Part 9

"You must not believe a word of what I have said; you don't, do you? And now, I must go to Eva. The dear child will be so delighted to know you are here."

She threw herself into her sister's arms and kissed her tenderly several times.

Gabrielle stood petrified. She had long guessed that there was no more happiness in her sister's home, but she had not had the least idea that things had gone so far as to lead Dora to despise Philip. Gabrielle had always felt a mixture of love and admiring respect for her sister; in her estimation, Dora was the ideal woman; so much superior to all the other women she had known, that she could not believe that the pedestal upon which she had placed her could possibly crumble to atoms.

Dora returned after a few minutes. She seemed uneasy, still more upset than she had been when she left the drawing-room.

"Eva is asking for you," she said to Gabrielle; "she complains of sore throat now, and appears to be feverish, but I hope it is nothing worse than a cold coming. Go and sit with the dear child. If she should grow worse during the evening, send for the doctor at once. I trust her to your hands."

Kissing Gabrielle once more, she tried to smile, and added--

"Don't distress yourself about me. I shall be able to join you presently. General Sabaroff has, I hope, enough tact to make him feel the awkwardness of the situation. He will retire at once. There, go now, dear."

Dora, as soon as Gabrielle had left the drawing-room, was seized with an intangible terror. Doubt and uncertainty had undermined her spirits. She no longer felt her usual dauntless courage. She was afraid of being alone, afraid of the unknown, afraid of the man who, at any moment, might enter the room; but, above all, was her thought for the child. "My poor little treasure! going to be ill perhaps!" A horrible thought flashed across her mind and wrung a cry from her lips. "Oh, no, no, my God, not _that_! no, not if there is justice in heaven!" Calming herself with an effort, she went on, "Ah, if it was not for the child, I would leave this house to-day, I would go no matter where, take a few brushes, and earn my bread with them. It would be hard if I could not turn my work to some account and lead a life independent of everyone. Oh to live anywhere, to live anyhow, dear Heaven, rather than go on with this existence which revolts me and is crushing me! Oh, how lonely it is! how silent the house is! The very air chokes me--where is Philip now? What has happened that he is not here? What is he doing? Oh, my head burns so! I will send up for Gabrielle--no, she must stay with Eva. What to do? Send a telegram to Lorimer, and ask him to come quickly?--no, I should have to give explanations. Beg the General to excuse me; tell him I am not well and am obliged to retire."

She was interrupted in her reflections by the entrance of a servant who brought a telegram. Feverishly she broke open the envelope and read: "Missed nine o'clock train, started at noon, and will be with you at eight o'clock."

She looked at the timepiece. It was ten o'clock, and Philip had not yet arrived. The telegram was from Dover. What could have happened since? "Then, Philip may perhaps not be here at all to-night," she said to herself; "I shall be forced to pass the rest of the evening with General Sabaroff. Is it an accident ... or a diabolical plot? No, no, the thought is too horrible. I must, I will chase it out of my mind. And yet--oh, there is only one thing to be done. Yes, yes, no more hesitation; I will finish with the General, and to-night. No more shall Philip accuse me of not helping him. I will get Sabaroff's signature, if power of mine can do it. I will be extra amiable to him--repulsive task! Philip shall have his beloved money, for which he has broken my heart, and then--then I have done with him for ever."

When she lifted her eyes, Sabaroff stood before her. Immersed in her own thoughts, she had not seen him come in. At once rising, she collected her ideas rapidly and scarcely showed sign of embarrassment.

"I must apologise again to you for my husband, General," she said; "I have just had a wire from him saying he missed the nine o'clock train in Paris, but that he had left at noon and would be here at eight. I am very alarmed. It is ten o'clock. I fear there must have been an accident, for I can explain his absence in no other way. It is really most unfortunate, and I don't know how to apologise enough. I feel quite confused."

The smile which crossed Sabaroff's face at these words was particularly offensive to Dora.

The General was not long coming to the point. When he had entered the drawing-room and found Dora alone, he had instantly taken his resolution. Here was his opportunity.

"As far as I am concerned," he said, "there is nothing unfortunate in the situation--I should rather call it fortunate for me. So, please, do not apologise. I can never get enough of your society. Every day on which I do not see you is dull, weary, wasted. To be allowed to see you is my sweetest privilege, to see you alone my dearest joy."

"Really, General, spare me, please," said Dora, striving to smile naturally.

"Ah, do not stop me, do not turn away your face. Remember the time when I first met you in the lovely South, and you gave me the happiness of feeling that my society was not displeasing to you. These were golden days! Your fresh young beauty, your clear young eyes and voice made the world new again for me, a travel-worn soldier, already beginning to find the world a tinsel-trimmed hearth with little warmth, and a great deal of ashes. Weary of the nomadic life of a Russian soldier, I fell to dreaming of another kind of existence, a sweet, peaceful life at your side. I would have consecrated the rest of my days to the dear task of making you happy. Ambition and glory, I would have said good-bye to all that, for my noblest ambition would have been to reign supreme in your heart. You judged me unworthy, and I have never ceased to mourn the fading of my beloved dream--nay, I mourn it to-day more than ever. If only I had found you happy," he added insinuatingly.

"You are unwise, General, to talk to me of that winter," rejoined Dora. "Can I ever forget that, thanks to you, one single day, one single hour of it turned me from a light-hearted, innocent, ignorant girl into a woman?--innocent still, but no longer ignorant of the sad and degrading side of existence. Ah, in those few moments, I had passed out for ever from the sweet calm garden of girlhood into the dusty crowded highway of the world, and there I saw one of the saddest sides of life--the humiliation and despair of a woman dismissed, cast off by the man who should have passed the rest of his days in shielding her."

"It was not my fault that you overheard my wretched secret; but a foolish liaison, which seemed to a strictly nurtured girl so vile a thing, can it, must it make me for ever odious to a sweet and gracious woman who knows the world? How many men have succeeded in keeping on virtue's path altogether? The members of the Young Men's Christian Association are not recruited from among the ranks of our society."

"Does wrong become right by multiplication?" said Dora, who was not sorry to see the turn that the conversation had taken, a turn which would give her the opportunity of making a little sermon that should cool down the ardour of the General. "I shall never be able to understand why the men who belong to what is called Society should not be expected to conduct themselves as honourably as those of the modest middle classes. It is from above that example should come, and, believe me, it will have to come from above, or society will disappear for want of having fulfilled its mission."

"Well, well, you may be right," said Sabaroff; "but listen to my story. For months, for years, I could not bear to think of all that I had lost in losing you. Was it any wonder that I went half mad and ran into all kind of excesses? The light of your pure eyes was turned away from me. I tossed about like a rudderless ship, and only my ambition saved me from wreckage of body and soul."

"Does it not seem to you a little cowardly," said Dora, glad to recover the thread of her little sermon, "for a man to lay the blame for such a life at a woman's door, because he would not exercise the self-control that thousands of women have to exercise almost all their lives? Do you think it is only men who feel? Ah, believe me, there are few women who have not had, at some period of their lives, to suffer and be silent, to hold a bursting heart, and go about the daily task, with its cruel, half-mechanical routine, which leaves the mind free to dwell on all the misery that stirring scenes might help it to forget. Those who give way to their despair, society mocks at; those who abandon themselves to their passions, society puts outside the pale."

Dora began to feel that she was putting too much heat into her reply. With an attempt at a tone of indifference, she went on--

"But tell me more about that saving grace of ambition, General. It has made you a great and powerful man."

"Great, no; powerful, yes," replied Sabaroff, and he laid an insinuating stress on the word _yes_, which did not escape Dora's notice. "But, of all the satisfaction which my present position of confidence with my imperial master has brought me, nothing is so sweet as the power of doing what I am going to do for you."

"I am so proud you approve of the shell--then you will have it taken up by the Russian Government?

"Yes," said Sabaroff, "I have the paper here ready to sign, and am only waiting for a telegram from St. Petersburg, which I have ordered to be brought to me here if it should happen to arrive before ten o'clock" ...

"My husband will be so glad!"

"Ah, 'my husband will be glad,'" repeated Sabaroff, in a half-mocking tone; "Mrs. Grantham, will _you_ be glad?--Dora," said he, warming as he proceeded, "do you not realise that what I am going to do is for your sake, and not for the man who has won the only woman I ever loved?"

On hearing herself called by her Christian name, Dora was indignant.

"General, once more I beg of you, I'm afraid you forget yourself."

At this moment a servant entered the room.

"A telegram for his Excellency," said he. Then he handed the telegram to the General, and retired after receiving Dora's order to bring tea.

Sabaroff read the despatch to Dora: "Approved by Council of War. Final decision left to you. If you yourself approve, offer five hundred thousand roubles."

Dora was standing at the fireplace, with one foot on the fender. Sabaroff, with the telegram in his hand, gave her a look which seemed to say: "When I said _powerful_, you see I was right."

The servant brought the tea, which he placed on a table near Dora, and retired.

Dora poured out two cups.

"No milk, I think--a little rum and some lemon, _à la Russe_?"

"Thank you," said Sabaroff.

He cut himself a slice of lemon, helped himself to rum, and began to sip his tea.

There was an unbroken silence for a couple of minutes.

"You are not offended with me?" he resumed. "Ah, forgive me if I have called you by your beautiful first name, your sweet name of Dora, it is the only one I ever give you in my thoughts. Here is a pansy," he said, opening his pocket-book, "a flower that you dropped at Monte Carlo. There is no Mrs. Grantham for me; there is Dora, the name I cannot forget."

"This man really loved me, then," said Dora to herself, "and loves me still perhaps." The thought displeased her, but it was not insulting. She thought of the pansies which had come regularly, year after year, on the anniversary of her marriage. Then, if he loved her still, she had everything to fear in this solitary tête-à-tête. She resolved to be more than ever on her guard.

"But it is precisely my other name, General, that I would have you remember always," she said, with a calm smile.

"If I thought of that one, I should not be here now; I should never come to this house," said Sabaroff. "I should not be now preparing to sign this paper, which is to enrich still further the man to whom you gave yourself, the man who already possesses the only thing I ever really craved. Shall I sign? Why should I?" said he, drawing from his pocket an envelope containing a blank contract. "What will be my thanks? What is to be my reward?"

"Oh, General," said Dora, nervous but still smiling, "you are too good a patriot to need any incentive but the love of your country."

"No, Mrs. Grantham, that is not enough. I love my country, but I do not love your husband. For you alone I sign. To you I turn for my reward. Ah, let me hear from those lovely lips that you have only kind, pitying thoughts for the man who still worships you and loves you as you are worthy to be loved."

Sabaroff's eyes were lit with a strange fire, and threw burning glances upon Dora. She began to tremble. This man frightened her.

"Of course, General, I am grateful, I" ... She felt incapable of finishing the phrase. "Must I go through with this?" she thought. "Oh that I could get rid of this man!"

Sabaroff did not take his eyes off her face. He was striving to read her inmost thoughts.

"I have no resentment," she continued; "I have long ago forgotten what passed between us, and if you will do the same, here is my hand."

Sabaroff unfolded the paper which he had taken from the envelope, placed it on the table and signed it. Dora was still holding out her hand to him. Sabaroff seized it and drew her close to him.

"Dora," he exclaimed, "my Dora!"

"You forget, once more you forget," she said, freeing herself. "If my husband were here" ...

"If your husband were here!" cried Sabaroff, with a sneer. "Once for all, is it possible that you do not see the rôle that your husband is playing? Are you indeed so blind? Tell me, does a man encourage a former lover of his wife about his house constantly, a lover who was on the point of becoming her _fiancé_, and who perhaps loves her still? Does he miss the train when he knows that his wife will be alone with that man for a whole evening? No, my dear Mrs. Grantham, a man misses everything you like to name, but he does not miss such a train as that. Ah, let us have no more of these pretences. You know perfectly well what he is, that husband of yours who missed his train. You know that you have no love left for him, that you only feel the most profound contempt for that man who, to put a fortune in his purse, does not hesitate to play the _mari complaisant_."

"No, it's impossible, it is not true," cried Dora, suffocating with indignation; "spare me your suppositions."

"You shall not make me believe that you do not despise him. I have watched you both carefully from the first day that I have visited your house. Do not deceive me, do not attempt to deceive yourself. You do not love your husband. I have seen how your noble heart has shrunk from contact with so sordid a nature, as his has proved to be in the past few months. He may have loved you once in his cool, jellyfish fashion; perhaps you have loved him yourself, but since his new craze for wealth has ousted you from his consideration, except when you are useful to him as a bait, you have hated him--ah, worse than that, you have despised him. You know that he is not worthy of you, who have the soul as well as the body of an angel. No, you are not blind; you are not a child, to sit down tamely under his treatment of you. Be a woman, take a woman's revenge. Only give me a tithe of the love he has held so lightly and I will be your slave, your adoring slave to my dying day. Dora, I love you," he cried as he advanced towards her.

"I can listen to no more of this. You have tried my patience too far already. I thank you, in my husband's name, General, for having signed this paper; but I don't feel well,--have pity on me. You have before you a woman full of gratitude for what you have done; it would not be generous to take advantage of it to press your company upon me in my present state. Leave me now, please."

"Leave you! leave you! Ah, ah! And this is my reward? Now that you have obtained all you want, you dismiss me. Dora, take care. You are too intelligent, too much of a woman, not to see that my love for you has come back to me redoubled, that it blinds me, makes me mad, and that your resistance only adds fuel to the fire."

"Go, I beseech you, at once," exclaimed Dora, now thoroughly alarmed; "go, I command you. Nothing will force me to listen to you any longer--I tell you I am suffering tortures; you say that you love me, then, spare me and go."

"So, then," said he reproachfully, "you let me see you, let me come here almost day after day until I cannot live away from you, and then, when you have done your despicable husband's work, you dismiss me with a _many thanks, good-bye_. No, Dora," he added, raising his voice, "I will not be dismissed so. Look at me well," he said, seizing her arm; "do I look like a man who can be so lightly played with?"

"Let me go; you hurt me," cried Dora, distracted with indignation; "how dare you treat me so?"

"How dare I?" said Sabaroff. "You wonder how I dare? Ah, wonder rather that I kept silent so long with your beautiful face before me, your voice and eyes bewitching me, your lips so near, all your loveliness making mad riot in my pulses! What do you think I am made of? Does one take a starving wretch to see a banquet spread, and, when he has just begun to eat, then cast him out, because he dares to say he is hungry still? Does one offer rich wine to a weary traveller, and, when he has taken but one sip from the cup, dash it from his lips and bid him begone? In your presence, Dora, I am craving for your love."

"Philip, where are you?" cried the poor woman wildly, and feeling more dead than alive.

She made towards the door, but Sabaroff intercepted her passage.

"Dora," said he, "why keep up this farce any longer? Be honest. Unmask yourself, for I am convinced you are wearing a mask. Why do you call your husband? You know that he is not here, and you must know only too well why he is not here. Your husband has kept away to-night, that you may be alone with me. You cannot but despise him, a creature who, when he had won it, knew not how to value the prize I crave in vain. And now that I have found you suffering tortures at his callousness, you will not let me tell you how I love you--passionately, madly! Ah, since it is he who throws you into my arms, come and make your home there; you shall never repent the step--I swear it!"

"Ah, enough, enough, spare me any more indignities," cried Dora, with head proudly uplifted. "General Sabaroff! leave, leave this house instantly."

So saying, she made a movement towards the bell.

"Dora!" cried Sabaroff, seizing her in his strong arms.

She struggled, and finished by freeing herself from his grasp.

"Go this moment, I tell you. You have treated me as you would not dare treat a servant-girl in a low lodging-house, you have treated me as if you took me for a Mimi Latouche--you are a coward!"

Dora was nearly at the end of her strength. She was wild, at bay, without power to cry for help. A coquette would have known how to defend herself. Knowing to what she exposes herself, the coquette always prepares a line of retreat before engaging in the battle; but a woman as pure as Dora is almost defenceless in the presence of a man who has burned his ships and who intends to stop at nothing: she has no weapons for such a contest. Dora was paralysed with fright and indignation. She made a last and supreme effort to reach the bell; but Sabaroff stopped her, and seizing her more firmly than he had done before, he cried--

"My reward! I claim my reward for so much patience!"

She was in his arms, panting, almost unconscious. He strained her to his heart, and kissed her passionately on the eyes, on the lips again and again. Exhausted by the struggle, Dora yet made a supreme effort, and succeeded in once more freeing herself from Sabaroff's hold; but he caught her by the arm, which he kissed devouringly. Dora sank fainting on the sofa.

At this moment the door opened, and Gabrielle, with agony depicted on her face, rushed into the room. She had come to fetch her sister, to take her to Eva's bedside, for the child had grown rapidly worse. Seeing Sabaroff on his knees gazing at Dora, she drew back, stifling a cry, and, wringing her hands in despair, she disappeared.

Sabaroff heard the cry, but did not move. After a moment, turning round and seeing no one, he rang the bell, hurriedly impressed a further kiss on the forehead of the unconscious woman, and left without waiting for the arrival of a servant.

When the servant entered, Dora had regained consciousness.

"Did you ring, ma'am?"

"No," she said; "what is it?"

She looked around her, passing her hand over her eyes and forehead. She realised that she was alone. Her eyes were haggard. She looked wild, half mad.

"Where is he?" she said; "gone?"

Then she fixed her eyes on the servant, who seemed to have a message to deliver.

"Well, what is it?" she repeated.

"Miss Gabrielle," replied the man, "told me to say that she had sent for the doctor, and that he is now with Miss Eva. Will you, please, go up at once, ma'am?"

Dora gazed fixedly at the man. She had not heard, or, rather, she had not taken in a single word of the servant's message. She signed to him to go, and he left.

Taking her head in both hands, she tried to remember what had been happening.

"My body burns," she murmured; "I feel as if I had been bitten by a reptile." Her eyes fell on her arm, where Sabaroff's kiss had left a mark that was still red. A cry of disgust and horror escaped her. She gazed again at her arm, leapt to her feet, and paced the room almost foaming with rage. To wipe out that mark was her one thought. With her handkerchief she rubbed the burning spot, and, with a movement of fury, sucked it and spat as if she had been sucking poison from the bite of a snake. She was unrecognisable, transformed into a tigress ready to spring upon any who might come near. Suddenly an idea lit up her face, as she passed the fireplace in her furious pacings. She seized the poker and thrust it in among the live coals.

"Yes, yes, I will, I'll do it," she muttered.

Suddenly she heard a cab stop outside, and the street door open and close noisily. Philip, for it was he, bounded upstairs and rushed into the drawing-room. It was half-past eleven.

Dora had the poker in her hand. She put it back into the fire.

"Ah, my dear Dora," said Philip, quite out of breath, "I can't tell you how sorry I am to have been delayed all these hours. I missed the nine o'clock train, as I explained in my wire; but I must tell you all about that by and by. It's a long story. I left Paris at noon, as you know, but the train broke down between Canterbury and Chatham, and got in three hours late. But for that, I should have been here at eight. The General is gone, of course?" he added.

Dora stood motionless, speechless. She merely nodded her head affirmatively.

"How shall I ever be able to excuse myself to him? I wish now that I had followed your suggestion and put off this dinner, so as not to run such a risk. When you travel, you start, but you don't know what may happen before you reach home again."

He caught sight of the paper, which Sabaroff had signed, lying on the table. He seized it eagerly and began to read.

"What is this?" he exclaimed, overcome with joy. "Why, it is the purchase of my shell by the Russian Government! The General ought to have stayed. You should have kept him ... I should have been so happy to thank him myself ... but, I understand; the proprieties, I suppose; he did not like to stay on during my absence.... Five hundred thousand roubles! here it is, all set down and signed.... Ah, my Dora, my darling!"