CLOSED
Beyond, the marble arches, the brilliancy, the color and movement of the
vast ball-room; here, the perfumed dusk of the conservatory's mimic
garden, lighted by tiny jeweled lamps hung among the flowers. And over
both atmospheres the dreamlike enchantment of the strange national music
that Adrian loved. Sighing, Allard leaned forward, his eyes delighting
in contemplation of the girl opposite.
"To see you like this! Theodora, I have so sorrowfully pictured you as
changed, as grieved and saddened out of the brightness I so longed to
keep for you. And you are the same, always the same, dear."
She smiled, half-tenderly, half in indulgent mockery.
"But I am not the same, nor are you, John. I am twenty-five instead of
nineteen, and much wiser than Theo Leslie used to be. While you--his
excellency Monsieur Allard of the imperial household, is somewhat older
and much more dignified, and a trifle more interesting. When I see you
moving through this court with so much ease, in all your gorgeousness so
naturally worn,"--she made a laughing gesture to the gemmed orders--"I
think--I think perhaps it is well we have both grown."
The truth of the judgment held him, and sent a startled hope.
"If we have grown nearer, Theo?"
"I have tried to say--that. Can you guess how mamma and I have followed
you through scattered newspaper articles and items of European news? How
we rejoiced and cried together when you saved the Emperor from death and
were yourself wounded, when your name was everywhere? You wrote so
seldom, and never to me."
"I thought you must hate me for leaving Robert; I never forgot that."
Her vivid face grew serious, her eyes fell to the fan in her lap.
"I could never have felt so, whatever you had done. John, the last
morning he spoke to us, Robert said that for us you had made a sacrifice
we could not even conceive. He told us that we must never question you
nor seek to know, but that you were above all blame. Perhaps I had
already guessed you were not happy, remembering the night before you
went away."
"There was never one like Robert," he said, gratitude a pain. "Theodora,
I never wondered that you loved him."
She stirred, the faint, familiar sweetness of sandalwood and rose was
shaken from her laces by the movement; wide and very soft were the eyes
she lifted to his.
"I did not love him, as you meant. John, John, you were wrong."
The conservatory wavered before his gaze; he rose impetuously and she
with him.
"Wrong? Then--"
"You, John. Oh, could you not tell a girl's playmate from her lover?
Robert read the truth; and I believe he was glad. John--"
Slowly, almost fearfully, he drew her to his arms.
"Wrong! Oh, Theo, it has all been wrong, and the fault mine! That out of
it all should come to-day, my dear, my dear."
Presently she slipped from him, starrily radiant, leaving her hands in
his as she looked up.
"Do you know how I found courage to tell you this, John?"
"You knew I loved you all my life."
"But it was so very long, so very long; you might have forgotten or
changed. No, it was because the night he came to our hotel, the Emperor
told me that you cared for me still. 'That is why I brought you here,
mademoiselle,' he said. 'What he gives once, he gives for ever, this
Allard of ours.' And so I ventured."
Allard looked out across the flower-draped arches to the ball-room
beyond. Stately, self-contained, Stanief was moving down the floor
between the parting throngs of guests, the gently glad Iria at his side.
From his seat Adrian leaned forward to watch them, his keen, dark young
face softened to a great content.
"When we do wrong, sometimes we are allowed to make our payment, if we
try," he said dreamily. "But how can we pay our debt of unearned
happiness, Theodora?"
Smiling, she drew nearer.
"You have the man's justice, John; now learn the woman's art of
graciousness. Unquestioningly let us accept our gifts."
He turned to her, flushing, and took her hands.
"It is that! Thank you, Theo. The account is closed; the
rest--commences."
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Game and the Candle, by Eleanor M. Ingram