Part 10

“The last will is in your favour,” he replied. “Everything is left to you unconditionally. This house--all my client’s property--her real and personal estate. Everything in short.”

Anne turned a shade paler. She did not understand, but she was aware that the little grey-haired man before her, was making what seemed to him at least, an important announcement.

At the end of half-an-hour’s conversation, she followed him to the door, still unable to grasp the significance of his words.

“The will, as I say, is most simple,” he remarked. “Everything is quite straightforward, and we ought to be able to get the whole thing through speedily. In the meantime, I congratulate you, Miss Page,” he added dryly. “Apart from the income, Fairholme Court is a most delightful residence.” He glanced about him. “Most delightful,” he added.

Anne shook hands with him, and went slowly back to the library.

Dinner was served as usual by the quiet maids, whose demeanour since the death of their mistress, had assumed an added shade of decorous gravity.

They liked Anne, and their manner towards her expressed a kindliness and sympathy for which she was grateful.

To-night, she scarcely noticed their solicitude, and the dishes they set before her were taken away almost untasted.

She wandered into the library again after her lonely meal, and began to pace the floor aimlessly.

From time to time, she took a book from one of the shelves, opened it, glanced at a page that was meaningless, and unconscious of her action, replaced the volume.

The dry monotonous voice of the lawyer, re-echoed in her brain. He was saying words which signified nothing.

“Your income will amount to between four and five thousand a year.”

Out of a mass of detail, it was only this she remembered, and at present it conveyed nothing to her mind.

She was conscious only of a feeling of loving gratitude that her friend had cared for her. Of what that care implied, in those first hours she realized nothing. She could only think of her last words at the station.

“If I get better, it will be for the pleasure of seeing you again.”

Her eyes filled with tears as she remembered them.

Gradually the hours wore on. The servants went to bed, and the house was silent. Mechanically Anne piled fresh logs on the fire, and at last conscious of exhaustion from her ceaseless pacing of the room, she sank into a chair, and held her hands to the blaze.

She was a rich woman now, the lawyer had said so.

What did that mean? With all her strength Anne tried to translate the statement into comprehensible terms.

First of all, it surely meant freedom from anxiety. No weary heart-breaking toil for a bare existence. No painful counting of hard-earned shillings.

Then,--for the first time Anne felt a definite thrill of pleasure,--it meant the power to help her brother. Hugh should be made happy if money could compass it.

And afterwards? Well, the realization of some of her day-dreams. She could travel. The wonderful material world need no longer be a mirage, a prospect viewed only by the eye of faith and imagination. She might become the possessor of many beautiful things. Pictures, books, furniture, dress. She would have the power to help people; to relieve misery; to do some tangible good. Money was a talisman to unlock some of the exquisite secrets of the world.

Anne paused. Her thoughts, clear at last, and swiftly moving, were suddenly arrested.

Her wealth might do all this, but there was one joy it could not buy, and missing this, all the rest, all the wonders it could work, seemed dust and ashes. Dead Sea fruit. The time for love was gone, and it had become the one impossible, unattainable desire of her whole being.

Missing it, she would miss the meaning of existence.

The pageant of the world might be revealed, but it would be seen under the grey skies of common day; for ever unillumined by the light that never was on land or sea.

Again in her heart there rose the fierce pain, the sickening hunger she had experienced when for the first time in her life, she had seen the eyes of happy lovers.

Swiftly in bitter mockery, her memory placed her once more in the rose-garden, where a week ago René had kissed her hands, and spoken to her in the shaken voice she had never heard from a man’s lips before.

If only she had been the girl to whom he ought to have been pleading! If only she had felt the right to say she loved him too. If only she had been the girl she longed to be, the wisdom of the wise would have seemed an idle song. She would have given him her love, freely, generously, without counting the cost, and the future might have taken care of itself.

But as it was----

Suddenly Anne rose to her feet. The colour surged up into her face; the warm blood raced through her body. She put her trembling fingers on the mantelpiece, to steady herself, and stood looking down into the fire.

As it was--why not?

She felt bewildered, dazed, giddy with the thought that had come to her, as emerging from a dark passage, one staggers in the glare of a brilliantly lighted room. Through the dazzling incoherency of her idea, she clung to one certainty.

If René was not in love with her as she understood love, he was at least drawn to her as a man is drawn irresistibly to a woman. He had been in her hands that night. She could have done as she pleased with him.

Anne knew her power at last, and deliberately, for his sake, she had not used it. He had gone away. He would forget, of course--unless----Slowly she sank into her chair, and sat thinking.

She thought through all her life. She thought of the never-ending days of childhood and youth, unlighted by any happiness, any hope; the dreary days which had killed at last even her dreams.

She thought of Hugh and his wife in a distant colony, happy, regardless of her, unmindful, unless she wrote to them, of her very existence.

She thought of the heart of despair which she had brought back to this very room six months ago, of the dumb certainty that life for her had been, was, and ever would be, empty of all gifts, of all delight. And then of the wonderful months that had just passed. Wonderful, because of all she had learnt of others--and of herself.

She remembered the diffident shrinking creature, who for shyness could scarcely lift her eyes to the men she regarded with awe, as dwellers in another world, whether gods or devils she did not know.

She could have smiled as she thought of them now.

They were neither gods nor devils, but weak human beings like herself. Weaker than herself, since they were young, impressionable clay in the hands of the potter.

And one of them loved her.

She leant forward in her chair, and covered her face with her hands.

A week ago, it had been an obscure penniless woman who had found courage to arrest an impending declaration of love.

To-day, the same woman,--she was rich, her own mistress, independent, free.

With a wondering sense of the simplicity of the matter, Anne saw herself at liberty to take a step the very existence of which, till to-night, she had not perceived.

She sat immovable, staring into the fire, thinking. In the silence of the sleeping house she looked at facts face to face, and made her decision. Here was she, Anne Page, not only a rich woman and her own mistress, but practically alone in the world. Life had hitherto offered her nothing. Now if she had courage to take it, a great if brief happiness was within her reach. She loved, and was beloved. Too late, as she had thought. But was it after all too late? Again Anne reflected while the fire upon which her unseeing eyes were fixed, leapt and sang softly to itself. Not if she could find the further courage to buy her happiness at a great price. To take it while it lasted, and of her own accord relinquish it before it had ceased to be happiness.

For as she thought and planned Anne saw clearly, as only a woman who is leaving her youth behind, can see clearly--without illusions, with only stern facts to guide her.

René Dampierre was young. Naturally, inevitably, sooner or later, he would turn to youth for love, and she must not stand in his way.

But because of this, could she not even for a little while know the joy which was every woman’s birthright?

If she were willing to pay for it, why not? Whatever happened, whatever misery was in store, at least she paid alone. She involved no one in her debt.

A cynic might have smiled at the simplicity of her reasoning. Not one thought of her changed circumstances entered into her reflections. She did not consider that Anne Page the penniless companion was a very different being from Anne Page the lady of great means. To her mind it only affected the situation in so far that it gave her freedom; made it possible for her to follow her own course without burdening man, woman, or child. It was only courage that was necessary. Courage to stake high, and not to shrink when sooner or later the odds should turn against her.

She measured her strength, and made her decision.

The little clock on the mantelpiece struck three, with a shrill silvery clamour. Anne started, and glanced round the familiar room with a shock of surprise, as though she had been long away, and was astonished to find it there.

As she rose slowly to her feet, her reflection in the glass above the chimney-piece also startled her.

It seemed to her that for ages she had been out of the body also.

She met absorbed blue eyes in a face pale but transfigured by an inner excitement and a great hope.

She saw a mouth sweet and tremulous, and a tall figure; very graceful, really beautiful; and suddenly she smiled.

“It’s not absurd. Not yet,” was the certainty that suddenly filled her with triumphant joy.

XV

Early in November, Dampierre burst one morning into Fontenelle’s studio. They worked in the same house in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, René on the top floor, François two flights lower down.

He looked up as his friend came in.

“Yes. I know. She’s coming,” he said, without ceasing to paint. “This background’s the very devil. It’s all wrong in tone.”

“How did you know?”

François nodded towards a side table. “There’s her note.”

Dampierre found it amongst a litter of brushes and palettes.

“Yes,” he said glancing over it, “she says the same thing to me. She feels she wants a change, so she’s shut up the house for a time, and she’ll stay in Paris possibly on her way elsewhere. That’s all she tells me.”

“The old lady must have left her some money,” observed François, still apparently engrossed with his background. “Looks as though it’s rather more than enough to keep body and soul together, doesn’t it?”

“Oh, do shut up, and leave that damned picture alone, and be sympathetic!” exclaimed René, irritably.

His eyes were bright, and he laughed rather excitedly.

“I know you’re sick she’s coming. But I can’t stand your wisdom any longer. I’m glad, do you hear? Glad. Glad. _Glad!_ And there’s an end of it.”

“Pardon me, but that’s just what it’s not,” returned Fontenelle.

“Very well then, it isn’t. And I don’t care. I only know I want to see her again,--horribly. And she’ll be here to-night, thank goodness, and I’m going to meet her at the station.”

François shrugged his shoulders, and continued to paint.

“Where’s her hotel? Oh, the Impérial. She’s got that out of Baedeker.” He laughed.

“Come now, François. Own that sweet Anne Page in Paris will be rather nice!”

“You’d better ask her to tea here to-morrow. Your place is even more of a pig-sty than mine. We shall see Dacier and Thouret at the _Lilas_ this evening. We can ask them then.”

“All right. But I’m not going to have you about all the time mind!”

“You won’t,” returned his friend briefly. “I can’t stand fools.”

René’s face darkened for a moment, but the retort died on his lips.

“Look here, old man,” he urged. “Don’t be a beast. I’m serious.”

“_Tant pis_,” was François’ implacable reply.

But when next day Anne was actually in his studio, and he heard her voice, and saw her smile, and listened to the laughing clamour around her, as she sat in the only armchair that was not broken, and drank execrable tea out of a cup which did not match its saucer, it was difficult even for Fontenelle to be anything but gay and pleased.

With an odd mixture of sensations, he noticed how fair her skin looked against her black dress. The fur she wore on her shoulders was also exceedingly becoming. François, who as a painter of many women’s portraits knew something of the cost of feminine apparel, looked at it with a certain surprise. Either the old lady had been fairly generous, or Anne in her one day’s shopping, had been disgracefully extravagant. In either case the result was admirable. He emerged from his reflections to find a furious discussion raging as to which restaurant she should be taken to dine.

“_Café de la Régence_,” said François authoritatively, “and afterwards we’ll drive back to the _Lilas_.”

* * * * *

It was several days before Anne found herself alone with René.

He came to her hotel one morning, and carried her off to lunch with him at a little restaurant in the neighbourhood of his studio.

“You have such a devoted body-guard, that I never get a word with you,” he complained. “And I want you to see my pictures. We must get in before the light goes. It gets so confoundedly dark in the afternoons now.”

Later on in the great gaunt studio at the top of the pile of buildings in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs, Anne stood before some of the pictures which in after years were to fetch great sums from art collectors, which were to be discussed by connoisseurs, to be execrated, loved, praised, condemned, admired.

She did not see them. For her at the moment, they were non-existent.

One thing only was in her mind; one idea, and that in the form of a question.

How should she accomplish what she had come to do?

This was the first time René had deliberately sought her alone, and in the circumstance, without malice, she divined the influence of François Fontenelle.

He had meant to be careful. He had meant to see her only in the presence of others, but,--she knew him so well that she could have smiled,--to-day he had thrown prudence to the wind.

Tenderness was in his voice, in his eyes, even while he kept tender words from his lips.

It grew dusk while she lingered. The blue of twilight filled the windows, and a ruddy gleam from the stove lay along the floor. Anne sat down on the couch, and René settled cushions at her back.

His hand touched her arm, and for a moment it rested there, before he turned abruptly away.

Earlier in the day, Anne had spoken of returning to Dymfield.

“You mustn’t go yet,” he broke out all at once. “You won’t leave Paris yet?”

The words were an appeal, and his voice was not steady.

“I came to see you,” said Anne deliberately.

He turned to her sharply. It was too dark to see his face, but she heard the anxiety in his tone.

“All of us--or me?”

“To see you.”

He threw himself on his knees beside her. “Anne,” he whispered, “stay. I want you. Will you marry me?”

He had taken her hands and was holding them tight against his breast.

“No, René.”

The words were decisive, but she made no effort to release herself, and her hands rested quietly in his.

“Sit here, beside me,” she said, moving a little on the couch. “I want to talk to you.”

Wondering at something in her voice, he obeyed in silence, and she went on speaking, still very quietly.

“I won’t marry you, dear, because I’m too old for you. I will never marry you. But if you want me, I will stay.”

In his amazement, he let her hands drop, and bent forward to see her face.

Quite quietly, Anne got up. “It’s very dark,” she said. “I’ll light the candles. I saw where you put the matches.”

He watched her in a sort of stupor as she went to a side table for the matches, and lighted one after another of the candles in a sconce on the opposite side of the room.

Did she know what she had said? Had he understood her?

He sat staring at her as she reached up to the sconce, the movement throwing into relief the lines of her beautiful figure.

When the last candle was lighted, she turned to him smiling.

“No. You haven’t misunderstood me,” she said. “Now you can see my face you will know you have not.”

She came swiftly across the room, and sat down beside him.

“Listen, René. I will not marry you, for many reasons. Two months ago I was prepared never to see you again. But things have altered. I haven’t told you yet, but all my circumstances have changed. I’m a rich woman now, and my life is my own, to do what I like with it. And because I love you, I propose to give it to you, for a little while at least. As long as you want me. Until----”

Her voice, quite calm and quiet at first, broke at the last words, and she paused abruptly.

René sprang to his feet, and drew her quickly up from the sofa into his arms.

“Anne!” he cried. “Sweet Anne Page!” the words came brokenly between tremulous laughter. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You will marry me, of course, because we love each other, because----”

She put one hand on his shoulder, and so kept him at arm’s length.

“I will never marry you,” she repeated. “If you won’t consent to let me stay as I suggest, I shall say good-bye to you now, and I will not see you again.

“Remember René, you’re not talking to a girl. You’re dealing with a woman who knows her own mind, and will have this or nothing. If I stay we both have perfect freedom. I am old enough to do what I please with my life. And I please to do this. René,” for the first time the colour came to her cheeks, and her eyes wavered, “you’ll make me shy if I have to ask you so many times to let me stay.”

She looked suddenly so like a child as she spoke, that in spite of his perplexed amazement, Dampierre smiled.

He kissed her soft hair, and then her lips. “You’re adorable,” he murmured. “But you amazing woman, you’re an _enfant terrible_! What am I to do with you?”

“Don’t you see how simple it is?” she asked. “I’m rich now, so I can stay as long as you--as long as I please.” She altered the pronoun hurriedly. “And you have plenty of money, too, René, haven’t you? I mean that we are each quite independent. It makes it all so easy.”

He laughed again as the only expression of his otherwise inexpressible emotions.

She was as guileless, as simple as a child. Yet she was proposing----Good God, what was she not proposing? And above all she meant what she proposed; meant it absolutely. He looked into her eyes, and knew that no words of his would move her.

“But Anne, Anne!” he stammered. “You’re saying awful things. Not from my point of view, but as an Englishwoman. _Mon Dieu!_ as an Englishwoman with the fear of Mrs. Grundy if not the fear of God before her eyes!”

She looked at him, and his words, which amazement and uncertainty had made flippant, died before the sadness of her glance.

“You don’t understand,” she said. “Nobody troubles about me. Nobody has ever troubled. I have never been happy all my life. And now when I could have happiness without hurting any one, why must I give it up because of a world in which I have no concern?” She paused a moment, and looked at him uncertainly.

“You think I ought to feel I’m doing wrong? Perhaps I ought. But I _don’t_ feel it, René. I should be doing wrong if I married you, because----” She left the sentence unfinished, forbearing to tell him that he would some day thank her for his freedom.

“Don’t argue about it,” she said, smiling, though her eyes were full of tears. “It’s my last word. If you won’t agree, I shall go back to Dymfield to-morrow.”

“No. Don’t let us waste time now, at any rate,” he exclaimed eagerly. “We shall have plenty of time to talk and argue. Just now I’m too absurdly happy!”

He drew her down beside him on the sofa, and covered her eyes with kisses.

“Anne! do you know what a sweet thing you are? No, of course you don’t know, and that’s what make you so delicious!”

Even while she thrilled from head to foot with an almost unbearable happiness, Anne remembered the price at which it was bought, and told herself that it was not too dear.

“I only know I’m happy,” she whispered. “But I’m afraid of waking up and finding it’s a dream.”

* * * * *

Again and again, through the years as they passed, her own words came back to her.

In the summer evenings at Dymfield, she thought of them. When she travelled, they often came to her as she stood before some picture in church or gallery. She thought of them sometimes at night, when on some Italian terrace she sat watching the sunset.

To-day she remembered them, as she walked home through the sunshine, and mounted the stately Spanish steps towards her apartment on the heights.

“Twenty years ago!” She repeated the words to herself in wonder.

“It was a beautiful dream, and thank God, I never waked.”

XVI

Dr. Dakin was spending the night in town on his way to Paris.

For the previous fortnight, urged not so much by the impressive hints concerning his duty thrown out by Mrs. Carfax, as by a curious change in his wife’s letters to him, he had been on thorns of impatience to join her in Paris, and bring her home.

The serious illness of a patient, an exasperating case which always seemed on the point of mending, only to sink into another relapse, kept him prisoner.

Not till the previous day had he considered it safe to telegraph for the doctor he had engaged to look after his practice during his own absence, and a still further delay had been occasioned by the necessity of meeting this man in London to explain the peculiar nature of the case under treatment.

Leaving his hotel in the evening, he walked westward in search of a place to dine, meditating in a troubled fashion as he walked. His wife had been away more than three months, and he had made no effort to recall her. The visit, accepted ostensibly at least, partly on the ground of her health, was in any case to have been a long one. Then followed the plea of the cure which a certain well-known physician had prescribed, and again her husband had agreed to her wishes. He told himself to be patient. After his talk with Miss Page, he had been full of hope. But it would not do to annoy Madge by bringing her home again before she wished to come. It would be wiser to let her tire of Paris, and then when she returned, he would take the advice of a wise and charming woman, and perhaps there might yet be happiness for Madge,--and for him too.

So he had waited, forcing himself to self-control through his hourly longing for her.

At first, for many weeks, her letters were discouraging;--hurried and indifferent. She was enjoying Paris. She felt better, or not so well. They were the letters of a woman who writes perfunctorily, from a sense of duty. Quite lately they had altered, and though the change in them filled him with delight, it was joy mingled with uneasiness. They were hysterical letters, composed of vague self-reproaches about her selfish neglect of him, mingled with terms of endearment, and assertions of her own unworthiness.

Fatal letters to write to a man who possessed a trace of cynicism, or of what is commonly called knowledge of the world, but to the simple mind of her husband, they suggested only alarming fears for her bodily health. He must go and fetch her home immediately. Poor little Madge! In the midst of his anxiety, he was not insensible of a thrill of joy at the thought that from whatever cause, her heart had turned to him.

With this thought in his mind, he again dismissed as an impertinence, a letter he had lately read containing more than a hint that his wife’s protracted stay in Paris was due to a certain bad influence exercised upon her in the past.