While she had slept, something had resolved itself in her mind. While du Mond's death was horrid, he could have been killed by a fierce mastiff sent to protect her, and the effect would have been the same—
Except that once I got over my fits, I would have made that dog the most pampered canine on the face of the earth. No, the problem is not what happened to that cad. The problem is not that it was Jason who did it. The problem is that it was Jason who acted like a wild beast in order to protect me. And I do not want to leave him—yet I am not sure I can trust myself with him anymore. I simply do not know what to do.
She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them again. There was only one thing she could be utterly certain of. She must not, under any circumstances, make any hasty decisions. For one thing, she did not have enough information.
I am in the city, as I planned, just not in the townhouse. I will proceed precisely as I had planned for today—for what is left of today, at any rate. I shall get dressed, have a fine dinner, and go to the Opera. And tomorrow I shall take a taxi to China-town and visit Master Pao. Perhaps he will have some ideas.
Perhaps there were drugs that could help; perhaps even the tea that had been intended to help Jason's condition had led to his berserk rage, who could tell? She realized now that she had made a serious mistake in not revealing all of Jason's secrets to Pao in the first place. It was as if she had described less than half of a friend's symptoms to a doctor, leaving out the most important ones, and expected him to work a cure with only that information.
She rose with a care for her injuries, and went directly to the private bath, already missing the presence of the attentive Salamanders who would have had a bath ready for her. As yet, she did not feel secure enough in her own relationship with the Sylphs to command them as servants. Perhaps that could come later, but she did not want to force anything now.
I particularly do not want to face them as emotionally unsteady as I am. If I lose them once, it will be the Devil's own time to get them back.
As she soaked in another hot bath, relieving the aches of her many bruises and examining the deep scratches her ordeal had left on her arms and legs, she reflected wryly that she might have saved herself a great deal of pain if she had just thought of calling up the Sylphs to help her against du Mond. In his drugged condition—for he must have been drugged, to act as he had—he could never have commanded Salamanders to counter them.
Unfortunately, it simply didn't occur to me. After all, I have only been in "Command" of them for a month or so. I am still very new to all of this....
She wondered what Master Pao would make of the Apprentice of Air appearing in his shop to ask for help. Air and Fire are complements, but Air and Earth are opposites... though not quite as deadly enemies as Fire and Water I wonder what his reaction will be to me now?
He would probably just smile, and utter something ineffable, inscrutable, and utterly Chinese. Something about Yin and Yang, I suppose, or Dragons dancing with Clouds.
She dressed quickly, and not in either of her Opera gowns; both revealed more flesh than she could cover with cosmetics. There were bruises on both her arms up to the elbow where du Mond had grappled with her, and she looked as if she'd been dumped into a briar patch and had to fight her way out. Out of the steamer-trunk she pulled a heavy black silk moire skirt, and a high-necked, long-sleeved black silk shirtwaist trimmed in black silk embroidery and jet beads. It will look as if I am in mourning, but no matter Perhaps I am, in a way.
At any rate, the evening-hat with the best veil was also black, which would enable her to keep her injuries secret, even in the well-lighted restaurant.
The restaurant staff were attentive without being obnoxious; perhaps her look of mourning made them so. They showed her to a secluded table for one, took her order and brought it immediately, and thereafter left her alone. Only once did anyone approach her, just before her entree appeared. One of the waiters, a young, red-haired boy, hesitantly intruded on her solitude, a collection box in hand.
"We wondered, ma'am, if you or Mister Cameron would be interested in contributing to the Palace Hotel Vesuvius relief fund?" he said, very shyly, thrusting forward the cardboard box with a smudgy newspaper photo of a volcano in eruption pasted onto the front of it.
"Vesuvius relief?" she repeated, and shook her head in confusion. What on earth could the boy mean by that? "Why? Has something happened in Italy?"
He stared at her as if she had just crawled out of a cave, and she felt moved to explain lest he begin to suspect that something was wrong and start a train of gossip.
"I have just come from Mister Cameron's estate in the country," she told him, one hand going unconsciously to her throat where she touched the golden round of her watch. "It is very remote, and we have not even had delivery of newspapers. Please, tell me, what is it that has happened? If it is something serious, I shall have Mister Cameron told at once."
The boy relaxed, as if he had not been quite sure of her sanity. "That volcano, Mount Vesuvius, ma'am. It blew its top clean off. There's whole towns under the lava—hundreds killed, thousands hurt. Two hundred fifty people were killed in one market, buried under ash! It's bad, ma'am, there's people collecting all over the city, and the Palace has a special fund going and they asked us waiters to try and get up some of the fund money?"
He spoke the last on an uncertain, interrogative note. She smiled reassuringly, although it hurt one side of her mouth to do so, and dug into her handbag. She hadn't emptied it since the last time she was in the city, and she hadn't spent all the pocket-money Cameron had given her for that trip. Surely there was something in there she could give the boy!
Mount Vesuvius erupting—She remembered now, as from a time ten years in the past, how she had dreamed of fire, earthquake, and disaster the night she arrived here. Had that been a premonition of this calamity in Italy?
Then her hand closed on a thick wad of banknotes, and she froze, looking down into her lap.
There was a roll of bills in her purse at least an inch across. Under cover of the table, she opened the roll and stared at the result. None of the bills were smaller than a ten-dollar note. Beneath the roll, lying loose, were the scattered notes of smaller denomination from the last trip.
How had that gotten into her purse? Was it Jason?
Of course it was. How else could it have happened? As clever as the Salamanders were, she did not think they were clever enough to realize that one needed money to pay for things.
She extracted two bills, one of them a twenty, and handed both to the boy, whose eyes went wide as she placed them in his box. "There," she said, "The ten is from me, the twenty from Jason Cameron. It is the least that Mister Cameron and I can do."
He stammered his thanks and went on to the other patrons of the restaurant. She extracted another couple of bills and secreted the rest in a side pocket of her handbag so that she would not pull them all out inadvertently. I am not such a gull as that; even here, I would not be certain of my safety if word passed that I had such a quantity of cash money on my person.
She paid for her dinner—leaving a generous tip and sought the concierge for aid in acquiring a taxi to the Opera.
Perhaps warned by the restaurant staff and in anticipation of a fine gratuity for himself he managed to find her one despite heavy competition. Although it was a Wednesday and a working-day, carriages full of opera-goers were already on their way to Mission Street in the cool breeze of the early evening. The fair weather tempted many out for an evening of entertainment, although the theaters would be dark by midnight. Besides the Opera, Babes in Toyland was still playing at the Columbia Theater, and John Barrymore held forth in Richard Harding Davis' play, The Dictator. And of course, there was vaudeville at the Orpheum, and the disreputable entertainments of the Barbary Coast, which never seemed to close for long.