The dignified and placid serenity of Venice had been intruded upon that season by the establishment of a fashionable dining-place, which, under the name of the Abbati Restaurant, had taken up its position in a beautiful old house on one of the narrower waterways.
Its distance from Clodagh's hotel was short; and the journey thither—taken in Lord Deerehurst's gondola, in company with the old peer, Serracauld, and Barnard—occupied but a few minutes. Clodagh's first impression, on gliding up the still, dark waterway and stepping out upon the time-worn garden steps, was one of delight. And as she stood for a moment in the shadow of the ancient wall, above which the tree-tops rose, casting black reflections into the water that ran beneath them, she was conscious of the subtle touch of the warm night wind upon her face; of the subtle poetry in the scent of unseen flowers; of the subtle invitation conveyed by the long row of lighted windows, seen through a screen of magnolias.
She had momentarily forgotten her companions, when Deerehurst—the last to leave the gondola—stepped softly to her side.
"This appeals to you?" he said.
She started slightly at his unexpected nearness; then, with a quick impetuosity, she responded to his question.
"I think it is exquisite," she said. "The light through the trees suggests such wonderful, mysterious things."
He smiled under cover of the darkness.
"It suggests an enchanted banquet. Let us find the presiding genius!"
He laid his fingers lightly on her arm and guided her up the long, dim garden.
Followed by Serracauld and Barnard, they traversed the shadowy pathways and emerged upon an open space of lawn that fronted the house.
Three or four of the private rooms were already occupied; and with the faint streams of light that poured from their open windows, came the pleasant murmuring of talk and laughter.
As the little party stepped into the radius of this light, a stately personage came forward deferentially; and, recognising Deerehurst, made a profound bow.
The old nobleman nodded amiably, as to an acquaintance of long standing, and, drawing the man aside, addressed him in French.
The explanation was brief, and almost at once Deerehurst turned back to his companions.
"Come, Mrs. Milbanke!" he said. "Our friend Abbati proves amenable to persuasion. He will give us his prettiest room—though we are unexpected guests."
Clodagh stepped forward with eager curiosity.
"I never thought a restaurant could be like this," she said.
"Very few of them are, Mrs. Milbanke," murmured Barnard, close behind her. "The usual restaurant is an ostentatious place of white enamel, palms, and lights, where a hundred tongues are vainly endeavouring to drown a band. This little corner will scarcely outlive another season. It's too perfect—too quiet to find favour with the crowd. It was opened under the patronage—rather, at the suggestion—of Prince Menòf, a sybarite millionaire temporarily out of sorts with Paris. But now Paris smiles once more; Menòf has wearied of Venice; and poor Abbati begins to tremble."
Clodagh looked round.
"But could anything so exquisite be a failure?"
"Easily, my dear lady! People like to eat their expensive dinners where others can comment on their extravagance! It's a very vulgar world!"
The three men laughed; and Clodagh, slightly distressed, slightly puzzled, stepped through the wide hall to the room that Deerehurst indicated.
It was a small chamber, long and narrow in shape. The walls were panelled in faded brocade, and the lights were shrouded in silk of some soft hue; the floor was covered with a carpet in which wreathed roses formed the chief design; and the furniture consisted of one oval table, four beautiful old chairs, and a couple of ancient French mirrors. As Deerehurst stepped forward to relieve Clodagh of her cloak, four waiters entered noiselessly; and almost immediately dinner was served.
It was a dinner such as Prince Menòf would have delighted in. There was nothing tedious, nothing monotonous in the six or seven courses that comprised its menu; each stimulated and gratified the appetite, without a hint of satiety. It was an Epicurean feast. And it was interesting to study the varying ways in which the guests responded to its appeal.
Barnard—placid man-of-the-world, indulgent connoisseur of all the luxuries—openly lingered over the delights of the meal; Serracauld ate quickly and almost greedily, as many men of slight build, and thin, sensual faces do eat; Deerehurst alone toyed with his food, giving serious attention to nothing beyond the dry toast with which he was kept supplied; while Clodagh—young enough and healthy enough to have an appetite that needed no tempting—frankly enjoyed her dinner, without at all comprehending its excellence.
During the first portion of the meal, conversation was fitful and impersonal; but as the waiters left the table to carry in one of the last dishes, the tone of the intercourse underwent a change. Deerehurst turned to Clodagh with a sudden gesture of concern and intimacy.
"I see you do not endorse my choice of wine!" he said in a gently solicitous voice.
She looked up with slight confusion; then looked down at her untouched glass, in which the champagne bubbles were rapidly subsiding.
"I—I never drink champagne," she said a little diffidently.
"Oh, Mrs. Milbanke! And my poor uncle has been sacking the Abbati cellars for this particular vintage!" Serracauld glanced up quickly and almost reproachfully.
Barnard laughed, as he blissfully drained his own glass.
"You are really very unkind, Mrs. Milbanke," he murmured. "You make one feel such a deplorable worldling."
But Deerehurst looked round towards a waiter who was re-entering the room.
"Bring this lady another glass and some more champagne!" he said.
Clodagh turned to him sharply and apprehensively. But he touched her wrist with his finger-tips.
"Please!" he said in his thin, high-bred voice—"please! I want you to taste this wine. I generally have some difficulty in getting it outside my own house."
His pale, far-seeing eyes rested on her face; and it seemed to her excited fancy that their glance supplemented his words. That, as plainly as eyes could speak, they added the suggestion that some day she might honour that house with her presence. The idea confused her. She turned away from him in slight uneasiness; and at the same moment one of the waiters filled her long Venetian glass with the light golden wine.
"To please me!" Deerehurst murmured again—"to please me!"
She looked round, confused and still embarrassed; gave one unsteady, yielding laugh; then lifted the glass.
"If—if I must——" she said deprecatingly.
Barnard and Serracauld smiled, and Deerehurst raised his own glass.
"To the next occasion upon which you consent to be my guest!" he said with a profound and impressive bow.
On the surface, this incident seems scarcely worth recording; yet for Clodagh it marked an epoch—an epoch not evolved through yielding to her host's persuasions, not evolved through drinking a single glass of unfamiliar wine; but evolved through the fact that one item in the sum of her prejudices had gone down before that potent fetish, the dread of appearing conspicuous.
With her action, a fleeting shadow of self-distrust fell across her mind; but she swept it aside, as she had previously swept the memory of her interview with Gore. Deep within her lay the specious knowledge that, for her, this bright existence was only transitory—that somewhere behind the lights and music and laughter lay her own individual groove, to which she must return like a modern Cinderella, when the enchanted interlude of brilliant days was ended. And in this knowledge lay the secret of her greed for joy. Certain of the monotony to come, she caught passionately at every proffered pleasure.
Ten o'clock had struck before the little party left the restaurant; and although she had drunk no more champagne, and had refused the liqueurs that had been served with coffee, her eyes were excitedly bright, as she stepped from the gondola at the steps of the Palazzo Ugochini.
Mounting the marble stairs with Deerehurst close behind her, she was filled with an exhilarating sense of confidence in herself—of defiance towards the world at large. The memory of the afternoon, when she had stood on the dark terrace and listened to Gore's contemptuous voice, had left her—or remained only as a spur to her enthusiasm.
The animation—the zest for pleasure—was plainly visible in her eyes, as she entered the salon, and went forward towards her hostess. And Lady Frances Hope, looking round at sound of her guest's names, saw this peculiar expression with a stirring of curiosity.
"Where have you all been?" she asked, as she took Clodagh's hand.
Barnard laughed.
"We are shocking truants!" he said gaily. "We have been dining at the 'Abbati.'"
She looked at him quickly.
"All four of you?" she asked shrewdly.
He smiled.
"You have a suspicious mind, Frances! Yes; all four of us."
Lady Frances laughed.
"No," she said. "I never harbour suspicions. It is Mrs. Milbanke's air of having just discovered some delicious secret that is always prompting me to curiosity."
"How do you manage to look so triumphant?" She turned again to Clodagh with a long, puzzled glance. "I wish you would impart the secret."
Clodagh's bright eyes met hers.
"My father used to say that the secret of happiness is never to look beyond the present hour."
"A philosopher!" murmured Deerehurst.
"I should say a bold man." Barnard looked from the old nobleman to his hostess.
But almost as he spoke, the name of Sir Walter Gore was announced, and Lady Frances looked sharply towards the door.
With a quiet, unembarrassed bearing, Gore crossed the salon.
As he approached the little group, Lady Frances stepped towards him with outstretched hands.
"How nice of you!" she said softly. "I began to fear you had forgotten about to-night."
He took her hand calmly.
"But I had promised to come," he said simply.
And at the words, his eyes turned involuntarily towards Clodagh.
"Good evening, Mrs. Milbanke!" he added in the same level voice.
At his glance and his words, Clodagh's expression changed. The vague excitement of the past hours seemed suddenly to focus itself. She realised abruptly that she had not yet vindicated her right to the joy of life. With exaggerated difference she bent her head in acknowledgment of his greeting; and almost immediately turned to Deerehurst.
"Lord Deerehurst!" she said, very softly and distinctly, "I want you to do me a favour to-night! I want you to teach me to play roulette!"
It was her declaration of war—the moment towards which she had unconsciously been tending ever since the interview of the afternoon. She knew it instantly the words had left her lips—knew it by the quick surprise in Barnard's eyes, the sharp curiosity in Lady Frances Hope's, the veiled triumph in Deerehurst's, and the cold disapprobation in Sir Walter Gore's. Without another glance she turned away and walked slowly forward across the salon, to where a couple of dozen people were grouped about the roulette-table.
As she moved deliberately forward, many heads were turned in her direction, but she was heedless and almost unobservant of the interest she evoked. Her heart was beating fast, she was rejoicing recklessly in her vindicated independence.
Deerehurst overtook her, as she halted by the roulette-table. And she was conscious of his presence without looking round.
"Will you stake for me?" she said in a quick undertone. "You were lucky the other night."
He stepped forward, smiling with a cold touch of wisdom, and took the coin she handed to him.
"What! A convert!" cried Luard, who was again officiating at the game. "Luck to you, Mrs. Milbanke!"
He gave a pleasant laugh, as her coin touched the table, and a moment later set the ball spinning.
Clodagh waited, holding her breath. The ball slackened speed—hesitated over the gaily painted board—and finally dropped into its place. There was a general laugh of excitement; the little crowd pressed closer to the table, and she saw her coin swept into Luard's hands.
The incident was eventful. Quite suddenly the colour leaped into her face and her eyes blazed. In total unconsciousness of self, she stepped forward to the table.
Deerehurst, closely watchful of her, moved to her side.
"Shall I stake again?" he asked in a whisper.
But she did not turn her head.
"No!—no!" she cried. "I'll stake for myself."
Her voice sounded distant and absorbed. It seemed in that brief moment that she had forgotten her companion and herself.
Thrice she staked, and thrice lost; but the losses whetted her desires. She played boldly, with a certain reckless grace born of complete unconsciousness. At last fortune favoured her, and she won. Deerehurst, still standing close beside her, saw the expression of her face, saw the careless—the almost inconsequent—air with which she accepted her spoils; and, noting both, he touched her arm.
"You are a true gambler!" he said very softly. "You care nothing for gain or loss. You play for the play's sake!"
And Clodagh, with her mind absorbed and her eyes on the roulette-board, gave a quick, high-pitched, unthinking laugh.
CHAPTER XII
At nine o'clock on the night following her first venture in the world of gambling, Clodagh was again standing by the roulette-table in Lady Frances Hope's salon. She had been playing for two hours, with luck persistently against her; but no one who had chanced to glance at her eager, excited face would have imagined even for a moment that the collection of coins in her gold purse was dwindling and not increasing.
Deerehurst had been correct in his deductions. She played for the play's sake. The losing game—the hazardous game was the one which appealed to, and absorbed, her; the savour of risk stimulated her; the faint sense of danger lifted her to an enchanted realm. And on this night she made an unconsciously picturesque figure as she stood fascinated by the chances of the play—her face flushed, her eyes intensely bright, her fingers restlessly eager to make their stakes. Round about her was gathered a little group of interested and admiring men—Deerehurst, Luard, Serracauld, and a couple of young Americans who had come to Venice with introductions to Lady Frances Hope; but on none of them did she bestow more than a pre-occupied attention. She permitted them to stand beside her; she laughed softly at their compliments and their jests; but her eyes and her thoughts were unmistakably for the painted board over which Barnard was presiding. Another half-dozen rounds of the game were played; then suddenly she turned away from the table with a quick laugh.
"The end!" she said to Serracauld, who was standing nearest to her; and with a quick gesture, she held up the gold netted purse, now limp and empty.
With an eager movement, he stepped forward.
"Let me be useful!" he whispered quickly.
"Or me! I represent your husband, you know!" Barnard leant across the roulette-table.
"Oh, come, Barny! I spoke first——"
But Clodagh looked smilingly from one to the other, and shook her head.
"No!—no!" she said hastily. "I—I never borrow money."
Serracauld looked obviously disappointed.
"Nonsense, Mrs. Milbanke——" he began.
But Deerehurst intervened.
"If Mrs. Milbanke does not wish it, Valentine——" he murmured soothingly. "Mrs. Milbanke, let me take you out of temptation!"
He bowed to Clodagh, and courteously made a passage for her through the crowd that surrounded them. If any cynical remembrance of her first vehement repudiation of the suggestion that she should gamble, rose now to confute her newer denial, no shadow of it was visible in his face.
As they freed themselves from the group of players, they paused simultaneously, and looked for a moment round the large, cool salon, about which the elder or more serious of the assembly were scattered for conversation or cards. Neither spoke; but after a moment's wait, Deerehurst turned his pale eyes in the direction of the open windows, and by the faintest lifting of his eyebrows conveyed a question.
Clodagh laughed; then silently bent her head, and a moment later they moved forward together across the polished floor.
As they passed one of the many groups of statuary that brightened the more shadowed portion of the room, she caught a glimpse of her hostess, once again in conversation with Sir Walter Gore, and she was conscious in that fleeting moment of Gore's clear, reflective eyes resting on her in a quick regard.
With a swift, almost defiant movement she lifted her head, and turned ostentatiously to Deerehurst.
"Is it to be philosophy to-night?" she asked in a low, soft voice.
He paused and looked at her, his cold, pale eyes slow and searching in their regard.
"Not to-night—Circe," he said almost below his breath.
Clodagh coloured, gave another quick, excited laugh, and, moving past him, stepped through one of the open windows.
Gaining the balcony, she did not, as usual, drop into one of the deep lounge chairs; but, moving forward, stood by the iron railing and looked down upon the quiet canal.
The night was exceptionally clear, even for Italy. Every star was reflected in the smooth dark waters; while over the opposite palaces a crescent moon hung like a slender reaping-hook, extended from heaven to garner some mystic harvest.
For a moment Deerehurst hesitated to disturb her; but at last, waiving his scruples, he went softly forward, and stood beside her.
"Are you offended?" he asked in a very low voice.
"No!"
Her answer came almost absently; her eyes were fixed upon the moon.
"Then sad?"
"I don't know! Perhaps!"
He drew a little nearer.
"And why sad?"
She gave a quick sigh, and turned from the glories of the night.
"I have only two days more in Venice. Isn't that reason for being sad?"
"But why leave Venice?"
"My husband is leaving."
He smiled faintly.
"And is he such a tyrant that you must go where he goes?"
She laughed involuntarily.
"A tyrant!" she said. "Oh no! I can scarcely say he is a tyrant."
"Then why do you go with him?"
She looked round for a moment, then her eyes returned to the pageant of the sky.
"Why does one do anything?" she said suddenly in a changed voice.
With a quiet movement Deerehurst leant forward over the railing, and looked into her face.
"Usually we do things because we must," he said softly. "But compulsion is not always disagreeable. Sometimes we are compelled to action by our own desires——"
Clodagh, conscious of his close regard, felt her breath come a little quicker. But she did not change her position; she did not cease to study the sky. She knew that his arm was all but touching hers; she was sensitive to the faint and costly perfume that emanated from his clothes. But she felt these things vaguely, impersonally, as items in a drama unconnected with herself. When his next words came, it was curiosity rather than dread that stirred in her mind.
"It is my desires that are forcing me to speak now. The desire to see you again after you leave Venice—the desire to see more of you than a mere acquaintance sees—to be something more than a mere friend——"
Clodagh still looked intently at the stars, but unconsciously her lips parted.
"Why?" she asked below her breath. And it seemed to her that the word was not spoken by her, but by some one else.
With an eager gesture, Deerehurst extended his hand, and his long, pale fingers closed over her own.
Then out across the darkness and the silence of the balcony floated the strong, decisive voice of Lady Frances Hope.
"Lord Deerehurst!" it called. "Lord Deerehurst! So sorry, but Rose wants you to give an expert opinion upon one point in a game of bridge. It won't take two minutes."
The voice faded away again as its owner moved back into the room.
At the sound of his name, Deerehurst had drawn himself erect. Now, bending forward silently and swiftly, he lifted the hand he was still holding and kissed it vehemently. The next moment he had crossed the balcony and entered the salon.
Left alone, Clodagh stood motionless. With a vivid physical consciousness, she could still feel the pressure of his cold lips upon her hand; but her mental sensations were benumbed. That something had occurred she dimly realised; that some point—some climax—had been reached she was vaguely aware. But what its personal bearing upon her own life might be, she made no attempt to guess. With a dazed mind she gazed out across the quiet canal, striving to marshal her ideas.
For several seconds she stood in this state of mental confusion; then, with disconcerting suddenness, a new incident obtruded itself upon her mind. With a violent start, she became conscious that some one had passed through the open window, and was coming towards her, across the balcony.
She turned sharply. But as she did so, her fingers slipped from the railing, and all thought of Deerehurst's kiss was banished from her mind. With a sense of acute surprise, she recognised the figure of Sir Walter Gore.
Taking no notice of her dismayed silence, he came quietly forward.
"Good-evening, Mrs. Milbanke," he said. "Have you been enjoying yourself?"
With a certain vague confusion, she met his gaze.
"Yes," she answered. "I—I suppose so."
There was a short silence; and Gore, moving to the balcony railing, rested his arm upon it.
"It is getting late," he said. "Time for us all to be thinking of our hotels."
Again she looked at him in faint bewilderment.
"Yes. I—I suppose so," she said once more.
Another pause succeeded her halting words; then, with a gesture of decision, Gore stood upright, bringing his glance back to her face.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he said suddenly, "let me take you home! I have a gondola waiting at the steps."
The words were so totally unexpected that Clodagh remained mute, and, leaning forward, looked down into the heavy shadows cast by the ancient palace. There was a strange sensation of triumph in this unlooked-for moment—in this sudden capitulation of a man who had previously ignored her: a sensation before which all lesser things—Deerehurst's passion, Serracauld's ardour, Barnard's friendship—became meaningless and vague.
But Gore, guessing nothing from her bent head, glanced behind him towards the salon.
"Well?" he said. "May I be your escort?"
Under cover of the dusk, Clodagh smiled.
"Mr. Barnard generally takes me home——"
Involuntarily Gore's figure stiffened.
"—But," she added in a low, quick whisper, "I—I would very much rather go back with you!"
Under many conditions, the words would have seemed bold. But the manner in which she uttered them disarmed criticism. Gore's face relaxed.
"Then let us make our escape!" he said. "Lady Frances is settling a bridge dispute; and quite a dozen people have slipped away in the last ten minutes. No one will question which of them has taken you home."
And Clodagh gave a short, light laugh of sudden pleasure. The small conspiracy made Gore so much more human—drew them so much closer together than they had been before.
"Yes!—yes!" she said eagerly. "And I am lunching with Lady Frances to-morrow. I can explain then."
"Yes! Quite so! Now, if you are ready!"
He moved to the window.
Very quietly they re-entered the salon; and a flush crossed Clodagh's face as she saw Deerehurst bending over a card-table with the nearest approach to boredom and impatience she had ever known him to evince. Her heart, already beating to the thought of her new conquest, gave an added leap at this silent evidence of her power.
In the corridor outside the salon Gore took her cloak from the servant, and himself wrapped it about her as they descended the stairs; then, passing to the flight of worn steps that led to the water, he signalled to a waiting gondolier.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he said, as he offered her his hand, "I am going to make a strange request. I want to talk to you for half an hour before taking you home. Will you give me leave to make a tour of the canals?" He spoke very quietly and in a tone difficult to construe.
At his curious appeal, her heart gave another quick, excited throb, though instinctively she realised that neither Deerehurst, Serracauld, nor Barnard would have proposed a midnight excursion in quite his voice or manner. But the very mode of the request enhanced its charm. She looked up into his face as she laid her hand in his.
"I give you leave!" she said gently.
He met her glance, but almost immediately averted his eyes. And as he handed her to the seat, he turned swiftly to the gondolier, addressing him in Italian.
The colloquy lasted but a few seconds, and at its conclusion the boat shot silently out into the canal.
"This man does not understand a word of English," he said, as he dropped into his place by Clodagh's side.
Again his words were peculiarly suggestive, and again his tone was curiously frank. Why should he suggest that their conversation was unintelligible? And suggest it in so impersonal a tone? She leant back in her cushioned seat and let her eyelids droop. Her mind was full of puzzling and delightful thoughts. Never had she tasted the mystery of Venice as she tasted it to-night. Every passing breath of wind, every scent blown from the dark and silent gardens, every distant laugh or broken word, was alive with unguessed meanings. The feverish excitement of the past week seemed to fall away. This was romance! This drifting with an inscrutable companion through an unfathomable night!
Her eyes closed; she lay almost motionless, filled with an aimless, vague delight. All creation—with all creation's limitless possibilities—lay in the warm darkness that enveloped her. Then, with the instinct of senses newly and sharply astir, she became conscious that Gore was watching her. With a thrill of expectancy and anticipation, she opened her eyes.
There is something very curious—something subtle and almost intimate—in the opening of one's eyes upon the steady scrutiny of another. As Clodagh raised her lids, her glance encountered Gore's; but on the instant that their eyes met, her joy in the moment—her exultant triumph—was suddenly killed. For the look that she surprised was not the look she had anticipated. It was interested, it was attentive, it was grave, but it held neither subjugation nor passion. As her brain woke to this realisation, she involuntarily raised herself in the cushioned seat.
At the same moment, her companion leant slightly forward.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he said quickly, "I have been watching you and thinking about you ever since I came to Venice. And at last I have decided, that I must tell you what my thoughts have been.
"I am not very old—perhaps I have no right to speak. But a man sees a good deal of life, even if he wants to keep his eyes shut; and I have seen a great many people throw away their chances—take the false and refuse the true. I have seen some men do it, and I have seen many women—many, many women." He paused, but did not look at her. "It is a common, everyday occurrence; so common that one generally looks on at it with indifference. But sometimes—just sometimes—one stops to think. One feels the great, great pity of it!"
He paused again, looking fixedly down at the strip of carpet beneath their feet.
Clodagh glanced at him—a swift, searching, almost surreptitious look.
"There are times when one stops to think." He raised his head and looked at Clodagh, sitting erect and pale, her large eyes wide open, her hands clasped in her lap. "There are times when it seems cruel—when it seems a sacrilege to see a girl going down the easy road of lost illusions and callous sentiments. I know this sounds incomprehensible—sounds impertinent. But I cannot help myself. I must tell you what no one else will tell you. I must put out my hand."
He paused, but Clodagh did not speak.
"You are very young, you are very high-spirited, you—you are very attractive. And the world is full of people ready—waiting—to take advantage of your youth, your high spirits, your attractiveness. You are not fit for this society—for this set that you have drifted into——"
"This set? Isn't it your own set?" At last Clodagh's lips parted.
He made an impatient gesture.
"A man has many sets."
Her pale face flushed suddenly.
"I don't think I understand," she said.
"No. But I am trying to make you understand. I am not disparaging Lady Frances Hope—or her social standing. She is a charming woman—a clever woman, but she is a woman of to-day. Her pleasures, her ambitions, her friends——"
Clodagh lifted her head.
"—Her friends?" she said faintly.
"—Are not the friends for you—for any inexperienced girl. Take them one by one. There is Serracauld—indolent, worthless, vicious; Barnard—decent enough as a man's friend, and as honest as his clients permit him to be, but no proper guide for a girl like you; Deerehurst——"
But Clodagh checked him.
"Lord Deerehurst? What about Lord Deerehurst?" Her voice was high and strained.
Gore made a gesture of contempt.
"Deerehurst——" he began hotly; then suddenly his tone changed.
"Mrs. Milbanke," he said earnestly, "whatever you may say, whatever you may do, I cannot believe that in your heart you are in sympathy with these people, whose one object in life is to gamble—to gamble with honour, money, emotion—anything, everything that has the savour of risk and the possibility of gain.
"You have no justification for belonging to these people. You have the good things of life, the things many women are forced to steal—position, a home, a good husband——"
At the last word Clodagh started violently. And with a quick impulsive movement, Gore turned to her afresh.
"You are intoxicated with life—or what seems to you to be life! You are forgetting realities. I have seen your husband. He is an honest, simple, trustworthy man—who loves you."
The tone of his voice came to Clodagh with great distinctness. It seemed the only living thing in a world that had suddenly become dead. While she had been sitting rigid and erect in the stern of the gondola, everything had altered to her mental vision—everything had undergone a fundamental change. The purple twilight; the mysterious night scents; the breezes blown in from the lagoon had become intangible, meaningless things. She was conscious of nothing but Gore's clear words, of her own soul, stripped of its self-deception. At last, with a faint movement, she turned towards him.
"Take me home," she said in a numbed voice. "I wish to go home."
At the words, he wheeled round in sudden protest. But as his eyes rested on her cold face, a tinge of self-consciousness chilled his zeal—self-consciousness, and the suddenly remembered fact that his own action was, after all, unjustifiable. His own figure suddenly stiffened.
"As you wish, of course!" he said quietly. "I suppose my conduct seems quite unpardonable."
For one fleeting second an impulse—a desire—crossed Clodagh's face; but as it trembled on the brink of utterance, Gore leant forward in his seat and gave a quick, imperative order to the gondolier. A moment later they had glided up a narrow waterway and emerged again upon the Grand Canal.
From the door and windows of Clodagh's hotel, a stream of light was still pouring out upon the water. As they drew level with the terrace, she turned her face away from this searching radiance, and rose quickly to her feet.
"Good-night," she said in an almost inarticulate voice—"good-night! Don't stir! Don't help me!"
But Gore had risen also. And in a sudden return of his earlier, more impulsive manner, he forgot the self-consciousness that had chilled him.
"Mrs. Milbanke——" he said quickly.
But Clodagh evaded his eyes; and with a sharp nervous movement, shook her head.
"No!" she said—"no! Don't help me! I don't want help!"
Stepping past him with an agile movement, she ran up the steps, and across the terrace to the door of the hotel.
Obeying a dominant impulse, Gore turned to follow her. But as his foot touched the side of the boat, he paused, drew slowly back, and dropped into his former seat.
With almost breathless haste, Clodagh ran up the silent staircase of the hotel, and entering her own room, turned on the light; then, walking straight to the dressing-table, she paused and stared into the mirror at her own reflection.
The sight of that reflection was not reassuring. Her face looked colourless, as only olive-tinted skin can look; her wide eyes with their narrowed pupils seemed almost yellow in their intense clearness; while her whole air, her whole appearance, was frightened, tired, pained. As she looked, a nervous panic seized her, and she turned her gaze away.
With freedom to look elsewhere, her eyes roved over the dressing-table, and suddenly fixed themselves upon a large, square envelope bearing her name, which stood propped against a scent bottle.
In nervous haste she picked it up, and looked at it uncomprehendingly. It was unusually large and thick and addressed in an unfamiliar hand. With the same unstrung haste she turned it about between her fingers, halting with new apprehension, as she saw that its flap bore an elaborate black coronet and monogram.
At last, with a strange sense of apprehension, she tore the envelope open.
"Circe," the letter began."I will not reproach you for deserting me. Life is too brief for reproaches—when one longs to fill it with pleasanter things. But be kind to me! Give me the opportunity of finishing that broken sentence. I shall smoke a cigar on the terrace at eleven to-night. If you are generous, wrap yourself up, and keep me company for ten minutes. I shall wait—and hope."Deerehurst."
"Circe," the letter began.
"I will not reproach you for deserting me. Life is too brief for reproaches—when one longs to fill it with pleasanter things. But be kind to me! Give me the opportunity of finishing that broken sentence. I shall smoke a cigar on the terrace at eleven to-night. If you are generous, wrap yourself up, and keep me company for ten minutes. I shall wait—and hope.
"Deerehurst."
She read to the end, and stood for a space staring at the large, straggling writing; at last, as if suddenly imbued with the power of action, she tore the letter across—tearing and retearing it into little strips; then, throwing the fragments on the ground, she turned and fled out of the room.
Milbanke's bedroom was on the same floor as her own, though separated from it by half the length of the corridor. Leaving her own apartment, she hurried towards it; and pausing outside the door, knocked softly and insistently. A delay followed her imperative summons; then Milbanke's voice came faint and nervous, demanding the intruder's name.
She answered; and a moment later the door was opened with a confused sound of shooting bolts.
Milbanke's appearance was slightly grotesque, as the opened door disclosed him, silhouetted against the lighted room. He was garbed in a loose dressing-gown; his scanty hair was disarranged; and there was an expression of alarm on his puckered face. But for once Clodagh was blind to these things. With a swift movement she entered the room, and closing the door, stood leaning against it.
"James," she said breathlessly, "you finished your business with Mr. Barnard to-day, didn't you?"
Milbanke, suddenly conscious of her white face, began to stammer.
"Clodagh! my dear—my dear——"
But Clodagh waved his anxiety aside.
"Tell me!" she said. "It's finished, isn't it?"
"Yes!—yes! But, my dear——"
She threw out her hands in a sudden, vehement gesture.
"Then take me away!" she cried—"take me away! Let us go in the morning, by the very first train—before any one is up."
Milbanke paled.
"But, my dear," he said helplessly, "I thought—I believed——"
Clodagh turned to him again.
"So did I!" she cried—"so did I! I thought I loved it. I thought I loved it all—the music and the gaiety and—and the people. But I don't. I hate it!—I hate it!—I hate it!"
In a strangled sob, her voice gave way; and, with it, her strength and her self-control. She took a few steps forward; then, like a mechanical figure in which the mechanism has suddenly been suspended, she stopped, swayed a little and, dropping into the nearest chair, broke into a flood of tears—such tears as had shaken her four years ago, when she drove out of Carrigmore on the day of her wedding.
PART IV
CHAPTER I
The penetrating Florentine sunshine was enveloping the villa that stood upon the hill above San Domenico; but it was not the full, warm sunshine of late April that had opened the roses in the garden and deepened the shadows of the cypress trees nearly two years earlier, when Clodagh had dreamed of her visit to Venice. It was the cool sunlight of February, and it fell across the polished floors, and threw into prominence the many antique and curious objects that filled the rooms, with a searching clearness that almost seemed like a human scrutiny.
In a small salon that opened upon the terrace Clodagh sat at a bureau. In front of her was a formidable array of letters and business papers, neatly bound into packets by elastic bands, and under her hand was spread a sheaf of unused, black-bordered note-paper.
Whether it was the multitude of her own thoughts that retarded the task she had in hand, or a certain air of absolute stillness that seemed to brood over the villa, one could not say; but certain it is that for nearly half an hour she sat in an attitude of abstraction, her fingers poised above the note-paper, the tip of her pen held against her lips.
At last, however, a new idea seemed born in her mind, for she laid down her pen, rose suddenly to her feet, and moving across the room, paused beside the window.
For a long, silent space she stood at this closed window, her gaze wandering over the scene that custom had rendered so familiar,—the hillside, cut into characteristic tiers of earth, until it sloped downwards almost like a flight of steps, from which the grey olive trees and the black cypresses rose sharply defined in the brilliant atmosphere; at its foot, Florence, with its suggestion of dark-roofed houses and clustering spires; and beyond all, encircling all, the low chain of mountains, blue and purple in the sun. Quite suddenly, with a swift, impulsive movement, she unfastened the latch and threw the window open.
In the added radiance that poured into the room, she stood more distinctly revealed, and the slight changes that even two years can make became visible in her face and figure. The pose of her body and the carriage of her head were precisely as they had been, but her cheeks were a little thinner, and some of her brilliant colouring was gone; but the fact that would most speedily have appealed to one who had not seen her for the two years was the circumstance that she wore deep mourning—a mourning that lent an unfamiliar, almost a fragile air to her whole appearance.
That would have been the first impression; and then, as one studied her more closely, it would have been borne in upon one that these were mere outward signs—that the true, the real alteration lay not in dress, not in the thinness of her face nor in the unwonted pallor of her skin, but in the very curious expression with which she gazed out over the distant hills; the look of kinship—of comprehension—of that illusive, subtle sentiment that we call anticipation, with which her eyes met the far-off sky line.
For many moments she stood as if fascinated by the sense of promise that breathed and vibrated in the spring air; then, at last, with a quickly taken breath, she turned away from the open window, and, recrossing the room, seated herself again at the bureau, picked up her pen, and with new inspiration began to write.