dr. trowbridge.
"the moonlight hung about her like a veil of silver tissue, and i could see her plainly as though it had been noon. most new orleans girls are dark. she was fair, her hair was very fine and silky and about the color of a frosted chestnut-burr. she wore it in a long bob with curls around her face and neck, and i knew without being told that those ringlets weren't put in with a hot iron. her face was pale, colorless and fine-textured as a magnolia petal, but her lips were brilliant crimson. there was something reminiscent of those ladies you see pictured in directoire prints about her; small, regular features, straight, white, high-waisted gown tied with a wide girdle underneath her bosom, low, round-cut neck and tiny, ball-puff sleeves that left her lovely arms uncovered to the shoulder. she was like rose beauharnais or madame de fontenay, except for her fair hair, and her eyes. her eyes were like an eastern slave's, languishing and passionate, even when she laughed. and she was laughing then, with a throaty, almost caressing laugh as i tossed the flower up to her and she leant across the iron railing, snatching at it futilely as it fell just short of reach.
"'c'est sans profit,' she laughed at last. 'your skill is too small or my arm too short, m'sieur. bring it up to me.'
"'you mean for me to come up there?' i asked.
"'but certainly. i have teeth, but will not bite you—maybe.'
"the street door to the house was open; i pushed it back, groped my way along a narrow hall and climbed a flight of winding stairs. she was waiting for me on the balcony, lovelier, close up, if that were possible, than when i'd seen her from the sidewalk. her gown was china silk, so sheer and clinging that the shadow of her charming figure showed against its rippling folds like a lovely silhouette; the sash which bound it was a six-foot length of rainbow ribbon tied coquettishly beneath her shoulders and trailing in fringed ends almost to her dress-hem at the back; her feet were stockingless and shod with sandals fastened with cross-straps of purple grosgrain laced about the ankles. save for the small gold rings that scintillated in her ears, she wore no ornaments of any kind.
"'mon fleur, m'sieur,' she ordered haughtily, stretching out her hand; then her eyes lighted with sudden laughter and she turned her back to me, bending her head forward. 'but no, it fell into your hands; it is that you must put in its place again,' she ordered, pointing to a curl where she wished the flower set. 'come, m'sieur, i wait upon you.'
"on the settee by the wall a guitar lay. she picked it up and ran her slim, pale fingers twice across the strings, sounding a soft, melancholy chord. when she began to sing, her words were slurred and languorous, and i had trouble understanding them; for the song was ancient when bienville turned the first spadeful of earth that marked the ramparts of new orleans:
o knights of gay toulouse and sweet beaucaire, greet me my own true love and speak him fair....
"her voice had the throaty, velvety quality one hears in people of the southern countries, and the words of the song seemed fairly to yearn with the sadness and passionate longing of the love-bereft. but she smiled as she put by her instrument, a curious smile, which heightened the mystery of her face, and her wide eyes seemed suddenly half questing, half drowsy, as she asked, 'would you ride off upon your grim, pale horse and leave poor little julie d'ayen famishing for love, m'sieur?'
"'ride off from you?' i answered gallantly. 'how can you ask?' a verse from burns came to me:
then fare thee well, my bonny lass, and fare thee well awhile, and i will come to thee again an it were ten thousand mile.
"there was something avid in the look she gave me. something more than mere gratified vanity shone in her eyes as she turned her face up to me in the moonlight. 'you mean it?' she demanded in a quivering, breathless voice.
"'of course,' i bantered. 'how could you doubt it?'
"'then swear it—seal the oath with blood!'
"her eyes were almost closed, and her lips were lightly parted as she leant toward me. i could see the thin, white line of tiny, gleaming teeth behind the lush red of her lips; the tip of a pink tongue swept across her mouth, leaving it warmer, moister, redder than before; in her throat a small pulse throbbed palpitatingly. her lips were smooth and soft as the flower-petals in her hair, but as they crushed on mine they seemed to creep about them as though endowed with a volition of their own. i could feel them gliding almost stealthily, searching greedily, it seemed, until they covered my entire mouth. then came a sudden searing burn of pain which passed as quickly as it flashed across my lips, and she seemed inhaling deeply, desperately, as though to pump the last faint gasp of breath up from my lungs. a humming sounded in my ears; everything went dark around me as if i had been plunged in some abysmal flood; a spell of dreamy lassitude was stealing over me when she pushed me from her so abruptly that i staggered back against the iron railing of the gallery.
