Part 27

“It’s my room as well as yours,” Gregorio had answered.

“It is my money that pays for it,” was the reply.

A long conversation followed, but Xantippe met the man’s coarse anger with quiet scorn, and told him that if he stayed she would grow to dislike her son since he was the father.

Gregorio was wise enough to control his anger then. For he knew that if she were really to lose her love for the boy, all his chances, and the boy’s chances, of ease and prosperity would be destroyed. It was, of course, ridiculous to imagine she would supply him with money then. That she thoroughly loathed him, and would always loathe him, was very certain. So great, indeed, seemed her contempt for him that it was quite possible she might come to hate his child. So he did not attempt to remain in the room, but as he closed the door after him he waited a moment and listened. He heard her heave a sigh of relief and then say to the little fellow, “How like your father you grow! My God! I almost think I hate you for being so like him.” Gregorio shuddered as he ran noiselessly downstairs. He never ventured to speak to her again. He argued himself out of the disquiet into which her words had thrown him. He knew it was difficult for a woman to hate her child. The birth-pains cement a love it requires a harsh wrench to sever. He easily persuaded himself, as he sipped Madam Marx’s coffee, that if he kept in the background all cause for hatred would be removed. As for her feelings toward himself, he had ceased, almost, to care. The money was worth the cost paid in the attainment of it, and a woman’s laugh was less sweet to him than the chink of gold and silver pieces. On the whole Gregorio had little reason to be troubled; only unreasoning dislike for the Englishman--why could not he be of any other nation, or, if an Englishman, any other Englishman?--hurt his peace of mind. And for the most part his discontent only smouldered.

Madam Marx brought her coffee and sat beside him. Her face betokened satisfaction, and she looked at Gregorio with a possessive smile. She had gained her desire, and asked fortune for no other gift.

“You have not seen Xantippe since she turned you out? Ah, well, it is much better you should keep away. You are welcome here, and it is foolish to go where one is not wanted.”

“I’ve not seen her; I’m afraid to see her.” He spoke openly to madam now.

“Some women are queer. If she had ever really loved you, she would not have thrown you over. I should not have complained had I been in her place. One cannot always choose one’s lot.”

“It’s that damned Englishman who has spoiled her.”

“Ah, yes, those English! I know them.”

“Did I tell you what she said about the boy?”

“Yes, my friend. But as long as you don’t worry her, her words need not worry you.”

“They don’t, except sometimes at night. I wake up and remember them, and then I am afraid.”

“Why do you hate the Englishman? To my mind it is lucky for both of you that this Englishman saw her. There are not men so rich as the English, and he is a rich Englishman. You are lucky.”

“I hate him.”

“Because he has stolen your wife’s love?” Madam Marx, as she put the question, laid her fat hand upon Gregorio’s shoulder and laughed confidently. The movement irritated him, but he never tried to resist her now.

“No, not quite that. I’m used to it, and the money more than compensates me. But I hated the man when I first saw him in the Paradise. There was a fiddler-woman he talked to, and he could scarcely make himself understood. He had money, and he gave her champagne and flowers. And I was starving, and the woman was beautiful.”

Madam tapped his cheek and smiled.

“The woman can’t interest you now. Also you have money--his money.”

“Still I hate him.”

“You Greeks are like children. Your hatred is unreasonable; there is no cause for it.”

“Unreasonable and not to be reasoned away.”

“Well, why worry about him? He won’t follow you to Benhur, I fancy.”

“It doesn’t worry me generally; but when you mention him my hate springs up again. I forget him when I am by myself.”

“Forget him now.”

And they drank coffee in silence.

Darkness came on, and the blue night mist. Gregorio was impatient to see his son. He gazed intently at the door of the opposite house, little heeding madam, who was busy with preparations for the evening’s entertainment of her customers. Suddenly he saw a woman leave the house, hail a passing carriage, and drive rapidly down the street toward the Place Mehemet Ali. Gregorio, with a cry of pleasure, rose and left the cafe. Madam Marx followed him to the door and called a good-night to him. Gregorio stood irresolutely in the middle of the road. He had promised the boy a boat, and he blamed himself for having forgotten to buy it. Grumbling at his forgetfulness, he hurried along the street, determined to waste no time. On occasions he could relinquish his lazy, slouching gait, and he would hurry always to obey the commands of the king his son. A pleasant smile at the thought of the pleasure his present would cause softened the sinister mould of his lips, and he sang softly to himself as he moved quickly cityward.

Before he had gone many yards an oath broke in upon the music, and he darted swiftly under the shadow of a wall; for coming forward him was Amos the Jew. But the old man’s sharp eyes detected the victim, and, following Gregorio into his hiding-place, Amos laid his hand upon the Greek.