'Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife,He would have written sonnets all his life?'
'Think you, if Laura had been Petrarch's wife,He would have written sonnets all his life?'
O no! not he!"
"I'm learning many new things, Opal! Let's play we're married, then—to someone else!"
"But—haven't you any conscience at all?"
"Conscience?—what a question! Of course I have!"
"You certainly aren't using it to-night!"
"I'm too busy! Kiss me!"
"The very idea!"
"Please!"
"Certainly not!"
"Then let me kiss you!"
"No!!!"
"Why not?—Don't you like to be loved?"
And his arms closed around her, and his lips found hers again, and held them.
At last, "Silly Boy!"
"Why?"
"Oh! to make such a terrible fuss about something he doesn't really want, and will be sorry he has after he gets it!"
And Paul asked her wickedly, what foolish boy she was talking about now?Heknew what he really wanted—always—and was not sorry when he had it. Not he! He was sorry only for the good things he had let slip, never for those he had taken!
"But—do let me go, Paul! I don't belong to you!"
"Yes you do—for a little while!" He held her close.
Belong to him! How she thrilled at the thought! Was this what it meant to be—loved? Anddidshe belong to him—if only, as he said, for a little while? She certainly didn't belong to herself! Whatever this madness that had suddenly taken possession of her, it was stronger than herself. She couldn't control it—she didn't even want to! At all events, she waslivingto-night! Her blood was rushing madly through her body. She was deliciously, thoroughly alive!
"Paul!—are you listening?"
"Yes, dear!" the answer strangely muffled.
And then she purred in his ear, all the time caressing his cheek with her small white fingers: "You see, Paul, I knew I had made some sort of impression upon you. I must have done so or you wouldn't have—done that! But any girl can make an impression on shipboard, and an affair at sea is always so—evanescent, that no one expects it to last more than a week. I don't want to make such a transitory impression upon you, Paul. I wanted you to remember me longer. I wanted—oh, I wanted to give you something to remember that was just a little bit different than other girls had given you—some distinct impression that must linger with you—always—always! I'm not like other women! Do you see, Paul? It was all sheer vanity. I wanted you to remember!"
"And did you think I could forget?"
"Of course! All men forget a kiss as soon as their lips cease tingling!"
Paul laughed. "Wise girl! Who taught you so much? Come, confess!"
"Oh, I've knownyoua whole week, Paul, and you——"
But their lips met again and the sentence was never finished.
At last she put her hands on each side of his face and looked up into his eyes.
"Aren't you ashamed of yourself, Paul?"
"Of course not!"
"Of course you are!"
"You misunderstood me!—I said'Not'! But why? Are you ashamed of me?"
"I ought to be, oughtn't I? But—I don't believe you can help it!"
His lips crushed hers again, fiercely. "I can't, Opal—I can't!"
She turned away her head, but he buried his face in her neck, kissing the soft flesh again and again.
"Such a slip of a girl!" Paul murmured in her ear, when he again found his voice. "Such a tiny, little girl! I am almost afraid you will vanish if I don't hold you tight!"
Opal was thoroughly aroused now—no longer merely passive—quite satisfactorily responsive.
"I won't, Paul! I won't! But hold me closer, closer! Crush this terrible ache out of my heart if you can, Paul!"
There were tears in her voice. He clasped her to him and felt her heart throbbing out its pain against its own, as he whispered, "Opal, am I a brute?"
"N-o-o-o-o!" A pause. At last, "Let me go now, Paul! This is sheer insanity!"
But he made no move to release her until she looked up into his eyes in an agony of appeal, and pleaded, "Please, Paul!"
"Are you sure you want to go?"
"No, I'm not sure of that, but I'm quite sure that Ioughtto go! I must! I must!"
And Paul released her. Where was this madness carrying them? Was he acting the part of the man he meant to be, or of a cad—an unprincipled bounder? He did not know. He only knew he wanted to kiss her—kissher....
She turned on him in a sudden flash of indignation. "Why have you such power over me?" she demanded.
"What power over you, Opal!"
"What's the use of dodging the truth, you professor of honesty? You make me do things we both know I'll be sorry for all the rest of my life.Whydo you do it?"
Her eyes blazed with a real anger that made herpiquanteface more alluring than ever to the eyes of the infatuated Boy who watched her. He was fighting desperately for self-control, but if she should look at him as she had looked sometimes—!
"I can't understand it!" she exclaimed. "I always knew I was capable of being foolish—wicked, perhaps—for agrande passion. I could forgive myself that, I think! But for a mere caprice—apenchantlike this! Oh, Paul! what can you think of me?"
His voice was hoarse—heavy with emotion.
"Think of you, Opal? I am sure you must know what I think. I've never had an opportunity to tell you—in so many words—but you must have seen what I have certainly taken no pains to conceal. Shall I try to tell you, Opal?"
"No, no! I don't want to hear a word—not a word! Do you understand? I forbid you!"
Paul bowed deferentially. She laughed nervously at the humility in his obeisance.
"Don't be ridiculous!" she commanded. "This is growing too melodramatic, and I hate a scene. But, really, Paul, you mustn't—simply mustn't! There are reasons—conditions—and—you must not tell me, and I must not,willnot listen!"
"I mustn't make love to you, you mean?"
"I mean ... just that!"
"Why not?"
"Never mind the 'why.' There are plenty of good and sufficient reasons that I might give if I chose, but—I don't choose! The only reason that you need to know is—that I forbid you!"
She turned away with that regal air of hers that made one forget her child-like stature.
"Are you going, Opal?"
"Yes!—what did I come out here for? I can't remember. Do you know?"
"To wish me good-night, of course! And you haven't done it!"
She looked back over her shoulder, a mocking laugh in those inscrutable eyes. Then she turned and held out both hands to him.
"Good-night, Paul, good-night!... You seem able to do as you please with me, in spite of—everything—and I just want to stay in your arms forever—forever ..."
Paul caught her to him, and their lips melted in a clinging kiss.
At last she drew away from his embrace.
"The glitter of the moonlight and the music of the wind-maddened waves must have gone to my brain!" She laughed merrily, pulled his face down to hers for a last swift kiss, and ran from him before he could detain her.
The next morning they met for a brief moment alone.
Opal shook hands with the Boy in her most perfunctory manner.
Paul, after a moment's silent contemplation of her troubled face, bent over her, saying, "Have I offended you, Opal? Are you angry with me?"
She opened her eyes wide and asked with the utmost innocence "For what?"
Paul was disconcerted. "Last night!" he said faintly.
She colored, painfully.
"No, Paul, listen! I don't blame you a bit!—not a bit! A man would be a downright fool not to take—what he wanted—— But if you want to be—friends with me, you'll just forget all about—last night—or at any rate, ignore it, and never refer to it again."
He extended his hand, and she placed hers in it for the briefest possible instant.
And then theirtête-à-têtewas interrupted, and they sat down for their last breakfast at sea.
Opal Ledoux was not visible again until the Lusitania docked in New York, when she waved hercompanion de voyagea smiling but none the less reluctantau revoir!
But Paul was too far away to see the tears in her eyes, and only remembered the smile.
New York's majestic greatness and ceaseless, tireless activity speedily engrossed the Boy and opened his eager eyes to a wider horizon than he had yet known. There was a new influence in the whir and hum of this metropolis of the Western world that set the wheels of thought to a more rapid motion, and keyed his soul to its highest tension.
It was not until his first letter from the homeland had come across the waters that he paused to wonder what the new factor in his life meant for his future. He had not allowed his reason to assert itself until the force of circumstances demanded that he look his soul in the face, and learn whither he was drifting. Paul was no coward, but he quailed before the ominous clouds that threatened the happiness of himself and the girl he loved.
For now he knew that he loved Opal Ledoux. It was Fate. He had guessed it at the first sound of her voice; he had felt it at the first glance of her eye; and he had known it beyond the peradventure of a doubt at the first touch of her lips.
Yet this letter from his kingdom was full of suggestions of duties to be done, of responsibilities to be assumed, of good still to be brought out of much that was petty and low, and of helpless, miserable human beings who were so soon to be dependent upon him.
"I will make my people happy," he thought. "Happiness is the birthright of every man—be he peasant or monarch." And then the thought came to him, how could he ever succeed in making them truly happy, when he himself had so sorely missed the way! There was only one thing to do, he knew that—both for Opal's sake and for his own—and that was to go far away, and never see the face again that had bewitched him so.
Perhaps, if he did this, he might forget the experience that was, after all, only an episode in a man's life and—other men forget! He might learn to be calmly happy and contented with his Princess. It was only natural for a young man to make love to a pretty girl, he thought, and why should he be any exception? He had taken the good the gods provided, as any live man would—now he could go his way, as other men did, and—forget! Why not? And yet the mere thought of it cast such a gloom over his spirits that he knew in his heart his philosophic attempt to deceive himself was futile and vain. He might run away, of course—though it was hardly like him to do that—but he would scarcely be able to forget.
And then Verdayne joined him with an open note in his hand—a formal invitation from Gilbert Ledoux for them to dine with him in his Fifth Avenue house on the following evening. He wished his family to meet the friends who had so pleasantly attracted himself and his daughter on shipboard.
Was it strange how speedily the Boy's resolutions vanished? Run away! Not he!
"Accept the invitation, Father Paul, by all means!"
It was a cordial party in which Paul Verdayne and his young companion found themselves on the following evening—a simple family gathering, graciously presided over by Opal's stepmother.
Gilbert Ledoux's wife was one of those fashion-plate women who strike one as too artificial to be considered as more than half human. You wonder if they have also a false set of emotions to replace those they wore out in their youth—c'est à direif they ever had any! Paul smiled at the thought that Mr. Ledoux need have no anxiety over the virtue of his second wife—whatever merry dance the first might have led him!
Opal was not present when the gentlemen were announced, and the bevy of aunts and uncles and cousins were expressing much impatience for her presence—which Paul Zalenska echoed fervently in his heart. It was truly pleasant—this warm blood-interest of kinship. He liked the American clannishness, and he sighed to think of the utter lack of family affection in his own life.
The drawing-room, where they were received, was furnished in good taste, the Boy thought. The French touch was very prominent—the blend of color seemed to speak to him of Opal. Yes, he liked the room. The effect grew on one with the charm of the real home atmosphere that a dwelling place should have. But he wasn't so much interested in that, after all! In fact, it was rather unsatisfactory—without Opal! These people wereherpeople and, of course, of more than ordinary interest to him on her account, but still—
And at last, when the Boy was beginning to acknowledge himself slightly bored, and to resent the familiar footing on which he could see the Count de Roannes already stood in the family circle, Opal entered, and the gloomy, wearisome atmosphere seemed suddenly flooded with sunlight.
She came in from the street, unconventionally removing her hat and gloves as she entered.
"Where have you been so long, Opal?" asked Mrs. Ledoux, with considerable anxiety.
"At the Colony Club,ma mère—I read a paper!"
"Mon Dieu!" put in the Count, in an amused tone. "On what subject?"
"On 'The Modern Ethical Viewpoint,'Comte," she answered, nodding her little head sagely. "It was very convincing! In fact, I exploded a bomb in the camp that will give them all something sensational to talk about till—till—the next scandal!"
The Count gave a low chuckle of appreciation, while Mr. Ledoux asked, seriously, "But to what purpose, daughter?"
"Why, papa, don't you know? I had to teach Mrs. Stuyvesant Moore, Mrs. Sanford Wyckoff, and several other old ladies how to be good!"
And in the general laugh that followed, she added, under her breath, "Oh, the irony of life!"
Paul watched her in a fever of boyish jealousy as she passed through the family circle, bestowing her kisses left and right with impartial favor. She made the rounds slowly, conscientiously, and then, with an air of supreme indifference, moved to the Boy's side.
He leaned over her.
"Where are my kisses?" he asked softly.
She clasped her hands behind her back, child-fashion, and looked up at him, a coquettish daring in her eyes.
"Where did you put them last?" she demanded.
"You ought to know!"
"True—I ought. But, as a matter of fact, I haven't the slightest idea. It depends altogether upon what girl you saw last."
"If you think that of me——"
"What else can I think? Our first meeting did not leave much room for conjecture. And, of course——"
"Opal! You have just time to dress for dinner! And the Count is very anxious to see the new orchid, you know!"
There was a suggestion of reproof in Mrs. Ledoux's voice. The girl's face clouded as she turned away in response to the summons. But she threw the Boy a challenge over her shoulder—a hint of that mischief that always seemed to lurk in the corner of her eye.
Paul bit his lip. He was not a boy to be played with, as Opal Ledoux would find out. And he sulked in a corner, refusing to be conciliated, until at last she re-entered the room, leaning on the Count's "venerable" arm. She had doubtless been showing him the orchid. Humph! What did that old reprobate know—or care—about orchids?
"A primrose by the river's brim,A yellow primrose was to him,And nothing more."
"A primrose by the river's brim,A yellow primrose was to him,And nothing more."
As the evening passed, there came to the Boy no further opportunity to speak to Opal alone. She not only avoided him herself, but the entire party seemed to have entered into a conspiracy to keep him from her. It roused all the fight in his Slavic blood, and he determined not to be outwitted by any such high-handed proceeding. He crossed the room and boldly broke into the conversation of the group in which she stood.
"Miss Ledoux," he said, "pardon me, but as we are about to leave, I must remind you of your promise to show me the new orchid. I am very fond of orchids. May I not see it now?"
Opal had made no such promise, but as she looked up at him with an instinctive denial, she met his eyes with an expression in their depths she dared not battle. There was no knowing what this impetuous Boy might say or do, if goaded too far.
"Please pardon my forgetfulness," she said, with a propitiating smile, as she took his arm. "We will go and see it."
And the Boy smiled. He had not found his opportunity—he had made one!
With a malicious smile on his thin, wicked lips the Count de Roannes watched them as they moved across the room toward the conservatory—this pair so finely matched that all must needs admire.
It was rather amusing inles enfants, he told Ledoux, this "Paul et Virginie" episode. Somewhatbourgeois, of course—but harmless, he hoped. This with an expressive sneer. But—mon Dieu!—and there was a sinister gleam in his evil eyes—it mustn't go too far! The girl was a captivating little witch—the old father winced at the significance in the tone—and she must have her fling! He rather admired her the more for herdiablerie—but she must be careful!
But he need not have feared to-night. Paul Zalenska's triumph was short-lived. When once inside the conservatory, the girl turned and faced him, indignantly.
"What an utterly shameless thing to do!" she exclaimed.
"Why?" he demanded. "You were not treating me with due respect and 'self-preservation is the first law of nature,' you know. I am so little accustomed to being—snubbed, that I don't take it a bit kindly!"
"I did not snub you," she said, "at least, not intentionally. But of course my friends have prior claims on my time and attention. I can't put them aside for a mere stranger."
"A stranger?" he echoed. "Then you mean——"
"I mean what?"
"To ignore our former—acquaintance—altogether?"
"I do mean just that! One has many desperate flirtations on board ship, but one isn't in any way bound to remember them. It is not always—convenient. You may have foolishly remembered. I have—forgotten!"
"You have not forgotten. I say you have not, Opal."
"We use surnames in society, Monsieur Zalenska?"
"Opal!" appealingly.
"Why such emotion, Monsieur?" mockingly.
The Boy was taken aback for a moment, but he met her eyes bravely.
"Why? Because I love you, Opal, and in your heart you know it!"
"Why?"
"Why do I love you? Because I can't help it! Who knows, really, why anything happens or does not happen in this topsy-turvy world?"
The girl looked at him steadily for a moment, and then spoke indifferently, almost lightly.
"Have you looked at the orchid you wished so much to see, Monsieur Zalenska? Mamma is very proud of it!"
"Opal!"
But she went on, heedless of his interruption, "Because, if you haven't, you must look at it hastily—you have wasted some time quite foolishly already—and I have promised to join the Count in a few moments, and—"
"Very well. I understand, Opal!" Paul stiffened. "I will relieve you of my presence. But don't think you will always escape so easily because I yield now. You have not meant all you have said to me to-night, and I know it as well as you do. You have tried to play with me—"
"I beg your pardon!"
"You knew the tiger was in my blood—you couldn't help but know it!—and yet you deliberately awakened him!" She gave him a startled glance, her eyes appealing for mercy, but he went on relentlessly. "Yes, after the manner of women since the world began, you lured him on and on! Is it my fault—or yours—if he devour us both?"
Paul Verdayne, strangely restless and ill at ease, was passing beneath the window and thus became an involuntary listener to these mad words from the lips of his young friend.
Straightway there rose to his mental vision a picture—never very far removed—a picture of a luxurious room in a distant Swiss hotel, the foremost figure in which was the slender form of a royally fascinating woman, reclining with reckless abandon upon a magnificent tiger skin, stretched before the fire. He saw her lavishing her caresses upon the inanimate head. He heard her purr once more in the vibrant, appealing tones so like the Boy's.
The stately Englishman passed his hand over his eyes to shut out the maddening vision, with its ever-fresh pangs of poignant anguish, its persistent, unconquered and unconquerable despair!
"God help the Boy!" he prayed, as he strolled on into the solitude of the moonlit night. "No one else can! It is the call of the blood—the relentless lure of his heritage! From it there is no escape, as against it there is no appeal. It is the mad blood of youth, quickened and intensified in the flame of inherited desire. I cannot save him!"
And then, with a sudden flood of tender, passionate, sacred memories, he added in his heart,
"And I would not, if I could!"
Paul Verdayne had many acquaintances and friends in New York, and much against their inclination he and the Boy soon found themselves absorbed in the whirl of frivolities. They were not very favorably impressed. It was all too extravagant for their Old World tastes—not too magnificent, for they both loved splendor—but it shouted its cost too loudly in their ears, and grated on their nerves and shocked their aesthetic sense.
The Boy was a favorite everywhere, even more so, perhaps, than in London. American society saw no mystery about him, and would not have cared if it had. If his face seemed somewhat familiar, as it often had to Opal Ledoux, no one puzzled his brains over it or searched the magazines to place it. New York accepted him, as it accepts all distinguished foreigners who have no craving for the limelight of publicity, for his face value, and enjoyed him thoroughly. Women petted him, because he was so witty and chivalrous and entertaining, and always as exquisitely well-groomed as any belle among them; men were attracted to him because he had ideas and knew how to express them. He was worth talking to and worth listening to. He had formed opinions of his own upon most subjects. He had thought for himself and had the courage of his convictions, and Americans like that.
Naturally enough, before many days, at a fashionable ball at the Plaza he came into contact with Opal Ledoux again.
It was a new experience, this, to see the girl he loved surrounded by the admiration and attention of other men. In his own infatuation he had not realized that most men would be affected by her as he was, would experience the same maddening impulses—the same longing—the same thirst for possession of her. Now the fact came home to him with the force of an electric shock. He could not endure the burning glances of admiration that he saw constantly directed toward her. What right had other men to devour her with their eyes?
He hastened to meet her. She greeted him politely but coldly, expressing some perfunctory regret when he asked for a dance, and showing him that her card was already filled. And then her partner claimed her, and she went away on his arm, smiling up into his face in a way she had that drove men wild for her. "The wicked little witch!" Paul thought. "Would she make eyes at every man like that? Dare she?"
A moment after, he heard her name, and instantly was all attention. The two men just behind him were discussing her rather freely—far too freely for the time and the place—and the girl, in Paul's estimation. He listened eagerly.
"Bold little devil, that Ledoux girl!" said one. "God! how she is playing her little game to-night! They say she is going to marry that old French Count, de Roannes! That's the fellow over there, watching her with the cat's eyes. I guess he thinks she means to have her fling first—and I guess she thinks so too! As usual, it's the spectator who sees the best of the game. What a curious girl she is—a living paradox!"
"How's that?"
"Spanish, you know. Ought to have black hair instead of red—black eyes instead of—well, chestnut about expresses the color of hers. I call them witch's eyes, they're so full of fire and—the devil!"
"She's French, too, isn't she? That accounts for the eyes. Thebeauté du diable, hers is! Couldn't she make a heaven for a man if she would—or a hell?"
"Yes, it's in her! She's doomed, you know! Her grandmothers before her were bad women—regular witches, they say, with a good, big streak of yellow. Couldn't keep their heads on their shoulders—couldn't be faithful to any one man. Don't know as they tried!"
"I'll bet they made it interesting for the fellow while it did last, anyway! But this one will never be happy. She has a tragedy in her face, if ever a woman had. But she's a man's woman, all right, and she'd make life worth living if a fellow had any red blood in him. She's one of those women who are born for nothing else in the world but to love, and be loved. Can't you shoot the Count?"
"The Count!—Hell! He won't be considered at all after a little! She'll find plenty of men glad to wake the devil in her—just to keep her from yawning! But she's not very tractable even now, though her sins all lie ahead of her! She's altogether too cool on the surface for her make-up, but—well, full of suggestion, and one feels a volcano surging and steaming just below the mask she wears, and has an insane desire to wake it up! That kind of woman simply can't help it."
A third voice broke in on the conversation—an older voice—the voice of a man who had lived and observed much.
"I saw her often as a child," he said, "a perilously wilful child, determined upon her own way, and possessed of her own fancies about this, that, and the other, which were seldom, if ever, the ideas of anyone else. There was always plenty of excitement where she was—always that same disturbing air! Even with her pigtails and pinafores, one could see the woman in her eyes. But she was a provoking little creature, always dreaming of impossible romances. Her father had his hands full."
"As her husband will have, poor devil! If he's man enough to hold her, all right. If he is not," with a significant shrug of the shoulders, "it's his own lookout!"
"That old Frenchrouéhold her? You're dreaming! She won't be faithful to him a week—if he has a handsome valet, or a half-way manly groom! How could she?" And they laughed coarsely.
The Boy gave them a look that should have annihilated all three, but they weren't noticing the Boy. He could have throttled them! How dared such lips as these pollute his darling's name! And yet these were society men—they could dance with her, clasp her to them, and look into those "witch eyes"—oh, the ignominy of it!
He looked across at Opal. How beautiful she was in her pale green gown, her white shoulders and arms glistening beneath the electric light with the sheen of polished marble, her red-brown hair glowing with its fiery lure, while even across the room her eyes sparkled like diamonds, lighting up her whole face. She was certainly enjoying herself—this Circe who had tempted him across the seas. She seemed possessed of the very spirit of mischief—and Paul forgot himself.
The orchestra was playing a Strauss waltz—it fired his blood. He walked across the room with his masterful, authoritative air—the manner of a man born to command. "Miss Ledoux," he said, and the crowd around her instinctively made way for him, "this is our waltz, I believe!" and whirled her away before she could answer.
Ah! it was delicious, that waltz! In perfect rhythm they clung together, gliding about the polished floor, her bare shoulder pressing his arm, her head with its bewildering perfume so near his lips, their hearts throbbing fiercely in the ecstasy of their nearness—which was Love.
Oh to go on forever! forever!
The sweet cadence of the music died away, and they looked into each other's eyes, startled.
"You seem to be acquiring the habit," she pouted, but her lips quivered, and in response he whispered in her ear, "Whose waltz was it, sweetheart?"
"I don't know, Paul—nor care!"
That was enough.
They left the room together.
In a secluded corner adjoining the ballroom, Paul and Opal stood hand in hand, conscious only of being together, while their two hearts beat a tumultuous acknowledgment of thatworld-oldpower whose name, in whatever guise it comes to us, is Love!
"I said I wouldn't, Paul!" at last she said.
"Wouldn't what?"
"See you again—like this!"
Paul smiled tenderly.
"My darling," he whispered, "what enchantment have you cast over me that all my resolutions to give you up fade away at the first glimpse of your face? I resolve to be brave and remember my duty—until I see you—and then I forget everything but you—I want nothing but you!"
"What do you want with me, Paul?"
"Opal!" he cried impetuously. "After seeing these gay Lotharios making eyes at you all the evening, can you ask me that? I want to take you away and hide you from every other man's sight—that's what I want! It drives me crazy to see them look at you that way! But you have such a way of keeping a fellow at arm's length when you want to," he went on, ruefully, "in spite of the magic call of your whole tempting personality. You know 'Die Walküre,' don't you?—but of course you do. If I believed in the theory of reincarnation, I should feel sure that you were Brünhilde herself, surrounded by the wall of fire!"
"I wish I were! I wish every woman had some such infallible way ofprovingevery man who seeks her!"
"You have, Opal! You have your own womanly instincts—every woman's impassable wall of fire, if she will only hide behind them.Youcould never love unworthily!"
"But, Paul, don't you know? Haven't they told you? I shall probably marry the Count de Roannes!"
Paul was astounded.
"Opal! No! No! Not that, surely not that! I heard it, yes—a moment ago. But I could not believe it. The idea was too horrible. It could not be true!"
"But it is true, Paul! It is all too true!"
"It is a crime," he fairly groaned.
She shrank from him. "Don't say that, Paul!"
"But you know it is true! Opal, just think! If you give your sweet self to him—and that is all you can give him, as you and I know—if you give yourself to him, I say, I—I shall go mad!"
"Yet women have loved him," she began, bravely, attempting to defend herself. "Women—some kinds of women—really love him now. He has a power of—compelling—love—even yet!"
"And such women," Paul cried hoarsely, "are more to be honored than you if you consent to become his property with no love in your heart! Don't plead extenuating circumstances. There can be no extenuating circumstances in all the world for such a thing."
She winced as though he had struck her, for she knew in her heart that what he said was true, brutally true. The Boy was only voicing her own sentiments—the theory to which she had always so firmly clung.
As Paul paused, a sudden realization of his own future overwhelmed him and locked his lips. He smiled sadly. Who was he that he should talk like that? Was not he, too, pleading extenuating circumstances? True, he was a man and she was a woman, and the world has two distinct standards—but—no less than she—he was selling himself for gain.
"Paul, Paul! I'm afraid you don't understand! It isn'tmoney. Surely you don't think that! It isn't money—it is honor—honor, do you hear? My dead mother's honor, and my father's breaking heart!"
The secret was out, at last. This, then, was the shadow that had cast its gloom over the family ever since he had come in contact with them. It was even worse than he had thought. That she—the lovely Opal—should have to sacrifice her own honor to save her mother's!
Honor! honor! how many crimes are committed in thy name!
"Tell me about it," he said sympathetically.
And she told him, sparing herself details, as far as possible, of the storm of scandal about to burst upon the family—a storm from which only the sacrifice of herself could save the family name of Ledoux, and her mother's memory. It might, or might not, be true, but the Count de Roannes claimed to be able—and ready—to bring proof. And, if it were true, she was not a Ledoux at all, and her father was not her father at all, except in name. No breath of ill-fame had ever reached her mother's name before. They had thought she had happily escaped the curse of her mother before her. But the Count claimed to know, and—well, he wanted her—Opal—and, of course, itwaspossible, and of course he would do anything to protect the good name of his wife, if Opal became his wife, and——
"So, you see, Paul—in the end, I shall have to—submit!"
She had not told it at all well, she thought, but Paul little cared how the story was told.
"I do not see it that way at all, Opal. It seems to me—well, diabolical, and may God help you, dear girl, when you, with your high-keyed sensitive nature, first wake to the infamy of it! I have no right to interfere—no right at all. Not even my love for you, which is stronger than myself, gives me that right. For I am betrothed! I tell you this because I see where my folly has led us. There is only one thing to do. We must part—and at once. I am sorry"—then he thought of that first meeting on board the liner, "no, I amnotsorry we met! I shall never be that! But I am going to be a man. I am going to do my duty. Help me, Opal—help me!"
It was the old appeal of the man to the helpmeet God had created for him, and the woman in her responded.
"Paul, I will!" and her little fingers closed over his.
"Of course he loves you—in his way, but——"
"Don't, Paul, don't! He has never once pretended that—he has been too wise."
"He will break your spirit, dear—it's his nature. And then he will break your heart!"
She raised her head, defiantly.
"Break my spirit, Paul? He could not. And as for my heart—that will never be his to break!"
Their eyes met with the old understanding that needs no words. Then she pointed to the heavens.
"See the stars, Paul, smiling down so calmly. How can they when hearts are aching? When I was a child, I loved the stars. I fancied, too, that they loved me, and I would run out under their watchful eyes, singing for very joy, sure they were guiding my life and that some day I would be happy, gloriously happy. Somehow, Paul, I always expected to be happy—always!—till now! Now the stars seem to mock me. I must have been born under a baleful conjunction, I guess. Oh, I told you, Paul, that Opals were unlucky. I warned you—didn't I warn you? I may have tempted you, too, but—I didn't mean to do it!"
"Bless your dear heart, girl, you weren't to blame!"
"But you said—that night—about the tiger——"
"Forgive me, Opal, I was not myself. I was—excited. I didn't mean that."
After a moment, she said, musingly, "It is just as I said, Paul. I was born to go to the devil, so it is well—well for you, I mean—and perhaps for me—that you and I cannot marry." He shook his head, but she went on, unheeding. "Paul, if I am destined to be a disgrace to someone—and they say I am—I'd rather bring reproach upon his name than on yours!"
"But why marry at all, if you feel like that? Why, it's—it's damnable!"
"Don't you see, Paul, I am foreordained to evil—marked a bad woman from the cradle! Marriage is the only salvation, you know, for girls with my inheritance. It's the sanctuary that keeps a woman good and 'happy ever after.'"
"It would be more apt, in my opinion, to drive one to forbidden wine! A marriage like that, I mean—for one like you."
"But at least a married woman has aname—whatever she may do. She's—protected. She isn't——"
But Paul would hear no more.
"Opal,wewere made for each other from the beginning—surely we were. Some imp has slipped into the scheme of things somewhere and turned it upside down."
He paused. She looked up searchingly into his eyes.
"Paul, do you love me?"
"Yes, dearest!"
"Are you sure?"
"As sure as I am of my own existence! With all my heart, Opal—with all my soul!"
"Then we mustn't see each other any more!"
"Not any more. You are right, Opal, not any more!"
"But what shall we do, Paul? We shall be sure to meet often. You expect to stay the summer through, do you not? And we are not going to New Orleans for several weeks yet—and then?"
"We are going West, Father Paul and I—out on the prairies to rough it for a while. We were going before long, anyway, and a few weeks sooner or later won't make any difference. And then—home, back over the sea again, to face life, to work, to try to be—strong, I suppose."
Paul paused and looked at her passionately.
"Why are you so alluring to-night, Opal?"
Her whole body quivered, caught fire from the flame in his eyes. What was there about this man that made her always so conscious she was a woman? Why could she never be calm in his presence, but was always so fated tofeel, feel, feel!
Her voice trembled as she looked up at him and answered, "Am I wicked, Paul? I wanted to be happy to-night—just for to-night! I wanted to forget the fate that was staring me so relentlessly in the face. But—I couldn't, Paul!"
Then she glanced through the curtains into the ballroom and shuddered.
"The Count is looking for me," she said. The Boy winced, and she went on rapidly, excitedly. "We must part. As well now as any time, I suppose, since it has to be. But first, Paul, let me say it once—just once—I love you!"
He snatched her to him—God! that any one else should ever have the right!
"And I—worship you, Opal! Even that seems a weak word, to-night. But—you understand, don't you? I didn't know at sea whether it was love or what it was that had seized me as nothing ever had before. But I know now! And listen, Opal—this isn't a vow, nor anything of that kind—but I feel that I want to say it. I shall always love you just this way—always—I feel it, I know it!—as long as I live! Will you remember, darling?—remember—everything?"
"Yes—yes! And you, Paul?"
"Till death!" And his lips held hers, regardless of ten thousand Counts and their claims upon her caresses.
And they clung together again in the anguish of parting that comes at some time, or another into the lives of all who know love.
Then like mourners walking away from the graves of their loved ones, they returned to the ballroom, with the dull ache of buried happiness in their hearts.
Out—far out—in the great American West, the Boy wandered. And Paul Verdayne, understanding as only he could understand, felt how little use his companionship and sympathy really were at this crisis of the Boy's life.
All through the month of August they travelled, the Boy looking upon the land he had been so eager to see with eyes that saw nothing but his own disappointment, and the barrenness of his future. The hot sun beat down upon the shadeless prairies with the intensity of a living flame. But it seemed as nothing to the heat of his own passion—his own fiery rebellion against the decree of destiny—altogether powerless against the withering despair that had choked all the aspirations and ambitions which, his whole life long, he had cultivated and nourished in the soil of his developing soul.
He thought again and again of the glories so near at hand—the glories that had for years been the goal of his ambition. He pictured the pageant to come—the glitter of armor and liveries, the splendor and sparkle of jewels and lights, and all the dazzling gorgeousness of royal equipments—the throngs of courtiers and beautiful women bowing before him, proud of the privilege of doing him homage—him, a mere boy—yet the king—the absolute monarch of his little realm, and supreme in his undisputed sway over the hearts of his people—his people who had worshipped his beautiful mother and, if only for her sake, made an idol of her son. He saw himself crowned by loving hands with the golden circlet he loved and reverenced, and meant to redeem from the stigma of a worthless father's abuse and desecration; he saw his own young hands, strong, pure, and undefiled by any form of bribery or political corruption, wielding the sceptre that should—please God!—bring everlasting honor and fame to the little principality. He saw all this, and yet it did not thrill him any more! It was all Dead Sea fruit, dust and ashes in his hand. He wanted but one thing now—and his whole kingdom did not weigh one pennyweight against it.
But in spite of his preoccupation the freedom and massiveness of the West broadened the Boy's mental vision. He absorbed the spirit of the big world it typified, and he saw things more clearly than in the crowded city. And yet he suffered more, too. He could not often talk about his sorrow and his loss, but he felt all the time the unspoken sympathy in Verdayne's companionship, and was grateful for the completeness of the understanding between them.
Once, far out in a wide expanse of sparsely settled land, the two came upon a hut—a little rough shanty with a sod roof, and probably but two tiny rooms at most. It was nearing evening, and the red rays of the setting sun fell upon a young woman, humbly clad, sitting on a bench at the doorway, and cuddling upon her knee a little baby dressed in coarse, but spotlessly white garments. A whistle sounded on the still air, and through the waving grain strode a stalwart man, an eager, expectant light in his bronzed face. The girl sprang to meet him with an inarticulate cry of joy, and wife and baby were soon clasped close to his breast.
Paul could not bear it. He turned away with a sob in his throat and looked into Verdayne's eyes with such an expression of utter hopelessness that the older man felt his own eyes moisten with the fervor of his sympathy. That poor, humble ranchman possessed something that was denied the Boy, prince of the blood though he was.
And the two men talked of commonplace subjects that night in subdued tones that were close to tears. Both hearts were aching with the consciousness of unutterable and irreparable loss.
Through the long nights that followed, out there in the primitive, Paul thought of the hideousness of life as he saw it now, with a loathing that time seemed only to increase. He pictured Opal—his love—as the wife of that old French libertine, till his soul revolted at the very thought. Such a thing was beyond belief.
Once he said to Verdayne, thinking of the conversation he had had with Opal on the night of the ball at the Plaza,
"Father Paul, who was Lord Hubert Aldringham? The name sounds so familiar to me—yet I can't recall where I heard it."
"Why, he was my uncle, Boy, my mother's brother. A handsome, wicked, devil-may-care sort of fellow to whom nothing was sacred. You must have heard us speak of him at home, for mother was very fond of him."
"And you, Father Paul?"
"I—detested him, Boy!"
And then the Boy told him something that Opal had said to him of the possibility—nay, the probability—of Lord Hubert's being her own grandfather. Verdayne was pained—grieved to the heart—at the terrible significance of this—if it were true. And there was little reason, alas, to doubt it! How closely their lives were woven together—Paul's and Opal's! How merciless seemed the demands of destiny!
What a juggler of souls Fate was!
And the month of August passed away. And September found the two men still wandering in an aimless fashion about the prairie country, and yet with no desire for change. The Boy was growing more and more dissatisfied, less and less resigned to the decrees of destiny.
At last, one dull, gray, moonless night, when neither could woo coveted sleep to his tired eyes, the Boy said to his companion, "Father Paul, I'm going to be a man—a man, do you hear? I am going to New Orleans—you know Mr. Ledoux asked us to come in September—and I'm going to marry Opal, whatever the consequences! I will not be bound to a piece of flesh I abhor, for the sake of a mere kingdom—not for the sake of a world! I will not sell my manhood! I will not sacrifice myself, nor allow the girl I love to become a burnt-offering for a mother's sin. I will not! Do you remember away off there," and he pointed off to the south of them, "the little shack, and the man and the woman and—the baby? Father Paul, I want—that! And I'm going to have it, too! Do you blame me?"
And Verdayne threw his arm around the Boy's neck, and said, "Blame you? No, Boy, no! And may God bless and speed you!"
And the next day they started for the South.