XVII
THE DEMIGOD
On the third day she opened her eyes to the sun with the thought: Whereis he? From the windows of her room she could see the two pale pointsand the narrow way of water that led into the western ocean. Had hesailed out yonder west into the east, into that oblivion which was hisonly safety, for ever out of her sight? Or was he still at hand,ignoring warning, defying fate? "What difference can that make to menow?" she thought, "since whether he is here or yonder I've come to theend."
She drew out the sapphire and held it in her hand. The cloud of eventshad cast no film over its luster, but she looked at it now withoutpleasure. For all its beauty it wasn't worth what they were doing forit. Well, to-day they were both of them to see the last of it. To-dayshe was going to take it to Mr. Purdie to deliver it into his hands, totell him how it had fallen into hers in the goldsmith's shop--all of thestory that was possible for her to tell. For the rest, how she came tofix suspicion on the jewel, he might think her fanciful or morbid. Itdidn't matter as long as the weary thing was out of her hands. Itcouldn't matter!
She had made it out all clear in her mind that this was the right thingto do. It hadn't occurred to her she had made it out only on thehypothesis of Kerr's certainly going. It had not occurred to her thatshe might have to make her great moral move in the dark; or, what wasworse, in the face of his most gallant resistance. In this discouraginglight she saw her intention dwindle to the vanishing point, but thegreat move was just as good as it had been before--just as solid, justas advisable. Being so very solid, wouldn't it wait until she had timeto show him that she really meant what she said, supposing she ever hada chance to see him again? The possibility that at this moment he mightactually have gone had almost escaped her. She recalled it with adisagreeable shock, but, after all, that was the best she could hope,never to see him again! She ought to be grateful to be sure of that, andyet if she were, oh, never could she deprive him of so much beauty andlight by her keeping of the sapphire as he would then have taken awayfrom her!
She would come down then, indeed, level with plainest, palest, hardestthings--people and facts. Her romance--she had seen it; she had had itin her hands, and it had somehow eluded her. It had vanished,evaporated. It had come to her in rather a terrific guise, presented toher on that night at the club by the first debonair wave of the man'shand; and now he might have gone out through that white way into theeast, taking back her romance as the fairy takes back his unappreciatedgift.
She leaned and looked through the thin veil of her curtains at thesplendid day. It was one of February's freaks. It was hot. The whiteghost of noon lay over shore and sea. Beneath her the city seemed tosleep gray and glistening. The tops of hills that rose above theup-creeping houses were misted green. Across the bay, along the northernshore, there was a pale green coast of hills dividing blue and blue.Ships in the bay hung out white canvas drying, and the sky showed whiterclouds, slow-moving, like sails upon a languid sea. Beneath her,directly down, through hanging darts of eucalyptus leaves, hemmed withhigh hedges, the oval of her garden showed her a pattern like a Persiancarpet. Roofs sloped beyond it, and beyond these the diagram of streetsand houses, and empty unbuilt grassy lots.
She looked down upon all, as lone and lonely as a deserted lady in atower, lifted above these happy, peaceful things by her strangeresponsibility. Her thoughts could not stay with them; her eyes traveledseaward. She parted the curtains and, leaning a little out, lookedwestward at the white sea gate.
A whistle, as of some child calling his mate, came sweetly in thesilence. It was near, and the questing, expectant note caught her ear.Again it came, sharper, imperative, directly beneath her. She lookeddown; she was speechless. There was a sudden wild current of blood inher veins. There he stood, the whistler, neither child nor bird, but theman himself--Kerr, looking up at her from the gay oval of her garden.She hung over the window-sill. She looked directly down upon him,foreshortened to a face, and even with the distance and the broad glareof noon between them she recognized his aspect--his gayest, of diabolicglee. There lurked about him the impish quality of the whistle that hadsummoned her.
"Come down," he called.
All sorts of wonders and terrors were beating around her. He hadtranscended her wildest wish; he had come to her more openly, moredaringly, more romantically than she could have dreamed. All theamazement of why and how he had braved the battery of the windows ofher house was swallowed up in the greater joy of seeing him there,standing in his "grays," with stiff black hat pushed off his hotforehead, hands behind him, looking up at her from the middle ofanemones and daffodils.
"Come down," he called again, and waved at her with his slim, glitteringstick. How far he had come since their last encounter, to wave at andcommand her, as if she were verily his own! She left the window, leftthe room, ran quickly down the stair. The house was hushed; no passingbut her own, no butler in the hall, no kitchen-maid on the back stair.Only grim faces of pictures--ancestors not her own--glimmeredreproachful upon her as she fled past. Light echoes called her backalong the hall. The furniture, the muffling curtains, her own reflectionflying through the mirrors, held up to her her madness, and by theirmute stability seemed to remind her of the shelter she wasleaving--seemed to forbid.
She ran. This was not shelter; it was prison. He was rescue; he waslight itself. The only chance for her was to get near enough to him.Near him no shadow lived. The thing was to get near enough. She rusheddirect from shadow into light. She came out into the sun, into thegarden with its blaze of wintry summer, its whispering life and the freeair over it. The man standing in the middle of it, for all his pot hatand Gothic stick, was none the less its demigod waiting for her,laughing. He might well laugh that she who had written that unflinchingletter should come thus flying at his call; but there was more thanlaughter, there was more than mischief in him. The high tide of hisspirits was only the sparkle of his excitement. It was evident that hewas there with something of mighty importance to say.
Was it that her letter had finally touched him? Had he come at last totranscend her idea with some even greater purpose? She seemed to see thepower, the will for that and the kindness--she could not call it byanother word--but though she was beseeching him with all her silentattitude to tell her instantly what the great thing was, he kept itback a moment, looking at her whimsically, indulgently, even tenderly.
"I have come for you," he said.
"Oh, for me!" she murmured. Surely he couldn't mean that! He was simplyputting her off with that.
"I mean it, I mean it," he assured her. "This doesn't make it any lessreal, my getting at you through a garden. Better," he added, "and sweetof you to make the duller way impossible."
She took a step back. It had not been play to her; but he would have itnothing else. He, too, stepped back and away from her.
"Come," he said, and behind him she saw the lower garden gate thatopened on the grassy pitch of the hill, swinging idle and open. Thesight of him about to vanish lured her on, and as he continued to walkbackward she advanced, following.
"Oh, where?" she pleaded.
"With me!" Such a guaranty of good faith he made it!
She tried to summon her reluctance.
"But why?"
"We'll talk about it as we go along." His hand was on the gate. "Wecan't stop here, you know. She'll be watching us from the window."
Flora glanced behind her. The windows were all discreetly draped--mostlikely ambush--but that he should apprehend Clara's eyes behind them!Ah, then, he did know what he was about! He saw Clara as she did. Shewould almost have been ready to trust him on the strength of that alone.Still she hung back.
"But my things!" she protested. She held up her garden hat. "And mygown!" She looked down at her frail silk flounces. Was ever any womanseen on the street like this!
"Oh, la, la, la," he cut her short. "We can't stop to dress the part.You'll forget 'em."
She smiled at him suddenly, looked back at the house, put on herhat--
the garden hat. The moment she had dreaded was upon her. In spiteof her warning reason, in spite of everything, she was going with him.
Beyond the looming roofs as they descended the hill she saw white sailssink out of sight. All the little panorama upon which she had lookeddown sprang up around her, large and living. He whistled to the car ashe helped her down the last steep pitch, whistled and waved, and theyran for it. No time for back-looking, no time now for a faint heart.Before she knew they were fairly crowded into the narrow front seat, andthe long street was running up to them and streaming by.
This was never the car one went out the front door to take. This creakedand crawled low, taking the corners comfortably, past houses with alltheir windows blinking recognition. Hadn't it passed them so for twentyyears? Old houses in long gardens, and little houses creeping backbehind their yards, not yet encroached upon by fresher ties of living.Past all these and gliding down under high, ragged banks, green grassabove with wooden stairways straggling up their naked faces; past theseagain; past lower levels; past little gray and cluttered houses; pastloaded carts of vegetables; past children playing shrilly, bearing downalways on the green square of the plaza wide, worn and foreign, and theGreek church "domed" with blue and yellow, bearing down as if it hadfairly determined to make its course straight through this stablecenter. Then in the very shadow it swerved aside to clatter off in quiteanother direction along a wider street with whiter shops, and moreglittering windows with gilded letters flashing foreign names, with moremarked and brilliant colors moving in the crowd, with a clearer stamp onall of Latin living.
Then suddenly for them the sliding panorama ceased. The car had stoppedand they had left it, and were standing upon the corner of a stillstreet that came down from the high hills behind them and crossed thecar-track and climbed again a little way to curve over into the sky.Dingy houses two blocks above them stood silhouetted against the blue.They were walking upward toward this horizon, leaving color and motionbehind them. With every step the street grew more empty, lonely andcolorless. Many of the windows that glimmered at them, passing, werethe blank windows of empty houses. Were they taking this way, thiscurious roundabout out-of-the-world way, of dropping over into theshipping which lay under the hill? For all she knew this might really behis notion, for since they had left the garden gate, though they hadlooked together at the light and color of the pictures moving past theireyes, they had not exchanged a word.
But all at once he stopped at the intersection of two dusty streets, andhis eyes veered down the four perspectives like a voyageur taking hissoundings. Elegant as ever and odd enough, yet he wasn't any odder hereat the jumping off place of nowhere than he had appeared in the box atthe theater, or in the picture gallery. She had the clear impression allat once that he wasn't too odd for anything.
"Here we are!" he said, and indicated with his glittering stick straightbefore them a little house. It was low, as if it crouched against thewind, faded and beaten by the sun to the drab of the rock itself, andmade so secret with tight-drawn curtains that it seemed to have shutitself up against the world for ever. She wavered. She wasn't afraid ofherself out here, out-of-doors under the sky, but she was afraid thatthose four walls might shut out her new unreasoning joy, might stealaway his new tenderness, and bring her back face to face with the sameugly fact that had confronted her in her drawing-room.
"Oh, no," she said, and put her hands behind her with a determinationthat she wasn't going to move.
"Oh, yes," he said, but he didn't smile. He looked at her quite gravely,reproachfully, and the touch of his fingers on her arm was fine, wasdelicate, as if to say, "I wouldn't harm you for the world."
She blushed a slow, painful crimson. She hadn't meant that. She hadn'teven thought of it; but, since he had, there was nothing for it but togo in. The door shut behind her sharply, with a click like a littletrap; and she breathed such an atmosphere, flat, faint and stale, themere ghost of some fuller, more fragrant flavor. In the little anteroomwhere they stood, whose faded ceiling all but brushed their heads, andin the larger little room beyond the Nottingham lace curtains, prevaileda mild shabbiness, a respectable decay. Curtains and table-cloths alikeshowed a dull and tempered whiteness as if the shadow of time had fallendim across the whole. The little restaurant seemed left behind in theonward march of the city, and its faded, kindly face was but a shadow ofwhat had been of the vigor and flourish of bourgeois Spain thirty yearsbefore. There was no one eating at the little tables, no one sittingbehind the high cash-desk in the anteroom. Not a stir of human life inall the place.
"Hello," said Kerr among the tables looking around him, "we've caughtthem asleep." He rapped on the wall with his cane. Flora peered at himbetween the curtains, all her fascinated apprehension of what was tofollow plain upon her face. "Shall it be a giant or dwarf?" he askedher. "There's nothing I won't do for you, you know."
The door opened and a little girl with a long black braid and purpleapron came in.
"A dwarf," cried Flora. She laughed with a quick relaxing of herstrained nerves. It might almost have been the truth from that oldlittle swarthy face and sedate demeanor that hardly noticed them. Thechild walked gravely up to the desk and mounting to the high stoolstruck a faint-voiced bell.
"There," said Kerr, "ends formality. Now let the real magic begin!"
"Not black magic," Flora took up his fancy.
He had drawn out a chair for her. "That depends on you. I'm not themagic maker. I have no talisman."
She felt the conscious jewel burn in her possession. She looked upbeseechingly at him, but he only laughed, and, with a swing, lifted thechair a little off the ground as he set her up to the table, as if toshow how easily he could put forth strength. There was nothing defiantin him. He was taking her with him--taking her upon the wings of hishigh spirits; but mischievously, obstinately, he would not show herwhere the flight was leading, nor let her listen to anything but therustling of those wings. He was determined to make holiday, whatever wasto follow. For the glimpse of blue through the dim window might be theBay of Naples; and, ah! Chianti. Perhaps the sort one gets down MonteVideo way, where France fades into Italy--perhaps, at least if her kindfancy could get the better of the reality. In Sicily there were justsuch table-cloths as these, and just such fat floor-shaking contadini towait upon you. And look now at the purple one behind the desk--child orgnome--feet not touching the floor--centuries of Italy in her face. Oh,calculation, indifference!
"She wouldn't care if you jumped up and threw me out of the window," heaffirmed. "That's why this hole is so harmless. Oh, isn't that harmless?What's more harmless than to let one alone? There's only one dangerousthing here," he grinned and let her take her choice of which.
She came straight at it.
"You know I can't let you alone."
He laughed. "Well, isn't that why we're here at last--that you maydictate your terms?"
"I have. Didn't you get my letter?"
"Oh, indeed I did. Haven't I obeyed it? Haven't I kept away from yourhouse? Have I tried to approach you?"
"Haven't you, though?" she threw at him accusingly.
"Ah," he deprecated, "you came to me. I was down in the garden."
She looked at him through his persiflage wistfully, searchingly. "Butthere were other things in that letter."
"There were?" He regarded her with grave surprise. Oh, how shemistrusted his gravity! "Why, to be sure there were things--things thatyou didn't mean--one thing above all others you couldn't mean, that youwant me to drop out when the game is half done, to slink away and leaveit all like this--abandon you and my Idol so to each other! My dear, forwhat do you take me?"
She burst out. "But can't you see the danger?"
He met it quietly.
"Certainly. I have been seeing nothing else but the danger--to you. Doyou think I've been idle all these days? Every line I have followed hasended in that. It's brought me finally to this." The gesture of his handincluded their predicament and the dingy little room. "You
'll reallyhave to help me, after all."
"Oh, haven't I tried to? That is why I wrote. Don't you see your owndanger at all?"
"No, but I'd like to." He leaned toward her, brows lifted to a quizzicalpeak.
"Oh, I can't tell you," she despaired. "But somehow I shall have to makeyou go."
"That will be easy," he said. Leaning back, nursing his chin in hishand, he watched her with a gloomy sort of brooding. "You know what itis I'm waiting for. You know I won't go without it." His words camesadly, but doggedly, with a grim finality, as if he gave himself up tothe course he was following as something he knew was inevitable. Thefaintness of despair came over her. Only the narrow table was betweenthem, yet all at once, with the mention of the ring, he seemed a longway off. What was this terrible obsession that outweighed every otherconsideration with him? How get at it? How get through it? Or was itbetween them for ever?
"Do you care for it so very much?" she asked him, trembling but valiant.
"I care so very much," he repeated slowly, and after a moment of wonder:"Why, don't you?"
"Oh, not for that," she cried sharply. "Not for the sapphire!"
He stared. She had startled him clean out of his brooding. "In Heaven'sname, for what, then?"
Oh, she could never tell him it was for him! In her distress andembarrassment she looked all ways.
His quick white finger touched her on the wrist. "For Cressy?"
The abrupt stern note of his question startled her. She held herselfstiff and still for a moment, then: "For every one in this wretchedbusiness. I have to."
"Ah," he sighed out the satisfaction of his long uncertainty, "thenCressy _is_ in it."
"No, I didn't mean that--you mustn't think it--I can't discuss him withyou!" She was hot to recapture her fugitive admission.
"Don't let that disturb you. You haven't given him away to me. I had allI'm likely to get from the man himself."
"He--he told you?" she faltered.
"He told me nothing. Don't you know that he misdoubts me? I got it outof him, by sleight of hand--where we had met before. Has he never toldyou anything of that morning when we left your house together?"
"Never." The admission cost her an effort.
He mused at her. "As I said, he told _me_ nothing, but it occurred to mewhen he came in that we might be there on the same errand."
She paled. "You mean--?"
"I mean I thought it might be safer all around that you should not seehim that morning; so I got him away. He hasn't asked you for it since?"
"The sapphire?" she faltered. "No!" The more her instinct warned that ithad been the jewel Harry had returned for, the more she repudiated theidea to Kerr.
"Why should you think he came for that? What has he to do with it?" shemurmured.
"My God! how you do champion him!" He leaned forward sharply across thetable. "What is this man to you?"
He was going too far. He had no right to that question. "The man I havepromised to marry." Her hot look, her cold manner defied him to commandher here. Yet for a moment, leaning forward with his clenched hands onthe table, he looked ready to spring up and force her words back onher. The next he let it go and dropped back in his chair again.
"Quite so," he said. "But I didn't believe it." He stared at her with adull, profound resentment. "Yet it's most possible; since it isn't thesapphire it would be that." He mused. "But, you extraordinary woman, whyon earth--" he broke off, still looking at her, looking with apersistent, sharp, studying eye, as if she were the most puzzling and,it came to her gradually, the most dubious thing on earth. He was verilya magician, a worker of black magic; for under the spell of his eyes shefelt herself turning into something horrible. However innocent she wasin intention, the ugly appearance was covering her.
"Then what are you doing here with the ring on you?" he demandedsolemnly. "Why are you dealing with me? What do you think you'll get outof it? Good God! women are hideous! How can you betray the man youlove?"
"Oh," she cried, with a wail of horror. She stood up trembling and pale."I don't--I don't--I don't! I've kept it from them. I'm standingagainst them all. I shall never give it to them. When have I everbetrayed you?"
He drew back, away from her, as if to ward off her meaning, but sheleaned toward him, her hands flung out, holding herself up to him forall she meant. He got up slowly and the creeping tide of red, dusky andviolent, rising over his face, swelling his features, darkening hiseyes, hung before her like a banner of shame.
"I didn't know, I didn't know," he repeated in a low voice. His eyeswere on the ground. Then, with a sharp motion, as if merely standing infront of her was unendurable, "Oh, Lord!" he said, and, turning, walkedfrom her toward the window. He went precipitately, as if he meant to gothrough it, but he only leaned against it and stood motionless; and fromher side of the table, trembling, breathless, she watched his strickensilhouette black upon the gray, fading light.
The knowledge of how far she had gone, of how much she had betrayedherself, swelled and swelled before her mind until it seemed to fillher life, but she looked at it hardily and unabashed. All the decenciesin the world should sink before he thought her a traitor. She camesoftly up beside him.
"Don't be sorry for what I told you."
"I'm not," he said. His voice sounded muffled. He did not look at her,only held out his arm in a mute sign to her to come. She felt it aroundher, but it was a mere symbol of protection. It lay limp on hershoulder, and he continued to stare through the window at the street."I'm not sorry for what you said," he repeated slowly. "I'm glad; but,child, I wish it wasn't true."
"Don't, don't!" she besought him, "for I don't."
He gave her a look. "That's beautiful of you, but"--and he turned to thewindow again and spoke to himself--"it puts an awful face on mybusiness. All along you've made me think for you, and of you, more thanyou deserve, more than I can afford." The stare she gave this forced outof him a reluctant smile. "Why, didn't you know it? Do you think Icouldn't have had the sapphire that first night I saw it on your hand,if it hadn't been--well, for the way I thought of you? I fancied youknew that then." He made a restless movement. His arm fell from hershoulder. "There's been only one thing to do from the first," he said,"and I don't see my way to it."
"Oh, don't take it! Leave it!" she pleaded. "Leave it with me! What doesit matter so much? A jewel! If only you would leave it and go away fromme!"
He whirled on her. "In Heaven's name, a fine piece of logic! Leave thesapphire to people who can make no better use of it than I? Leave you togo on with this business and marry this Cressy? Even suppose you gave methe sapphire, I couldn't let you do that!"
"If I gave you the sapphire," Flora said, "oh, he wouldn't marry methen!" She couldn't tell how this had come to her, but all at once itwas clear, like a sign of her complete failure; but Kerr only wonderedat her distress.
"Well, if you don't want to marry him, what do you care?"
"Oh, I don't, I don't care for that." She sank back listlessly in herchair again. She couldn't explain, but in her own mind she knew that ifshe lost the sapphire she would so lose in her own esteem; so fail atevery point that counted, that she would never be able to see or be seenin the world again as the same creature. Even to Kerr--even to him towhom she would have yielded she would have become a different thing. Sherealized now she had staked everything on the premise that she wouldn'thave to yield; and now it began to appear to her that she would. Hisweakness was appearing now as a terrible strength, a strength thatseemed on the point of crushing her, but it could never convince her.That strength of his had brought her here. Was it to happen here, thatstrange thing she had foreseen, the end of her? Was it here she was tolose the sapphire, and him?
She looked vaguely around the room, at the most impassive aspect of theplace, as at a place she never expected to leave; the darkeningwindows, the fast-shut door, the child leaning on the desk, watchingthem with sharp, incurious eyes--this would be her niche for ever. Shewould be left for ever with the crus
ts and the dregs. And Kerr's figurein the twilight seemed each time it moved to be on the point ofvanishing into the grayness. He moved continually up and down the narrowspaces between the tables. He troubled the dry repose of the place.Sometimes he looked at her, studying, questioning, undecided. Once hestopped, as if just there an idea had arrested him. He looked at her, asif, she thought, he were afraid of her. Then for long moments he stoodlooking blankly, steadily out of the window. He did not approach her. Heseemed to avoid her, until, as though he had come at last to hisdecision, he walked straight up to her and stood above her. She rose tomeet him. He was smiling.
"Don't you know that you could easily get rid of me?" he demanded."Cressy would be too glad to do it for you; and there are more waysthan one that I could get the sapphire from you, if I could face theidea of it--but really, really we care too much for each other. There'sonly one way out for you and me and the sapphire. I'll take you both."
Her clenched hands opened and fell at her sides. A great wave ofhelplessness flowed over her. Her eyes, her throat filled up with a rushof blinding tears. She put out her hands, trying to thrust him off, buthe took the wrists and held them apart, and held her a moment helplessbefore him.
"Oh, no," she whispered.
"But I love you."
Her head fell back. She looked at him as if he had spoken theincredible.
"I love you," he repeated, "though God knows how it has happened!"
The blood rushed to her heart.
He was drawing her nearer.
She felt his breath upon her face; she saw the image of herself in hiseyes. She started to herself on the edge of danger, and made a struggleto release her wrists. He let them go. She sank down into her chair.
"Why not? Why won't you go with me?" she heard him say again, stillclose beside her.
"I can't, I can't!" She clung to the words, but for the moment she hadforgotten her reasons. She had forgotten everything but the wonderfulfact that he loved her. He was there within reach, and she had only tostretch out her hand, only to say one word, and he would cut through theranks of her perplexities and terrors, and carry her away.
"Why not, if you love me?" he insisted. "Are you afraid of those people?Are you afraid of Cressy? He shall never come near you."
She shook her head. "No, it isn't that."
He stooped and looked into her face. "Then what keeps you?"
She looked up slowly.
"My honor."
"Your honor!" For a moment her answer seemed to have him by surprise. Hemused, and again it came dreamily back to her that he was looking ather across a vast difference no will of hers could ever bridge.
"Don't you see what I am?" she murmured. "Can't you imagine where Istand in this hideous business? It's my trust. I'm on their side; and,oh, in spite of everything, I can't make myself believe in giving it toyou!"
He pondered this very gravely.
"Yes, I can see how you might feel that way. But is the feeling reallyyours? Are you sure they haven't put it on you? Might not my honor do aswell for you, if you were mine?" It struck her she had never connectedhim with honor, and he read her thought with a flash of humor."Evidently it hasn't occurred to you that I have an honor."
She looked at him sadly. "In spite of everything I'm on the other side.I belong to them."
"You belong to me." His hand closed on hers. "Mine is the only honor youhave to think of. Can't you trust that I am right? Can't you see itthrough my eyes? Can't you make yourself all mine?" His arm was aroundher now, holding her fast, but she turned her face away, and his kissesfell only on her cheek and hair.
"Oh," she cried, "if only I could!"
"Don't you love me?"
"Oh, yes, but that makes me see, all the more, the dreadful differencebetween us."
"You silly child, there is no difference, really."
"Ah, yes, you know it as well as I. You were afraid of it, too. All thatlong time you were walking around you were wondering whether you daredto take me."
He denied her steadily, "Never!"
She loved him for that gallant denial, for she knew he had been afraid,horribly afraid, more afraid than she was now; but that strange qualityof his that gave to a double risk a double zest had set him all thehotter on this resolution.
He sat for some long moments thoughtfully looking straight before him.She, glancing at his profile, white and faintly glimmering in thetwilight, thought it looked sharp, absorbed and set. She could see hisgreat determination growing there in the gloom between them, loomingand overshadowing them both.
"I see," he said at last. "I'll simply have to take you in spite of it."He turned around to her, and reached his hands down through the dusk.She was being drawn up into arms which she could not see. Her hands wereclasped around a neck, her cheek was against a face which she had neverhoped to touch. Her reason and her fears were stifled and caught awayfrom her lips with her breath. She was giving up to her awful weakness.She was giving up to the power of love. She was letting herself sinkinto it as she would sink into deep water. The sense of drowning in thisprofound, unfathomable element, of shutting her eyes and opening herarms to it, was the highest she had ever touched; but all at once thememory of what she was leaving behind her, like a last glimpse of sky,swept her with fear. She made a desperate effort to rescue herselfbefore the waters quite closed over her head.
She pulled herself free. Without his arms around her for the firstmoment she could hardly stand. She took an uncertain step forward; thenwith a rush she reached the white curtains. They flapped behind her. Sheheard Kerr laugh, a note, quiet, caressing, almost content. It came fromthe gloom like a disembodied voice of triumph. Her rush had carried herinto the middle of the anteroom. At this last moment was there to be nomiracle to save her? There was no rescue among these dumb walls andclosed-up windows. The purple child gave her a sharp, bird-like glance,as if the most that this wild woman could want was "change." Floralooked behind her and saw Kerr, who had put aside the curtains and wasstanding looking at her. He was bright and triumphant in that twilightroom. He was not afraid of losing her now. He knew in that one moment hehad imprisoned her for ever! She saw him approaching, but though all hermind and spirit strained for flight, something had happened to her will.It tottered like her knees.
He stooped and picked up an artificial rose, which had fallen from herhat, and put it into her hand. A moment, with his head bent, he stoodlooking into her face, but without touching her.
"Sit down over there," he said, and pointed toward a chair against thewall. She went meekly like a prisoner. He spoke to the child in thepurple apron, who was still sitting behind the desk. He put some moneyon the cash-desk in front of her. It was gold. It shone gorgeously inthe dull surrounding, and the child pounced upon it, incredulous of herluck. Then he turned, crossed the room, soundlessly opened the door, andwent out into the violet dark of the street.
The child furtively tested her coin, biting it as if to taste theglitter, and Flora waited, lost, given up by herself, passively watchingfor the room to be filled again with his presence. He was back after along minute, and this time took up his stand at the door, where, pushingaside the tight-drawn curtain a little, from time to time he looked outinto the street. Sometimes his eyes followed the cracks of theplastered wall, sometimes he studied the floor at his feet; every momentshe saw he was alert, expectantly watching and waiting; and though henever looked at her sitting behind him, she felt his protection betweenher and the darkening street. She sat in the shadow of it, feeling itall around her, claiming her as it would claim her henceforth, from, theworld. A ghost of light glimmered along the curtains of the window, andstopped, quivering, in the middle of the curtained door. Then he turnedabout and beckoned her. Sheer weakness kept her sitting. He went to her,took her face between his hands, and looked into it long and intently.
"You don't want to go!" The words fell from his lips like an accusal.His sudden realization of what she felt held him there dumb withdisappointment. "You have won m
e," her look was saying, "and yet I haveimmediately become a worthless thing, because I am going; and I don'tbelieve in going." She felt she had failed him--how cruelly, was writtenin his face. But it was only for a moment that she made him hesitate.The next he shook himself free.
"Well, come," he said.
She felt that all doors would fly open at his bidding. She felt herselfswept powerless at his will with all the yielding in her soul that shehad felt in her body when his arms were around her. He had taken her bythe hand--he was leading her out into the gusty night, where all lightsflared--the gas-lights marching up the street over the hill into theunknown, and the lights gleaming at her like eyes in the dark bulk ofthe carriage waiting before the door. It all glimmered before her--apicture she might never see again--might not see after she passedthrough the carriage door that gaped for her. The will that had swepther out of the door was moving her beyond her own will, as it had movedher that morning in the garden, beyond all things that she knew. Therewas no feeling left in her but the despair of extreme surrender.
She found herself in the carriage. She saw his face in the carriage dooras pale as anger, yet not angry; it was some bigger thing that lookedat her from his eyes. He looked a long while, as if he bade her never toforget this moment. Then, "I'll give you twenty-four hours," he said."This man will take you home." He shut the carriage door--shut itbetween them. Before she had gathered breath he had straightened, fallenback, raised his hat, and the carriage was turning. Flora thrust herhead, straw hat and ribbons out of the window.
"Oh, I love you!" she called to him. She sank back in the cushions andcovered her face with her hands.
The Coast of Chance Page 17
