And when at last they had parted, and Amaryllis, listening, heard the motor go, she rose from the sofa and went out through the window to the lawn, and so to the church again, and there lay on the steps of the young knight's tomb, sobbing and praying until darkness enveloped the land.
A day or two before Denzil sailed for France he dined with Verisschenzko. The intense preoccupation of the last war preparations had left him very little time for grieving. He was unhappy when he thought of Amaryllis, but he was a man, and another primitive instinct was in action in him—the zest of going out to fight!
Verisschenzko was depressed, his country was not yet giving him the opportunity to fulfil his hopes, and he fretted that he must direct things from so far.
They sat in a quiet corner of the Berkeley and talked in a desultory fashion all through thehors d'ouvresand the soup.
"I am sick of things, Denzil," Verisschenzko said at last. "I feel inclined to end it all sometimes."
"And belie the whole meaning of your whole beliefs. Don't be a fool, Stépan. I always have told you that there is one grain of suicide in the composition of every Russian. Now it has become active with you. Have another glass of champagne, old boy, and then you'll talk sense again. It is sickening to be killed, or maimed, or any beastly thing if it comes along with duty, but to court it is madness pure and simple. It's just rot."
"I'm with you," and he called the waiter and ordered a fine champagne, while he smiled, showing his strong, square teeth.
"They don't have decent vodka—but the brandy will do the trick," and in an instant his mood changed even before the cognac had come.
"It is the lingering trace of some other life of folly, when I talk like that—I know it, Denzil. It is the harking back to long months of gloom and darkness and snow and the howling of wolves and the fear of the knout. This is not my first Russian life, you know!"
"Probably not; but you've had some more balanced intervening ones, or I should have found you dead with veronal, or some other filthy thing before this, with your highly strung nerves! I am not really alarmed about you though, Stépan—you are fundamentally sane."
"I am glad you think that—very few English understand us—"
"Because you don't understand yourselves. You seem to have every quality and fault crammed into your skins with no discrimination as to how to sort them. You are not self-conscious like we are and afraid of looking like fools—so whatever is uppermost bursts out. If one of us had half your brains he would never have said an idiot thing completely contrary to his whole natural bent like that, just because he felt down on his luck for the moment."
Verisschenzko laughed outright.
"Go ahead, Denzil—let off steam! I'm done in!"
"Well, don't be such a damned fool again!"
"I won't—how is my Lady Amaryllis?"
Denzil looked at him keenly.
"Why do you ask?"
"Because she has written to me, and I am going down to see her—"
"Then you know how she is?"
"I guess. Look here, Denzil, do try and be frank with me. You are acquainted with me and know whether I am to be trusted or not. You are aware that I love her with the spirit. You and the worthy husband are off to be killed, and yet just because you are so damned reserved English, you can't bring yourself to do the sensible thing and tell me all about it so that if you go to glory I could look after her rights and—the child's—and take care of her. It is you who are a fool really, not I! Because I get a little drunk with my moods and talk about suicide, that is froth, but I should not bottle up a confidence because it's 'not the thing' to talk about a woman—even though it's for her benefit and protection to do so. I've more common sense. Some difficult questions might crop up later with Ferdinand Ardayre, and I want to have the real truth made plain to myself so that I can crush him. If you've some cards up your sleeve that I don't know of, I can't defend Amaryllis so well."
Denzil put down his knife and fork for a moment; he realised the truth of what his friend said, but it was very difficult for him to speak all the same.
"Tell me what you know, Stépan, and I'll see what I can do. It is not because I don't trust you, but it is against everything in me to talk."
"Convention again, and selfishness. You are thinking more about the Englishman's point of view than the good of the woman you love—because I feel partly from her letter that you do love her and that she loves you—and I surmise that the child is yours, not John's, though how this miracle has been accomplished, since it was clear that you had never seen her until the night at the Carlton, I don't pretend to guess!"
Denzil drank down his champagne, and then he made Verisschenzko understand in a few words—the Russian's imagination filled in the details.
He lit a cigarette between the course and puffed rings of smoke.
"So poor John devised this plan, and yet he loves her—he must indeed be obsessed by the family!"
"He is—he is a frightfully reserved person too, and I am sure has frozenAmaryllis from the first day."
"My idea was always for this, directly I went to Ardayre. I felt that mysterious pull of the family there in that glorious house. I thought she would probably simplify things by just taking you for a lover, when you met, as you are her counterpart—a perfect mate for her. I had even made up my mind to suggest this to her, and influence her as much as I could to this end—but lo! the husband takes the matter out of our hands and devises a really unique accomplishment of our wishes. Gosh! Denzil! it's John who's got the common sense and the genius, not we!"
"Yes, he has—so far, but he did not reckon with human emotion. He might have known that directly I should see Amaryllis I should fall in love with her, and he ought to have understood that that extraordinary thing, nature, might make her draw to me afterwards. Now the situation is tragic, however you look at it. John will have the hell of a life if he comes back; he can't help feeling jealous every time he sees the child, and the tension between him and Amaryllis, now that she knows, will be great. Amaryllis is wretched—she is passionate and vivid as a humming bird. Every hair of her darling head is living and quivering with human power for joy and union, and she will lead the famished life of a nun! I absolutely worship her. I am frantically in love, so my outlook, if I come back is not gay either. I wonder if we did well, after all, John and I, and if the family makes all this suffering worth while? Perhaps it would have been better to leave it to fate!" Denzil sighed and forgot to notice a dish the waiter was handing.
"It is perfectly certain," and Verisschenzko grew contemplative, "that the result of deliberately turning the current of events like that must have some momentous consequence. Mind you, I think you were right. I should have advised it as I have told you, because of that swine of a Turk, Ferdinand—but it may have deranged some plan of the Cosmos, and if so some of you will have to pay for it. I hate that it should be my lady Amaryllis. All her sorrow comes from your dramatically honourable promise. You can't make love to her now—because a man who is a gentleman does not break his word. Now if my plan had been followed, you would not have had this limitation and you could have had some joy—but who knows! A false position is a gall in any case, and it would have soiled my star, which now shines purely. So perhaps all is for the best. But have you analysed, now that we are on the subject, what it is 'being in love,' old boy?"
"It is divine—and it is hell—"
"All that! Amaryllis is the exact opposite to Harietta Boleski—in this, that she attracts as strongly as Harietta could ever do physically, and will be no disappointment in soul in theentre actes.Being in loveis a physical state of exaltation;lovingis the merging of spirit which in its white heat has glorified the physical instinct for re-creation into a godlike beatitude not of earth. A man could be in love with Harietta, he could never love her. A man could always love Amaryllis, so much that he would not be aware that half his joy was because he wasin lovewith her also."
"You know, Stépan, men, women and every one talk a lot of nonsense about other interests in life mattering more, and there being other kinds of really better happiness, but it is pure rot; if one is honest one owns that there is no real happiness but in the satisfaction of love. Every other kind is second best. It is jolly good often, but only apis allerin comparison to the real thing.
"And when people deny this, believing they are speaking honestly, it is simply because the real thing has not come their way, or they are too brutalised by transient indulgences to be able to feel exaltation.
"So here's to love!" and Denzil emptied his glass. "The supreme God—"
"Ainsi soit il,"and Stépan drank in response. "Our toast before has always been to the Ardayre son, and now we drink to what I hope has been his creator!"
They were silent for some moments, and then Verisschenzko went on:
"When the state of being in love is waning, affection often remains, but then one is at the mercy of a new emotion. I'd be nervous if a woman who had loved me subsided into feeling affection!"
"Then define loving?"
"Loving throbs with delight in the flesh; it thrills the spirit with reverence. It glorifies into beauty commonplace things. It draws nearer in sickness and sorrow, and is not the sport of change. When a woman loves truly she has the passion of the mistress, the selfless tenderness of the mother, the dignity and devotion of the wife. She is all fire and snow, all will and frankness, all passion and reserve, she is authoritative and obedient—queen and child."
"And a man?"
"He ceases to be a brute and becomes a god."
"Can it last, I wonder?" and again Denzil sighed.
"It could if people were not such fools—they nearly always deliberately destroy the loved one's emotion by senseless stupidity—in not grasping the fact that no fire burns without fuel. They disillusionise each other. The joy once secured, they take no pains to keep it. A woman will do things when the lover is an acknowledged possession, which she would not have dreamed of doing while desiring to attract the man—and a man likewise—neither realising that the whole state of being in love is an intoxication of the senses, and that the senses are very easily wearied or affronted."
"Stépan—what am I going to do about Amaryllis? If I come back, it will be hell—a continual longing and aching, and I want to accomplish something in life; it was never my plan to have the whole thing held and bounded by passion for a woman. A hopeless passion I can understand facing and crushing, but one which you know that the woman returns, and that it is only the law and promises you have made which separate you, is the most awful torment." He covered his eyes with his hand for a moment. His face was stern. "And her life too—how sickening. You say you are going down to Ardayre to see Amaryllis—you will tell me how you find her. I have not written—I am trying not to feel."
"Are you interested about the coming child? I am never quite certain how much it matters to a man, whether we deceive ourselves and feel sentiment simply because we love the woman, whether the emotion is half vanity, or whether there is something in the actual state called parenthood? How do you feel?"
Denzil thought of his musings upon this subject after he had seenAmaryllis at the Carlton.
"It is hard to describe," he answered now, "it is all so interwoven with love for Amaryllis that I cannot distinguish which is which, or how I feel about the state in the abstract. Women have these mysterious emotions, I believe, but I do not think that they come to the average man, but if he loves it seems a fulfilment."
"I have two children scattered in Russia, begotten before I had begun to think of things and their meanings. I have them finely educated—I loathe them. I sicken at the memory of the mothers; I am ashamed when I see in them some chance physical likeness to myself. But how will you feel presently when you see the child, adoring the mother as you do? What will it say to you, looking at you with your own eyes, perhaps? You'll long to have some hand in the training of it. You'll desire to watch the budding brain and the expanding soul. You'll be drawn closer and closer to Amaryllis—it will all pull you with an invisible nature chain—"
"I know it,—that is the tragedy of the whole thing. Those delights will be John's—and I hate to think that Amaryllis will be alone for all these months—and yet I believe I would prefer that to her being with John. I am jealous when I remember that he has rights denied to me—so what must he feel, poor devil, when he remembers about me?"
"It is quite a peculiar situation. I wonder what the years will develop it into."
"If the child is a girl, the whole thing is in vain."
"It won't be a girl—you will see I am right. When will you and John get leave, do you suppose?"
"I don't know, but about Christmas, perhaps, if we are alive—"
"Do you want to see her again, then?"
"I long always to see her—but by Christmas—it would be nearly five months. I don't think I could keep my word and not make love to her—if I saw her—then."
"You will wish to hear about her—?"
"Always."
After this they were both silent while the cheese was being removed. Verisschenzko was thinking profoundly. Here was a study worthy of his highest intuitive faculties. What possible solution could the future hold? Only one—that of death for either of the men concerned. Well, death was busy with England's best—it was no unlikely possibility—and as he looked at Denzil he felt a stab of pain. Nothing more splendid and living and strong could be imagined than his six foot one of manhood, crowned with the health of his twenty-nine years.
"I hope to God he comes through," he prayed. And then he became cynical, as was his habit, when he found himself moved.
"I am on the track of Harietta, Denzil. She has a new lover—Ferdinand Ardayre."
"What a combination!"
"Yes, but who the officer was at the Ardayre ball I cannot yet trace. Stanislass is quite agaga—he spends his time packed off to play piquet at the St. James'—he has nobosse des cartes,—it is his burdensome duty."
"He does not feel the war?"
"He is numb."
"What will you do if you catch her red-handed?"
"I shall have her shot without a moment's compunction. It would be a fitting end."
"I don't know that I should have the nerve to shoot a woman—even a spy."
Verisschenzko laughed, and a savage light grew in his Calmuck eyes.
"My want of civilisation will serve me—if ever that moment comes."
Then their talk turned to fighting, and women were forgotten for the time.
Amaryllis came up to London the following week to say good-bye to John, so Verisschenzko did not go down to Ardayre to see her.
John's leave-taking was characteristic. He could not break through the iron band of his reserve, he longed to say something loving to her, but the more deeply he felt things the greater was his difficulty in self-expression. And the knowledge of the secret he hid in his heart made him still more ill at ease with Amaryllis. She too was changed—he felt it at once. Her grey eyes were mysterious—they had grown from a girl's into a woman's. She did not mention the coming child until he did—and then it was she who showed desire to change the conversation. All this pained John, while he felt that he himself was the cause—he knew that he had frozen her. He thought over his marriage from the beginning. He thought of the night when he had sat on the bench outside her window until dawn, of the agony he suffered, realising at last that the axe had indeed fallen, and that some day she must know the truth. And would she reproach him and say that he should have warned her that this possibility might occur? He remembered his talk with Lemon Bridges. He had been going to give him a definite answer that morning, but John had missed the appointment, so they spoke at the ball.
Would it have been better if he had let himself go and fondly kissed and netted Amaryllis? Or would that have been misleading and still more unkind? It was too late now, in any case. He must learn to take the only satisfaction which was left to him, the knowledge that there was the hope of a true Ardayre to carry on.
He talked long to his wife of his desires for the child's education, should it prove a boy, and he should not return, and Amaryllis listened dutifully.
Her mind was filled with wonder all the time. She had been through much emotion since the passionate outburst after Denzil had gone, but was quite calm now. She had classified things in her mind. She felt no resentment against John. He ought not to have married her perhaps, but it might be that at the time he did not know. Only she wondered when she looked at him sitting opposite her, talking gravely about the baby, in the library of Brook Street, how he could possibly be feeling. What an immense influence the thought of the family must have in his life. She understood it in a great measure herself. She remembered Verisschenzko's words upon the occasions when he had spoken to her about it, and of her duties towards it, and how she must uphold it. She particularly remembered that which he had said when they walked by the lake, and he had seemed to be transmitting some message to her, which she had not understood at the time. Did Verisschenzko know then that John must always be heirless and had he been suggesting to her that the line should go on through her? Some of the pride in it all had come to her before she had left the dark church after parting with Denzil. Perhaps she was fulfilling destiny. She must not be angry with John. She did not try to cease from loving Denzil. She had not knowingly been unfaithful to John—and now, she would be faithful to Denzil, he was her love and her mate. Indeed, even in the fortnight which elapsed between her farewell to him, and now when she was going to say farewell to John, she had many months of tender consolation in the thought of the baby—Denzil's son. She could revive and revel in that exquisite exaltation which she had experienced at first and which John had withered. Denzil far surpassed even the imagined lover into which she had turned John. So now Denzil had become the reality, and John the dream.
She felt sorry for her husband too. She was fine enough to understand and divine his difficulties.
She found that she felt just nothing for him but a kindly affection. He might have been Archie de la Paule—or any of her other cousins. She knew that her whole being was given to Denzil—who represented her dream.
She tried to be very kind to John, and when he kissed her before starting, the tears came to her eyes.
Poor good, cold John!
And when he had departed—all the de la Paule family had been there at Brook Street also—Lady de la Paule wondered at her niece's set face. But what a mercy it was the marriage was such a success after all and that there might be a son!
So both Denzil and John went to the war—and Amaryllis was alone.Verisschenzko had returned to Paris without seeing her—and it was thebeginning of December before he was in England again and rang her up atBrook Street where she had returned for a week, asking if he might call.
"Of course!" she said, and so he came.
The library was looking its best. Amaryllis had a knack of arranging flowers and cushions and such things—her rooms always breathed an air of home and repose, and Verisschenzko was struck by the sweet scent and the warmth and cosiness when he came in out of the gloomy fog.
She rose to greet him, her face more ethereal still than when he had dined with her.
"You are looking like an angel," he said, when she had given him some tea and they were seated on the big sofa before the fire. "What have you to tell me? I know that you are going to have a child; I am very interested about it all."
Amaryllis blushed a soft pink—he went on with perfect calm.
"You blush as though I had said something unheard of! How custom rules you still! For a blush is caused by feeling some sort of shame or discomfort, or agitating surprise at some discovery. We may get red with anger, or get pale, but that bright, sudden flush always has some self-conscious element of shame in it. It is just convention which has wrapped the most natural and divine thing in life round with discomfort in this way. You are deeply to be congratulated that you are going to have a baby, do you not think so?"
"Of course I do—" and Amaryllis controlled her uneasy bashfulness. She really wished to talk to her friend.
"Who told you about it?" she asked.
"Denzil."
Amaryllis drew in her breath suddenly. Verisschenzko's eyes were looking her through and through.
"Denzil—?"
"Yes,—he is glad that there may be the possibility of a son for the family."
"How do you feel about it? It is an enormous responsibility to have children."
"I feel that—I want to do the wisest things from the beginning—"
"You must take great care of yourself, and always remain serene. Never let your mind become agitated by speculation as to thepresently, keep all thoughts fixed upon the now."
Amaryllis looked at him a little troubled. What did he know? Something tangible, or were these views of his just applicable to any case? Her eyes were full of question and pleading.
"What do you want to ask me?" His eyes narrowed in contemplating her.
"I—I—do not know."
"Yes, you want to hear of Denzil—is it not so?"
She clasped her hands.
"Yes—perhaps—"
"He is well—I heard from him yesterday. He asked me to come to you. His mother is still at Bath—he wishes you to meet."
Suddenly the impossibleness of everything seemed to come over Amaryllis.She rose quickly and threw out her hands:
"Oh! if I could only understand the meaning of things, my friend! I am afraid to think!"
"You love Denzil very much—yes?"
"Yes—"
"Sit down and let us talk about it, lady of my soul. I am your mother now."
She sank into her seat beside him, among the green silk pillows—and he leaned back and watched her for a while.
"He fulfils some imaginary picture,hein?You had not seen him really until we all dined?"
"No."
"You were bound to be drawn to him—he is everything a woman could desire—but it was not only that—tell me?"
"He was what I had hoped John would be—the likeness is so great—"
"It is much deeper than that—nature was drawing you unconsciously."
She covered her face with her hands. It seemed as if Verisschenzko must know the truth. Had Denzil told him, or was it his wonderful intuition which was enlightening him now, or was it just her sensitive conscience?
"You see custom and convention and false shames have so distorted most natural things that no one has been taught to understand them. Men were intended in the scheme of things to love women and to have children; women were meant to love men and to desire to be mothers. These instincts are primordial, the life of the world depends upon them. They have been distorted and abused into sins and vices and excesses and every evil by civilisation, so that now we rule them out of every calculation in judging of a circumstance; if we are 'nice' people they are taboo. Supposing we so suppressed and distorted and misused the other two primitive instincts, to obtain food and to kill one's enemy, the world would have ended long ago. We have done what we could to distort those also, but nothing to the extent to which we have debased the nobility of the recreative instinct!"
Amaryllis listened attentively, and he went on:
"It is admitted that we require food to live—and that if we are threatened with death from an enemy we have the right to kill him in self-defence. But it is never admitted that it is equally natural that we desire to recreate our species. Under certain circumstances of vows and restrictions, we are permitted to take one partner for life—and—if this person turns out to be a fraud for the purpose for which we made the promise, we may not have another. Supposing hungry savages were given covered dishes purporting to contain food, and upon lifting the cover one of them discovered his dish was empty—what would happen? He would bear it as long as he could, but when he was starving he would certainly try to steal some food from his neighbour—and might even knock him on the head and obtain it! Civilisation has controlled primitive instincts, so that a civilised man might perhaps prefer to die himself from starvation rather than kill or steal. He is master of his actions,but he is not master of the effects of his abstinence—Nature wins these,and whatever would be the natural physical result of his abstinence occurs. Now you can reason this thought out in all its branches, and you will see where it leads to—"
Amaryllis mused for some moments—and she saw the justice of his reflections.
"But for hundreds of years there have been priests and nuns and companies of ascetics," she remarked tentatively.
"There have been hundreds of lunatics also—and madness is not on the decrease. When you destroy nature you always produce the abnormal, when life survives from your treatment."
"You think that it is natural that one should have a mate then?"—she hesitated.
"Absolutely."
"It is more important than the keeping of vows?"
"No, the spirit is degraded by the knowledge of broken vows—only one must have intelligence to realise what the price of keeping them will be, and then summon strength enough to carry out whatever course is best for the soul, or best for the ideal one is living for. Sometimes that end requires ruthlessness, and sometimes that end requires that we starve in one way or another, sowe mustbe prepared for sacrifice perhaps of life, or what makes life worth living, if we are strong enough to keep vows which we have been short-sighted enough to make too hastily."
Amaryllis gazed in front of her—then she asked softly:
"Do you think it is wicked of me to be thinking of Denzil—not John?"
"No—it is quite natural—the wickedness would be if you pretended toJohn that you were thinking of him. Deception is wickedness."
"Everything is so sad now. Both have gone to fight. I do not dare to think at all."
"Yes, you must think—you must think of your child and draw to it all the good forces, so that it may come to life unhampered by any weakness of balance in you. That must be your constant self-discipline. Keep serene and try to live in a world of noble ideals and serenity. Now I am going to play to you—"
Amaryllis had never heard Verisschenzko play. He arranged the sofa cushions and made her lie comfortably among them, then he went to the piano—and presently it seemed to her that her soul was floating upward into realms of perfect content. She had never even dreamed of such playing. It was like nothing she had ever heard before, the sounds touched all the highest chords in her spirit. She did not ask whose was the music. She seemed to know that it was Verisschenzko's own, which was just talking to her, telling her to be calm and brave and true.
He played for a whole hour—and at last softly and yet more softly, and when he finished he saw that she was quietly asleep.
A smile as tender as a mother's came into his rugged face, and he stole from the room noiselessly, breathing a blessing as he passed.
And somewhere in France, Denzil and John were thinking of her too, each with great love in his heart.
Harietta Boleski was growing dissatisfied with her life. England was of no amusement to her, and yet Hans insisted upon her staying on. She wanted to go to Paris. The war altogether was a supreme bore and upset her plans!
She had been so successful in her obvious stupid way that Hans had been enabled to transmit the most useful information to his country, which had assisted to foil more than one Allied plan. Harietta saw numbers of old gentlemen who pulled strings in that time, and although they wearied her, she found them easier to extract news from than the younger men. Her method was so irresistible: a direct appeal to the senses, and it hardly ever failed. If only Hans would consent to her returning to Paris, with the help of Ferdinand Ardayre, who was now her slave, she promised wonderful things.
Hans, as a Swedish philanthropic gentleman, had been over to give her instructions once or twice, and at last had agreed to her crossing the Channel.
She told this good news to Ferdinand one afternoon just before Christmas, when he came in to see her in London.
"I'm going to Paris, Ferdie, and you must come too. There's no use in your pretending that England matters to you, and you are of such use to us with your branch business in Holland like that. If I'd thought in the beginning that there was a chance to knock out Germany, I would have been right on this side, because there's no two ways about it, England's the place to have a good time in, but I've information which makes it certain that we shall take Calais in the Spring, and so I guess it's safer to cling to Kaiser Bill—and get it all done soon, then we can enjoy ourselves again. I do pine for a tango! My! I'm just through with this dull time!"
Ferdinand was a rest to her, almost as good as Hans. She had not to be over-refined—she knew that he was on the same level as herself. He amused her too in several ways.
He looked sulky now. It did not suit his plans to go to Paris yet. He was trying to collect information for a game of his own. But where Harietta went he must go, he was besotted about her, and knew that he could not trust her a yard.
He protested a little that they were very well where they were, but as she never allowed any one's wishes to interfere with her plans she only smiled.
"I'm going on Saturday. We have secured a suite at the Universal this time, now that the Rhin is shut up, and it is such a large hotel, you can quite well stay there; Stanislass won't notice you among the crowd."
Ferdinand agreed unwillingly—and just then Verisschenzko came in. He had not seen Madame Boleski since the night at the Carlton, having taken care not to let her know of his further visits to England since.
He looked at Ferdinand Ardayre as though he had been some bit of furniture, and he took up Fou-Chow who was cowering beneath a chair. He did not speak a word.
Harietta talked for every one for a little while, and then she began to feel nervous.
Verisschenzko smiled lazily—he was trying an experiment. The interview could not go on like this; Ferdinand Ardayre would certainly have to go.
Now that Verisschenzko had come, Harietta ardently wished that he would.
The most venomous hate was arising in Ferdinand's resentful soul. He felt that here was a rival to be dreaded indeed. He saw that Harietta was nervous; he had never seen her so before. He shut his teeth and determined to stay on.
Verisschenzko continued his disconcerting silence. Harietta felt that she should presently scream! She took Fou-Chow from Stépan and pinched him cruelly in her exasperation. He gave a feeble squeak and she pushed him roughly down. Animals to her were a nuisance. She disliked them if she had any feeling at all. But Fou-Chow was an adjunct to her toilet sometimes, and was a coveted possession, envied by her many female friends. His tiny, cringing body irritated her though extremely when she was not using him for effect, and he was often kicked and cuffed out of her way.
He showed evident fear of her and ran from her always, so that when she wanted to make a picture with him, she was obliged to carry him in her arms.
Verisschenzko raised one bushy eyebrow, and a sardonic smile came into his eyes.
Madame Boleski saw that she had made a mistake in showing her temper to the dog; it would have given her pleasure then to wring its neck!
The two men sat on. She began to grow so uncomfortable that she could endure it no more.
"You are coming back to dinner, Mr. Ardayre," she remarked at length, "and I want you to get me gardenias to wear, if you will be so kind, and I am afraid you will have to hurry as the shops close soon."
Ferdinand Ardayre rose, rage showing in his mean face, but as he had no choice he said good-bye. Harietta accompanied him to the door, pressing his hand stealthily, then she returned to the Russian with flaming eyes. He had not uttered a word.
"How dare you make me so nervous, sitting there like a log! I won't stand for such treatment—you Bear!"
"Then sit down. Why do you have that Turk with you at all?"
"He is not a Turk; he's an Englishman and a friend of mine. Why, he is the brother of your precious John Ardayre—and they have behaved shamefully to him, poor dear boy."
She was still enraged.
"He is not even a pure Turk—some of them are gentlemen. He is just the scum of the earth, and no blood relation to John Ardayre."
"He will let them know whether he is or not some day! I hear that your bit of bread and butter is going to have a child, and as Ferdie says it can't be John's, I suppose it is yours!"
Verisschenzko's face looked dangerous.
"You would do well to guard your words, Harietta. I do not permit you to make such remarks to me—and it would be more prudent if you warned your friend that he had better not make such assertions either—do you understand?"
Harietta felt some twinge of fear at the strange tone in the Russian's voice, but she was too out of temper to be cowed now.
"Puh!" and she tossed her head. "If the child is a boy Ferdie will have something to say—and as for Amaryllis—I hate her! I'd like to kill her with my own hands."
Verisschenzko rose and stood before her—and there was a look in his eyes which made her suddenly grow cold.
"Listen," he said icily. "I have warned you once and you know me well enough to decide whether I ever speak lightly. I warn you again to be careful of your words and your deeds. I shall warn you no more—if you transgress a third time—then I will strike."
Harietta grew pale to her painted lips.
How would he strike? Not with a stick as Hans would have done, but in some much more deadly way. She changed her manner instantly and began to laugh.
"Darling Brute!"
Verisschenzko knew that he had alarmed her sufficiently, so he sat down in his chair again and lit a cigarette calmly—then he sniffed the air.
"Your mongrel friend uses the same perfume as Stanislass' mistress!"
"Stanislass' mistress?" she had forgotten for the moment.
"Yes—don't you remember we burnt his scented handkerchief the last time we met, because we did not like her taste in perfumes?"
Harietta's ill humour rose again; she was annoyed that she had forgotten this incident. Her instinct of self-preservation usually preserved her from committing any such mistakes. She felt that it was now advisable to become cajoling; also there was something in the face of Verisschenzko and his fierceness which aroused renewed passion in her—it was absurd to waste time in quarrelling with him when in an hour Stanislass might be coming in, so she went over behind his chair and smoothed back his thick dark hair.
"You know that I adore you, darling Brute!"
"Of course—" he did not even turn his head towards her. "Have you had your heart's desire here in England?"
"Before this stupid war came—yes—now I'm through with it. I'm forParis again."
"I suppose I must have been mistaken, but I thought I caught sight of your handsome German friend in the hall just now?"
"German friend—who?"
"Yourdanseurat the Ardayre ball. I have forgotten his name."
"And so have I."
At that instant Marie appeared at the door and Fou-Chow came from under the chair where he was sheltering and pattered towards her with a glad tiny whine. The maid's eyes rounded with dislike as she looked at her mistress; she realised that the little creature had been roughly treated again. She picked him up and could hardly control her voice into a tone of respectfulness as she spoke:
"Monsieur Insborg demands if he can see Madame in half an hour. He telephoned to Madame but received no reply."
For a second Harietta's eyes betrayed her; they narrowed with alarm, and then she said suavely: "I suppose the receiver was off. No, say I am dining early for the theatre—but to-morrow at five."
The maid inclined her head and left the room silently, carrying Fou-Chow, but as she did so her eyes met Verisschenzko's and their expression suggested to him several things:
"Marie loves the dog—so she hates Harietta. Good—we shall see."
Thus his thoughts ran, but aloud he asked what Harietta meant to do with her life in Paris, and who had been her lovers here?
"You do say such frightful things to me, Stépan," and she tossed her head. "You think that because I took you, I take others! Pah!—and if I do—these Englishmen are peaches, just like little school boys—they'd not harm a fly. But I only love you, Darling Brute—even though we have had a row."
"I know that, of course. I am not jealous, only you have not given me any proofs lately, so I am going to retire from the field. I came to say good-bye."
He looked adorably attractive, Harietta thought—he made her blood run. Ferdinand Ardayre was but an instructed weakling, when one had come through his intricacies there was nothing in him. As a lover he was not worth the Russian's little finger, and the more Verisschenzko eluded her, the higher her passion for him grew; and here he was after months of absence and suggesting that he would leave her for ever! This was not to be borne!
The enraging part was that she would not dare to try to keep him with Hans again upon the scene. She hated Hans once more as she had hated him at the Ardayre ball!
Verisschenzko did not attempt to caress her; he sat perfectly still, nor did he speak.
Harietta could not think how to cope with this new mood; her weariness with the gloom of England and the absence of amusement seemed to render Stépan more than ever desirable. He represented the wild, the strong, the primitive, the only thing she felt that she desired at that moment—and if she let him go to-day he was capable of never coming back to her again. It was worth using any means to keep him on. She knew that she could obtain some show of love from him if she bribed him with bits of news. It would serve Hans right too for daring to turn up so inconveniently!
So she came from behind his chair and sat down on Verisschenzko's knee and commenced to whisper in his ear.
"Now I am beginning to think that you love me again," he announced presently,—"and of course I must always pay for love!"
* * * * *
They were seated by the fire in two armchairs when Stanislass came in from the Club before dinner at eight. Harietta had not even remembered that she must dress, so intoxicated with re-awakened passion for Verisschenzko had she become. A man for her must be in the room; her affection could not keep alight in absence. She had revelled in the joy of finding again a complete physical master. She loved him as a tigress may love her tamer, the man with the whip; and the knowledge that she was deceiving Hans and her husband and Ferdinand added a fillip to her satisfaction. But how was she going to be sure to see Stépan again—that was the question which still agitated her. Verisschenzko wished to further examine Ferdinand Ardayre, and so decided to make every one uncomfortable once more by staying on. Stanislass, very nervous with him now, talked fast and foolishly. Harietta fidgeted, and in a moment or two Ferdinand Ardayre was announced.
He reddened with annoyance to see the Russian had not gone; the flowers which he had brought were in a parcel in his hand.
Harietta took them disdainfully without a word of thanks. What a nuisance the creature was after all!—and Stanislass was—and everything and anything was which kept her from being alone with Verisschenzko!
"When are you coming to see me again, Stépan?" she asked, determined not to let him part without some definite future meeting settled.
"I will come back and take coffee with you to-night," he answered unexpectedly.
Harietta was enchanted, she had not hoped for this.
"No one bothers so much about dressing now, stay and dine as you are."
"Yes, do," chimed in Stanislass timidly in Russian, "we should be so charmed."
"Very well—I will dine—but I must change. I shall not be long though. Begin dinner without me, I will join you before the fish." And with no further waste of words he left them.
Harietta pushed Stanislass gently from the room with an injunction to be quick—and then she returned and held out her arms to Ferdinand Ardayre.
"Now you must not be jealous, Ferdie pet, about Verisschenzko," and she patted him. "It is business—I must talk to him to-night; he has an idea that you and I are not favourable to the Allies," and she laughed delightedly, "and I must get him off this notion!"
Ferdinand Ardayre looked sullen; he was burning with jealousy.
"Will you make it up to me afterwards?"
"But, of course, in the usual way!" and with one of her wonderful kissesHarietta went laughing from the room.
Left alone, the young man gave himself a morphinepiqûre, and then sat down and held his head in his hands.
He had heard, as he had told Harietta earlier in the afternoon, that his brother's wife was going to have a child, and he could find no way of proving legally that it could not be John's, so his venom had grown with his impotence.
His mother had said to him once:
"The accursed English will always beat us, my son. Thy real father would have put poison in their coffee. We can only hope for revenge some day. I fear we shall never gain our desires. The old fool whom thou callest father must be sucked dry of everything while he lives, because no quarter will be given us once the breath is out of his body."
Was this true? Must the English always beat him? He remembered his hatred of Denzil while at Eton, and the dog's life he had often led there. Well, he would hit back with an adder's sting when the chance came to him. He would like to see both Ardayres ruined and England herself in the dust, numbed and conquered. All his English life and education had never made him anything but an alien in thought and appearance.
It was his powerlessness which enraged him, but surely the day must come when he could make some of them suffer.
Harietta had not appeared in the hall when Verisschenzko returned dressed, and she even kept all three men waiting for about ten minutes, and then swept in resplendent in yellow brocade and the gardenias, when the clock had struck nine and most of the other diners were having their coffee.
The atmosphere of restraint and depression was a constant source of resentment to her. It was all very well to be dignified and refined for some definite end, like securing an unquestioned position, but it was a weariness of the flesh to have to keep up this rôle month after month with no excitement or reward, and every now and then she felt that she must break out even in small ways by wearing too gorgeous and unsuitable raiment. She wished that Germany would be quick about winning, then things could settle down and she could begin her social career again.
"It don't amount to a row of pins to the people who want to enjoy themselves, as I do, if their country is beaten or not; it'll all be the same six months after peace is declared, so I'm all for knocking whichever seems feeblest out quickly," she had said to Ferdinand, "and Paris will always be top of the world for clothes and things that one wants, so what do old politics matter?"
She derived some pleasure out of the sensation she created when she went into a restaurant, and she really looked extraordinarily handsome.
The dinner amused her, too; it was entertaining to make Ferdinand jealous. The emotions of Stanislass had ceased to count to her in any way whatsoever.
Verisschenzko had discovered what he required in regard to Ferdinand Ardayre before they went into the hall for coffee—there was nothing further to be gained by having another tête-à-tête with Harietta, so he sat down by Stanislass and suggested that the other two should go on to the Coliseum without them, and Harietta was obliged to depart reluctantly with Ferdinand, having arranged that Stépan should let her know, directly he arrived in Paris, whither he was going in a day or two also.
When she had left them Stanislass Boleski turned melancholy eyes to his old friend, but remained silent.
"Has it been worth it?" Verisschenzko asked, with certain feeling—they had relapsed into Russian.
Stanislass sighed deeply.
"No—far from it—I am broken and finished, Stépan, she has devoured my soul—"
"Why don't you kill her! I should."
The Pole clenched one of his transparent looking hands:
"I cannot—I desire her so—she is an obsession. I cannot work—she leaves me neither time nor brain. But I want her always, she is a burning torment, and a blast, and a sin. I see visions of the chance that I have missed, and then all is obliterated by her voluptuous kisses. I die each day with jealousy and shame. She withholds herself, and I would pay with the blood from my veins to possess her again!"
"You have no longer any delusions about her—you see her as a curse and a vampire?"
Stanislass reddened.
"I see everything, but I know only desire. Stépan, she has dragged me through every degradation. I am a witness of her unfaithfulness. She gives herself to this Turk with hardly a pretence of concealment—I know it—I burn with rage, and I can do nothing. She returns to my arms and I forget everything. I am a most unhappy man and only death can release me, and yet I wish to live because I love her. Each day is fierce longing for her—each night away from her hell—" Tears sprang to his hopeless black eyes and his voice broke with emotion.
Verisschenzko looked at him and a rough pity tempered his contempt.
Here was a case where an indulgence having become master was exacting a hideous toll. But the net was drawing closer and when all the strands were in his hands he would act without mercy.
When Amaryllis knew that John was going to get a few days' leave at Christmas a strange nervousness took possession of her. The personality of Denzil had been growing more real to her ever since they had parted, in spite of her endeavours to discipline her mind and control all emotion. The thought of him and the thought of the baby were inseparable and were seldom absent from her consciousness. All sorts of wonderful emotions held her, and exalted her imagination until she felt that Denzil was part of her daily life—and with the double interest her love for him grew and grew.
She had only seen John during the day when he had come to bid her good-bye before leaving for the Front, and most of the time they had been surrounded by the de la Paule family. But now she would have to face the fact of living with him again in an intimate relationship.
The thought appeared awful to her. There was something in her nature which resembled that of the bride of King Caudaules. She could not support the idea of belonging now to John; it seemed to her that he must have no rights at all. She had written to him dutifully each week letters about the place and her Committees in the County. She had not once mentioned the coming child.
Denzil's mother had been ill and the visit to Bath had been postponed, and after a fortnight alone at Ardayre she had come up to London. She had too much time to think there.
Stépan had left her a list of books to get and she had been steadily reading them.
How horribly ignorant she had been! She realised that what knowledge she had possessed had never been centralised or brought to any use. She had known isolated histories of Europe, and never had studied them collectively or contemporarily to discover their effect upon human evolution. She had learned many things, and then never employed her critical faculties about them. A whole new world seemed to be opening to her view. She had determined not to be unhappy and not to look ahead, but in spite of these good resolutions she would often dream in the firelight of the joy of being clasped in Denzil's arms.
When she thought of John it was with tolerance more than affection. What did he really mean to her, denuded of the glamour with which she herself had surrounded him?
Practically nothing at all.
She was quite aware that her state of being was rendering all her mental and emotional faculties particularly sensitive, and she did her utmost to remember all Verisschenzko's counsel to discipline herself and remain serene. The morning John was expected to arrive she had a hard fight with herself. She felt very nervous and ill at ease. Above all things, she must not be unkind.
He was bronzed and looked well, he was more expansive also and plainly very glad to see her.
He held her close to him and bent to kiss her lips; but some undefined reluctance came over her, and she moved her head aside.
Something in her resented the caress. Her lips were now for Denzil and for no other man. It was she who was recalcitrant and turned the conversation into everyday things.
The de la Paule family had been summoned for luncheon and the afternoon passed among them all, and then the evening and the tête-à-tête dinner came.
John knocked at the door of her room while she was dressing. Her maid had just finished her hair and she wondered at herself that she should experience a sense of shyness and have to suppress an inclination to refuse to let him come in. And once any of these little intimate happenings would have given her joy!
She kept Adams there, and hurried into her tea-gown and then walked towards the door.
John had not spoken much, but stood by the fire.
How changed things were! Once he had to be persuaded and enticed to stay with her at such moments, and it was he who now seemed to desire to do so, and it was she who discouraged his wishes!
In Amaryllis' mind an agitation grew. What could she say to him presently—if he suggested coming to sleep in her room?
The knowledge in her breast rose as an insurmountable barrier between them.
During dinner she kept the conversation entirely upon his life at the Front—which indeed really interested her. She was not cold or stiff in her manner, but she was unconsciously aloof.
Then they went back into the library, each feeling exceedingly depressed.
When coffee had come and they were quite alone Amaryllis felt she could not stand the strain, and went to the piano. She played for quite a long time all the things she remembered that John liked best. She wanted the music to calm her, and she wanted to gain time. John sat in one of the monster chairs and gazed into the fire. He seemed to see pictures in the glowing coals.
The strange relentless fate which had pursued him always as far as happiness was concerned!
He remembered what his mother had said to him when she lay a-dying with a broken heart.
"John, we cannot see what God means in it all. There must be some explanation because He cannot be unjust. It is because we have missed the point of some lesson, probably, and so are given it again to learn. Do not ever be rebellious, my son, and perhaps some day light will come."
He had read an article in some paper lately ridiculing the theory that we have had former lives, but, after all, perhaps there was some foundation for the belief. Perhaps he was paying in this one for sins in a previous birth. That would account for the seeming inexorableness of the misfortunes which fell upon him now, since common sense told him that in this life such cruel blows were undeserved.
Amaryllis glanced at his face from the piano as she played. It was infinitely sad.
A great pity grew in her heart. What ought she to do not to be unkind?
Presently she finished a soft chord and got up and came to his side.
They were both suffering cruelly—but John was going back to fight. She must have some explanation with him which could make him return to France at peace in a measure. It was cowardly to shirk telling him the truth, and she could not let him go again into danger with this black shadow between them.
He looked up at her and rose from his chair.
"You play so beautifully," he said hastily. "You take one out of oneself. Now it is late and the day has been long. Let us go to bed, dearest child."
Amaryllis stiffened suddenly—the moment that she dreaded had come.
"I would rather that you slept in your dressing-room. I have ordered that to be prepared—"
He looked at her startled—and then he took her hand.
"Amaryllis—tell me everything. Why are you so changed?"
"I'm trying not to be, John."
"You are trying—that proves that you are, if you must try. Please tell me what this means."
She endeavoured to remain calm and not become unhinged.
"It was you yourself who altered me. I came to you all loving and human and you froze me. There is nothing to be done."
"Yes, there is. You know that I love you."
"Perhaps you do, but the family matters more to you than I do, or anything else in the world."
"That may have been so once, but not now," his voice throbbed with feeling.
"Alas!" was all she answered and looked down. John longed to appeal to her—but he was too honest to seek to soften her through the link of the child. Indeed, the thought of it had grown hateful to him. He only knew that he had played for a stake which now seemed worthless. Amaryllis and her love mattered more than any child.
He clenched his hands tightly; the pain of things seemed hard to bear.
Why had he not broken the thongs of reserve which held him long days ago and made love to her in words? But that would have been dishonest. He must at least be true; and he realised now that he had starved her—no matter what his motive had been.
"Amaryllis, tell me everything, please," and he held out his hands and drew her to the sofa and sat down by her side.
She could not control her emotion any longer, and her voice shook as she answered him:
"I know that it was not you—but Denzil, John—and the baby is his, not yours."
His face altered. He had not been prepared to hear this thing and he was stunned.
"Ferdinand is an awful possibility to contemplate there at Ardayre, if you have no son—" She went on, trying to be calm, "but do you not think that you might have told me? Surely a woman has the right to select the father of her child."
John could not answer her. He covered his face with his hands.
"You see it is all pitiful," she continued, her voice deep and broken with almost a sob in it. "Denzil is so like you—it was an easy transition to find that I loved him—because I was only loving the imaginary you I had made for myself. I cannot explain myself and do not make any excuse. There is something in me, whenever I think of the baby, that draws me to Denzil and makes me remember that night. John, we must just face the situation and try to find some way to avoid as much pain as we can. I hate to think it is hurting you, too."
"Did Denzil tell you this?" his voice was icy cold.
"No—it came to me suddenly when I heard him say a word."
"'Sweetheart'!" and now John's eyes flashed. "He called you again'Sweetheart'!"
"No, he did not—he used the word simply in speaking of a picture—but I recognised his voice then immediately—it is a little deeper than yours."
"When did you see Denzil?"
She told him the exact truth about their meeting and his coming toArdayre, and how Denzil had endeavoured to keep his word.
"He would never have spoken to me—it was fate which sent him into the train, and then I made him speak—I could not bear it. After I recognised him, I made him admit that it was he. Denzil is not to blame. He left immediately and I have never seen him or heard from him since. It is I alone who must be counted with, John—Denzil will try never to see me again."
John groaned aloud.
"Oh God—the misery of it all!"
"John, I must tell you everything now while we are talking of these things. I love Denzil utterly. I thrill when I think of him; he seems to me my husband, not even only a lover. John, not long ago, when I felt the first movement of the child, I shook with longing for him—I found myself murmuring his name aloud. So you must think what it all means to me, so strongly passionate as I am. But I would never cheat you, John—I had to be honest. I could not go on pretending to be your wife and living a lie."
Tears of agony gathered in John Ardayre's blue eyes and rolled down his cheeks.
He suddenly understood the suffering, that she, too, must be undergoing.
What right had he to have taken this young and loving woman and then to have used her for his own aims, however high?
"Amaryllis—you cannot forgive me. I see now that I was wrong."
But the sympathy which she had felt when she had looked at him from the piano welled up again in Amaryllis's heart and drowned all resentment. She knew that he must be enduring pain greater than hers, so she stretched out her hands to him, and he took them and held them in his.
"Of course, I forgive you, John—but I cannot cease from loving Denzil, that is the tragedy of the thing. I am his really, not yours, even if I never see him again, and that is why we must not make any pretences. John dearest, let us be friends—and live as friends, then everything won't be so hard."
He let her hands drop and got up and paced the room. He was suffering acutely—must he renounce even the joy of holding her in his arms?
"But I love you, Amaryllis—I love you, dearest child—"
And now again she said "Alas!"—and that was all.
"Amaryllis—this is a frightful sacrifice to me—must you insist upon it?"
Then her eyes seemed to flash fire and her cheeks grew rose—and she stood up and faced him.
"I tell you, John, you do not know me. You have seen a well brought up, conventional girl—milk and water, ready to obey your slightest will—I had not found myself. I am a creature as primitive and passionate as a savage"—her breath came in little pants with her great emotion,—"Icould notbelong to two men—it would utterly degrade me, then I do not know what I should become. I love Denzil, body and soul—and while he lives no other man shall ever touch me; that is what passion means to me—fidelity to the thing I love! He is my Beloved and my darling, and I must go away from you altogether and throw off the thought of the family, and implore Denzil to take me when he comes home if you can agree to the only terms I can offer you now."
John bowed his head. Life seemed over for him and done.
Amaryllis came close to him, then she stood on tiptoe and kissed his brow. Her vehemence had died down in her sorrow for his pain.
"John," she whispered softly, "won't you always be my dearest friend? And when the baby comes it will be a deep interest to us both, and you must love it because it is mine and an Ardayre—and the comfort of that must fill our lives. I truly believe that you did everything, meaning it for the best, only perhaps it is dangerous to play with the creation of life—perhaps that is why fate forced me to know."
John drew her to him, he smoothed the soft brown hair back from her brow and kissed her tenderly, but not on the lips—those he told himself he must renounce for evermore.
"Amaryllis,"—his voice was husky still, "yes—I will be your friend, darling—and I will love your child. I was very wrong to marry you, but it was not quite hopeless then, and you were so young and splendid and living—and I was growing to love you, and for these reasons I hoped against hope—and then when I knew that everything was impossible—I felt that I must make it up to you in every other way I could. I don't know how to put things into words, I always was dull, but I thought if I gratified all your wishes perhaps—Ah!—I see it was very cruel. Darling, I would have told you the truth—presently—but then the war came, and the thought of Ferdinand here drove me mad and it forced my hand."
She looked up at him with her sweet true eyes—her one idea was now to comfort him since she need no longer fear.
"John, if you had explained the whole thing to me—I do not know, perhaps I should have agreed with you, for I, too, have much of this family pride, and I cannot bear to think of Ferdinand—or his children which may be, at Ardayre. I might have voluntarily consented—I cannot be sure. But somehow just lately I have been thinking very much about spiritual things, things I mean beyond the material, those great forces which must be all around us, and I have wondered if we are not perhaps too ignorant yet to upset any laws. Perhaps I am stupid—I don't know really. I have only been wondering—but perhaps there are powerful currents connected with laws, whether they are just or unjust, simply because of the force of people's thoughts for hundreds of years around them."
They went to the sofa then and sat down. It made John happier to hear her talk. His strong will was now conquering the outward show of his emotion at last.
"It may be so—"
"You see, supposing anything should happen to Ferdinand," she went on, "then Denzil would have been naturally the next heir—and now—if the child is a boy—"
John started.
"We neither of us thought of that."
"But nothing is likely to happen to Ferdinand; he won't enlist—it is only you, dear John, who are in danger, and Denzil, too—but surely the war cannot go on long now?"
John wondered if he should tell her what he really felt about this, or whether it were wiser to keep her quietly in this hopeful dream of a speedy end. He decided to say nothing; it was better for her health not to agitate her mind—events would speak for themselves, alas, presently.
He talked quietly then of Ardayre and of his boyhood and of its sorrows; he was determined to break down his own reserve, and Amaryllis listened interestedly, and gradually some kind of peace and calm seemed to come to them both, and they resolutely banished the thought of the future, and sought only to think of the present. And then at last John rose and took her hand: