“My purpose? Have I any?”
“You say she interests you, and you watch her in a way that proves it.
Have you not already resolved to win her for your amusement, by some
bribe as cunning as that you gave Canaris for his liberty?”
“I have. You are a shrewd woman, Olivia.”
“Yet she is not beautiful;” and her eye vainly searched the inscrutable
countenance, that showed so passionless and pale against the purple
cushion where it leaned.
“Pardon me, the loveliest woman I have seen for years. A beautiful,
fresh soul is most attractive when one is weary of more material charms.
This girl seems made of spirit, fire, and dew; a mixture rare as it is
exquisite, and the spell is all the greater because of its fine and
elusive quality. I promise myself much satisfaction in observing how
this young creature meets the trials and temptations life and love will
bring her; and to do this she must be near at hand.”
“Happy Gladys!”
Olivia smiled a scornful smile, but folded her arms to curb the
rebellious swelling of her heart at the thought of another woman nearer
than herself. She turned away as she spoke; but Helwyze saw the quiver
of her lips, and read the meaning of the piercing glance she shot into
the garden, as if to find and annihilate that unconscious rival.
Content for the moment with the touch of daily torture which was the
atonement exacted for past disloyalty, he lifted the poor soul from
despair to delight by the utterance of three words, accompanied by a
laugh as mirthless as musical,—
“Happy Felix, rather.”
“Is _he_ to marry her?” and Olivia fronted him, glowing with a sudden
joy which made her lovely as well as brilliant.
“Who else?”
“Yourself.”
“I!” and the word was full of a bitterness which thrilled every nerve
the woman had, for an irrepressible regret wrung it from lips sternly
shut on all complaint, except to her.
“Why not?” she cried, daring to answer with impetuous warmth and candor.
“What woman would not be glad to serve you for the sake of the luxury
with which you would surround her, if not for the love you might win and
give, if you chose?”
“Bah! what have I to do with love? Thank Heaven my passions are all
dead, else life would be a hell, not the purgatory it is,” he said,
glancing at his wasted limbs, with an expression which would have been
pathetic, had it not been defiant; for that long discipline of pain had
failed to conquer the spirit of the man, and it seemed to sit aloof,
viewing with a curious mixture of compassion and contempt the slow ruin
of the body which imprisoned it.
With an impulse womanly as winning, Olivia plucked a wine-dark rose from
the trellis nearest her, and, bending towards him, laid it in his hand,
with a look and gesture of one glad to give all she possessed, if that
were possible.
“Your love of beauty still survives, and is a solace to you. Let me
minister to it when I can; and be assured I offer my little friend as
freely as I do my choicest rose.”
“Thanks; the flower for me, the friend for Felix. Young as he is, he
knows how to woo, and she will listen to his love-tale as willingly as
she did to the highly colored romance he was telling her just now. You
would soon find her a burden, Olivia, and so should I, unless she came
in this way. We need do nothing but leave the young pair to summer and
seclusion; they will make the match better and more quickly than we
could. Then a month for the honeymoon business, and all can be
comfortably settled before October frosts set in.”
“You often say, where women are is discord; yet you are planning to
bring one into your house in the most dangerous way. Have you no fears,
Jasper?”
“Not of Gladys; she is so young, I can mould her as I please, and that
suits me. She will become my house well, this tender, transparent little
creature, with her tranquil eyes, and the sincere voice which makes
truth sweeter than falsehood. You must come and see her there; but never
try to alter her, or the charm will be destroyed.”
“You may be satisfied: but how will it be with Felix? Hitherto your sway
has been undivided, now you must share it; for with all her gentleness
she is strong, and will rule him.”
“And I, Gladys. Felix suits me excellently, and it will only add another
charm to the relation if I control him through the medium of another. My
young lion is discovering his power rapidly, and I must give him a Una
before he breaks loose and chooses for himself. If matters must be
complicated, I choose to do it, and it will occupy my winter pleasantly
to watch the success of this new combination.”
While he talked, Helwyze had been absently stripping leaf after leaf
from the great rose, till nothing but the golden heart remained
trembling on the thorny stem.
Olivia had watched the velvet petals fall one by one, feeling a sad
sympathy with the ill-used gift; yet, as the last leaf fluttered to the
ground, she involuntarily lifted up her hand to break another, glad if
even in the destruction of so frail a thing he could find a moment’s
pleasure.
“No, let them hang; their rich color pleases best among the green; their
cloying perfume is too heavy for the house. A snowdrop, leaning from its
dainty sheath undaunted by March winds, is more to my taste now,” he
said, dropping the relics of the rose, with the slow smile which often
lent such significance to a careless word.
“I cannot give you that: spring flowers are all gone long ago,” began
Olivia, regretfully.
“Nay, you give me one in Gladys; no spring flower could be more delicate
than she, gathered by your own hand from the bleak nook where you found
her. It is the faint, vernal fragrance of natures, coyly hidden from
common eye and touch, which satisfies and soothes senses refined by
suffering.”
“Yet you will destroy it, like the rose, in finding out the secret of
its life. I wondered why this pale, cold innocence was so attractive to
a man like you. There was a time when you would have laughed at such a
fancy, and craved something with more warmth and brilliancy.”
“I am wiser now, and live here, not here,” he answered, touching first
his forehead then his breast, with melancholy meaning. “While my brain
is spared me I can survive the ossification of all the heart I ever had,
since, at best, it is an unruly member. Almost as inconvenient as a
conscience; that, thank fortune, I never had. Yes; to study the
mysterious mechanism of human nature is a most absorbing pastime, when
books weary, and other sources of enjoyment are forbidden. Try it, and
see what an exciting game it becomes, when men and women are the pawns
you learn to move at will. Goethe’s boyish puppet-show was but a symbol
of the skill and power which made the man the magician he became.”
“An impious pastime, a dearly purchased fame, built on the broken hearts
of women!” exclaimed Olivia, walking to and fro with the noiseless step
and restless grace of a leopardess pacing its cage.
Helwyze neither seemed to see nor hear her, for his gloomy eyes stared
at a little bird tilting on a spray that swung in the freshening wind,
and his thoughts followed their own path.
“‘Pale, cold innocence.’ It _is_ curious that it should charm me. A good
sign, perhaps; for poets tell us that fallen angels sigh for the heaven
they have lost, and try to rise again on the wings of spirits stronger
and purer than themselves. Would they not find virtue insipid after a
fiery draught of sin? Did not Paradise seem a little dull to Dante, in
spite of Beatrice? I wish I knew.”
“Is it for this that you want the girl’s help?” asked Olivia, pausing in
her march to look at him. “I shall wait with interest to see if she
lifts you up to sainthood, or you drag her down to your level, where
intellect is God, conscience ignored, and love despised. Unhappy Gladys!
I should have said, because I cannot keep her from you, if I would; and
in your hands she will be as helpless as the dumb creatures surgeons
torture, that they may watch a living nerve, count the throbbing of an
artery, or see how long the poor things will live bereft of some vital
part. Let the child alone, Jasper, or you will repent of it.”
“Upon my word, Olivia, you are in an ominously prophetic mood. I hear a
carriage; and, as I am invisible to all eyes but your gifted ones,
pardon me if I unceremoniously leave the priestess on her tripod.”
And the curtain dropped between them as suddenly as it had been lifted,
depriving the woman of the one troubled joy of her life,—companionship
with him.
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