Chapter 6

How _could_ they all have sacrificed this beautiful young life between them! And he slashed off a tall green weed with his stick when he thought of Josiah Brown--his short, stumpy, plebeian figure and bald, shiny head, his common voice, and his pompousness--Josiah Brown, who had now the ordering of her comings and goings, who paid for her clothes and gave her those great pearls--who might touch her and kiss her--might clasp and caress her--might hold her in his arms, his very own, any moment of the day--or night! Ah, God! that last thought was impossible--unbearable.

And for one second Hector's eyes looked murderous as they glared into the distance--and Theodora glanced up timidly, and asked, in a sympathetic voice: What was it? What ailed him?

"Some day I will tell you," he said. "But not yet."

Then he asked her more about her family and her plans.

They would stay in London at Claridge's for a week or so, and go down to Bessington Hall for Whitsuntide. It would be ready for them then. Josiah had had it all furnished magnificently by one of those people who had taste and ordered well for those who could afford to pay for it. She was rather longing to see it, she said--her future home--and she could have wished she might have chosen the things herself. Not that it mattered much either way.

"I am very ignorant about houses," she explained, "because we never really had one, you see, but I think, perhaps, I would know what was pretty from museums and pictures--and I love all colors and forms."

He felt sure she would know what was pretty. How delightful it would be to watch her playing with his old home! The touches of her gentle fingers would make everything sacred afterwards.

At last they came to the end of the green glade--and temptation again assailed him. He _must_ ruffle the peace of her soft eyes once more.

"And here is the barrier," he said, pointing to a board with "_Terrain réservé_" upon it--_Réserveé pour la chasse de Monsieur le Président_, "The barrier which Love keeps--and I want to take him with us as the prince and princess did in the fairy tale."

"Then you must carry him all by yourself," laughed Theodora. "And he will be heavy and tire you, long before we get to Versailles."

This time she was on her guard--and besides they were walking--and he was no longer caressing the edge of her dress with his wild flower; it was almost easy to fence now.

But when they reached the automobile and he bent over to tuck the rug in--and she felt the touch of his hands and perceived the scent of him--the subtle scent, not a perfume hardly, of his coat, or his hair, a wild rush of that passionate disturbance came over her again, making her heart beat and her eyes dilate.

And Hector saw and understood, and bit his lips, and clinched his hands together under the rug, because so great was his own emotion that he feared what he should say or do. He dared not, dared not chance a dismissal from the joy of her presence forever, after this one day.

"I will wait until I know she loves me enough to certainly forgive me--and then, and then--" he said to himself.

But Fate, who was looking on, laughed while she chanted, "The hour is now at hand when these steeds of passion whose reins you have left loose so long will not ask your leave, noble friend, but will carry you whither they will."

XI

They were both a little constrained upon the journey back to Versailles--and both felt it. But when they turned into the Porte St. Antoine Theodora woke up.

"Do you know," she said, "something tells me that for a long, long time I shall not again have such a happy day. It can't be more than half-past five or six--need we go back to the Reservoirs yet? Could we not have tea at the little café by the lake?"

He gave the order to his chauffeur, and then he turned to her.

"I, too, want to prolong it all," he said, "and I want to make you happy--always."

"It is only lately that I have begun to think about things," she said, softly--"about happiness, I mean, and its possibilities and impossibilities. I think before my marriage I must have been half asleep, and very young."

And Hector thought, "You are still, but I shall awake you."

"You see," she continued, "I had never read any novels, or books about life until _Jean d'Agrève_. And now I wonder sometimes if it is possible to be really happy--really, really happy?"

"I know it is," he said; "but only in one way."

She did not dare to ask in what way. She looked down and clasped her hands.

"I once thought," she went on, hurriedly, "that I was perfectly happy the first time Josiah gave me two thousand francs, and told me to go out with my maid and buy just what I wished with it; and oh, we bought everything I could think Sarah and Clementine could want, numbers and numbers of things, and I remember I was fearfully excited when they were sent off to Dieppe. But I never knew if I chose well or if they liked them all quite, and now to do that does not give me nearly so much joy."

Soon they drew up at the little café and ordered tea, which he guessed probably would be very bad and they would not drink. But tea was English, and more novel than coffee for Theodora, and that she must have, she said.

She was so gracious and sweet in the pouring of it out, when presently it came, and the elderly waiter seemed so sympathetic, and it was all gay and bright with the late afternoon sun streaming upon them.

"The garçon takes us for a honeymoon couple," Hector said; "he sees you have beautiful new clothes, and that we have not yet begun to yawn with each other."

But Theodora had not this view of honeymoons. To her a honeymoon meant a nightmare, now happily a thing of the past, and almost forgotten.

"Do not speak of it," she said, and she put out her hands as if to ward off an ugly sight, and Hector bent over the table and touched her fingers gently as he said:

"Forgive me," and he raged within himself. How could he have been so gauche, so clumsy and unlike himself. He had punished them both, and destroyed an illusion. He meant that she should picture herself and him as married lovers, and she had only seen--Josiah Brown. They both fell into silence and so finished their repast.

"I want you to walk now," Hector said, "through some delicious allées where I will show you Enceladus after he was struck by the thunders of Zeus. You will like him, I think, and there is fine greensward around him where we can sit awhile."

"I was always sorry for him," said Theodora; "and oh, how I would like to go to Sicily and see Ætna and his fiery breath coming forth, and to know when the island quakes it is the poor giant turning his weary side!"

To go to Sicily--and with her! The picture conjured up in Hector's imagination made him thrill again.

Then he told her about it all, he charmed her fancy and excited her imagination, and by the time they came to their goal the feeling of jar had departed, and the dangerous sense of attraction--of nearness--had returned.

It was nearly seven o'clock, and here among the trees all was in a soft gloom of evening light.

"Is not this still and far away?" he said, as they sat on an old stone bench. "I often stay the whole morning here when I spend a week at Versailles."

"How peaceful and beautiful! Oh, I would like a week here, too!" and Theodora sighed.

"You must not sigh, beautiful princess," he implored, "on this our happy day."

The slender lines of her figure seemed all drooping. She reminded him more than ever of the fragment of Psyche in the Naples Museum.

"No, I must not sigh," she said. "But it seems suddenly to have grown sad--the air--what does it mean? Tell me, you who know so many things?" There was a pathos in her voice like a child in distress.

It communicated itself to him, it touched some chords in his nature hitherto silent. His whole being rushed out to her in tenderness.

"It seems to me it is because the time grows nearer when we must go back to the world. First to dinner with the others, and then--Paris. I would like to stay thus always--just alone with you."

She did not refute this solution of her sadness. She knew it was true. And when he looked into her eyes, the blue was troubled with a mist as of coming tears.

Then passion--more mighty than ever--seized him once more. He only felt a wild desire to comfort her, to kiss away the mist--to talk to her. Ah!

"Theodora!" he said, and his voice vibrated with emotion, while he bent forward and seized both her hands, which he lifted to his face--she had not put on her gloves again after the tea--her cool, little, tender hands! He kissed and kissed their palms.

"Darling--darling," he said, incoherently, "what have I done to make your dear eyes wet? Oh, I love you so, I love you so, and I have only made you sad."

She gave a little, inarticulate cry. If a wounded dove could sob, it might have been the noise of a dove, so beseeching and so pathetic. "Oh, please--you must not," she said. "Oh, what have you done!--you have killed our happy day."

And this was the beginning of his awakening. He sat for many moments with his head buried in his hands. What, indeed, had he done!--and they would be turned out of their garden of Eden--and all because he was a brute, who could not control his passion, but must let it run riot on the first opportunity.

He suffered intensely. Suffered, perhaps, for the first time in his life.

She had not said one word of anger--only that tone in her voice reached to his heart.

He did not move and did not speak, and presently she touched his hands softly with her slender fingers, it seemed like the caress of an angel's wing.

"Listen," she said, so gently. "Oh, you must not grieve--but it was too good to be true, our day. I ought to have known to where we were drifting, I am wicked to have let you say all you have said to-day, but oh, I was asleep, I think, and I only knew that I was happy. But now you have shown me--and oh, the dream is broken up. Come, let us go back to the world."

Then he raised his eyes to her face, and they were haggard and miserable.

How her simple speech, blaming herself who was all innocent, touched his heart and filled him with shame at his unworthiness.

"Oh, forgive me!" he pleaded. "Oh, please forgive me! I am mad, I think, I love you so--and I had to tell you--and yes, I will say it all now, and then you can punish me. From the first moment I looked into your angel eyes it has been growing, you are so true and so sweet, and so miles beyond all other women in the world. Each minute I have loved you more--and all the time I thought to win you. Yes, you may well turn away, and shrink from me now that you know the brute I am. I thought I would make you love me, and you would forgive me then. But I have suddenly seen your soul, my darling, and I am ashamed, and I can only ask you to forgive me and let me worship you and be your slave--I will not ask for any return--only to worship you and be your slave--that I may show you I am not all brute and may earn your pardon."

And then Theodora's blindness fell from her and she knew that she loved him--she had faced the fact at last. And all over her being there thrilled a mad, wild joy. It surged up and crushed out fear and pain--for just one moment--and then she too, in her turn, covered her face with her hands.

"Oh, hush! hush!" she said. "What have you done--what have we both done!"

It was characteristic of her that now she realized she loved him she did not fence any longer, she never thought of concealing it from him or of blaming him. They were sinners both, he and she equally guilty.

Another woman might have argued, "He is fooling me; perhaps he has said these things before--I must at least hide my own heart," but not Theodora. Her trust was complete--she loved him--therefore he was a perfect knight--and if he was wicked she was wicked too.

Her gentian eyes were full of tears as she let fall her hands and looked at him. "Oh yes, I have been asleep--I should have known from the beginning why, why I wanted to see you so much--I should never have come--and I should have understood in the wood that we could not leave it without bringing Love with us--and now we may not be happy any more."

And then it was his turn to be exalted with wild joy.

"Do you know what you have said," he whispered, breathless. "Your words mean that you love me--Theodora--darling mine." And once again passion blazed in his eyes, and he would have taken her in his arms; but she put up her hands and gently pushed him from her.

"Yes," she said, simply, "I love you, but that only makes it all the harder--and we must say good-bye at once, and go our different ways. You who are so strong and know so much--I trust you, dear--you must help me to do what is right."

She never thought of reproaching him, of telling him, as she very well could have done, that he had taken cruel advantage of her unsophistication. All her mind was full of the fact that they were both very sad and wicked and must help each other.

"I _cannot_ say good-bye," he said, "now that I know you love me, darling; it is impossible. How can we part--what will the days be--how could we get through our lives?"

She looked at him, and her eyes were the eyes of a wounded thing--dumb and pitiful, and asking for help.

Then the something that was fine and noble in Hector Bracondale rose up in him--the crust of selfishness and cynicism fell from him like a mask. He suddenly saw himself as he was, and she--as she was--and a determination came over him to grow worthy of her love, obey her slightest wish, even if it must break his heart.

He dropped upon his knees beside her on the greensward, and buried his face in her lap.

"Darling--my queen," he said. "I will do whatever you command--but oh, it need not be good-bye. Don't let me sicken and die out of your presence. I swear, on my word of honor, I will never trouble you. Let me worship you and watch over you and make your life brighter. Oh, God! there can be no sin in that."

"I trust you!" she said, and she touched the waves of his hair. "And now we must not linger--we must come at once out of this place. I--I cannot bear it any more."

And so they went--into an _allée_ of close, cropped trees, where the gloom was almost twilight; but if there was pain there was joy too, and almost peace in their hearts.

All the anguish was for the afterwards. Love, who is a god, was too near to his kingdom to admit of any rival.

"Hector," she whispered, and as she said his name a wild thrill ran through him again. "Hector--the Austrian Prince at Armenonville said life was a current down which our barks floated, only to be broken up on the rocks if it was our fate; and I said if we tried very hard some angel would steer us past them into smooth waters beyond; and I want you to help me to find the angel, dear--will you?"

But all he could say was that she was the angel, the only angel in heaven or earth.

And so they came at last to the Bason de Neptune, and on through the side door into the Réservoirs--and there was the widow's automobile that moment arrived.

XII

Every one behaved with immense propriety--they said just what they should have said, there was no _gêne_ at all. And when they went up the stairs together to arrange their hair and their hats for dinner, the elder woman slipped her arm through Theodora's.

"I am going to marry your father, my dear," she said, "and I want you to be the first to wish me joy."

The dinner went off with great gayety. The widow especially was full of bright sayings, and Captain Fitzgerald made the most devoted lover. Not too elated by his good-fortune, and yet thoroughly happy and tender. He continually told himself that fate had been uncommonly kind to mix business and pleasure so dexterously, for if the widow had not possessed a cent, he still would have been glad to marry her.

He had been quite honest with her on their drive, explaining his financial situation and his disadvantages, which he said could only be slightly balanced by his devotion and affection--but of those he would lay the whole at her feet.

And the widow had said:

"Now look here, I am old enough just to know what my money is worth--and if you like to put it as a business speculation for me, I consider, in buying the companion for the rest of my life who happens to suit me, I am laying out the sum to my own advantage."

After that there was no more to be said, and he had spent his time making love to her like any Romeo of twenty, and both were content.

All through dinner a certain strange excitement dominated Theodora. She felt there would be more deep emotion yet to come for her before the day should close.

How were they going back to Paris?

The moon had risen pure and full, she could see it through the windows. The night was soft and warm, and when the last sips of coffee and liqueurs were finished it was still only nine o'clock.

On an occasion when no personal excitement was stirring Captain Fitzgerald he probably would have hesitated about approving of Theodora spending the entire evening alone with Lord Bracondale. She was married, it was true--but to Josiah Brown--and Dominic Fitzgerald knew his world. To-night, however, neither the widow nor he had outside thoughts beyond themselves. Indeed, Mrs. McBride was so overflowing with joy she had almost a feeling of satisfaction in the knowledge that the others would possibly be happy too--when she thought of them at all!

Again she decided the situation for every one, and again fate laughed.

There was no use staying any longer at Versailles, because the park gates were shut and they could not stroll in the moonlight, but a drive back and a few turns in the Bois with a little supper at Madrid would be a fitting ending to the day.

"You must meet us at Madrid at half-past ten," she said; "and Dominic"--the name came out as if from long habit--"telephone for a table in the bosquet--Numero 3--I like that garçon best, he knows my wants."

And so they got into their separate automobiles.

"Let us have all the windows down," said Theodora, "to get all the beautiful air--it is such a lovely night."

Her heart was beating as it had never beat before. How could she control herself! How keep calm and ordinary during the enchanting drive! Her hands were cold as ice, while flaming roses burned in the white velvet cheeks.

And Hector saw it all and understood, and passion surged madly in his veins. For a mile or two there was silence--only the moonlight and the swift rushing through the air, and the wild beating of their hearts. And so they came to the long, dark stretch of wood by St. Cloud. And the devil whispered sophistries and fate continued to laugh. Then passion was too strong for him.

"Darling," he said, and his fine resolutions fled to the winds, while his deep voice was hoarse and broken. "My darling!--God! I love you so--beyond all words or sense--Oh, let us be happy for this one night--we must part afterwards I know, and I will accept that--but just for to-night there can be no sin and no harm in being a little happy--when we are going to pay for it with all the rest of our lives. Let us have the memory of one hour of bliss--the angels themselves could not grudge us that."

One hour of bliss out of a lifetime! Would it be a terrible sin, Theodora wondered, a terrible, unforgivable sin to let him kiss her--to let him hold her just once in his arms.

There was no light in the coupé--he had seen to that--only the great lamps flaring in the road and the moonlight.

She clasped her hands in an agony of emotion. She was but a dove in the net of an experienced fowler, but she did not know or think of that, nor he either. They only knew they loved each other passionately, and this situation was more than they could bear.

"Oh, I trust you!" she said. "If you tell me it is not a terrible sin I will believe you--I do not know--I cannot think--I--"

But she could speak no more because she was in his arms.

The intense, unutterable joy--the maddening, intoxicating bliss of the next hour! To have her there, unresisting--to caress her lips and eyes and hair--to murmur love words--to call her his very own! Nothing in heaven could equal this, and no hell was a price too great to pay--so it seemed to him. It was the supremest moment of his life; and how much more of hers who knew none other, who had never received the kisses of men or thrilled to any touch but his!

After a little she drew herself away and shivered. She knew she was wicked now--very, very wicked--but it was again characteristic of her that having made her decision there was no vacillation about her. The die was cast--for that night they were to be happy, and all the rest of her life should be penitence and atonement.

But to-night there was no room for anything but joy. She had never dreamed in her most secret thoughts of moments so gloriously sweet as these--to have a lover--and such a lover! And it was true--it must be true--that they had lived before, and all this passion was not the growth of one short week.

It seemed as if it was all her life, all her being--it could mean nothing now but Hector--Hector--Hector! And over and over again he made her whisper in his ear that she loved him--nor could she ever tire of hearing him say he worshipped her.

Oh, they were foolish and tender and wonderful, as lovers always are.

He had given his orders beforehand and the chauffeur was a man of intelligence. They drove in the most beautiful _allée_ when they came to the Bois--and no incident ruffled the exquisite peace and bliss of their time.

Suddenly Hector became aware of the fact it was just upon half-past ten, and they were almost in sight of Madrid, which would end it all.

And a pang of hideous pain shot through him, and he did not speak.

In the distance the lights blazed into the night, and the sight of them froze Theodora to ice.

It was finished then--their hour of joy.

"My darling," he exclaimed, passionately, "good-bye, and remember all my life is in your hands, and I will spend it in worship of you and thankfulness for this hour of yourself you have given to me. I am yours to do with as you will until death do us part."

"And I," said Theodora, "will never love another man--and if we have sinned we have sinned together--and now, oh, Hector, we must face our fates."

Her voice tore his very heartstrings in its unutterable pathos.

And in that last passionate kiss it seemed as if they exchanged their very souls.

Then they drove into the glare of the restaurant lights, having tasted of the knowledge of good and evil.

XIII

"What have I done? What have I done?" Hector groaned to himself in anguish as he paced up and down his room at the Ritz an hour after the party had broken up, and he had driven Mrs. McBride back in his automobile, leaving hers to father and daughter.

All through supper Theodora had sat limp and white as death, and every time she had looked at him her eyes had reminded him of a fawn he had wounded once at Bracondale, in the park, with his bow and arrow, when he was a little boy. He remembered how fearfully proud he had been as he saw it fall, and then how it had lain in his arms and bled and bled, and its tender eyes had gazed at him in no reproach, only sorrow and pain, and a dumb asking why he had hurt it.

All the light of the stars seemed quenched, no eyes in the world had ever looked so unutterably pathetic as Theodora's eyes, and gradually as they sat and talked platitudes and chaffed with the elderly fiancées, it had come to him how cruel he had been--he who had deliberately used every art to make her love him--and now, having gained his end, what could he do for her? What for himself? Nothing but sorrow faced them both. He had taken brutal advantage of her gentleness and innocence--when chivalry alone should have made him refrain.