by Elinor Glyn
IX
"And what is your pleasure, fair queen?" Hector said, as they listenedto the diminishing noise of the widow's Mercedes. "We are alone, and wehave the world before us. Issue your commands."
"No," said Theodora, and she pouted her red lips. "I want you to settlethat. I want you to arrange for whatever you think would give me thegreatest pleasure. Then I shall know if you understand me and guess whatI would like."
This was the most daring speech she had ever made, and she was surprisedat her own temerity.
"Very well," he said. "That means you belong to me until they return,"and a thrill ran through him. "Has not your father, has not yourhostess, given you into my charge? And, now you yourself have sealed thecompact, we shall see if I can make you happy."
As he said the words "you belong to me," Theodora thrilled too--asensation as of an electric shock almost quivered through her. Belongedto him--ah!--what would that mean?
He called his chauffeur, who started the automobile and drove under thecovered _porte cochere_ where they stood.
Lord Bracondale had not spoken all the time he was helping her in andarranging rugs with the tenderest solicitude, but when they were settledand started--it was a coupe with a great deal of glass about it, so thatthey got plenty of air--he turned to her.
"Now, do you know what I am going to do with you, madame? I shall onlyunfold my plans bit by bit, and watch your face to see if I have chosenwell. I am going to take you first to the Petit Trianon, and we aregoing to walk leisurely through the rooms. I am not going to worry youwith much sight-seeing and tourists and lessons of history, but I wantyou to glance at this setting of the life picture of poor MarieAntoinette, because it is full of sentiment and it will make youappreciate more the _hameau_ and her playground afterwards. Somethingtells me you would rather see these things than all the fine picturesand salons of the stiff chateau."
"Oh yes," said Theodora; "you have guessed well this time."
"Then here we are, almost arrived," he said, presently.
They had been going very fast, and could see the square, white house infront of them, and when they alighted at the gates she found theguardian was an old friend of Lord Bracondale's, and they were left freeto wander alone in the rooms between the batches of tourists.
But every one knows the Petit Trianon, and can surmise how its beautiesappealed to Theodora.
"Oh, the poor, poor queen!" she said, with a sad ring in her expressivevoice, when they came to the large salon; "and she sat here and playedon her harpsichord--and I wonder if she and Fersen were ever alone--andI wonder if she really loved him--"
Then she stopped suddenly; she had told herself she must never talkabout love to any one. It was a subject that she must have nothing to dowith. It could never come her way, now she was married to Josiah Brown,and it would be unwise to discuss it, even in the abstract.
The same beautiful, wild-rose tint tinged the white velvet as oncebefore when she had spoken of _Jean d'Agreve_, and again Lord Bracondaleexperienced a sensation of satisfaction.
But this time he would not let her talk about the weather. The subjectof love interested him, too.
"Yes, I am sure she did," he said, "and I always shall believe Fersenwas her lover; no life, even a queen's, can escape one love."
"I suppose not," said Theodora, very low, and she looked out of thewindow.
"Love is not a passion which asks our leave if he may come or no, yousee," Hector continued, trying to control his voice to sounddispassionate and discursive--he knew he must not frighten her. "Lovecomes in a thousand unknown, undreamed-of ways. And then he gilds theworld and makes it into heaven."
"Does he?" almost whispered Theodora.
"And think what it must have been to a queen, married to a tiresome,unattractive Bourbon--and Fersen was young and gallant and thoughtfulfor her slightest good, and, from what one hears and has read, he musthave understood her, and been her friend as well--and sometimes she musthave forgotten about being a queen for a few moments--in his arms--"
Theodora drew a long, long breath, but she did not speak.
"And perhaps, if we knew, the remembrance of those moments may havebeen her glory and consolation in the last dark hours."
"Oh! I hope so!" said Theodora.
Then she walked on quickly into the quaint, little, low-ceilingedbedroom. Oh, she must get out into the air--or she must talk offurniture, or curtain stuffs, or where the bath had been!
Love, love, love! And did it mean life after all?--since even thisfar-off love of this poor dead queen had such power to move her. Andperhaps Fersen was like--but this last thought caused her heart to beattoo wildly.
There were no roses now, she was very pale as she said: "It saddens me,this. Let us go out into the sun."
They descended the staircase again almost in silence, and on through thelittle door in the court-yard wall into the beautiful garden beyond.
"Show me where she was happy, where you know she was happy before anytroubles came. I want to be gay again," said Theodora.
So they walked down the path towards the _hameau_.
"What have I done?" Lord Bracondale wondered. "Her adorable face wentquite white. Her soul is no longer the open book I have found it. Thereare depths and depths, but I must fathom them all."
"Oh, how I love the spring-time!" exclaimed Theodora, and her voice wasfull of relief. "Look at those greens, so tender and young, and thatpeep of the sky! Oh, and those dear, pretty little dolls' houses! Let ushasten; I want to go and play there, and make butter, too! Don't you?"
"Ah, this is good," he said; "and I want just what you want."
Her face was all sweet and joyous as she turned it to him.
"Let's pretend we lived then," she said, "and I am the miller's daughterof this dear little mill, and you are the bailiff's son who livesopposite, and you have come with your corn to be ground. Oh, and I shallmake a bargain, and charge you dear!" and she laughed and swung herparasol back, while the sun glorified her hair into burnished silver.
"What bargain could you make that I would not agree to willingly?" heasked.
"Perhaps some day I shall make one with you--or want to--that you willnot like," she said, "and then I shall remind you of this day and yourgallant speech."
"And I shall say then as I say now. I will make any bargain with you,so long as it is a bargain which benefits us both."
"Ah, you are a Normand, you hedge!" she laughed, but he was serious.
They walked all around the _laiterie_, and all the time she was gay andwhimsical, and to herself she was saying, "I am unutterably happy, butwe must not talk of love."
"Now you have had enough of this," Lord Bracondale said, when they wereagain in view of the house, "and I am going to take you into a forestlike the babes in the woods, and we shall go and lose ourselves andforget the world altogether. The very sight of these harmless touristsin the distance jars upon me to-day. I want you alone and no one else.Come."
And she went.
"I have never been here before," said Theodora, as they turned into theForest of Marly. "And you have been wise in your choice so far. I lovetrees."
"You see how I study and care for the things which belong to me," saidHector. It gave him ridiculous pleasure to announce that sentenceagain--ridiculous, unwarrantable pleasure.
Theodora turned her head away a little. She would like to have continuedthe subject, but she did not dare.
Presently they came to a side _allee_, and after going up it about amile the automobile stopped, and they got out and walked down a greenglade to the right.
Oh, and I wonder if any of you who read know the Forest of Marly, andthis one green glade that leads down to the centre of a star where fiveavenues meet? It is all soft grass and splendid trees, and may have beena _rendezvous de chasse_ in the good old days, when life--for thegreat--was fair in France.
It is very lonely now, and if you want to spend some hours in peace youcan almost count upon solitude there.
/> "Now, is not this beautiful?" he asked her, as they neared the centre,"and soon you will see why I carry this rug over my arm. I am going totake you right to the middle of the star until you see five paths foryou to choose from, all green and full of glancing sunlight, and whenyou have selected one we will penetrate down it and sit under a tree. Isit good--my idea?"
"Very good," said Theodora. Then she was silent until they reached the_rond-point_.
There was that wonderful sense of aloofness and silence--hardly even thenoise of a bird. Only the green, green trees, and here and there ashaft of sunlight turning them into the shade of a lizard's back.
An ideal spot for--poets and dreamers--and lovers--Theodora thought.
"Now we are here! Look this way and that! Five paths for us to choosefrom!"
Then something made Theodora say, "Oh, let us stay in the centre, inthis one round place, where we can see them all and theirpossibilities."
"And do you think uncertain possibilities are more agreeable perhapsthan certain ends?" he asked.
"I never speculate," said Theodora.
"As you will, then," he said, while he looked into her eyes, and heplaced the rug up against a giant tree between two avenues, so thattheir view really only extended down three others now.
"We have turned our backs on the road we came," he said, "and on anotherroad that leads in a roundabout way to the Grande Avenue again. So nowwe must look into the unknown and the future."
"It seems all very green and fair," said Theodora, and she leaned backagainst the tree and half closed her eyes.
He lay on the grass at her feet, his hat thrown off beside him, and ina desert island they could not have been more alone and undisturbed.
The greatest temptation that Hector Bracondale had ever yet had in hislife came to him then. To make love to her, to tell her of all the newthoughts she had planted in his soul, of the windows she had opened wideto the sunlight. To tell her that he loved her, that he longed to toucheven the tips of her fingers, that the thought of caressing her lips andher eyes and her hair drove the blood coursing madly through his veins.That to dream of what life could be like, if she were really his own,was a dream of intoxicating bliss.
And something of all this gleamed in his eyes as he gazed up at her--andTheodora, all unused to the turbulence of emotion, was troubled andmoved and yet wildly happy. She looked away down the centre avenue, andshe began to speak fast with a little catch in her breath, and Hectorclinched his hands together and gazed at a beetle in the grass, orotherwise he would have taken her in his arms.
"Tell me the story of all these avenues," she said; "tell me a fairystory suitable to the day."
And he fell in with her mood. So he began:
"Once Upon a Time There Was a Fairy Prince andPrincess."]
"Once upon a time there was a fairy prince and princess, and a witchhad enchanted them and put them in a green forest, but had set awatch-dog over Love--so that the poor Cupid with his bow and arrowsmight not shoot at them, and they were told they might live and enjoythe green wood and find what they could of sport and joy. But Cupidlaughed. 'As if,' he said, 'there is anything in a green wood of goodwithout me--and my shafts!' So while the watch-dog slept--it was a warm,warm day in May, just such as this--he shot an arrow at the prince andit entered his heart. Then he ran off laughing. 'That is enough for oneday,' he said. And the poor prince suffered and suffered because he waswounded and the princess had not received a dart, too--and could notfeel for him."
"Was she not even sympathetic?" asked Theodora, and again there was thatcatch in her breath.
"Yes, she was sympathetic," he continued, "but this was not enough forthe prince; he wanted her to be wounded, too."
"How very, very cruel of him," said Theodora.
"But men are cruel, and the prince was only a man, you know, although hewas in a green forest with a lovely princess."
"And what happened?" asked Theodora.
"Well, the watch-dog slept on, so that a friendly zephyr could come, andit whispered to the prince: 'At the end of all these allees, which leadinto the future, there is only one thing, and that is Love; he barstheir gates. As soon as you start down one, no matter which, you willfind him, and when he sees your princess he will shoot an arrow at her,too.'"
"Oh, then the princess of course never went down an allee," saidTheodora--and she smiled radiantly to hide how her heart wasbeating--"did she?"
"The end of the story I do not know," said Lord Bracondale; "the fairywho told it to me would not say what happened to them, only that theprince was wounded, deeply wounded, with Love's arrow. Aren't you sorryfor the prince, beautiful princess?"
Theodora opened her blue parasol, although no ray of sunshine fell uponher there. She was going through the first moment of this sort in herlife. She was quite unaccustomed to fencing, or to any intercourse withmen--especially men of his world. She understood this story had himselfand herself for hero and heroine; she felt she must continue thebadinage--anything to keep the tone as light as it could be, with allthese new emotions flooding her being and making her heart beat. It wasalmost pain she experienced, the sensation was so intense, and Hectorread of these things in her eyes and was content. So he let his voicegrow softer still, and almost whispered again:
"And aren't you sorry for the prince--beautiful princess?"
"I am sorry for any one who suffers," said Theodora, gently, "even in afairy story."
And as he looked at her he thought to himself, here was a rare thing, abeautiful woman with a tender heart. He knew she would be gentle andkind to the meanest of God's creatures. And again the vision of her atBracondale came to him--his mother would grow to love her perhaps evenmore than Morella Winmarleigh! How she would glorify everythingcommonplace with those tender ways of hers! To look at her was likelooking up into the vast, pure sky, with the light of heaven beyond. Andyet he lay on the grass at her feet with his mind full of thoughts andplans and desires to drag this angel down from her high heaven--into hisarms!
Because he was a man, you see, and the time of his awakening was notyet.
