Onreaching home, Sonia went immediately to her room, and sent word to her aunt that she was feeling ill, and desired not to be disturbed. Her maid brought her a message of condolence in reply, and she knew that she was now safe in her solitude for the remainder of the day.
She undressed quickly, threw on a loose dressing-gown, unfastened the thick coil of her hair, and then, telling her maid not to come to the room until she should ring, she threw herself at full length on the lounge, and lay there with her eyes closed, profoundly still. She had caused the blinds to be shut and the curtains drawn. The beautiful spring sunshine flooded everything without, but about her all was gloom and darkness. She could hear the whir of innumerable wheels and the click of horses’ feet on the smooth pavement outside, and she knew that the streets were alive and abloom withsmartly dressed men and women in open carriages, driving between the long lines of flowering horse-chestnuts down the beautiful Champs Elysées to the Palais de l’Industrie.
Long ago she had ordered a charming costume for this occasion, selected with much care and thought; and it had come home more than a realization of her expectations. She had fancied that she would have pleasure in joining a party of friends, and perhaps lingering about the neighborhood of her own picture to hear any comments that might be made upon it. She had not allowed herself to hope that it would be on the line; but there it was this moment, as she knew; and the pretty gown and bonnet and parasol, all so painstakingly selected, were neatly put away, and she was lying nerveless in this lonely room.
She lay on her back, with her arms, from which the sleeves fell, thrown over her head, and her face turned to one side, so that her cheek rested against the smooth flesh of one inner arm. The folds of her scant gown lay thin and pliant over her long, slim figure, and the pointed toes of her little graymulesshowed at the end of the lounge where her feet were crossed one over the other. To-dayshe had given up the long, long struggle for self-control and strength. She abandoned herself absolutely to the dark, unbroken grief which she felt to be her only natural and honest life. She did not even long for happiness to-day: she longed only for the peace of death—the nothingness of the grave. Oh, to be taken so, without the need to stir or move, and lowered into a cool, deep, still grave,—breath, consciousness, hope, regret, memory, individuality, all, all gone,—and earth and grass and flowers over her! That instinct of weak self-pity, to which the strongest of us yield now and then, overcame the lethargy of her mood, and the springs of tears were touched. Two large drops rose and forced their way between her close-shut lids.
“O, what have I done, what have I done, to have to suffer so?” she whispered—“to have to give up all, all joy, and take only pain and misery and regret for all my life! It was only a mistake. It was no sin or crime that I committed when I sent him away, and said that I did not love him. It was only an awful, fatal, terrible mistake. I have feared so for a long, long time; but, oh! I know it now! I want him back—I wanthim back! I want his love, and his patience, and his care. I want him for my friend, and my protector, and my husband. And though I want him so, I am farther away from him than if I had never seen him. When this hideous divorce is got, and our beautiful marriage has been undone, any other woman in the world might hope to win his love. I shall be the one free woman on earth to whom that hope would be shame and outrage and humiliation. O my God, help me, help me! Show me what to do. Give me back at least my pride, that I may not have to suffer his contempt. O God Almighty, if his love for me is quite, quite dead, in mercy let my love for him die too! Oh, no—no—no! My God, I take it back! I do not ask it. I do not want to stop this agony of pain that comes from loving him. O God of pity and compassion, give me now a little help, and show me what to do. Kill me now—strike me dead, O God—rather than let me do anything to cause him to despise me!”
She buried her face in her hands, and went on, speaking between her fingers in thick, sobbing whispers.
“God did not hold me back before fromcutting my own throat,” she said; “and yet I prayed to him with all my soul, as I am praying now! Perhaps I was too self-willed, and wanted my own way too much, and so he would not hear me. Oh, Iwantto do his will—I want to let him choose for me; but, oh, far more than that I want my love, my darling, my husband! We have been joined together by God, and he has not put us asunder, nor has man put us asunder. Neither did he do it! It was I,—I myself,—out of my weak selfishness and self-will, because I wanted to make everything conform to me—because I wished him to love me by a rule and ideal of my own—to treat me according to my fancy—to make every sacrifice of himself and his nature and thoughts and feelings to me, and I was willing to consider him in nothing! But oh, my God, I have been shown my wickedness and selfishness! The scorching light of truth has come, and now I see it all. If I could have him back! If I could wipe out the past, and be once more in my wedding-dress and veil, and give him my vows again, O God, thou knowest whether I could keep them now or not! It cannot be, it cannot be! He pities me and would bekind to me, but he does not love me any longer. O God Almighty,” she cried aloud, writhing her body from the lounge, and getting on her knees, with her hands and her face lifted upward, “take me and work in me, and give light to my blinded eyes! Give me the strength to do what is right—to give him up—to stop thinking of him! I cannot bear this tearing struggle any more. I can fight no longer. I beg thee only, only for this—that I may somehow grope and stumble through this time without the loss of the one thing that is left to me—my woman’s pride!”
She fell forward, with her face buried in the lounge, and great sobs shaking her body. Gradually these subsided; but long after they had ceased she knelt there with her face concealed, alone in the silence and darkness.
Atthe same moment, only a little distance off, the sunlight was pouring down in floods upon the palms, the stuffs, the pictures, the statues, and the crowd of fashionable men and women who thronged the great exhibition of the spring Salon.
Voices of men and women rose melodiously, whether in praise or blame. Lorgnetteswere raised, hands clasped in delight, and shoulders shrugged in disapproval. Fans were waved in delicate, gloved hands, whose every movement stirred the air in waves of sweet perfume from flowers, or delicate odors wafted from women’s gowns. Smartly dressed men and women stood about in groups, and now and then a hum arose as some great man, decorated with orders, and smiling with confident good humor, passed along, bowing to right and left, and receiving compliments—too familiar to be anything but gently stimulating—on the beauty of his latest pictures.
There were groups, larger or smaller, before many of the canvases; and in one of these groups, standing a little apart from the rest, were Harold and Martha Keene.
The picture before which they had paused was a rather small canvas on which was painted a woman leaning with her elbows on a table, and her chin resting in her hands, which met at the wrists, and then closed upon the cheeks at either side. The little table before her was perfectly bare. There was a striking absence of detail. The one thing which was accentuated by careful and distinct painting was a plain gold ring on the thirdfinger of the left hand. The loose drapery which wrapped the shoulders, leaving bare the throat and arms, was simply blocked in with creamy white paint and heavy shadows. The hair was gathered in a thick coil at the top of the head. There was beauty in its coloring, and merit also in the flesh-tints of the face and throat; but the power of the picture was in the eyes, which looked directly at one. The brows above them were smooth, definite, and uncontracted. The lines of the face were youthful and round. The lips were firm and self-controlled. All the expression was left to the eyes, which, large, honest, courageous, and truthful, met those of the gazer, and gave their message—the message of despair.
“It is called in the catalogue simply ‘A Study,’”said a man standing close to Harold Keene; “and certainly there is no need to name it. The artist’s name is given as ‘G. Larrien.’ Does any one happen to know it?”
No one did, and the group of people soon passed on; but Harold stayed and looked. Martha, who stood at his elbow, was palpitating with excitement. She knew the picture and the artist, but she was determined not tobetray, even by a look, the secret which she had promised her friend to keep. She saw that Harold studied the picture with intent interest, and she schooled her face to express nothing, in case he should look at her. She was watching him closely, and she thought that his color changed a little, but he gave no other sign of feeling. He did not look toward her. Indeed, there was neither question nor curiosity in his eyes, but a look of conviction and, she thought, a look of pain.
A man and woman had paused beside them now, and stood gazing at the picture.
“It’s quite a remarkable thing,” said the man; “and it appears to be by a new exhibitor. I do not know the name. It certainly tells its story.”
“Yes,” said his companion; “I believe that it is only through marriage that despair comes to a woman. If one painted that look in a man’s eyes, one would have to invent some better explanation of it than a wedding-ring.”
Harold glanced toward the speakers, and then began to move away, without looking again at the picture. Martha waited to hear what he would say; but as to this particular picture, he said nothing.
Why was it that she felt a sudden certainty that he knew who had painted it? It seemed absurd to suppose that he could, and yet she had a conviction about it impossible to shake off.
The picture, as Martha knew, had been the hasty work of a few days, and had been painted at home. When Sonia had brought it to show to Etienne, he had been so surprised and delighted at it that he had insisted upon substituting it for the careful and painstaking piece of work which she had done in the atelier on purpose for the exhibition. It was evident that he recognized some rare quality in this picture, and that others had now recognized it also. Martha, looking back, saw that another group had formed in front of it, and that animated comment was in progress.
It came over Martha now—a thing she had not thought of before—that in spite of the different contour and coloring of the whole face, there was a certain vague resemblance to Sonia in it. It was not the eyes themselves, for they were blue in the picture; but there was something in the shape and setting of them which suggested Sonia. She wondered if the lovely princess could have been aware of thisherself, for she had shown a strong reluctance to exhibit this picture, and had required of Etienne and herself a very strict promise of secrecy about it, saying that it had been seen by them only. Martha, who knew that her friend was unhappy, and that her sorrow had come to her through her marriage, felt in her heart that Sonia had painted this picture from the look of her own eyes in a mirror when off her usual guard. She wondered if by chance Harold had had the same idea.
Thenext morning Martha drove to the apartment in the Rue Presbourg, and found her friend in bed, suffering from a headache which had been so severe that she had had a doctor. She had passed a sleepless night, and it distressed Martha much to see how really ill her beautiful princess looked. There were dark rings around the lovely eyes, and the sweet mouth, which the girl so loved, had a pathetic droop which showed that tears were not far off.
Martha tried to cheer her up, by telling her how much her picture had been noticed, and repeating some of the comments which she had overheard.
It was strange how little all this was to Sonia. Her pulses did not quicken, by one beat, until suddenly Martha said that Harold had been fascinated by it, had lingered before it and gone back to it, and that somehow shecould not help thinking that he suspected that she had painted it.
“How could he? It is impossible!” Sonia cried, a faint flush rising to her face.
“Yes; I suppose it must be,” Martha conceded; “and yet there was something special about the picture to him; and after he had seen it, he certainly took no further interest in looking yours up, which, in the beginning, he had told me he was going to do.”
“Martha, you must never let him know it! I trust you for that. I shall never own the picture as long as I live; and I have the solemn pledge of both you and Etienne not to betray me. You know it was against my will that I consented to exhibit it, and I could not endure to have it known that a melodramatic thing like that (for that is what it will be called) had been painted and exhibited by me. Did your brother laugh at it? Tell me the truth. If he laughed at it, I wish to know it.”
She had raised herself in the bed, and sat upright, looking at Martha with commanding eyes.
“Laugh at it, Sonia? Could any one laugh at that picture—least of all Harold? It is one of the most deadly things that I everlooked at. No; he did not laugh. Indeed, I think it took from him all power of being amused for the rest of the day. I only say this to prove that the impression which your picture made was a serious one. He said nothing about it, but I know he was impressed by it.”
The princess fell back on her pillows, with a face so flushed and eyes so brilliant that Martha feared that she must be in a fever, and blamed herself for having talked to her on a subject so exciting as the Salon. In a few moments she rose to go. Her friend, although she declared that the visit had done her no harm, did not try to keep her, for a sudden and excited fancy had seized her.
No sooner was Martha gone than she rose quickly, rang for her maid, and began to dress, regardless of the fact that her head felt light, and her limbs were trembling. She put on a long cloak and a large black hat; and, ordering her carriage, had herself driven to the Palais de l’Industrie.
A feverish desire to see the picture again had laid hold upon her. She wanted to look at it after knowing that Harold had done so, and to judge how much she had betrayed of
“SHE PUT ON A LONG CLOAK.”
“SHE PUT ON A LONG CLOAK.”
what her own heart had felt, and her own eyes had expressed, when she had painted that picture before her mirror, trusting in the complete disguise of the decided changes in features and coloring which she had made. She had painted the expression as faithfully as she could, knowing that no one who had never seen her completely off guard would recognize it. She felt now that if she should discover that there was a trace of possible identification in either features or expression, she could not endure it. Harold would think, and would have a right to think, that she had made capital out of her most sacred shame and sorrow; and he was the sort of man to whom that idea would be monstrous. She knew that she never could have painted it if she had had the least idea of exhibiting it; but when it was done, and she had shown it to Etienne to get his criticism on the technique, and he had been so plainly delighted with it, and urged her not to carry it any farther, but to exhibit it as it was, she had agreed to it for three reasons. One was to please her master, who was not very easily pleased; another was because she knew she could keep it secret by telling no one exceptthe two people who already knew; and the third and decisive one was that it was a way suddenly opened to her of giving her message to the world impersonally. She felt a sort of exultation in the thought that in this way she could say: “Look in my face, and see. This is marriage!”
When Sonia got out of her carriage she dismissed it with the maid, and mounted the steps with a look of greater firmness and resolution than she really felt, for physically she was ill and weak. She knew, however, that she might meet with acquaintances here, and might attract the attention of strangers by being quite alone, and therefore she realized the necessity of calmness in her outward manner. Her face was partly hid by a veil, and she had managed to avoid the gaze of one or two people whom she had recognized as she made her way quickly to the room in which she knew that her picture was hung.
In spite of her preoccupation, it quickened her pulses a little to see that there was a small group of people in front of it, evidently talking about it. As she stood behind these, and looked full at the face on the canvas, which was looking full at her, a sudden sense of conscious power, the knowledge that she had created a thing of intrinsic character, came over her, and she could hardly realize that it was she who had done it.
There was certainly no trace of her feature and coloring in this picture, and yet she shrank back, and had an impulse to conceal herself, for what she saw before her was undoubtedly the picture of her soul. Her heart fluttered, and she felt herself beginning to tremble. Was she going to faint here, alone? A wild sense of helplessness seized her, and at the same moment she was conscious of a certain familiarity in the outline of a shoulder and arm between her and the picture. She glanced quickly up at the head of this man, and saw that it was Harold. A little sound—scarcely more than a stifled breath—escaped her, and he turned suddenly, just in time to go to her and take her arm in his steady, reassuring grasp, which seemed to nerve her soul as well as her body to make a desperate effort for self-control.
“You are ill. You should not have ventured out alone,” he said. (Oh, the strong, protecting voice; the firm, availing touch!) Then he led her to a seat, with some quietwords that seemed to put new power into her to endure and to resist.
“I must go home,” she said, rising as she felt her strength return. “I have been ill. I did not know how weak I was.”
“I will take you to your carriage,” he said; and without seeming to recognize the possibility of resistance, he drew her arm in his, and led her from the room and down the steps.
It came to her, suddenly, that her carriage was not there.
“I sent the carriage away,” she said. “I thought I would stay awhile, and see the pictures.”
He signaled to a waiting cab, and as it drew up to the sidewalk, and he put her in, he said quietly, but with resolution:
“I cannot let you go alone in this cab, ill and faint as you are. I beg your pardon, princess; but I must go with you”; and he gave the number to the cabman, and got in beside her.
That wordPrincessstung her pride, and gave her a sudden feeling of strength. She knew that he meant to convey by its use the idea that it was only as a matter of formal courtesy that he felt bound to care for and protecther now. She drew herself upright, with a slight bend of the head in acknowledgment of his civility.
For a few moments they drove along in silence, utterly alone together. Harold wondered if the thoughts of other days and hours were in her mind. At the same instant she was wondering the same thing about him. She had forgotten that he had just spoken of her with formality, and called her princess. Apparently he had forgotten it, too; for he now said in a low tone and with suddenness:
“Your picture is remarkable. You have told your story well.”
She felt that denial would be useless. Since he had found her standing there before it, she was certain that he knew the truth as well as she did.
“I never meant that it should be known that I painted it,” she said. “You must know that.”
“Why should it not be known?” he said. “If a woman has looked on what those eyes have seen, surely she is called upon to give her warning. If that is what marriage meant to you, God pity you! God be thanked that you are out of it!”
At his words there rushed across her mind the memory of a thousand acts and thoughts and words of tenderness, of love, of strong protection, of help in need and comfort in distress, which this man beside her had given her. How could she tell him, though, that the ground of the despair which she had painted had been the renunciation of these—the thought that she had had a vision of what the love of man and woman could be in a wedded life, and had been shut out from it? Where were now the reasons that had seemed so powerful and sufficient for the course which she had taken? Why was it that, try as she might, she could get no sense of support and satisfaction from recalling these? Was it because she felt them to be the foolish qualms of an ignorant girl, who was prepared to fight against any and all conditions of life which did not answer to her whim? O God, the hideous possibilities of error and of wrong that were about one! How confident of right one might be in doing an act of weakness and of shame!
She could not answer his last words. She felt herself suddenly so possessed of the sense of his nearness that she could neither collectnor control her thoughts. Her eyes were lowered, and she could not see his face; but the very sight of his strong brown hand lying ungloved upon his knee, the very bend of that knee and fold of the gray trousers, seemed as familiar to her as her own body.
Suddenly she seemed to feel that he was hers, and that she was his, whether they chose to recognize the fact or not; that God had joined them, and no man, not even themselves, had power to put them asunder.
Harold, meantime, was wondering at her silence. Why was it that, after her old defiant fashion, she had had no answer ready for his bitterly felt and spoken words? That picture had stung his soul, and he would have died sooner than have owned to himself even a wish to have her back.
In spite of this, he could not forget that they were alone together, and that she was ill and weak, and needed pity. He wondered suddenly if he had been cruel in what he had said to her, and had put too great a tax upon her strength.
As this thought crossed his mind the cab stopped, and he became aware of a din of sound, made by the tramping of men and horses, andthe blare of brass instruments and the beating of drums. The cabman leaned down and called to him, saying that the way had been crossed by a procession. It would be some time passing. Was monsieur in a great hurry? Harold answered no; and as he turned from the window he glanced toward the woman at his side, and saw that she was leaning back weakly in her corner, deadly pale. Her eyes met his, however, with a wide, direct, unflinching look, and he saw that there was no danger of her fainting. Consciousness, acute and powerful, was written in those eyes.
Outside, the crowd pushed and jostled by, while the clatter of hoofs and feet came more distinctly to the ears as the sound of the band moved off in the distance. An instinct to protect that pallid face from being gazed upon made him draw down the thick silk blinds. He did this, explaining his motive to his companion in a few quick words. Then he turned and looked at her, and in the suddenly created gloom their eyes met.
He was striving with all his might to keep the fire out of his; but suddenly he became aware of the same effort on her part, as she closed her lids an instant, and then, as if mastered by a feeling stronger than her will, opened them wide, and looked at him again.
His heart leaped. His pulses throbbed. His cheeks flushed darkly. He moved a little nearer to her, so that their faces were close, and still her eyes met his with that wild, burning, concentrated gaze.
“For God’s sake, what is it?” he said. But she did not move a muscle or an eyelash. She only gave her eyes to his, as one would hold up the printed page of a book to be read and understood.
“What is it?” he said again, coming so near as to speak in the lowest whisper, while his hands grasped hard the top of his stick, and his breath came thick and fast.
Her eyes still clung to his, but her lips were wordless.
“I do not understand,” he said. “For God’s sake, speak! I do not want to lose control of myself, but I cannot forget that you have been my wife.”
These words, which moved him so that he shook visibly, made apparently no impression upon her. Her breathing was so scant and so light as scarcely to lift the lace upon her breast; and, near as he was to her, he could not hearit. Was she, perhaps, unconscious? He might have thought so, but for the deep, intense consciousness in the gaze that she fixed upon him, and the flutter of her long-lashed lids as she shut and opened them occasionally from the strain of that prolonged look.
Outside, the drum throbbed distantly, like the beating of a great excited heart. The thin call of a trumpet sounded keenly like a sigh of pain. Nearer the tramp of men and horses could be heard. But all these things only made them feel more absolutely alone together—this man and this woman who had once been one in marriage! With his breast heaving quickly with deep, uneven breaths, he suddenly uttered her name in a thick whisper.
Still she remained as she had been before, motionless and wordless, while he read her eyes. He dropped his stick, and seized her hands in both his own, which were cold and shaking.
“Speak!” he said commandingly. “In God’s name, what do you mean, unless it is that you love me still?”
Her hands were quiet and nerveless in his grasp, and in another instant he would have lost control and consciousness of what he wasdoing. But at this very moment the cabman called to his horse and cracked his whip, the carriage gave a lurch forward, and they rattled rapidly away.
Recollecting himself, Harold dropped the hands which he had seized so recklessly, and touched the springs of the curtains, which instantly flew up, letting in the full light of day.
The fresh air which came in seemed to calm his heated blood, and he was master of himself again.
When he turned to look at his companion, she was leaning back in exactly the same position, only her heavy, richly fringed white lids were dropped over her eyes.
In this way she remained quite still until the carriage stopped before the door of her apartment. Harold, who thought that she had now really fainted, was about to summon help from the concierge, when she opened her eyes with a look of entire self-possession in them, got out of the cab without the aid of his offered hand, and, bowing her thanks, without speaking walked past him into the house, with a look of cool dismissal which made it impossible for him to follow.
Puzzled, confused, bewildered almost to thepoint of frenzy, he got back into the cab, and ordered the driver to drive in the Bois until he should tell him to turn.
Sonia, during that same time, was shut within her room, thinking as intensely as he. She had been able, by dint of enormous will-power, to control herself in all other points while indulging herself in one. She had said to herself during those crucial minutes in the cab, while she consciously threw open the windows of her soul to this man in that clear and unrestricted gaze, that she would neither speak nor stir, though the effort should kill her. She found that she could best carry out this resolve by relaxing her body utterly, while her will got every moment tenser in its strain. She had said to herself over and over to what seemed a thousand times: “Don’t move—don’t speak. Don’t move—don’t speak”; and the very consciousness that she was equal to this effort made her the more free in the abandonment with which she had let him read her heart in her eyes.
Now, as she threw her wraps aside, and paced up and down her room, a feeling of delicious exultation possessed her, and the physical weakness which she had lately felt wasgone and forgotten. It had been a draught of intoxicating joy simply to look at him with free and unbridled eyes. Was he not her husband, who could not be, by any act of man, really parted from her? What had she shown him but a woman’s feeling for her wedded lover? Was she crazy, she wondered, that she could have done it then, and could feel now no regret—only a wild delight—in having done it? O God, O God, how long it was that she had shut herself off from feeling, and how good it was to feel once more! She was alive in every nerve and pulse, as she had not been for so long; and the throbbing of life was sweet, sweet, sweet! Never mind about the future; she would meet it boldly, and make up some excuse—that she had been ill or unconscious in the cab—pretend that she had forgotten the whole thing—do anything that was needed, as to that!—but the throbbing bliss of that one half-hour, she exulted that she had been bold enough to make her own.
Thecourswas closed at Etienne’s, but Sonia, who could not bear to face the hours of idleness which each day must contain during the few weeks which her aunt was still to spend in Paris, got permission to come and work in the atelier during the afternoons. She was privileged to get her own models as she required them, and Martha was to come also when she had time and inclination.
The day after her encounter with Harold at the Salon, Sonia, strong in purpose and confident in will, went to the atelier with only Inkling to protect her and keep her company, and set resolutely to work to do some severe drawing.
She had abundance of both time and space now, and she settled herself with great care and deliberation, with the anatomical figures and numerous copies of Ingres’ drawings full in view. She had not worked very long, however, before her enthusiasm began to ebb, and she put down her charcoal and went across to the model-throne, where she sat down with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, and fell to thinking deeply. Inkling came and jumped up in her lap, but she pushed him away with a roughness unusual to her, and he had to content himself with curling up on her skirt. As she sat there, conscious of being quite alone, she was as absolutely still as any of the customary holders of this position; but the varied expressions which crossed and changed her face would have made any class of students in the world despair of such a model. Sometimes she would look quite happy for an instant, as if a thought of joy had forced its way uppermost. Then again deep pain would come into her face, and shadows of doubt, perplexity, and hopelessness.
She sat so for a long time. Inkling had had a deep and peaceful sleep on the soft folds of her gown, from which he was startled by a knock at the door. His mistress sprang up suddenly, rolling him over, and he began to bark furiously, while Sonia, with an attitude of studious absorption, took her place at the easel, and seized her bit of charcoal. Shethought it was probably only some boy on an errand, but she was also acutely conscious of whom it might possibly be. So she was not entirely unprepared for the sight of Harold appearing quickly around the edge of the old sail-cloth screen.
He bowed with a brevity and formality which seemed to imply that she need fear no agitating disturbance from him; but instead of standing in his place and stating the reason of his presence, he came forward.
Inkling, wild with excitement, began a repetition of his frantic performances of the former occasion; but his mistress, determined to have nothing of that sort, promptly suppressed him, and he slunk away and lay down with great meekness.
Harold, seeming to take no cognizance of the dog, came nearer, and waited until the absorbed figure before the easel should notice him. Presently she did this by saying formally:
“Martha is not here. She has not been here to-day.”
“She is at home. I have just left her,” he answered.
“Oh, I beg your pardon! I thought you had come to see her.”
“No; I have come to see you.”
“To see me?” lifting her eyebrows in light surprise.
“If you are at leisure.”
“I am busy, as you see; but I can talk to you as I draw, if you don’t mind.”
“If you will allow me, I will wait until your drawing is done.”
“That would take up too much of your time,” she said, laying down her charcoal, and elaborately brushing off her fingers with her handkerchief.
“Not at all. I have nothing to do.”
“I would rather speak to you first—whatever it is you have to say—and go on with my work afterward. I dislike to draw with people looking on.”
“In that case I will ask you to give me your attention at once. Will you, perhaps take this seat?”
He indicated an old wooden arm-chair; but she declined it with a quick motion, and went over and took her old place on the model-throne, lifting Inkling to her lap. Harold seated himself on a bench directly facing her.
“I am sorry if I am annoying you,” he said;“but I cannot take the consequences of not speaking to you now.”
“Consequences?” she said. “What consequences?”
“Consequences to you and to me. I will ask you to be kind enough to look at me while I explain them.”
Her eyes were fastened upon Inkling, and she kept them so, while she began to twist his soft ears. There was a moment of intense stillness throughout the room. Then the man, in a voice of deep concentration, spoke her name.
“Sophie,” he said.
“Pray don’t call me by that name,” she answered quickly. “I have never liked it, and I wish now to forget it.”
“Sonia, then, if you prefer it. I want simply to make plain the fact that I am speaking toyou, the woman who bears that name, and not to the princess, as you are supposed to be.”
“Go on,” she said.
He was silent. She kept her eyes fixed on the dog until she was afraid that her stubbornness would look childish, or, worse even than that, timid. Then she looked up.
The next instant she wished that she had not,for the compelling look that met her own did for a moment make her feel afraid. She summoned all her force, however, and looked at him defiantly, her head raised, her eyes steady.
“I want you to explain to me what you meant yesterday,” he said.
“What I meant yesterday? What do you mean?”
“What you meant yesterday, driving home in the cab.”
“What I meant yesterday by driving home in the cab? I suppose my meaning was the obvious one—that I was tired and ill, and that my own carriage was not there.”
The timidity which she had felt before grew now into positive terror, as she felt the masterful force of this man’s power over her. So strong was her sense of it that she felt absolutely reckless of what she said or did, so long as she was able to resist him.
“You will not move me, or change my intention—mydeterminationto get an answer to my question. Your evasion of it is childish as well as useless.”
“I will be childish if I choose. Who is to prevent me?” she said defiantly.
“I will. I have no intention of submittingto any such childishness now. You are a woman, and you are the only woman who exists for me. In that character I mean to have your answer to my question.”
His words made her heart throb quick, with a feeling outside of the terror of self-betrayal by which she was possessed. She gave no outward sign, however, as she looked down, and began once more to pull at Inkling’s ears.
Before she realized what he was doing, Harold had bent forward, and lifting the dog from her lap, he set him on the floor, with a shove that sent him half-way across the room. As the little creature ran off frightened, Harold turned to the woman facing him, and forcibly took both her hands in his.
She jerked them from him with a powerful wrench, as she sprang to her feet, retreating a few paces until she was stopped by some benches and easels huddled together on that side of the room.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried, in a voice of real terror.
He let his hands drop to his sides, but he followed, and stood very close to her, as he said:
“You had better answer me, and let mehave my way. I am not to be turned now. This interview between us must be final, and I promise you that after it you shall be safe from any persecution from me. Now, however, the present moment is my own. I have you in my power—and that power I intend to use!”
“An honorable and manly thing to say!” she panted, her eyes blazing and her lips curled. “Do you mean me to understand that you would use force to make me comply with your wish?”
“I mean just that,” he answered, bending over her with eyes that gave her the feeling of a physical touch. “I will prevent your leaving this room until you have honestly and fairly spoken to me, and have either confirmed or denied what your eyes plainly said to me yesterday.”
“You are cowardly and cruel!” she cried. “You are taking a mean advantage of me! I was ill yesterday. I was half unconscious—”
“You may have been ill,” he interrupted. “I know indeed that you were, and that physical weakness may have led to self-betrayal; but you were not unconscious. Far from it. You were never more acutely conscious inyour life than during those long moments when you looked at me with love.”
“I deny it!” she cried angrily.
“Useless!” he answered. “It is not to be denied.”
She tried to draw farther away, but the barricade of easels stopped her. Then he himself stepped backward, and put some feet of space between them.
“I cannot bear to see you shrink from me,” he said. “You will have to forgive a persistence that may seem to you brutal; but fate has put this opportunity into my hands, and I’d be a fool not to use it.”
“And what do you expect to get from it?” she asked.
“An answer in plain words to this question, Do you, or do you not, love me?”
“I do not!” she cried hotly; but her breast was heaving so, her heart was throbbing so, that she could scarcely catch her breath; and she felt that not for all the world dared she look him in the face.
“Your eyes yesterday contradicted your words of to-day,” he said. “I will not be content until I have had both. So help me God, you are not going to trifle with menow! I will make you look at me, and confirm with your eyes the words you have just spoken, or I’ll have you for my wife again!”
He caught her in his arms, and drew her close against him. She opened her mouth as if to scream, but he laid his palm upon it, not forgetting, for all his strength, to touch her gently.
“Oh, my darling, my precious one,” he said, “don’t call out for protection from me, as if I were your enemy! Surely you know that I would die by torture before I would hurt you—body or soul. But something—a wicked pride, perhaps—is making you struggle against the truth; and, for your sake as well as for my own, I must make a fight for it. Look! I offer you the chance. If you can look me in the face, and say with eyes and lips together, ‘Harold, I do not love you,’ then you are as free as air. If you can do that, I will go, and never cross your path again.”
He had taken his hand from her mouth, for fear her panting breaths would cease. He could feel the violent beating of her heart against his side. An overwhelming tenderness and pity for her filled him, and his arm, relaxing its stern pressure, drew her close,with an embrace whose only constraint was that of love. Her ear was very close to him, and he spoke to her in the lowest whispers.
“Dear one,” he said, “what is it you are fighting against, if it be not the coming back of love and joy?”
He could not see her eyes. He did not wish to see them yet. This waiting was bliss, because there was hope in it.
She had ceased to struggle, and was quiet in his arms. They stood so, many seconds, their hearts throbbing against each other, their cheeks pressed. In the unspeakable sweetness of his nearness, Harold felt against his face the moisture of a tear.
“What is it?” he whispered. “You are crying! For God’s sake, tell me why!”
A gentle little head-shake answered him; but she made no motion to draw herself away, and he, enraptured, held her close.
“There is nothing—nothingthat you cannot tell to me,” he said, still in that whisper that thrilled the silence of the room. “Perhaps you do not understand. Listen, and I will make it all plain. I loved you then. I love you now. I have loved you through all the pain and silence in between. Oh, dearest, never dream but that you are still my own—wholly and unchangeably as I am yours—if only you love me!”
She kept so still that he was puzzled. He made a motion to draw back his head and look at her, but she put up her hand and pressed his cheek still closer against hers. He passionately wished that she would speak; but there was no sound except that fluttered breathing, no motion but that little tremor which he felt against his side. She was weakening, weakening, weakening—he was sure of this; but he was in such an absolute terror of misunderstanding her mood that he dared not move or speak.
As they stood there so, he felt a sudden tightening of the pressure of her arms. They strained him close against her. His heart leaped; but he was not sure. There was something that alarmed him even in that clasp of love.
“Are you happy?” he whispered in the lowest murmur. But with a sudden wrench she tore herself away from him, and when he tried to follow, waved him back with a gesture which he could not disregard.
“Happy!” she said in a voice that mockedthe thought, as she wrung her hands together, and then, for a moment, hid her face in the curve of one tensely bended arm. “What have I to do with happiness?” she cried out, flinging wide her arms, and looking upward, as if appealing to some invisible presence rather than to him or to herself. “I had it given to me once in boundless measure, and I played with it, and tossed it from me. It was lightly and easily done, and now it cannot be undone.”
Harold stood where her imperious gesture had stopped him, and looked at her in consternation.
“What do you mean?” he said. “You will not try now to deny your love for me! You have owned it in that close embrace which can mean nothing but—”
“Good-by!” she interrupted him. “It means inevitable parting. You must go, or, if not, I must fly to some place where we cannot meet again.”
“But, dearest, we cannot part. I have told you how I love you in plain words. You have told me the same, without the need of words.”
She looked at him,—a deep, inscrutable gaze,—and shook her head.
“I have had perfect love once,” she said, “and from you—the one man whose love could ever have any meaning for me—love that included perfect trust, perfect confidence, perfect respect. I refuse to take from you a smaller thing. It is easier to give you up than to face that thought.”
“But Sonia! Darling! You have got that love! I tell you it is just the same!”
She shook her head.
“It cannot be,” she said. “You would feel that what had been once might be again. You could never feel secure for even one moment. I could not bear it. You must remember what I felt in that one embrace. Oh, Harold, Iwantyou to remember that! And now you must let me go.”
“Go?” he said. “Where should you go, but here to me—to your right place, your home, your husband?”
At this last word she gave a sharp cry. She had been standing unsupported, and now a sudden trembling seized her, and she half tottered toward a chair. In an instant he was at her side, his arms about her, fast and sure. It was too sweet, this strong and tender holding up of her weak body. She let it be, but she was motionless and wordless in his arms.
“My own child,” he said, “there can be no question as to our future now. It was all a mistake—the past! If we acknowledge it—”
“Oh, the past, the past!” she said. “I can never get away from it. We have lost two years. No matter if we had the whole future of time and eternity, we could never get those back—and it was I that did it! It is good of you to say that you forgive me; but I—oh, I never can forgive myself! You never can believe in me again. I dare not ask or look for it. I don’t deserve it. You would be wrong and foolish if you did.”
“Then wrong and foolish I will be!” he said. “I will believe in you again and again, forever! You have forgotten something, Sonia. There is no question of judgment between you and me, because you are myself. Do you not feel that that is so?”
She did not answer, and he said again, in that compelling tone she knew so well:
“Do you not feel it so, my wife?”
She raised to his, unswervingly, eyes that were clear as stars after their recent tears. She unveiled her soul to him as daringly as she had done yesterday, and the message that they gave him was the same—abundant, free, unstinted love, without reserve or fear.
He drew her quickly closer, still holding her eyes with his.
“Speak! Tell me!” he said.
Then voice and look together spoke:
“I love you, Harold—my husband!”
He took the dear words from her lips with his.
Afterward, when they were seated together on the model-throne, they were startled by a timid little tinkling, and as they both with a sense of compunction called to Inkling to come, and he sprang up between them quivering with joy, and making frantic efforts to lick both their faces at once, their laughs and struggles made such a commotion that they did not hear the door open, admitting Martha.
She half crossed the room, and then stood still, transfixed with amazement, till they drew her down between them and told her everything.
“Soyou are not a princess, after all!” said Martha.
“Oh, yes I am,” Sonia answered quickly. “I’m ‘The Happy Princess’—and this is my Prince!”