Amazing Stories, Vol. 3, No. 2 — page 48: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A STORY OF THE DAYS TO COME to his disappointment, but at the time this did not seem unpleasant. The next morning found his liver and temper in- flamed. He kicked his phonographic-news machine to pieces, dismissed his valet, and resolved that he would perpetrate a terrible revenge upon Elizabeth. Or Den- ton. Or somebody. But anyhow, it was to be a ter- rible revenge; and the friend who had made fun at him should no longer see him in the light of a foolish girl’s victim. He knew something of the little property that was due to her, and that this would be the only support of the young couple until Mwres should relent. If Mwres did not relent, and if unpropitious things should happen to the affair in which Elizabeth’s ex- pectations lay, they would come upon evil times and be sufficiently amenable to temptation of a sinister sort. Bindon’s imagination, abandoning its beautiful ideal- ism altogether, expanded the idea of temptation of a sinister sort. He figured himself as the implacable, the intricate and powerful man of wealth pursuing this maiden who had scorned him. And suddenly her image came upon his mind, vivid and dominant, and for the first time in his life Bindon realized something of the real power of passion. His imagination stood aside like a respectful foot man who has done his work in ushering in the emotion. “My God!” eried Bindon: “I will have her! If I have to kill myself to get her! And that other fellow—!” After an interview with his medical man and a pen- ance for his overnight excesses in the form of bitter drugs, a mitigated but absolutely resolute Bindon sought out Mwres. Mwres he found properly smashed, and impoverished and humble, in a mood of frantic self- preservation, ready to sell himself body and soul, much more any interest in a disobedient daughter, to recover his lost position in the world. In the reasonable dis- cussion that followed, it was agreed that these mis- guided young people should be left to sink into distress, or possibly even assisted towards that improving dis- cipline by Bindon’s financial influence. “And then?” said Mwres. “They will come to the Labor Company,” don. “They will wear the blue canvas.” “And then?” “She will divorce him,” he said, and sat for a moment intent upon that prospect. For in those days the austere limitations of divorce of Victorian times were extraor- dinarily relaxed, and a comply might separate on a hundred different scores. - § said Bin- HEN suddenly Bindon astonished himself and— “She shall divorce Mwres by jumping to his feet. him!” he cried. “I will have it so—I will work it so. By God! it shall be so.. He shall be disgraced, so that she must. He shall be smashed and pulverized.” The idea of smashing and pulverizing inflamed him further. He began a Jovian pacing up and down the little office. “T will have her,” he cried. “I will have her! Heaven and Hell shall not save her from me!” His passion evaporated in its expression, and left him at the end simply histrionic. He struck an attitude and ignored with heroic determination a sharp twinge: bes ri ats a POA” ts © ee a adviser, went into retreat. 143 of pain about the diaphragm. And Mwres sat with his pneumatic cap deflated and himself very visibly impressed. And so, with a fair persistency, Bindon set himself .to the work of being Elizabeth's malignant providence, using with ingenious dexterity every particle of advan- tage wealth in those days gave a man over his fellow- creatures. A resort to the consolations of religion hindered these operations not at all. He would go and talk with an interesting, experienced and sympathetic Father of the Huysmanite sect of the Isis cult, about all the irrational little proceedings he was pleased to regard as his heaven-dismaying wickedness, and the interesting, experienced and sympathetic Father rep- resenting Heaven dismayed, would with a pleasing affectation of horror, suggest simple and easy penances, and recommend a monastic foundation that was airy, cool, hygienic, and not vulgarized, for viscerally dis- ordered penitent sinners of the refined and wealthy type. And after these excursions, Bindon would come back to London quite active and passionate again. He would machinate with really considerable energy, and repair to a certain gallery high above the street of mov- iag ways, from which he could view the entrance to the barrack of the Labor Company in the ward which sheltered Denton and Elizabeth. And at last one day he saw Elizabeth go in, and thereby his passion was renewed. : So in the fullness of time the complicated devices of Bindon ripened, and he could go to Mwres and tell him that the young people were near despair. “It’s time for you,” he said, “to let your parental affections have play. She’s been in blue canvas some months, and. they’ve been cooped together in one of those Labor dens, and the little girl is dead. She knows now what his manhood is worth to her, by way of protection, poor girl. She'll see things now in a clearer light. You go to her—I don’t want to appear in this attain yee ond point out to her how necessary it is that she should get a divorce from him. . . .” “She’s obstinate,” said Mwres doubtfully. “Spirit!” said Bindon. She’s a wonderful girl—a wonderful girl!” “She'll refuse.” “Of course she will. But leave it open to her. Leave it open to her. And some day—in that stuffy den, in that irksome, toilsome life they can’t help it—they lt have a quarrel. And then— Mwres meditated over the matter, and did as he was told. Then Bindon, as he had sepaed with his spiritual The retreat of the Huys- | manite sect was a beautiful place, with the sweetest air — in London, lit by natural sunlight, and with restful quadrangles of real grass open to the sky, where at the same time the penitent man of pleasure might enjoy all the pleasures of loafing and all the satisfaction of distinguished austerity. And, save for participation in the simple and wholesome dietary of the place and in~ cettain magnificent chants, Bindon spent all his time in meditation upon the theme of Elizabeth, and the extreme purification his soul had undergone since he first saw her, and whether he would be able to get a COMIC DOOKS.COM