"It seems to me most unfair," Saxon reflected, more in sadness than
anger.

"That is your quarrel with the world, not with me," Mercedes rejoined
sharply, then immediately softened with one of her quick changes. "We
mustn't quarrel, my dear. I like you so much. La la, it is nothing to
you, who are young and strong with a man young and strong. Listen, I
am an old woman. And old Barry can do little for me. He is on his last
legs. His kidneys are 'most gone. Remember, 'tis I must bury him. And
I do him honor, for beside me he'll have his last long steep. A stupid,
dull old man, heavy, an ox, 'tis true; but a good old fool with no trace
of evil in him. The plot is bought and paid for--the final installment
was made up, in part, out of my commissions from you. Then there are the
funeral expenses. It must be done nicely. I have still much to save. And
Barry may turn up his toes any day."

Saxon sniffed the air carefully, and knew the old woman had been
drinking again.

"Come, my dear, let me show you." Leading Saxon to a large sea chest
in the bedroom, Mercedes lifted the lid. A faint perfume, as of
rose-petals, floated up. "Behold, my burial trousseau. Thus I shall wed
the dust."

Saxon's amazement increased, as, article by article, the old woman
displayed the airiest, the daintiest, the most delicious and most
complete of bridal outfits. Mercedes held up an ivory fan.

"In Venice 'twas given me, my dear.--See, this comb, turtle shell;
Bruce Anstey made it for me the week before he drank his last bottle and
scattered his brave mad brains with a Colt's 44.--This scarf. La la, a
Liberty scarf--"

"And all that will be buried with you," Saxon mused, "Oh, the
extravagance of it!"

Mercedes laughed.

"Why not? I shall die as I have lived. It is my pleasure. I go to the
dust as a bride. No cold and narrow bed for me. I would it were a coach,
covered with the soft things of the East, and pillows, pillows, without
end."

"It would buy you twenty funerals and twenty plots," Saxon protested,
shocked by this blasphemy of conventional death. "It is downright
wicked."

"'Twill be as I have lived," Mercedes said complacently. "And it's a
fine bride old Barry'll have to come and lie beside him." She closed the
lid and sighed. "Though I wish it were Bruce Anstey, or any of the pick
of my young men to lie with me in the great dark and to crumble with me
to the dust that is the real death."

She gazed at Saxon with eyes hea