The Death Instinct

'For shame, Mr Brighton,' said Mrs Meloney, but she extended her ample arm coyly, allowing Brighton to secure to her wrist the larger of the two watches, in which violet gemstones were embedded. She held up her arm, displaying the object to the ladies of the audience, who clapped most cordially.

'Mrs Meloney can now tell the time in the blackest hour of night,' said Brighton. 'If the police and firemen of this city had been wearing my watches, they would never have been hindered by the great smoke cloud of yesterday's explosion. They would have had a source of light, requiring no batteries, no fuel, no power source at all. That's the wonder of radium. Now for you, Miss Rousseau, we had to make a special item. Our usual products wouldn't fit the delicacy of your wrist. May I?'

The watch Brighton offered to Colette was encircled with round- brilliant diamonds, refracting every color in the rainbow despite the dim illumination of the church. Uncomfortably, Colette lifted her hand. Brighton fastened his gift to her forearm, the green glow of the luminous watch face reflected in his polished fingernails. He expressed the hope that his present was to her liking. Colette didn't know what to say.

'Your generosity leaves us speechless, Mr Brighton,' said Mrs Meloney. 'Pray continue.'

'Continue?'

'Your contribution, Mr Brighton.'

'My contribution? Oh, my contribution, of course.' Brighton patted his pockets again and withdrew a bank draft from his vest — nearly knocking over the lectern in the process. After a lengthy preface, he declared it his great pleasure to present to the Marie Curie Radium

Fund a check in the amount of twenty-five thousand dollars. Gasps came from the audience, together with loud, sustained applause.

Mrs Meloney thanked her benefactor profusely. She then opened the floor to questions, professing her certainty that many in the audience would have questions for Miss Rousseau.

'Excuse me,' said a woman three pews back, 'but I've been using radium soap every day for the last year, and I still have warts on both my elbows. I'm very upset about it.'

'Oh,' said Colette. 'I'm afraid I don't know much about radium's cosmetic uses.'

Mrs Meloney came to Colette's assistance: 'Have you tried Radior night cream, my dear? It's done wonders for me.'

Another hand went up. 'I have a question for Miss Rousseau. What is the proper dosage of radium water for a sixty-year-old man to restore his vitality?'

'I'm sorry?' said Colette. 'His what?'

'His vitality,' repeated the woman.

Mrs Meloney whispered to Colette, whose livid cheeks reddened.

Afterward, during refreshments, Mrs Meloney complimented Mr Brighton on his height. 'You are so very much bigger than one expects, Mr Brighton,' said the gray-haired Mrs Meloney coquettishly. It was true. From a distance, Brighton looked short, and his countenance suggested an absent-minded professor of mathematics. Up close, he proved much taller; one couldn't quite tell where the height came from. The effect was to make his clumsiness considerably more concerning. 'And your gift,' added Mrs Meloney, showing off her sapphire wristwatch, 'I have never received a present so entrancing.'

'While I,' replied Brighton chivalrously, 'have never received so entrancing a visit to my factory as the one you and your assistant paid me two weeks ago.'

'Heavens, Mr Brighton,' protested Mrs Meloney, 'what would my husband say?'

'Why?' asked Brighton in some alarm. 'Did I do something wrong?'

'Would that men always did such wrong,' Mrs Meloney reassured him. 'I must insist you attend our presentation ceremony, Mr Brighton, when we give Madame Curie her radium next May — if only we can raise the rest of the money. I intend to persuade the Mayor to preside.'

'The Mayor?' said Brighton. 'Why not the President? I'll speak with Harding about it; he'll be in the White House by then. Miss Rousseau, have you seen our nation's capital? I'm going down — oh my, when am I going down? Where's my man Samuels? I can't remember a thing without him. There he is now, the dour fellow. What were you saying, Madam?'

'I, Mr Brighton?' said Mrs Meloney. 'I believe you had just made reference to Mr Harding.'

'Oh, yes — I'm going to Washington to meet with Harding. Why don't you ladies accompany me? I have my own train, you know. Quite comfortable. You and Miss Rousseau will find many eleemosynary organizations in the capital — fertile soil for your Fund.'

'We'd be delighted, wouldn't we, dear?' Mrs Meloney asked Colette.

'Look at Samuels,' said Brighton, vexed. 'He wants me, as usual. Will you excuse me, ladies?'

'What a prepossessing man,' declared Mrs Meloney as Brighton went to his secretary, who draped a coat over his employer's shoulders and whispered in his ear. Most of the women in attendance remained in the church, trading information about which radium products they liked best. 'He has his eye on you, my dear,' Mrs Meloney added.

'On me?' said Colette. 'No — on you, surely, Mrs Meloney.'

'Tush — what am I? An old lady. Look at the watch he gave you. It's diamond. Have you any idea what such a thing is worth?'

'I can't keep it,' confided Colette.

'Why on earth not?' the excitable Mrs Meloney replied.

'It's very wrong to use radium on a watch face, Mrs Meloney. And please, you mustn't encourage these women to use radium cosmetics.'

'Don't tell me you're a radio-skeptic, dear. My husband is a radio-skeptic of the worst sort, but I assure you my Radior night cream has taken a decade off my face. I can see it, even if he can't.'

'It's the cost,' said Colette. 'Companies like Radior have made radium unaffordable to scientists.'

'Tush — my night cream is only ninety-nine cents.'

'Of course, Mrs Meloney, but because so many women pay that ninety-nine cents, a gram of radium now costs over a hundred thousand dollars.'

'I'm afraid you scientists rarely have a firm grasp of economics, dear. The cost of radium determines the price of my Radior night cream, not the reverse.'

'No, Mrs Meloney. Think of all the people buying radium cosmetics and radium watches. The more those products are sold, the less radium there is in the world, and the more precious it becomes.'

'You're making my head spin, Miss Rousseau. All I know is that our Fund is off to a flying start. Let's concentrate on that, shall we?'

'I can't tell you how important this is,' said Colette. 'There's so litde radium. Companies like Mr Brighton's consume over ninety percent of it. They leave next to nothing for science and medicine. What they do leave is too expensive to afford. Thousands of people dying from cancer today will never be treated with radium simply because of the cost. These companies are killing people — literally killing people. I tried to explain that to Mr Brighton when we visited his plant, but I don't think he was listening.'

'I certainly hope not,' said Mrs Meloney. 'He'll withdraw his donation. Can't you be a little nicer to the dear man? Why, I daresay he'd fund the entire gram of radium himself if you would just be kind to him.'

A jovial Mr Brighton returned to bid them adieu, bowing this way and that. 'Samuels says I must be off. Don't forget, Miss Rousseau: you've promised me Washington.' He extended his elbow to the older woman. 'Will you escort me to the door, Mrs Meloney?'

'Why, Mr Brighton — people will think we've just been married,' said Mrs Meloney.

'Very well,' said Brighton, 'then both you ladies must escort me.'

Colette tried to decline this invitation, but Mrs Meloney wouldn't hear of it. Descending from the chancel by a short flight of steps, the three made their way down the central aisle of the nave, at the far end of which Brighton's assistant, Samuels, was handing out products to a small crowd of appreciative, departing ladies.

'You uttered the nefarious name of Radior,' Brighton explained to Mrs Meloney. 'I couldn't let the competition be advertised without a response. We've just started our own line of eye shade. Luminous, of course — as you can see.'