Creeps by Night: Chills and Thrills

“Ve-ry fascinating,” she said, in a voice like stroked, golden velvet. “I should like — I should like ve-ry much to meet this Monsieur Tibault.”

“Well, I

hope he breaks his neck!” said Tommy Brooks, under his breath — but nobody ever paid much attention to Tommy.

Nevertheless, as the time for Mr. Tibault’s arrival in these States drew nearer and nearer, people in general began to wonder whether the Princess had spoken quite truthfully — for there was no doubt of the fact that, up till then, she had been the unique sensation of the season — and you know what social lions and lionesses are.

It was, if you remember, a Siamese season, and genuine Siamese were at quite as much of a premium as Russian accents had been in the quaint old days when the Chauve-Souris was a novelty. The Siamese Art Theater, imported at terrific expense, was playing to packed houses at the Century Theater. “Gushuptzgu,” an epic novel of Siamese farm life, in nineteen closely-printed volumes, had just been awarded the Nobel prize. Prominent pet-and-newt dealers reported no cessation in the appalling demand for Siamese cats. And upon the crest of this wave of interest in things Siamese, the Princess Vivrakanarda poised with the elegant nonchalance of a Hawaiian water-baby upon his surf-board. She was indispensable. She was incomparable. She was everywhere.

Youthful, enormously wealthy, allied on one hand to the Royal Family of Siam and on the other to the Cabots (and yet with the first eighteen of her twenty-one years shrouded from speculation in a golden zone of mystery), the mingling of races in her had produced an exotic beauty as distinguished as it was strange. She moved with a feline, effortless grace, and her skin was as if it had been gently powdered with tiny grains of the purest gold — yet the blueness of her eyes, set just a trifle slantingly, was as pure and startling as the sea on the rocks of Maine. Her brown hair fell to her knees — she had been offered extraordinary sums by the Master Barbers’ Protective Association to have it shingled. Straight as a waterfall tumbling over brown rocks, it had a vague perfume of sandalwood and suave spices and held tints of rust and the sun. She did not talk very much — but then she did not have to — her voice had an odd, small, melodious huskiness that haunted the mind. She lived alone and was reputed to be very lazy — at least it was known that she slept during most of the day — but at night she bloomed like a moon-flower and a depth came into her eyes.

It was no wonder that Tommy Brooks fell in love with her. The wonder was that she let him. There was nothing exotic or distinguished about Tommy — he was just one of those pleasant, normal young men who seem created to carry on the bond business by reading the newspapers in the University Club during most of the day, and can always be relied upon at night to fill an unexpected hole in a dinner-party. It is true that the Princess could hardly be said to do more than tolerate any of her suitors — no one had ever seen those aloofly arrogant eyes enliven at the entrance of any male. But she seemed to be able to tolerate Tommy a little more than the rest — and that young man’s infatuated day-dreams were beginning to be beset by smart solitaires and imaginary apartments on Park Avenue, when the famous M. Tibault conducted his first concert at Carnegie Hall.

Tommy Brooks sat beside the Princess. The eyes he turned upon her were eyes of longing and love, but her face was as impassive as a Benda mask, and the only remark she made during the preliminary bustlings was that there seemed to be a number of people in the audience. But Tommy was relieved, if anything, to find her even a little more aloof than usual, for, ever since Mrs. Culverin’s dinner-party, a vague disquiet as to the possible impression which this Tibault creature might make upon her, had been growing in his mind. It shows his devotion that he was present at all. To a man whose simple Princetonian nature found in “Just a Little Love, a Little Kiss,” the quintessence of musical art, the average symphony was a positive torture, and he looked forward to the evening’s program itself with a grim, brave smile.

“Ssh!” said Mrs. Dingle, breathlessly. “He’s coming!” It seemed to the startled Tommy as if he were suddenly back in the trenches under a heavy barrage, as M. Tibault made his entrance to a perfect bombardment of applause.

Then the enthusiastic noise was sliced off in the middle and a gasp took its place — a vast, windy sigh, as if every person in that multitude had suddenly said “Ah.” For the papers had not lied about him. The tail was there.