CHAPTER V
THE TOKEN
Slowly Anne drew aside the curtain and looked forth into the night, amagic night, soft and wonderful, infinitely peaceful. A full moon shonehigh in the sky with an immense arc of light around it, many-rayed,faintly prismatic. There was the scent of coming rain in the air, but noclouds were visible. The stars were dim and remote, almost quenched inthat flood of moonlight.
Across the quiet garden came the song of a nightingale in one of theshrubberies, now soft and far like the notes of a fairy flute, now closeat hand and filling the whole world with music. Anne stood, a silentlistener, on the edge of the magic circle.
She had just risen from the piano, where for the past hour or more shehad been striving to forget the fever that burned within. Now at last shehad relinquished the piteous, vain attempt, and utterly wearied she stooddrinking in the spring sweetness.
It was drawing towards midnight, and all but herself had retired. Sheknew she ought to bolt the window and go to rest also; only she knew,too, that no rest awaited her. The silver peace into which she gazed waslike balm to her tired spirit, but yet she could only stand, as it were,upon the edge.
A great longing was upon her, a voiceless, indescribable desire, thatmade within her so deep a restlessness that no outside influence seemedable to touch it. She leaned her head against the window-frame, consciousof suffering but scarcely aware of thought.
With no effort of hers the events of that afternoon passed before her.She heard again the ardent voice of the friend who had become the lover.He had loved her from the first, it seemed, and she had not known it.Could it be that she had loved him also, all unknowing?
There came again to her the memory of those fierce, compelling eyes, thedogged mastery with which he had fought her resolution, the sudden magicsoftening of the harsh face when he smiled. There came again thepassionate thrilling of his voice; again her hands tingled in that closegrip; again she thought she felt the beating of the savage heart.
She raised her arms above her head with the gesture of one who wards offsomething immense, but they fell almost immediately. She was so tired--sotired. She had fought so hard and so long. Oh, why was there no peace forher? What had she done to be thus tortured? Why had love come to her atall? In all her barren life she had never asked for love.
And now that it had come it was only to be ruthlessly dashed against thestones. What had she to do with love--love, moreover, for a man who couldoffer her but the fiery passion of a savage, a man from whom her everyinstinct shrank, who mocked at holy things and overthrew all barriers ofconvention with a cynicism that silenced all protest. What--ah, whatindeed!--had she to do with love?
She had lived a pure life. She had put out the fires of youth long ago,with no hesitating hand. She had dwelt in the desert, and made of it herhome. Was it her fault that those fires had been kindled afresh? Was sheto blame because the desert had suddenly blossomed? Could she be heldresponsible for these things, she who had walked in blindness till thetransforming miracle had touched her also and opened her eyes?
She shivered a little. Oh, for a helping hand! Oh, for a deliverer fromthis maze of misery!
She saw again the quiet garden lying sleeping before her in themoonlight, and felt as if God must be very far away. She was veryterribly alone that night.
The impulse came to her to pass out into the dewy stillness, and sheobeyed it, scarcely knowing what she did. Over the silver grass,ghost-like, she moved. It was as if a voice had called her. On to thelilac trees with their burden of fragrant blossoms, where the thrushhad raised his song of rapture, where she had faced that first fieryordeal of love.
She reached the bench where she had sat that afternoon. There was not aleaf that stirred. The nightingale's song sounded away in the distance.The midnight peace lay like a shroud upon all things. But suddenly fearstabbed her, piercing every nerve to quivering activity. She knew--how,she could not have said--that she was no longer alone.
She stood quite still, but the beating of her heart rose quick andinsistent in her ears, like the beat of a drum. Swift came the convictionthat it was no inner impulse that had brought her hither. She had obeyeda voice that called.
For many seconds she stood motionless, not breathing, not daring to turnher head. Then, as her strength partially returned, she took two stepsforward to the seat under the lilac tree, and, her hand upon the back ofit, she spoke.
"Nap!"
He came, gliding like a shadow behind her. Slowly she turned andfaced him.
He was still in riding-dress. She heard again the faint jingle of hisspurs. Yet the moonlight shone strangely down upon him, revealing in himsomething foreign, something incongruous, that she marvelled that she hadnever before noticed. The fierce, dusky face with its glittering eyes andsavage mouth was oddly unfamiliar to her, though she knew it all byheart. In imagination she clothed him with the blanket and moccasins ofCapper's uncouth speech; and she was afraid.
She did not know how to break the silence. The heart within her wasleaping like a wild thing in captivity.
"Why are you here?" she said at last, and she knew that her voice shook.
He answered her instantly, with a certain doggedness. "I want to knowwhat Capper has been saying to you."
She started almost guiltily. Her nerves were on edge that night.
"You may as well tell me," he said coolly. "Sooner or later I ambound to know."
With an effort she quieted her agitation. "Then it must be later," shesaid. "I cannot stay to talk with you now."
"Why not?" he said.
Desperately she faced him, for her heart still quaked within her. Theshock of Capper's revelation was still upon her. He had come to her toosoon. "Nap," she said, "I ask you to leave me, and I mean it. Please go!"
But he only drew nearer to her, and she saw that his face was stern. Hethrust it forward, and regarded her closely.
"So," he said slowly, "he has told you all about me, has he?"
She bent her head. It was useless to attempt to evade the matter now.
"I am mightily obliged to him," said Nap. "I wanted you to know."
Anne was silent.
After a moment he went on. "I meant to have told you myself. I even beganto tell you once, but somehow you put me off. It was that night atBaronmead--you remember?--the night you wanted to help me."
Well she remembered that night--the man's scarcely veiled despair, hisbitter railing against the ironies of life. So this had been the meaningof it all. A thrill of pity went through her.
"Yes," he said. "I knew you'd be sorry for me. I guess pity is about thecheapest commodity on the market. But--you'll hardly believe it--I don'twant your pity. After all, a man is himself, and it can't be of muchimportance where he springs from--anyway, to the woman who loves him."
He spoke recklessly, and yet she seemed to detect a vein of entreatyin his words. She steeled her heart against it, but it affected hernone the less.
"Nap," she said firmly, "there must be no more talk of love between us. Itold you this afternoon that I would not listen, and I will not. Do youunderstand me? It must end here and now. I am in earnest."
"You don't say!" said Nap.
He was standing close to her, and again fear stabbed her--fear that wasalmost abhorrence. There was something about him that was horriblysuggestive of a menacing animal.
"I am in earnest," she said again. But she could not meet his eyes anylonger. She dared not let him read her soul just then.
"I am in earnest too," said Nap. "But you needn't be afraid of me on thataccount. I may be a savage, but I'm not despicable. If I take more thanyou are prepared to offer it's only because I know it to be my own." Hebent towards her, trying to see her face. "My own, Anne!" he said againvery softly. "My own!"
But at his movement she drew back sharply, with a gesture of suchinstinctive, such involuntary recoil, that in an instant she knew thatshe had betrayed that which she had sought to hide.
He stiffened as if at a bl
ow, and she saw his hands clench. In thesilence that followed she stood waiting for the storm to burst, waitingfor his savagery to tear asunder all restraining bonds and leap forth indevilish fury. But--by what means she knew not--he held it back.
"So," he said at last, his voice very low, "the Queen has no further usefor her jester!"
Her heart smote her. What had she done? She felt as if she had cruellywounded a friend. But because he demanded of her more than friendship,she dared not attempt to allay the hurt. She stood silent.
"Can't you find another _role_ for me?" he said. "You will find itdifficult to exclude me altogether from the cast."
Something in his tone pierced her, compelled her. She glanced up swiftly,met his eyes, and was suddenly caught, as it were, in fiery chains, sothat she could not look away. And there before her the gates of hellopened, and she saw a man's soul in torment. She saw the flames mounthigher and higher, scorching and shrivelling and destroying, till at lastshe could bear the sight no longer. She covered her face with her handsand blotted it out.
"Oh, Nap," she moaned, "if you love me--if you love me--"
"If I love you--" he said.
He put his hand on her shoulder and she trembled from head to foot.
"Prove your love!" she whispered, her face still hidden.
He stood awhile motionless, still with his hand upon her. But at last itfell away.
"You doubt my love then?" he said, and his voice sounded strange toher, almost cold. "You think my love is unworthy of you? You have--lostfaith in me?"
She was silent.
"Is it so?" he persisted. "Tell me the truth. I may as well know it. Youthink--because I am not what Capper would, term a thoroughbred--that Iam incapable of love. Isn't that so?"
But still she did not answer him. Only, being free, she turned to thegarden-seat and sank down upon it, her arms stretched along the back,her head bowed low.
He began to pace up and down like a caged animal, pausing each time hepassed her, and each time moving on again as if invisibly urged. At lastvery suddenly he stopped with his back to her, and stood like a statue inthe moonlight.
She did not look at him. She was too near the end of her strength. Herheart was beating very slowly, like a run-down watch. She felt like anold, old woman, utterly tired of life. And she was cold--cold fromhead to foot.
Minutes passed. Somewhere away in the night an owl hooted, and Napturned his head sharply, as one accustomed to take note of every sound.A while longer he stood, seeming to listen, every limb alert and tense,then swiftly he wheeled and gazed full at the drooping woman's figure onthe bench.
Slowly his attitude changed. Something that was bestial went out of it;something that was human took its place. Quietly at length he crossedthe moonlit space that intervened between them, reached her, kneltbeside her.
"Anne," he said, and all her life she remembered the deep melancholy ofhis voice, "I am a savage--a brute--a devil. But I swear that I have itin me to love you--as you deserve to be loved. Won't you have patiencewith me? Won't you give me a chance--the only chance I've ever had--ofgetting above myself, of learning what love can be? Won't you trust mewith your friendship once more? Believe me, I'm not all brute."
She thrilled like a dead thing waked to life. Her dread of the man passedaway like an evil dream, such was the magic he had for her. She slippedone of her cold hands down to him.
He caught it, bowed his head upon it, pressed it against his eyes, thenlifted his face and looked up at her.
"It is not the end then? You haven't given me up in disgust?"
And she answered him in the only way possible to her. "I will beyour friend still, only--only let there never again be any talk oflove between us. That alone will end our friendship. Can I trustyou? Nap, can I?"
He jerked back his head at the question, and showed her his face in thefull moonlight. And she saw that his eyes were still and passionless,unfathomable as a mountain pool.
"If you can bring yourself--if you will stoop--to kiss me," he said, "Ithink you will know."
She started at the words, but she knew instantly that she had nought tofear. His voice was as steady as his eyes. He asked this thing of her asa sign of her forgiveness, of her friendship, of her trust; and everygenerous impulse urged her to grant it. She knew that if she refused hewould get up and go away, cut to the heart. She seemed to feel himpleading with her, earnestly beseeching her, reasoning against prejudice,against the shackles of conventionality, against reason itself. Andthrough it all her love for the man throbbed at the very heart of her,overriding all doubt.
She leaned towards him; she laid her hands upon his shoulders.
"In token of my trust!" she said, and bent to kiss his forehead.
But he gave her his lips instead--the thin, cynical lips that were wontto smile so bitterly. There was no bitterness about them now. They wereonly grave to sternness. And so, after a moment, she kissed him as hewished, and he kissed her in return.
Afterwards, he rose in unbroken silence, and went away.
The Knave of Diamonds Page 27
