Part 12

“I?” She had cried out as sharply as though he had struck her, and then sat very still, fighting her way back to composure, inch by inch. When she spoke again her voice was very low, incredibly controlled.

“You are implying something that is too monstrous for sanity. May I ask what motive--what possible motive, however abominable--you think that I could have had for wrecking my husband’s career?”

He had whispered, “Oh, God forgive me, what motive had Antony’s Egypt? What motive have any of you for flaunting your power over us? You crack the whip, and we go crashing through the hoop of our dreams, smashing it--smashing it for ever.”

She had risen then, sweeping him from brow to heel with her unrelenting eyes.

“How you know us!” His heart had sickened under that terrible small laugh, cold as frozen water. And she had turned to the door, her head high. “If you can think such things of me--if you can even dream them--your presence here is simply an insult to us both. I must ask you to leave. And unless you realize the grotesque madness of your accusation, I must ask you not to come here again. That releases you from dinner to-morrow night, naturally. I don’t think that there is anything more to be said.”

No, there had been nothing more to be said--nothing. He could not remember how he had got himself out of the house--he could not remember anything save a dull nightmare of vacillation and despair, that had finally driven him back to the little room, whipped and beaten, ready to capitulate on any terms--ready for any life that would buy him a moment’s happiness. And now--now she would not come, even to accept his surrender. He turned from the mantel violently, and felt his heart contract in swift panic. A man was watching him intently from the other end of the room--a man with a hateful, twisted face--he caught his breath in a shaken laugh. Those damned nerves of his would wreck him yet! It was only his reflection in the cloudy Venetian mirror; the firelight and candlelight played strange tricks with it, shadowing it grotesquely--still, even looked at closely, it was nothing to boast of. He stood contemplating it grimly with its tortured mouth and haunted eyes--and then suddenly the air was full of violets. He turned slowly, a strange peace holding his tired heart. She had come to him; nothing else would ever matter again.

She was standing in the doorway, a little cloud of palest gray. It was the first time that he had seen her in light colours, and she had done something to her hair--caught it up with a great sparkling comb--it shone like pale fire. Her arms were quite full of violets--the largest ones that he had ever seen, like purple pansies. He stood drinking her in with his tired eyes, not even looking for words. It was she who spoke.

“Bridget told me that you were here. I thought that you were not coming to-night.”

He shook his head, with a torn and lamentable smile. “You said--until I realized my madness. Believe me--believe me, I have realized it, Lilah.”

She came slowly into the room, but the nearer she came to him the farther she seemed away, secure in her ethereal loveliness, her velvet eyes turned to ice.

“You have realized it, I am afraid, too late. There are still two tables of bridge upstairs; I have only a few minutes to give you. Was there anything that you wished to say?”

He shook his head dumbly, and she sank into the great chair, stifling a small yawn perfunctorily.

“Oh, I’m deathly tired. It’s been a hideous evening, from beginning to end. Come, amuse me, good tragedian, make me laugh just once, and I may forgive you. I may forgive you, even though you do not desire it.” Again that fleeting smile, exquisite and terrible.

But O’Hara was on his knees beside her.

“Delilah, don’t laugh, don’t laugh--I’m telling you the laughter is dead in me. I’d rather see you weeping for the poor, blind fool who lost the key to Paradise.”

“Who threw it away,” she amended, touching the violets with light fingers. “But never forget, it’s better not to have set your foot within its gates than to be exiled from it. Never forget that, my tragedian.”

He raised his head, haggard and alert. “Lilah, what do you mean?”

“Why, nothing--only Lucia Dane was here for dinner and she thought it--strange--that you and I should be the gossip of Washington these days. When she had finished with what you had said to her, I thought it strange, too. And I assured her that there would be no more cause for gossip.”

“I was mad when I talked to that little fool,” he told her fiercely. “Clean out of my head trying to fight off your magic. That was the first night--the first night that I owned to myself that I loved you.”

“Your madness seems to be recurrent,” she murmured. “You should take measures against it.”

“I have taken measures. It shall never touch you again. I know now that it has simply been an obsession--a hallucination--anything in Heaven or Hell that you want to call it. You have all my trust, all my faith.”

“It is a terrible thing not to trust a woman,” she said. “More terrible than you know. Sometimes it makes her unworthy of trust.”

“Not you,” he whispered. “Never.”

“We’re delicate machinery, tragedian. Touch a hidden spring in us with your clumsy fingers and the little thing that was ticking away as faithfully and peacefully as an alarm-clock stops for a minute--and then goes on ticking. Only it has turned to an infernal machine--and it will destroy you.”

She was silent for a moment, her fingers resting lightly on that bowed head. When she spoke again her voice was gentle. “Last night, after you had gone, I remembered what you had said about Antony and his Egypt, and I found the play. Parts of it still go singing through my head. They loved each other so, those two magnificent fools. He finds her treacherous a hundred times, and each time forgives her, and loves her again--and she repays him beyond belief--far, far beyond power and treachery and death. Do you remember his cry in that first hour of his disaster?

“‘O, whither hast thou led me, Egypt?’

“And when she weeps for pardon, how he tells her

“‘Fall not a tear, I say: one of them rates All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss, Even this repays me.’

“Though she has ruined him utterly--though he sees it and cries aloud

“‘O this false soul of Egypt! this grave charm,-- Whose eye becked forth my wars, and called them home, Like a right gipsy hath at false and loose Beguiled me to the very heart of loss.’

“Still, still his last thought is to reach her arms.

‘I am dying, Egypt, dying, only I here importune death awhile, until Of many thousand kisses the poor last I lay upon thy lips.’”

“Why, he was well repaid,” said that strange, humble voice.

“I am glad that you feel that,” Delilah told him, and she rose swiftly. “Would you like to kiss me? You see, I have ruined you.”

O’Hara stumbled to his feet.

“What are you saying?” he whispered, a dreadful incredulity driving the words through his stiffened lips.

“That I have ruined you. I have sent your notes on the Irish situation to the other party.”

“You are mad.”

“No, no.” She shook her head reassuringly. “Quite sane. I didn’t address them in my own handwriting, naturally. The envelope is typewritten, but the notes are in long-hand; yours. The English Government will be forced to believe that for once it has misplaced its trust--but Ireland should pay you well--if she lives through civil war.”

“By God----” His voice failed him for a moment. “This is some filthy dream.”

“No dream, believe me.” She came closer to him, radiant and serene. “Did you think that I was a yellow-headed doll, that you could insult me beyond belief, mock me to my friends, slander me to the Committee of which I was a member? Monsieur De Nemours was good enough to warn me against you, also. I am no doll, you see; I happen to be a woman. We have not yet mastered that curiously devised code that you are pleased to term Honour--a code which permits you to betray a woman but not a secret--to cheat a man out of millions in business but not out of a cent at cards. It’s a little artificial, and we’re ridiculously primitive. We use lynch-law still; swift justice with the nearest weapon at hand.”

O’Hara was shaking like a man in a chill, his voice hardly above a whisper. “What have you done? What have you done, Delilah?”

“Don’t you understand?” She spoke with pretty patience, as though to some backward child. “I have ruined you--you and your Ireland, too. I sent----”

And suddenly, shaken and breathless, she was in his arms.

“Oh, Ireland--Ireland and I!” But even at that strange cry she never stirred. “It’s you--you who are ruined, my Magic--and it’s I who have done it, driving you to this ugly madness.” He held her as though he would never let her go, sheltering the bowed golden head with his hand. “Though I forgive you a thousand thousand times, how will you forgive yourself, my little Love? You who would not hurt a flower, where will you turn when you see what you have done?”

He could feel her tears on his hand; she was weeping piteously, like a terrified child.

“Oh, you do love me, you do love me! I was so frightened--I thought that you would never love me.”

He held her closer, infinitely careful of that shining fragility.

“I love nothing else.”

“Not Ireland?”

He closed his hunted eyes, shutting out Memory.

“I hated Ireland,” wept the small voice fiercely, “because you loved her so.”

“Hush, hush, my Heart.”

“But you do--you do love me best?”

“God forgive me, will you make me say so?”

There was a moment’s silence, then something brushed his hand, light as a flower, and Delilah raised her head.

“No, no, wait.” She was laughing, tremulous and exquisite. “Did you think--did you think that I had really sent your notes?”

O’Hara felt madness touching him; he stared down at her, voiceless.

“But of course, of course, I never sent them. They are upstairs; wait, I’ll get them for you--wait!”

She slipped from his arms and was half way to the door before his voice arrested her.

“Lilah!”

“Yes?”

“You say--that you have not sent the notes?”

“Darling idiot, how could you have thought that I would send them? This is Life, not melodrama!”

“You never--you never thought of sending them?”

“Never, never.” Her laughter rippled about him. “I wanted to see----”

But he was groping for the mantel, sick and dizzy now that there was no need of courage. Delilah was at his side in a flash, her arms about him.

“Oh, my dear!” He had found the chair but she still clung to him. “What is it? You’re ill--you’re ill!”

Someone was coming down the stairs; she straightened to rigidity, and was at the door in a flash.

“Captain Lawrence!”

The young Englishman halted abruptly--wheeled.

“Captain Lawrence, Mr. O’Hara is here; he had to see me about some papers, and he has been taken ill. He’s been overworking hideously lately. Will you get me some brandy for him?”

“Oh, I say, what rotten luck!” He lingered, concern touching his pleasant boyish face. “Where do I get the brandy, Mrs. Lindsay?”

“Ask Lucia Dane, she knows how to get hold of the maids. And hurry, will you?”

She was back at his side before the words had left; he could feel her fingers brushing his face like frightened butterflies, but he did not open his eyes. He was too mortally tired to lift his lids.

“Here you are, Mrs. Lindsay. Try this, old son. Steady does it.”

He swallowed, choked, felt the warm fire sweep through him, tried to smile, tried to rise.

“No, no, don’t move--don’t let him move, Captain Lawrence.”

“You stay where you are for a bit, young feller, my lad. Awfully sorry that I have to run, Mrs. Lindsay, but they telephoned for me from the Embassy. Some excitement about Turkey, the devil swallow them all. Good-night--take it easy, O’Hara!”

“Oh, Captain Lawrence!” He turned again. “Have you the letter that I asked you to mail?”

“Surely, right here. I’ll post it on my way over.”

“Thanks a lot, but I’ve decided not to send it, after all.” She stretched out her hand, smiling. “It’s an article on women in public life, and it’s going to need quite a few changes under the circumstances.”

“The circumstances?”

“Yes. You might tell them at the Embassy--if they’re interested. I’m handing in my resignation on the International Committee to-morrow.”

O’Hara gripped the arm of his chair until he felt it crack beneath his fingers. Captain Lawrence was staring at her in undisguised amazement.

“But I say! How in the world will they get along without you?”

“Oh, they’ll get along admirably.” She dismissed it as easily as though it were a luncheon engagement. “That young Lyons is the very man they need; he’s really brilliant and a perfect encyclopædia of information. I’ll see you at the Embassy on Friday, won’t I? Good-night.”

Her arms were about O’Hara before the hall door slammed.

“You’re better now? All right? Oh, you frightened me so! It wasn’t that foolish trick of mine that hurt you? Say no, say no--I couldn’t ever hurt you!”

“Never. I should be whipped for frightening you.” His arms were fast about her, but his eyes were straying. What had she done with that letter? He had caught a glimpse of it, quite a bulky letter, in a large envelope, with a typewritten address--typewritten.

“Have you noticed my hair?” The magic voice was touched with gayety again, and O’Hara brushed the silken mist with his lips, his eyes still seeking. “I remembered what you said, you see; it grows most awfully fast--one of these days it will be as long as Rappunzel’s or Melisande’s. Will you like it then?”

Ah, there it was, face down on the lacquer table. He drew a deep breath.

“Lilah, that letter--what did you say was in that letter?”

There was a sudden stillness in the room; he could hear the painted clock ticking clearly. Then she spoke quietly:

“It’s an article that I have written on women in public life. Didn’t you hear me telling Captain Lawrence?”

“Will you let me see it?”

Again that stillness; then, very gently, Delilah pushed away his arms and rose.

“No,” she said.

“You will not?”

“No.” The low voice was inflexible. “I know what you are thinking. You are thinking that those are the Irish notes; that I had fully intended to send them this evening; that it was only an impulse of mine that saved you, as it would have been an impulse that wrecked you. You are thinking that next time it may fall differently. And you are willing to believe me guilty until I am proved innocent. You have always been that--always.”

He bowed his head.

“I could hand you that envelope and prove that I am entirely innocent, but I’ll not purchase your confidence. It should be a gift--oh, it should be more. It is a debt that you owe me. Are you going to pay it?”

O’Hara raised haggard eyes to hers.

“How should I pay it?”

“If you insist on seeing this, I will show it to you; but I swear to you that I will never permit you to enter this house again; I swear it. Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

“If you will trust me, I will give you your notes, love you for the rest of my life--marry you to-morrow.” She went to the table, picked up the envelope, and stood waiting. “What shall I do?”

He rose unsteadily, catching at the mantel. No use--he was beaten.

“Will you get me the notes?”

He saw her shake then, violently, from head to foot, but her eyes never wavered. She nodded, and was gone.

He stood leaning against the mantel, his dark head buried in his arms. Beaten! He would never know what was in that envelope--never, never. She could talk to all Eternity about faith and trust; he would go wondering all his life through. If he had stood his ground--if he had claimed the envelope and she had been proven innocent, he would have lost her but he would have found his faith. He had sold his soul to purchase her body. The painted clock struck once, and he raised his head----

No, no, he was mad. She was right--entirely, absolutely right--she was just and merciful, she who might have scourged him from her sight for ever. What reason in heaven or earth had he to distrust her? Because her voice was silver and her hair was gold? Because violets scattered their fragrance when she stirred? Oh, his folly was thrice damned. If he had a thousand proofs against her, he should still trust her. What was it that that chap Browning said?

“What so false as truth is False to thee?”

That was what love should be--not this sick and faltering thing----

“Here are the notes,” said Delilah’s voice at his shoulder, and her eyes added, wistful and submissive: “And here am I.”

O’Hara took them in silence, his fingers folding them mechanically, measuring, weighing, appraising. The envelope could have held them easily----

She turned from him with a little cry.

“Oh, you are cruel, cruel!”

He stood staring at her for a moment--at the small, desolate figure with its bowed head, one arm flung across her eyes like a stricken child--and suddenly his heart melted within him. She was weeping, and he had made her weep. He took a swift step toward her, and halted. In the mirror at the far end of the room he could see her, dimly caught between firelight and candlelight, shadowy and lovely--in the mirror at the far end of the room she was smiling, mischievous and tragic and triumphant. He stared incredulously--and then swept her to him despairingly, burying his treacherous eyes in the bright hair in which clustered the invisible violets.

HER GRACE

The first time that the Black Duke saw her she was laughing--and the last time that he saw her she was laughing, too.

He and a ruddy-faced companion had fared forth doggedly into the long summer twilight in quest of some amusement to dispel the memory of the extravagantly gloomy little dinner that they had shared at the club, followed by a painful hour over admirable port and still more admirable cigars. It was August, and London was empty as a drum of the pretty faces and pretty hats and pretty voices that made it tolerable at times--it was as dry and dusty as life itself, and John Saint Michael Beauclerc, ninth Duke of Bolingham, tramping along the dull street beside a dull comrade, thought to himself with a sudden alien passion that youth was a poor thing to look back on, and age an ugly thing to look forward to, and middle age worse than either. He scowled down magnificently from his great height at the once-gregarious Banford, whose flushed countenance bore the consternation of one who has made a bad bargain and sees no way out of it--no duke lived who was worth such an evening, said Gaddy Banford’s hunted eyes. This particular duke eyed him sardonically.

“Close on to nine,” he said. “Well, then, what time does this holy paragon do her turn?”

“About nine,” replied his unhappy host. “But, I say, you know, I don’t want to drag you around if you’d rather not. She’s frightfully good in her line, but if dancing bores you----”

“You’re dashed considerate all at once,” remarked his guest. “If I haven’t cracked by now, I fancy I’ll live through the best dancing of the century. That’s what you called it, wasn’t it? Here, you!”

He waved an imperious hand at a forlorn hansom clattering down the silent street, and it jolted to a halt under one of the gas lamps. For it was not in this century that the Duke of Bolingham met Miss Biddy O’Rourke. No, it was in a century when hansom cabs and gas lamps were commonplaces--when ladies wore bonnets like butterflies on piled-up ringlets, and waltzed for hours in satin slippers and kid gloves two sizes too small for them--when gentlemen cursed eloquently but noiselessly because maidens whisked yards of tulle and tarlatan behind them when they danced--a century of faded flowers and fresh sentiments and enormous sleeves--of conservatories and cotillions and conventions--of long, long letters and little perfumed notes--of intrigues over tea tables, and coaching parties to the races, and Parma violets, and pretty manners, and broken hearts. A thousand years ago, you might think, but after all it was only around the corner of the last century that the Duke of Bolingham stepped into the decrepit hansom closely followed by his unwilling retainer, and in no uncertain tones bade the driver proceed to the Liberty Music Hall.

He sat cloaked in silence while they drove, his heavy shoulders hunched up, his eyes half closed, brooding like a despoiled monarch and a cheated child over the sorry trick that life had played him. He had had everything--and he had found nothing worth having. He had the greatest fortune in England--and one of the greatest names. He had Beaton House, the Georgian miracle that was all London’s pride--and Gray Courts, that dream of sombre beauty, that was all England’s pride--Gray Courts that even now held his three tall, black-browed sons who could shoot and hunt and swear as well as any in the country--yes, even fourteen-year Roddy. That held, too, a collection of Spanish and Portuguese armour second to none, and a collection of Van Dykes first of any, and the finest clipped yew hedge in a thousand miles. That held the ladies Pamela, Clarissa, Maud, and Charlotte, his good sisters, too acidulous to find a husband between them, for all their great dowers and name and accomplishments. That for six long years had held the Lady Alicia Honoria Fortescue, a poor, sad, dull little creature, married in a moment of pity and illusion when they were both young enough to know better, who had gone in mortal terror of him from the night that they crossed the threshold of the Damask Room to the day that they laid her away under the kind marble in the little chapel.

He sat huddled in the corner of the hansom, remembering with the same shock of sick amazement his despair at the discovery of her fear of him; it still haunted every tapestried corridor of Gray Courts--every panelled hall in Beaton House--he set his teeth and turned his head, and swore that he would take the next boat to France and drink himself to death in Cannes. And the hansom cab stopped.

Gaddy Banford had two seats in the first row of stalls; had ’em for every night that the lady danced, he informed the duke with chastened pride. The duke, trampling over the outraged spectators with more than royal indifference, eyed him grimly.

“Spend the rest of your valuable time hanging round the stage door, what?” he inquired audibly.

Five of the outraged spectators said “Sh-s-h,” and the duke, squaring about in his seat, favoured them with so black a glance that the admonitions died on their lips and apologies gathered in their eyes. Banford smiled nervously and ingratiatingly.

“Oh, rather not--no, no, nothing of that kind whatever. She doesn’t go in for stage-door meetings, you know. I’ve had the honour of meeting the lady twice and she’s most frightfully jolly and all that, but----”

“Sh-h-h,” enjoined one rebellious spirit, studiously avoiding the duke’s eye. That gentleman remarked “Ha!” with derisive inflection and turned a contemptuous eye on the stage. A very large and apparently intoxicated mouse was chasing a small and agitated cat with rhythmic zest, the two having concluded the more technical portion of their programme, in which they had ably defended against all comers their engaging title of the “Jolly Joralomons, Europe, Asia, Africa, and America’s Most Unique and Mirth Compelling Acrobats, Tumblers, and Jugglers.” The Jolly Joralomons scampered light-heartedly off, rolling their equipment of bright balls before them with dexterous paws, and capered back even more light-heartedly to blow grateful kisses off the tips of their whiskers to an enraptured audience, with which the Duke of Bolingham was all too obviously not in accord.

“Gad!” he remarked with appalled conviction. “Death’s too good for them! Here, let’s get out of this while I’ve got strength----”