CHAPTER XVRest well assured that now I seeNor shall hereafter blinded be.
Rest well assured that now I seeNor shall hereafter blinded be.
Rest well assured that now I seeNor shall hereafter blinded be.
“Ask Madame la Princesse if she can receive me for a moment.”
Basil, emerging from his dressing-room where he had removed the stains of travel, spoke in his usual quiet voice, and Célèste courtesied to the ground without daring to raise her eyes, for she was terribly afraid of the Prince, and her share in the escapade of two weeks ago filled her with extreme alarm; so she passed on ahead of him toward Laurence’s apartments with suitable haste, and for once without indulging in any coquettishly tripping steps.
For a very few moments only Basil waited in the entrance-hall, and then Célèste threw wide the door of the little salon preceding the bedroom and effaced herself murmuring in a subdued voice:
“Madame la Princesse awaits Monsieur le Prince.”
Inside the air was almost stiflingly hot with that heat which one expects to find only in forcing-houses, and the violent perfume of heady flowers added to the illusion and positively took one by the throat. Laurence did not believe in the modest fragrance of violets and roses; to please her blossoms must be tropically sensational in scent and color, erratic of shape if possible, and especially very costly; wherefore the vases all over the suite bristled with a newly hybridized lily, red and yellow in gaudystreaks like a South-American parrot, and pouring forth from their pointed petals torrents of pungent muskiness.
Half sitting, half reclining on the piled-up cushions of her favorite pink velvet lounge, enveloped like abon-bon-à-surprisein folds upon folds of flesh-tinted gauze forming the most amiable of princelysauts-de-lit, she awaited her husband in apparent calm, although her heart was beating uncomfortably. She knew she was in for a scene of some kind or other, and had prepared for it by repeating to herself over and over again: “I must stand firm; I must stand firm at any cost! Men are afraid of scenes, even when they bring them about themselves.” But she had not expected to find Basil quite so cool and indifferent upon his return to her after several weeks, nor so unimpressed by the skilfulmise-en-scèneshe had prepared; and when he omitted even the formal hand-kiss of greeting and merely bowed before her, she felt a sudden sinking of her throbbing heart, as if it were going down into her rose-lined slippers—pretty little slippers, which, with the accompanying silken ankles, were, as usual, effectively in evidence.
“You are not very effusive?” she faltered, her head slightly on one side, her lovely eyes radiating electric currents. “After all those days!” It was a favorite formula of speech with her, evidently, for she was certainly not thinking just now of Neville or of the Hôtel de Plenhöel.
Basil, one elbow on the chimneypiece, gazed down at her, totally unmoved. Perchance he, too, had prepared himself carefully for this interview.
“You might never have seen me again,” she continued, raising herself a little and pouting up at him like a mischievous child who wants caresses. “For it was a miracle that I was saved!”
Again she threw him a little appealing glance full of pathos, but his face was set and hard as flint, and suddenlyRégis’s words flashed through her mind: “If ever Basil learns that you have stepped down from the pedestal upon which he placed you, he will be unmerciful.”
“Why don’t you speak?” she exclaimed, nervously sitting up and letting her feet drop to the carpet.
And then Basil laughed, a short, incisive laugh that cut like the lash of a whip. There are some laughs far more expressive than even the most forceful words, and this was one of that sort.
“Let me impress upon you the advisability of implicit truthfulness on your part, Laurence, before we go any further with this,” he said, coldly.
“Are you going to be ugly to me!” she exclaimed, joining her hands together protestingly, “and just because I was afraid of your murderous peasants? Are you going to be horrid, Basil dear ... to poor little me?”
Basil gulped down something in his throat—possibly the pungence of those flaring lilies—his arm fell limply to his side, and he stared at her in amazement. “You will make a mistake,” he said, slowly, “if you try to go on hoodwinking me. It was well enough in the past, but that sort of thing is done with.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, flushing crimson. “What do you mean? When have I tried to hoodwink you?”
“For more than five long persevering years. No, don’t interrupt me; wait till I have pointed out a few things to you.”
The soft laces about her neck seemed of a sudden to have been transformed into an implacable garotte, and she tore at them with shaking fingers. She was ashy pale now, even to her stiffening lips. He need not have forbidden her to speak, for she could not have done so had she tried.
“For over five long weary years,” he quietly resumed, “you have made of me a mere purveyor of luxuries, of pleasures, of amusements. I fully admire your clevernessin raising yourself to the position I gave you; but not, however, the self-sufficiency that caused you to neglect the obligations that position entails. You scarcely showed shrewdness in this respect, but I was ready after a few weeks of your company to take much for granted, to pardon much, and to adopt anymodus-vivendiwhich would make it easier for you and me to keep up the farce of what I, at least, in my imbecility had thought to be a love marriage. I saw your failings; I discovered, one by one, faults I had never believed you capable of, but I thought you at least honest, and so I managed to endure the disappointment of finding in you nothing of what I had expected. I never doubted your honesty, mind you—never once. That saved all!”
He paused, bit his under lip, and went on in the same slow, deliberate way: “I discovered, to my extreme sorrow, that you did not love me as you claimed you did. It was a bitter pill for me to swallow; but even then I found excuses for you. The temptation of great wealth and—permit me to add in simple justice—of a state almost unequaled here or elsewhere. You were young, well-born, and poor. This is not a—taunt, far from it—but a straight and plain statement. Your beauty entitled you to the best that this earth can provide, and, meeting me on your road, you intentionally dazzled me, using, perhaps, not the most delicate of means to do so; but I was too blind then to discriminate—my fault entirely! I confess that I was to blame for not having been more keen-sighted, and even to-day I rest that blame upon myself.”
He turned his gaze away from the wild stare of her eyes, and at once she tottered to her feet. “Basil!” she cried. “Basil, I love you; you know I love you and have always loved you!” And, so queerly are women constructed, that at that moment when she was being shown in one flash how completely she had lost him, she felt with a keen pang how far above other men he towered,how fine and strong he really was, and what a lover he might have remained, but for her own wilful folly.
He did not move, he quietly continued bending his grave eyes upon her, scanning from head to foot this beautiful creature offering herself in a flash of awakening passion; her light draperies clinging to her like foam about Aphrodite, her glorious eyes wet with tears more genuine than had ever glistened there, her white arms yearningly stretched out to him.
“What a pity,” he said, simply, “that you should not have thought of all this before!”
She half fell back as if he had struck her, then, impelled by a swift instinct to do all that she could to save herself, she suddenly flung herself at him, her head upon his breast, her loose-piled hair, shaken from its fastening ribbon by the violence of the action, tumbling like a mantle in lustrous ripples all around her.
“Basil!MyBasil!” she moaned. “I am yours, only yours!” One part of her brain was working feverishly, for she must try to guess—and that quickly—what he knew, what had changed him so; the other part was inert and dazed. It was a crucial moment.
Firmly he detached her clinging hands from his shoulders, and, holding her by both slender wrists, he pressed her gently toward the lounge; but her hitherto dormant fighting powers were fully aroused now, and she struggled free, to fling herself in utter abasement at his feet, clasping his knees desperately. An expression of indescribable pain contracted his features, but she did not see that; all she knew was that he lifted her up ever so gently, as though she were a mere object to be removed from his path, and placed her in the same impersonal way where she had sat before.
Limitless astonishment mingled now with her terror and confusion. Was this the man whom she had led by the proverbial silken thread?
“Don’t you realize,” he was saying, “that you can no longer influence me; that I clearly see through the tricks and shams you have always practised upon me; that my eyes are wide open at last?”
Gripping the edge of the lounge with both hands, she stared at him in utter consternation, helpless, defeated, robbed at one stroke of all her weapons.
“Women,” he pursued in that well-controlled, level tone that gave her such a sense of powerlessness, “hold different views of honor from what we do. I had never quite believed this, because our women are apart from the common herd, but you have convinced me. You are alarmed at the thought—not of losing me, but what I represent to you, and you are at the present minute perfectly willing to surrender unconditionally, even after what I have just told you, were I cowardly enough to accept such a surrender. You think that my anger will pass; but you may as well know that this is not going to be the case, because you have robbed me not only of the present, but of the past—because you have never been faithful to me, even when you first put your hand in mine and swore to be true, and because now I do not believe in you and never will!”
“But what makes you say these hideous things?” she gasped. “What have I done to deserve such cruelty—such contempt—such injustice?”
There was still something wanting in his accusation—she felt it instinctively; something she dreaded to hear him tell, and yet must know; something he, a gentleman, hated to say.
“The knowledge that you have always betrayed me,” he said at last; “you who married me for gain, because your lover was too poor to be a welcome husband!”
“My lover!” she shrieked. “That is false! I have no lover!”
“Pardon me, madame,” he said, “some time ago Ifound it was necessary for my honor to learn what I could about your past—and—your present. A little late, no doubt, but what will you? We Russians are hard to rouse, but still harder to deceive twice over. Long before you knew me Neville Moray was your lover—he has continued to be so ever since. How far your—affection carried you before our marriage I do not know—but since then you have seen him at regular intervals, secretly, shamefully, and now”—his voice broke suddenly in a horrible way—“now I am forced to doubt the legitimacy of your son.”
From the long gallery beyond her apartments gay, childish shouts came ringing to their ears.
“Hop! Hop, Garrassime! Kick out your heels, horsey! Go faster! Go faster!” Piotr was calling out at the top of his voice, and in the small, heavily perfumed salon there was silence, tense and terrible, an oppressive lull in a storm. There was a burst of laughter, and the galloping of little feet pursuing Garrassime, the merry jingle of the silver bells, of the bridle with which the boy was driving his human steed, and then silence again.
Laurence had fallen forward against the cushions, her face hidden, both hands covering her ears. Basil drew a deep breath, and suddenly tears rose to his eyes. Slowly he walked to a window, and, his back toward her, gazed unseeingly at the immensestepperolling out from the rocks far below. The magnificent isolation of the place was almost tragic in its completeness, and from that height the vast wrinklings of the unspotted snow-field seemed wrought from imperishable marble by the craft of some giant sculptor, enamoured of Eternity.
“Hear me, Basil!” murmured Laurence, hoarsely. “What you say is monstrous—false to the core. The boy isyours—yours, do you hear me?” There was the ring of truth in her words now, but the man who listened had ceased to believe once and for all. A bad woman mayinspire passion, but not the love that trusts and comprehends.
“How can I know?” came from the window, in a voice so altered that she did not recognize it, and abruptly started forward to see who had spoken. “How can I know,” went on the lifeless, monotonous accusation, “since you were always untrue? Had you, tired of my tenderness, yielded to a sudden impulse and given yourself to another, you might yet have had some shadow of an excuse, perhaps. You would have merely sunk, in so doing, to the level of those women who break faith because it is their whim or their nature to do so. But what of the crime committed by a free agent in accepting another man’s name, his love and trust, when it has become no longer possible to do so without black dishonor? You were talking a while ago of your poltroonery with regard to my peasants—my people here. What is that compared to the atrocious cowardice you were guilty of when you greedily accepted me as your husband—your best friend, your protector—knowing that you were no longer yours to dispose of, for a fortune or otherwise?”
“You are cruel—unfair, and you know it! There has been nothing, nothing, I tell you, that was serious between me and the—the—young man you named just now. He was a childhood’s friend, nothing more.”
Basil did not turn, he shrugged his shoulders wearily, that was all; and Laurence, cowed, daunted by this contemptuous silence, glanced apprehensively at those broad shoulders in a quick, haunted way.
“Oh,” she cried, “won’t you look round? Won’t you read the truth in my eyes? Take care, Basil, of what you are doing! Don’t push me too far!” The sentence that had begun in entreaty ended in a snarl of weak rage and menace that made Basil pivot on his heels and look at her with new surprise.
“I believe, God forgive me, that you are attemptingto threaten me!” he said, holding back his anger with a strong effort.
She was hanging her head, but not in shame; her hands were clasped between her knees, upon which the thin material of her dress drew tightly, and she glanced up at him through her eyelashes.
“If I do anything desperate,” she said, between her teeth, “it will be your fault.” And then in one of those moments of complete mental abandonment—a sudden weakening of over-taxed faculties to which women when cornered are liable—she committed the most fatal error of all. “Who,” she asked, furiously—“who told you all this against me? Was it Régis de Plenhöel who talked?”
Basil’s eyes were dark steel. “Régis de Plenhöel—Régis?” he echoed. “What has he to do with all this? Surely you did not make him your confidant?”
Too late she saw her terrible mistake. “No! No!” she cried, throwing out protesting arms. “I don’t know what I am talking about. I did not say that!” But the harm was done.
“So,” Basil said, “there are more than three of us to share this abominable secret! Well, that alters the case—for the future, that is!” He took a step toward her. “À nous deux, then, madame,” he said, “for the present, at any rate. You are going to tell me exactly in what way that chivalrous fellow Régis has been mixed up by you in this shameful business, or else I’ll know the reason why!”
The poor devil who but an instant ago was inwardly writhing in agony was gone. Nothing of him remained in evidence. It was now the judge, calm and inexorable, who stood before her, and that judge was her husband, and—a Prince—which will continue to make a difference throughout the ages, especially to natures like hers, in spite of all to the contrary that can be howled to the multitudeor printed in the malodorous pamphlets and “up-to-date” novels of a socialistic press.
And now for the second time it was imperative for her to decide what to say, instantly, in extenuation of her previous words. Her tortuous mind flickered under the effort, but she chose her line of defense, and spoke:
“That chivalrous fellow, Plenhöel, as you are pleased to call him, is not quite the pure white knight you think him. He—since you force me to say it—deigned from the first to look with favor upon me—pardon me for adopting the grandiloquent style you use yourself!” The sneer was unmistakable, and in her best manner.
Basil’s features grew a little more rigid. “Go on!” he said.
“When I came to Plenhöel, and—met you—he showed me at once that he admired me. I might have married him instead of you had I wished it, and become the stepmother of your adored ‘Gamin.’” She gave a wicked crack of laughter, for she saw the swift spasm that contracted his features as she pronounced the nickname of Marguerite; but this was gone in a flash, and Basil was listening calmly and collectedly again.
“Yes,” she hastily resumed, “I could have been the Marquise de Plenhöel—not a thing to be despised when one comes to think of it! Nor is this quite all, for when I was in Paris I had to defend myself against quite a different sort of address from him. Oh! you will pretend not to believe that, either; but one night I was forced to run away from the Hôtel de Plenhöel, after a scene with him. He snatched me up in his arms; he—”
Basil straightened himself mechanically, which made him seem of a sudden absolutely gigantic.
“Do you,” he said, “really expect me to accept this paltry explanation as the truth?” he asked.
She moved restlessly, but her flaming eyes did not flinch.
“You will continue to hold him innocent, I suppose,” she said, bitterly. “Everybody, it seems, is innocent excepting me!”
“Not everybody!”
She drooped for a second beneath the taunt, but soon went on, as if only spurred to new effort.
“Yet he is well known, your chivalrous Régis, as quite the contrary of a woman-hater—very much the contrary! You said that to me yourself long ago. A Don Juan, you called him, laughing. Well, what is there so strange about his casting his handkerchief in my direction?” She paused, panting a little.
“You use most befitting expressions,” Basil replied, “but you forget that Régis and I were boys together, and that I know him to be as incapable of making love—it is my turn to express regret for a somewhat drastic plainness of speech—to a young girl intrusted to his care, as of repeating the offense to my wife. I would refute the testimony of my own eyes where he is in question.”
“They are, as a matter of fact, pretty gullible sometimes—your own eyes!” she said, insolently, utterly unable to resist the temptation of hitting back; but the dull flush on his face frightened her into silence.
“My eyes are, as you very justly remark,” he acquiesced, “or, rather, they have been, pretty dull. I think, however, that you have effected a perfect cure, and that as an oculist you stand unrivaled. But do let us understand each other, once, and for all time to come.”
“I ask no better,” she retorted, deceived by his surface calm.
“Very well, then. Listen to me, and listen with all your might, because I shall not repeat what I tell you now. I want no scandal, no stain upon my name.Wedo not need such things to make it famous. So, although in Russia, which you so greatly dislike, divorce and annulment are obtainable under certain circumstances, I willnever resort to such humiliating means of separation; remember that. Life for us in common has been rendered impossible by you, and I shall provide for you elsewhere than under my own roof. You can have the house in Paris and a suitable income as long as you conduct yourself decently; also the villa at Beaulieu. Should you, however, attempt to amuse yourself by further intrigues, I will know how to stop you. Of your—of Captain Moray it is not worth while to speak, for I am going to challenge and kill him as soon as I have done with you. This being well understood, I will at once make all preparations for your departure from here, on the plea that you are not able to bear the severity of our climate, and you may go to Paris or Beaulieu (at your choice) immediately. Your maid and courier will accompany you; the staff of servants belonging to each of my establishments is there in permanence, as you know.”
“And do you imagine that you can dispose of me as if I were a parcel to be sent off by post at your pleasure?” She was white as paper, and her obstinate jaw worked curiously as she spoke. “And this,” she continued, rapidly, “because without proofs—tangible proofs—it pleases you to accuse me of things I have never dreamed of doing?”
For the first time Basil’s extraordinary self-restraint showed signs of giving way.
“You shall do as I say!” he broke in. “As to proofs, tangible or otherwise, they are superabundantly in my hand since a week. Do you wish me to tell you when and how and where your meetings with Captain Moray took place? Do you desire to know any particular details concerning those meetings, or your correspondence with him for the past years, before and after you deigned to marry me? In my turn I will warn you not to push me too far. We Palitzins are not a particularly patient race. I must be really a remarkable exception to havestood what I have. For a mere stray glance of coquetry lives have been paid in the past, although, happily, until now our Princesses have been honest and scrupulously loyal women. Believe me, madame, you have nothing to gain by forcing a scandal which will acquaint the world with what you have done, for then you will be adéclassée, and of those there are too many already. All that remains for me now is to ask you when you can be ready to leave Tverna.”
“Like a dismissed servant,” she said, in a strangling voice. “And Piotr? Do you intend to keep him?”
He passed his left hand quickly across his eyes. “Piotr,” he said, with an effort, the blood receding from his face and leaving it almost livid. “Piotr is officially at least a Prince Palitzin. He belongs to us, and shall remain under my care, although not with me. But this need not trouble you. He never was anything to you; the maternal fiber being, I fear, not one of your numerous strong points.”
“And,” she exclaimed, fiercely, “do you not care a jot about all this? You have loved me passionately. Are you forgetting our years together—our wedding-trip—everything?”
Basil looked at her for a moment, as if doubting the evidence of his own ears. Her effrontery really astounded him. “Had I not mistaken my feelings when I married you, this would have been much worse,” he said, grimly. “As it is, the souvenirs you are so thoughtful as to invoke make little impression on me!”
With an execration on her lips Laurence sprang up and came close to her husband. “Ah!” she cried. “You mistook your feelings, did you? And it isyouwho dare to call me to account for my conduct?You, who have loved Marguerite de Plenhöel from time immemorial, one might say—and it isyouwho blame me for what you pretend I have done—you? No doubt she has notwaited until now to reciprocate your tender affection. I am—”
She did not finish, for with lightning-like rapidity his hand closed upon her arm. “We will leave her name out of this, if you please!” he said in a tone of command she had not yet heard from him. “You are not fit to pronounce it. Nor have you the right to draw infamous conclusions about her—or me, either—out of your richly furnished stores of malice. You know without a peradventure that you are slandering the purest of God’s creatures, and—a man who has given you every reason to respect him. Now, please, no more noise, in the interest of your own future. Try, if you can, to act with a little more dignity—before others at least.”
He released her with a gesture bordering on disgust, and she fell heavily into his arms in one of those short-lived fainting-fits that are the usual resort of overstrained feminine nerves. He lifted her to the lounge, gave a quick touch to her wrist—which would have completely reassured him had he been at all anxious—and, striding to the door, called Célèste.
“Your mistress is not well; look to her!” he said; and when Laurence opened her eyes she saw that he was gone.