Part 12

"Do you think so?" said Elizabeth, with rather a dreary smile. "I think, for my part, that he would be harder to satisfy, he would exact all the more, because--he loved you." She sat pondering the idea for a moment, then with a careless little gesture, she seemed to dismiss the subject as a thing of small consequence. "It's much better not to try to satisfy people like that," she declared. "What a lot of time we are wasting! It must be time to dress." She got up and moved towards the door.

Mrs. Bobby followed her with her eyes. "I'll send Celeste to you," she said. "Wear your most becoming gown. Look your best, and do your hair the way I like it. I assure you, such trifles have their effect--even upon a paragon."

_Chapter XXI_

"Look my best!" Elizabeth repeated, standing before her muslin-skirted dressing-table, and staring at the haggard apparition that met her eyes. "Wear my most becoming gown, do my hair the most becoming way! It all sounds so easy. But what can bring back my color, what can take away these terrible dark rings, this horrible strained, anxious look? Any one can see, to look at me, that I've something on my mind....

"... I shall never tell him the truth--never, never. I may beat about the bush, but I shall always leave myself a loop-hole to crawl out of. And yet if I could only consult him--consult _some one_--find out what I really ought to do. But no, no, I don't dare risk it; it would be terrible to be advised--just the way I don't want. I must decide on some plan myself. But--Heaven knows what!" She stood for a while motionless, gazing helplessly into a mist of perplexities.

The little Sèvres clock on her mantel-piece roused her as it struck the hour, and she began hastily to dress. She drew the rippling waves of her hair into the fashion that Mrs. Bobby liked, she put on her favorite gown, a charming creation of white lace and chiffon, relieved by touches of pale green; she tried conscientiously to look her best, but still her cheeks were pale, there was the strained look in her eyes.

She was about ready when Mrs. Bobby's maid came to help her, bringing a box of flowers that had just that moment arrived. Celeste, a thrifty person, regarded them with some disgust. She could tell them, these gentlemen, that it was of little use to waste their money on Mademoiselle, who did not care about, sometimes hardly glanced at, the flowers which some other young lady would give her eyes to receive. Ah, well, that was the unequal way in which things in this world were arranged. Celeste disposed of the matter thus, with a philosophic French shrug of the shoulders.

But there was no counting on such a capricious person as Mademoiselle. To-night, as she glanced at the card in the box, she blushed beautifully, took out the flowers with care, and read with eager eyes the few lines that the giver had scrawled, apparently in great haste and in pencil:

"This afternoon I was unspeakably rude--even brutal. Forgive me--what right had I to take you to task for your actions? My only excuse is that I care--I can't help caring--so desperately. I send you white roses--they suit you best. You wore one that I gave you--do you remember?--but probably you don't--the first night I saw you. If you are very merciful, if you accept my repentance, wear one to-night--in token of forgiveness."

"In token of forgiveness?" Elizabeth pressed one of the exquisite, creamy-white roses against her glowing cheeks. "You wore one the first night I saw you--probably you don't remember?" Ah, yes, she remembered--but that was different. She could not wear one now. "Yet only in token of forgiveness?" With a quick, passionate gesture, she raised it to her lips, then fastened it carefully amidst the lace of her gown.

Celeste, whose presence she had forgotten, bent down discreetly, with a suppressed smile, to arrange the folds of her train. Ah, clearly, after all, there was one gentleman who did not waste his money on Mademoiselle.

"Madame wished Mademoiselle to look well to-night," she observed, after a moment. "I think Madame will be satisfied."

Mademoiselle glanced at herself again, and started as she looked. Could this brilliant young beauty, her small head proudly erect, her eyes brilliant, her cheeks aflame, be the same woman whose haggard reflection had stared back at her from the same mirror only half-an-hour before?

She did not feel like the same woman. The doubts, the fears, which had beset her then seemed mere chimeras, the fancies of a morbid brain. She felt gay, confident, strong enough to conquer even fate. Celeste was right--she looked her best. Mrs. Bobby's words rang in her ears. "Such trifles have their effect--even on a paragon." And then again--"He would think you perfect as you were if--he loved you." "No, he need not think me perfect," she murmured to her mirror, "but he must--he shall think me beautiful. And that is more to the point," she concluded, as she gathered up fan and gloves and left the room.

The opera that night was Carmen, which peculiarly suited her phase of mind. There is no other which so thoroughly embodies the spirit of recklessness, the triumph of the senses, the frank, impulsive, untrammeled enjoyment of life and of living. To be sure, there is the tragic ending--but before that, three acts of brilliant melody, glowing with color, with warm, sensuous pleasure.

Gerard was waiting in the box when they arrived. On the stage Carmen--that ideal Carmen of whom Mérimée dreamed and Bizet set to music--had just appeared upon the scene of Don Jose's misfortune, and was warbling, with bewitching abandon, the notes of the Habanera.

Gerard's face, which had an anxious look, brightened wonderfully, radiantly, as the two women entered the box. He murmured eagerly a few grateful words in Elizabeth's ear, and took the seat directly behind her, which he did not abandon, even though his predictions were justified, and Mrs. Van Antwerp's box was filled, after the first act, with men who looked anything but pleased at finding that particular place monopolized. Mrs. Bobby, however, seemed delighted to entertain them, was gracious, charming and piquante, and elicited from a stern dowager in the next box severe criticisms on the wiles of young married women, and their reprehensible manner of diverting to themselves the attention due to the young girls under their charge.

Elizabeth hardly noticed the men who entered the box. She sat with eyes fixed upon the stage, upon that intensely real music drama which she had seen many times already, but which never lost its fascination; yet acutely conscious all the while through every fibre of her being of Gerard's presence, of his watching her, of his bending over her, now and again, to murmur a word in her ear. And as for him, she had appealed to him most, perhaps, at least to a certain side of his nature, that afternoon in her pale languor; and yet he could not but feel his senses thrilled, his pulses throb, when she was so warmly, vividly, humanly beautiful as she was to-night. For the moment he was carried beyond himself, his doubts dispelled, or at least forgotten.

And yet, as the evening wore on, some subtle influence in the music or the play seemed to recall them. At the end of the second act she turned to him, the strains of the Toreador song still ringing in her ear, and felt, insensibly a sudden lack of sympathy, a cloud that seemed to have drifted between them. His brows were knit, his face moody.

"You don't like it!" she said, staring up at him with wondering, disappointed eyes.

"What, the opera?" He started as if his thoughts had been elsewhere. "No, I don't like it," he said, frankly. "It jars upon me somehow, brings up memories"--he paused. "Oh, it's some drop of Puritan blood, I suppose," he went on, impatiently, "that asserts itself in me. I can't view the thing from an artistic standpoint. I can't forget for a moment what a heartless creature the woman is. When I see her ruining men's lives, luring them on, turning from one to another--it's too realistic--there are too many women like that"--He was speaking low and bitterly, with a strange vehemence, but suddenly he broke off, with a short laugh. "Oh, it's absurd," he said, "to take a thing like that seriously."

Elizabeth did not smile. She leaned back in her chair as if she were suddenly weary. "Poor Carmen!" she said, in a low voice. "You're very hard on her." She held up her fan before her eyes, as if the light hurt them. A shadow seemed to fall upon her beauty, effacing its color and brilliance, bringing out again into strong relief the dark rings under the eyes, the lines about the mouth. She sat in silence for awhile, but suddenly she turned to him.

"I'm going to shock you, I'm afraid," she said, "but--do you know--somehow I can't help seeing the other side. What is a woman to do, if she changes against her will? Is she to abide always, inexorably, by the results of a mistake?" A note of passionate feeling thrilled her voice, she fixed her eyes anxiously, intently, upon Gerard. "There are so many questions that might arise," she went on, eagerly, as he did not answer at once. "One might, for instance, make a promise--a very solemn promise, and find out afterwards that it was--a mistake, that it would ruin one's whole life to keep it; and--and one might break it, and the other person might think himself very much injured; and yet--would you think the woman in that case so very much to blame?"

Gerard thought he understood. With the conviction came a sense of passionate relief, which yet he hesitated, with the fastidious scruples of a proud and honorable man, to grasp in its entirety.

"I--I don't think I'm competent to express an opinion," he said, in a low voice. "You should ask--some one else."

"There's no one else whom I can ask," she said quickly, and with her eyes always fixed imploringly upon him. "Tell me--what you think. What should a woman do in a case like that?"

"I--it's a difficult situation," he said, still holding under control his eager desire to advise her in the only way in which it seemed to him possible to advise her. But how could he trust his own judgment? "I"--he hesitated--"Personally," he said, "I can't imagine holding a woman to a promise that she has--repented of; but other men might--probably would feel differently."

"Yes," she said, sadly, "he--this man does."

"And you--the woman is quite sure she has made a mistake," he asked, eagerly.

"Yes, yes, quite sure," she said, quickly, "a terrible mistake."

"Then," said Gerard, and he drew a long sigh as of intense relief, "I don't think there could be two opinions on the subject. No one could advise you--this woman to ruin her life for a mistake, especially if the--the man were unworthy?" He looked at her questioningly.

"He seemed to her unworthy," she said, in a low voice.

"Then, for Heaven's sake," he asked, almost fiercely, "how can you hesitate?"

She did not speak, but turned her eyes towards the stage and again placed her fan so that it shielded them. All over the house there was the subdued rustle of people returning to their seats. The orchestra sounded the first notes of the third act, the curtain rose upon the gypsy camp. During Michaela's solo and the scene between the two men, Elizabeth still sat silent, her fan before her face. The act was well advanced before she turned to Gerard.

"Then," she said, "you would advise me to--to break my word?"

"Under the circumstances--yes," he said, steadily. "But don't," he went on quickly, and passionate vibration thrilled his voice, more unrepressed than ever before, "don't be guided by my opinion. In this particular case it is--impossible for me to judge impartially."

"Is it," she asked softly, and then added quickly, as if to avert an answer, "still, I'm glad to know your opinion. I feel sure you wouldn't say what you don't think. Thank you--thank you very much." Her tone was low and subdued, like that of a grateful child. She leaned back in her chair with a look of relief, that seemed both physical and mental. She did not speak again till near the end of the act, when Carmen reads her fortune in the cards. "I wonder," Elizabeth said then, softly, "what she sees in them."

"I had my fortune told once," she observed, turning to Gerard, as the curtain fell. "It was when I was at school, and I went with one of the girls to a famous palmist. He told me all sorts of strange, true things about the past, and about the future."--She paused.

"Well, about the future?" he asked, smiling. "One doesn't care about the past. But he predicted, no doubt, all sorts of delightful things about the future?"

"No." She stared thoughtfully before her with knit brows. "He said"--she spoke low and hesitatingly--"he said there was luck in my hand--plenty of it; I should have splendid opportunities. But--he said there was a line of misfortune, which crossed the other line and might make it utterly useless; that there was danger of some kind--he couldn't tell what, threatening me about my twenty-first year, and that, you know, is very near; he said there were strange lines--tragic, unusual,"--She stopped. "It sounds very ridiculous," but though she tried to smile, her voice trembled, "and yet--I remember it frightened me at the time, and does still--a little--when I think of it."

"But you don't surely," cried Gerard, "my dear child, you don't suppose he knew a thing about it?"

"I don't know. I believe I'm superstitious--are not you?"

"I'm afraid I am," he said, "but not about things like that. I've seen too many predictions of the kind prove false, to give them a thought."

"It _is_ foolish to worry about them," she admitted, but still she sat apparently deep in thought and played absently with her fan. At last she looked up with her most brilliant smile. "I don't know why it is," she said, "but we seem to be fated on unpleasant subjects. And yet the opera is so gay. Do let us try, for the rest of the evening, to think of pleasant things." She turned and held out her hand, smiling, to a man who entered the box. For the rest of the opera she was brilliant, animated, beautiful, as she had been at first.

"And now you are satisfied," she said, looking at Gerard with laughing eyes, as the curtain fell for the last time. "Carmen comes to a bad end. According to your principles! she deserved it."

"Ah, my principles!" he said, smiling. "I'm afraid I don't live up to them very much."

"Don't you?" She gave him a quick, searching glance, as he stood with her cloak in his hand. "I wish I could believe that," she murmured. "I should be a little less--afraid of you."

He placed the cloak about her shoulders. "It is I who am afraid of you," he whispered, bending over her, "and have been ever since I knew you."

Her eyes fell, and she fumbled nervously with the fastening of the cloak. "Ah, you were afraid of me?" she said, under her breath. "And now"--

"Oh, I've grown very brave," he murmured, as he followed her out of the box, "you can't frighten me away any longer." The jesting words lingered in her ear as they left the Opera House.

"Ah, if he knew!" she said to herself, as she sank into her corner of the carriage. "He doesn't know. And yet I told him the exact truth. It's not my fault, if he--misunderstood."

And Gerard meanwhile was telling himself that he understood it all.

"Poor child!" he murmured to himself, as he lit a cigar and sauntered slowly home. "So that was it. Of course, she thought she loved him--the first man she met, and when he turned up felt herself bound--I see it all! And she has suffered--had terrible pangs of conscience over this thing. And I who misjudged her all this time--imagined I don't know what--could I have advised her differently? Surely not. The fellow's not worthy of her. Neither am I. She won't look at me, probably. And yet--one can but try"--

_Chapter XXII_

It was mentioned generally, at various sewing-classes and other mild functions during Lent, that Julian Gerard was very attentive, all of a sudden, to Elizabeth Van Vorst. Some people, less accurate or more imaginative than the rest, went so far as to announce the engagement as an actual fact.

"And, if so, it's all Eleanor Van Antwerp's doing," Mrs. Hartington observed in private to her intimate friends. "She was determined to make the match from the beginning. I saw the way she threw the girl at his head at a dinner in the country, but I never for a moment thought she would succeed--with Julian Gerard of all men, who is so desperately afraid of being taken in."

Julian Gerard, by that time, had well-nigh forgotten that such a fear had ever disturbed him, or if he did remember it, it was to regard it, so far as Elizabeth was concerned, as profanation. Since that evening at the opera, his remorseful fancy had placed her on a pinnacle, which she found at times, it must be confessed, a little difficult to maintain. It was his misfortune and hers, that he could never view her in the right perspective, never realize that she was neither a saint nor the reverse, but merely a woman, and painfully human at that.

But since he chose to consider her a saint, she did her best to live up to the character. She kept Lent strictly that year as she had never done before, went to church morning and evening, denied herself bonbons and other luxuries, and worked with unskilled fingers but great diligence at certain oddly-constructed garments which were doled out to her and other young women every week as a Lenten penance, and incidentally for the good of the poor. If in most cases the actual penance fell to the lot of their maids, why, the poor were none the wiser, and certainly much the better clothed. But Elizabeth insisted on putting in all the painful stitches in the hard, coarse stuff herself, and looked very pretty bending over it, as Mr. Gerard thought when he came in one day and found her thus employed.

It pleased him, of course. He did not attach much importance, himself, to these things--this constant church-going, these small penances; yet, manlike, it seemed to him right and fitting that she should regard them differently. And then it was pleasant, after service, to meet her in the vestibule. How many incipient love affairs have been helped along, brought to a climax perhaps, by the convenient afternoon service, and the sauntering walks home in the lingering twilight!

To Elizabeth there was an indefinable charm in those ever-lengthening Lenten days, rung in and out to the music of church bells, and marked, as the season advanced and Easter approached, by the growing green of the grass, and the budding shoots of the trees, and the intangible feeling of spring in the air. That sense of dread, of impending misfortune, which had been for a short time almost unbearable, was lulled to sleep as by an opiate. She did not think of the past or the future, she simply drifted from day to day, and each of these was pleasanter than the last.

For one thing, she had grown hardened, indifferent almost to the constant meeting with Paul Halleck. She had kept her word and obtained for him all the invitations in her power, until he no longer needed her help. He was a great success. Mrs. Van Antwerp's informal little musicale had been only the first of a series of more elaborate ones, at which Halleck was often the chief attraction. Young girls admired him extremely. Elizabeth could hear him talking to them, just as he had once talked to her, about Swinburne and Rossetti and the last word in Art, and she saw that, like herself, they thought him very brilliant. It was an admiration which had tangible results, since it led to an interest in music, and a desire to take singing-lessons from the talented young barytone. Before long, he took a studio in Carnegie, near D'Hauteville's, and furnished it luxuriously, on the strength of his new prosperity. He was very much the fashion and absorbed in his success, and seldom had the time, or perhaps the inclination, to encounter Elizabeth's unflattering indifference. So for the most part he left her alone, to her intense relief.

One incident, a chance word, in a retrospect of that time, afterwards stood out in Elizabeth's mind, though at the moment it seemed to make but a slight impression.

It was one Sunday afternoon when a number of people, Paul Halleck among them, had dropped in to afternoon tea, and the conversation happened to turn upon palmistry. Elizabeth did not proffer her own experience. She listened silently to what the others said on the subject.

"I can't say I have implicit faith in it," observed Mrs. Bobby. "I was told by a fortune-teller that I should marry a dark man, who would beat me and treat me horribly; and as you see, I've married a fair man--who treats me pretty well on the whole."

Bobby, who was leaning against the mantel-piece his tea-cup in his hand, smiled serenely.

"Don't boast too soon, Eleanor," he said, lazily, "there's no knowing what brutal tendencies I may develop yet."

Mrs. Hartington, who was seated near him on a low chair, looked up into his face with a sympathetic smile. "Are you one of those long-suffering husbands who turn at last, Mr. Van Antwerp?" she asked, sweetly. "It would be good discipline, I think, for Eleanor not to have her own way _always_."

Bobby looked down at her coolly for a moment with his calm blue eyes. "No doubt, it would be good discipline for all of us, Mrs. Hartington," he said, in his pleasant, clear-cut tones, "but as my wife's way and mine are generally the same, I'm afraid I'm not likely to inflict it."

Mrs. Hartington looked down with an injured air, adding another to her list of grievances against her dear friend and neighbor, Eleanor Van Antwerp.

"I should never go to a common fortune-teller, my dear," she observed in a louder tone, for the benefit of the assembled company. "Yours was probably just an ignorant person. But I did go to ----, who, you know, charges a small fortune, and he told me the most extraordinary things. I have perfect confidence in him; every one I know thinks him quite infallible."

"Do they?" said Paul Halleck, suddenly turning from the piano. He shrugged his shoulders. "I devoutly hope you are mistaken," he said. "---- read my hand in Paris, and told me some very unpleasant things; among others that I was probably destined to a violent death. This year of my life, by the way--the twenty-seventh--was to be my fatal year."

He spoke half laughingly, but the words produced an effect. There was a general exclamation of horror, and Elizabeth, who was pouring tea, dropped the cup that she held in her hand. Julian Gerard, who was standing behind her, bent down to recover the fragments.

"It's odd," he said, as he placed them absently on the table, "his year of danger and yours seem to correspond." The words rose involuntarily to his lips, and an instant later he wished them unspoken.

She flushed a little, then grew pale. "Oh, I'm sorry you remembered that nonsense," she said. "I don't really believe in these things." But her hand trembled as she poured out the tea, glancing furtively at Halleck as she did so.

He was enjoying the sensation that his announcement had created. "Yes," he was saying, "if I live to be a year older, I am safe; but till then--Heaven knows what danger threatens me!" He shrugged his shoulders with a light laugh. The prediction did not seem to trouble him greatly. Elizabeth wondered if he had not invented it, for the sake of the effect. And then, involuntarily, the thought crossed her mind--what if it were really true, and the prediction were fulfilled? Such things had been known to happen--there might be something in it.... Quick as lightning the thought flashed through her mind of all that his death might mean to her--the merciful release, the solution of all difficulties.... Just for a moment the idea lingered, while the others talked, and she shuddered.