Chapter 7

He saw himself as he was--the hunter and she the hunted--and the knowledge that he would pay with all the anguish and regret of a passionate, hopeless love--perhaps for the rest of his life--did not balance things to his awakened soul. If his years should be one long, gnawing ache for her, what of hers? And she was so young. His life, at all events, was a free one; but hers tied to Josiah Brown! And this thought drove him to madness. She belonged to Josiah Brown--not to him whom she loved--but to Josiah Brown, plebeian and middle-aged and exacting. He knew now that he ought to have gone away at once, the next day after they had met. His whole course of conduct had been weak and absolutely self-indulgent and wicked.

Who was he to dare to have raised his eyes to this angel, and try to scorch even the hem of her clothing! And now he had only brought suffering upon her and dimmed the light in God's two stars, which were her eyes.

And then wild passion shook him, and he could only live again the divine moments when she had nestled unresisting in his arms. Would it have made things better or worse if he had not yielded to the temptation of that hour of night and solitude?

After all, the sin was in making her love him, not in just holding her and kissing her lips. And at least, at least, they would have that exquisite memory of moments of unutterable bliss to keep for the rest of their lives.

His windows were wide open, and he leaned upon the balcony and gazed out at the moon. What good had all his life been? What benefit had he brought to any one? Then he seemed to see a clear vision of Theodora's short existence. Every picture she had unconsciously shown him was of some gentle thought of unselfishness for others.

And now he had laid a burden upon her shoulders, when he would not hurt a hair of her head--that dear, exquisite head which had lain upon his breast only two hours ago, and could never lie there again. He knew this was the end.

Then anguish and remorse seized him, and he buried his face on his crossed arms.

And Theodora staggered up to her room like one half dead. Mercifully Josiah Brown, had gone to bed, leaving a message with Henriette, Theodora's maid, that on no account was she to make any noise or disturb him.

Henriette adored her mistress--as who did not who served her?--and she felt distressed to see madame so pale. Doubtless madame had had a most tiring day. Madame had, and was thankful when at last she was left alone with her thoughts. Then she, too, opened wide the windows and gazed at the moon.

She had no cause for remorse for evil conduct like Hector. She had made no plans for the entrapping of any soul, and yet she felt forlorn and wicked. Oh yes, she was awake now and knew where she had been drifting. And so love had come at last, and indeed, indeed it meant life. This blast had struck her, and she had been blind in not recognizing it at once.

But oh, how sweet it was!--love--and it seemed as if it could make everything good and fair. If he and she who loved each other could have belonged to each other, surely they might have shed joy and gladness and kindness on all around.

Then she lay on her bed and did not try to reason any more; she only knew she loved Hector Bracondale with all her heart and being, and that she was married to Josiah Brown.

And what would the days be when she never saw him? And he, too, he would be sad--and then there was poor Josiah--who was so generous to her. He could not help being vulgar and unsympathetic, and her duty was to make him happy. Well, she could do that, she would try her very best to do that.

But thrills ran through her with the recollection of the moments in the drive to Paris--oh, why had no one told her or warned her all her life about this good thing love? At last, worn out with all emotions, sleep gently closed her eyes.

And fate up above laughed no more. Her sport was over for a time, she had made a sorry ending to their happy day.

XIV

Josiah had been too much fatigued on his machinery hunt with Mr. Clutterbuck R. Tubbs. They had lunched too richly, he said, and stood about too long, and so all the Sunday he was peevish and fretful, and required Theodora's constant attention. She must sit by his bedside all the morning, and drive round and round all the afternoon.

He told her she was not looking well. These excursions did not suit either of them, and he would be glad to get to England.

He asked a few questions about Versailles, and Theodora vouchsafed no unnecessary information. Nor did she tell him of her father's good-fortune. The widow had expressly asked her not to. She wished it to appear in the New York _Herald_ first of all, she said. And they could have a regular rejoicing at the banquet on Monday night.

"Men are all bad," she had told Theodora during their ante-dinner chat. "Selfish brutes most of them; but nature has arranged that we happen to want them, and it is not for me to go against nature. Your father is a gentleman and he keeps me from yawning, and I have enough money to be able to indulge that and whatever other caprices I may have acquired; so I think we shall be happy. But a man in the abstract--don't amount to much!" And Theodora had laughed, but now she wondered if ever she would think it was true. Would Hector ever appear in the light of a caprice she could afford, to keep her from yawning? Could she ever truly say, "He don't amount to much!" Alas! he seemed now to amount to everything in the world.

The unspeakable flatness of the day! The weariness! The sense of all being finished! She did not even allow herself to speculate as to what Hector was doing with himself. She must never let her thoughts turn that way at all if she could help it. She must devote herself to Josiah and to getting through the time. But something had gone out of her life which could never come back, and also something had come in. She was awake--she, too, had lived for one moment like in _Jean d'Agrève_--and it seemed as if the whole world were changed.

Captain Fitzgerald did not appear all day, so the Sunday was composed of unadulterated Josiah. But it was only when Theodora was alone at last late at night, and had opened wide her windows and again looked out on the moon, that a little cry of anguish escaped her, and she remembered she would see Hector to-morrow at the dinner-party. See him casually, as the rest of the guests, and this is how it would be forever--for ever and ever.

* * * * *

Lord Bracondale had passed what he termed a dog's day. He had gone racing, and there had met, and been bitterly reproached by, Esclarmonde de Chartres for his neglect.

_Qu'est-ce qu'il a eu pour toute une semaine?_

He had important business in England, he said, and was going off at once; but she would find the bracelet she had wished for waiting for her at her apartment, and so they parted friends.

He felt utterly revolted with all that part of his life.

He wanted nothing in the world but Theodora. Theodora to worship and cherish and hold for his own. And each hour that came made all else seem more empty and unmeaning.

Just before dinner he went into the widow's sitting-room. She was alone, Marie had said in the passage--resting, she thought, but madame would certainly see milord. She had given orders for him to be admitted should he come.

"Now sit down near me, beau jeune homme," Mrs. McBride commanded from the depths of her sofa, where she was reclining, arrayed in exquisite billows of chiffon and lace. "I have been expecting you. It is not because I have been indulging in a little sentiment myself that my eyes are glued shut--you have a great deal to confess--and I hope we have not done too much harm between us."

Hector wanted sympathy, and there was something in the widow's directness which he felt would soothe him. He knew her good heart. He could speak freely to her, too, without being troubled by an over-delicacy of _mauvaise honte_, as he would have been with an Englishwoman. It would not have seemed sacrilege to the widow to discuss with him--who was a friend--the finest and most tender sentiments of her own, or any one else's, heart. He drew up a _bergère_ and kissed her hand.

"I have been behaving like a damned scoundrel," he said.

"My gracious!" exclaimed Mrs. McBride, with a violent jerk into a sitting position. "You don't say--"

Then, for the first time for many years, a deep scarlet blush overspread Hector's face, even up to his forehead--as he realized how she had read his speech--how most people of the world would have read it. He got up from his chair and walked to the window.

"Oh, good God!" he said, "I don't mean that."

The widow fell back into her pillows with a sigh of relief.

"I mean I have deliberately tried to make her unhappy, and I have succeeded--and myself, too."

"That is not so bad then," and she settled a cushion. "Because unhappiness is only a thing for a time. You are crazy for the moon, and you can't get it, and you grieve and curse for a little, and then a new moon arises. What else?"

"Well, I want you to sympathize with me, and tell me what I had better do. Shall I go back to England to-morrow morning, or stay for the dinner-party?"

"You got as far, then, as telling each other you loved each other madly--and are both suffering from broken hearts, after one week's acquaintance."

"Don't be so brutal!" pleaded Hector.

And she noticed that his face looked haggard and changed. So her shrewd, kind eyes beamed upon him.

"Yes, I dare say it hurts; but having broken up your cake, you can't go on eating it. Why, in Heaven's name, did you let affairs get to a climax?"

"Because I am mad," said Hector, and he stretched out his arms. "I cannot tell you how much I love her. Haven't you seen for yourself what a darling she is? Every dear word she speaks shows her beautiful soul, and it all creeps right into my heart. I worship her as I might an angel, but I want her in my arms."

Mrs. McBride knew the English. They were not emotional or _poseurs_ like some other nations, and Hector Bracondale was essentially a man of the world, and rather a whimsical cynic as well. So to see him thus moved must mean great things. She was guilty, too, for helping to create the situation. She must do what she could for him, she felt.

"You should pull yourself together, mon cher Bracondale," she said; "it is not like you to be limp and undecided. You had better stay for the party, and make yourself behave like a gentleman, and how you mean to continue. We have passed the days when 'Oh no, we never mention him' is the order, and 'never meeting,' and that sort of thing. You are bound to meet unless you go into the wilds. And you must face it and try to forget her."

"I can never forget her," he said, in a deep voice; "but, as you say, I must face it and do my best."

"You see," continued the widow, "the girl has only been married a year, and her husband is the most unattractive human being you could find along a sidewalk of miles; but he is her husband, anyway, and she may have children."

Hector clinched his hands in a convulsive movement of anguish and rage.

"And you must realize all these possibilities, and settle a path for yourself and stick to it."

"Oh, I couldn't bear that!" he said. "It would be better I should take her away myself now, to-day."

"You will do no such thing!" said the widow, sternly, and she sat up again. "You forget I am going to marry her father, and I shall look upon her as my daughter and protect her from wolves--do you hear? And what is more, she is too good and true to go with you. She has a backbone if you haven't; and she'll see it her duty to stick to that lump of middle-class meat she is bound to--and she'll do her best, if she suffers to heart-break. It is she, the poor, little white dove, that you and I have wounded between us, that I pity, not you--great, strong man!"

Mrs. McBride's eyes flashed.

"Oh, you are all the same, you Englishmen. Beasts to kill and women to subjugate--the only aims in life!"

"Don't!" said Hector. "I am not the animal you think me. I worship Theodora, and I would devote my life and its best aims to secure her happiness and do her honor; but don't you see you have drawn a picture that would drive any man mad--"

"I said you had to face the worst, and I calculate the worst for you would be to see her with some little Browns along. My! How it makes you wince! Well, face it then and be a man."

He sat for a moment, his head buried in his hands--then--

"I will," he said, "I will do what I can; but oh, when you have the chance you will be good to her, won't you, dear friend?"

"There, there!" said the widow, and she patted his hand. "I had to scold you, because I see you have got the attack very badly and only strong measures are any good; but you know I am sorry for you both, and feel dreadfully, because I helped you to it without enough thought as to consequences."

There was silence for a few minutes, and she continued to stroke his hand.

"Dominic has run down to Dieppe to see those daughters of his," she said, presently, "and won't be back to-night. I meant to be all alone and meditate and go to bed early; but you can dine with me, if you wish, up here, and we will talk everything over. Our plans for the future, I mean, and what will be best to do; I kind of feel like your mother-in-law, you know." Which sentence comforted him.

This woman was his friend, and so kind of heart, if sometimes a little plain-spoken.

* * * * *

And late that night he wrote to Theodora.

"My darling," he began. "I must call you that even though I have no right to. _My_ darling--I want to tell you these my thoughts to-night, before I see you to-morrow as an ordinary guest at your dinner-party. I want you to know how utterly I love you, and how I am going to do my best with the rest of my life to show you how I honor you and revered you as an angel, and something to live for and shape my aims to be worthy of the recollection of that hour of bliss you granted me. Dearest love, does it not give you joy--just a little--to remember those moments of heaven? I do not regret anything, though I am all to blame, for I knew from the beginning I loved you, and just where love would lead us. But it was not until I saw the peep into your soul, when you never reproached me, that I began to understand what a brute I had been--how unworthy of you or your love. Darling, I don't ask you to try and forget me--indeed, I implore you not to do so. I think and believe you are of the nature which only loves once in a lifetime, and I am world-worn and experienced enough to know I have never really loved before. How passionately I do now I cannot put into words. So let us keep our love sacred in our hearts, my darling, and the knowledge of it will comfort and soothe the anguish of separation. Beloved one, I am always thinking of you, and I want to tell you my vision of heaven would be to possess you for my wife. My happiest dream will always be that you are there--at Bracondale--queen of my home and my heart, darling. _My_ darling! But however it may be, whether you decide to chase away every thought of me or not, I want you to know I will go on worshipping you, and doing my utmost to serve you with my life.--For ever and ever your devoted lover."

And then he signed it "Hector," and not "Bracondale."

The widow had promised to give it into Theodora's own hand on the morrow.

He added a postscript:

"I want you to meet my mother and my sister in London. Will you let me arrange it? I think you will like Anne. And oh, more than all I want you to come to Bracondale. Write me your answer that I may have your words to keep always."

* * * * *

Mrs. McBride came round in the morning to the private hotel in the Avenue du Bois, to ask the exact time of the dinner-party, she said. She wanted to see for herself how things were going. And the look in Theodora's eyes grieved her.

"I am afraid it has gone rather deeply with her," she mused. "Now what can I do?"

Theodora was unusually sweet and gentle, and talked brightly of how glad she was for her father's happiness, and of their plans about England; but all the time Jane McBride was conscious that the something which had made her eyes those stars of gracious happiness was changed--instead there was a deep pathos in them, and it made her uncomfortable.

"I wish to goodness I had let well alone, and not tried to give her a happy day," she said to herself.

Just before leaving, she slipped Hector's letter into Theodora's hand. "Lord Bracondale asked me to give you this, my child," she said, and she kissed her. "And if you will write the answer, will you post it to him to the Ritz."

All over Theodora there rushed an emotion when she took the letter. Her hands trembled, and she slipped it into the bodice of her dress. She would not be able to read it yet. She was waiting, all ready dressed, for Josiah to enter any moment, to take their usual walk in the Bois.

Then she wondered what would the widow think of her action, slipping it into her dress--but it was done now, and too late to alter. And their eyes met, and she understood that her future step-mother was wide awake and knew a good many things. But the kind woman put her arm round her and kissed her soft cheek.

"I want you to be my little daughter, Theodora," she said. "And if you have a heartache, dear, why I have had them, too--and I'd like to comfort you. There!"

XV

The dinner-party went off with great éclat. Had not all the guests read in the New York _Herald_ that morning of Captain Fitzgerald's good-fortune? He with his usual _savoir-vivre_ had arranged matters to perfection. The company was chosen from among the nicest of his and Mrs. McBride's friends.

The invitations had been couched in this form: "I want you to meet my daughter, Mrs. Josiah Brown, my dear lady," or "dear fellow," as the case might be. "She is having a little dinner at Madrid on Monday night, and so hopes you will let me persuade you to come."

And the French Count, and Mr. Clutterbuck R. Tubbs and his daughter, Theodora had asked herself. Also the Austrian Prince. The party consisted of about twenty people--and the menu and the Tziganes were as perfect as they could be, while the night might have been a night of July--it happened to be that year when Paris was blessed with a gloriously warm May.

Lord Bracondale was late: had not the post come in just as he was starting, and brought him a letter, whose writing, although he had never seen it before, filled him with thrills of joy.

Theodora had found time during the day to read and reread his epistle, and to kiss it more than once with a guilty blush.

And she had written this answer:

"I have received your letter, and it says many things to me--and, Hector, it will comfort me always, this dear letter, and to know you love me.

"I have led a very ordinary life, you see, and the great blast of love has never come my way, or to any one whom I knew. I did not realize, quite, it was a real thing out of books--but now I know it is; and oh, I can believe, if circumstances were different, it could be heaven. But this cannot alter the fact that for me to think of you much would be very wrong now. I do love you--I do not deny it--though I am going to try my utmost to put the thought away from me and to live my life as best I can. I do not regret anything either, dear, because, but for you, I would never have known what life's meaning is at all--I should have stayed asleep always; and you have opened my eyes and taught me to see new beauties in all nature. And oh, we must not grieve, we must thank fate for giving us this one peep into paradise--and we must try and find the angel to steer our barks for us beyond the rocks. Listen--I want you to do something for me to-night. I want you not to look at me much, or tempt me with your dear voice. It will be terribly hard in any case, but if you will be kind you will help me to get through with it, and then, and then--I hardly dare to look ahead--but I leave it all in your hands. I would like to meet your mother and sister--but when, and where? I feel inclined to say, not yet, only I know that is just cowardice, and a shrinking from possible pain in seeing you. So I leave it to you to do what is best, and I trust to your honor and your love not to tempt me beyond bearing-point--and remember, I am trying, trying hard, to do what is right--and trying not to love you.

"And so, good-bye. I must never say this again--or even think it unsaid; but to-night, oh! Yes, Hector, know that I love you! THEODORA."

And all the way to Madrid, as he flew along in his automobile, his heart rejoiced at this one sentence--"Yes, Hector, know that I love you!"

The rest of the world did not seem to matter very much. How fortunate it is that so often Providence lets us live on the pleasure of the moment!

He sat on her left hand--the Austrian Prince was on her right--and studiously all through the repast he tried to follow her wishes and the law he had laid down for himself as the pattern of his future conduct.

He was gravely polite, he never turned the conversation away from the general company, including her neighbors in it all the time, and only when he was certain she was not noticing did he feast his eyes upon her face.

She was looking supremely beautiful. If possible, whiter than usual, and there was a shadow in her eyes as of mystery, which had not been there before--and while their pathos wrung his heart, he could not help perceiving their added beauty. And he had planted this change there--he, and he alone. He admired her perfect taste in dress--she was all in pure white, muslin and laces, and he knew it was of the best, and the creation of the greatest artist.

She looked just what _his_ wife ought to look, infinitely refined and slender and stately and fair.

Morella Winmarleigh would seem as a large dun cow beside her.

Then suddenly they both remembered it was only a week this night since they had met. Only seven days in which fate had altered all their lives.

The Austrian Prince wondered to himself what had happened. He had not been blind to the situation at Armenonville, and here they seemed like polite hostess and guest, nothing more.

"They are English, and they are very well bred, and they are very good actors," he thought. "But, mon Dieu! were I ce beau jeune homme!"

And so it had come to an end--the feast and the Tziganes playing, and Theodora will always be haunted by that last wild Hungarian tune. Music, which moved every fibre of her being at all times, to-night was a torture of pain and longing. And he was so near, so near and yet so far, and it seemed as if the music meant love and separation and passionate regret, and the last air most passionate of all, and before the final notes died away Hector bent over to her, and he whispered:

"I have got your letter, and I love you, and I will obey its every wish. You must trust me unto death. Darling, good-night, but never good-bye!"

And she had not answered, but her breath had come quickly, and she had looked once in his eyes and then away into the night.

And so they shook hands politely and parted. And next day Mr. and Mrs. Josiah Brown crossed over to England.

XVI

It was pouring with rain the evening Lord Bracondale arrived from Paris at the family mansion in St. James's Square. He had only wired at the last moment to his mother, too late to change her plans; she was unfortunately engaged to take Morella Winmarleigh to the opera, and was dining early at that lady's house, so she could only see him for a few moments in her dressing-room before she started.