Although her Roman Prince had looked so grave, Mary argued to herself
that he could hardly be angry, or he would not have asked her to dance.
Yet she half dreaded, half longed for the third waltz.
As a schoolgirl she had shared with Marie Grant the distinction of
dancing more gracefully than any other pupil. A girl who has danced well
and has a perfect ear for music does not forget; and after the first
waltz on the smoothly waxed deck Mary felt as if she had been dancing
every night for the last four years.
When the moment arrived, Vanno came and took her away from the Maharajah
of Indorwana. He did not speak or smile, and they began at once to
dance. Their steps went perfectly together, and he held her strongly,
though at first he kept her at an unusual distance. Then, as though
involuntarily, he drew her close, so that she could feel his heart
beating like something alive, in prison, knocking to come out, and her
own heart quickened. A slight giddiness made her head spin, and she
asked to stop before the music sobbed itself to sleep.
"I have something I want to say to you," Vanno began. "Will you come
with me where we can speak alone, without being interrupted?"
"I--I am engaged to four partners for the next dance," Mary stammered,
laughing a little. She wished to hear what he had to say; she wished to
stay with him, yet his voice made her afraid. And it was true that she
did not like to break her promise.
"I beg that you will come with me," Vanno persisted. He did not say that
he would not make her late for the others. He meant to take her away
from them altogether, if he could.
"Then--I will come, for a few minutes," she consented. "But--where?"
"I will take you on the bridge," he said. "You will not be cold, for I
know they've had it roofed over with flags for to-night. Mrs. Holbein
told me. There will be room only for you and me, for I shall let no one
else come."
Perhaps never before had Mary been so torn between two desires, except
when she wished to leave the convent, yet longed to stay. Now she did
not want to go on the bridge with this sombre-eyed man who spoke as if
he were taking her away from the world: and yet she did want to go, far
more than she wanted not to go. If anything had happened at this moment
to part them, all the rest of her life she would have wondered what she
had missed.
Mary knew nothing about the bridge of a vessel, or what it was for; but
when she had mounted some steps she found herself on a narrow parapet
walled in with canvas up to the height of her waist. Above her head was
a tight-drawn canopy made of an enormous flag; and on the white floor,
wedged tightly against the canvas wall, were pots containing long
rose-vines that made a drapery of leaves and flowers. Here and there
folds of the great flag were looped back with wooden shields, gilded and
painted with coats of arms--the crest of the Holbeins, no doubt,
invented to order at great expense. These loopings were like curtains
which left square, open apertures; and as Mary looked toward the shore
the balmy night air brushed against her hot cheeks like cool wings.
"I don't know, I don't suppose it's possible--no, it can't be possible
that it should be with you as it is with me," Vanno said, in a low voice
which sounded to her ears suppressed and strange, as if he kept back
some secret passion, perhaps anger. "Ever since the first moment I saw
you standing on the platform of the train at Marseilles, looking down
like Juliet from her balcony, I have felt as if I'd known you all my
life, even before this life began, in some other existence of which you
remain the only memory: you, your eyes, your smile."
Her heart bounded as sometimes the heart bounds at night, in that
mysterious break between waking and sleeping, which is like a leap, and
a fall over an abyss without bottom.
She wished to hold his words in her mind and dwell upon them, as if upon
a suddenly opened page of some marvellous illuminated missal of
priceless value. Conscious of no answer to give, or need of answer for
the moment, her subconscious self nevertheless began at once to speak,
and the rest of her listened, startled at first, then with wonder
acknowledging the truth of her own admission.
"Why, yes," the undertone in herself answered Vanno. "It was like that
with me, too, at Marseilles and afterward--as if I had known you always,
as if our souls had been in the same place together before they had
bodies. When you looked at me first, I felt you were like what a picture
of Romeo ought to be, though I never saw a picture of Romeo, that I can
remember. How strange you should have had Juliet in your mind! Yet
perhaps not strange, for each may have sent a thought into the brain of
the other--if such things can be."
"Such things are," Vanno answered, with passion. "In the desert where
I've lived for months together, alone except for one friend, a man of
the East, or an Arab servant, a voice used to say when I waked suddenly
at night sometimes, that there was a woman waiting for me, whose soul
and mine were not strangers, and that I should recognize her when we
met."
"It is like a dream!" Mary broke in upon him, when he paused as if
following a thought down some path in his mind. "As if we were dreaming
now--to the music down there. Maybe we _are_ dreaming. What does it all
mean?"
"It means that when the world was made we were made for each other. But
what has happened to us since? How have we so drifted apart? I think I
have been faithful to you in my heart always. But you? You've wandered
a million miles away from me. Nothing told you to wait. You have not
waited, or you would not live your life as you seem to be living
it--among such men and such women. For God's sake, even if you don't
care for me as things are now between us, let me take you away from all
this, let me put you where you will be safe, where you can be what you
were meant to be."
"I--I don't understand," Mary said, her breath coming so quickly that
her words seemed stopped, and broken like water that tries to run past
scattered stones.
"Don't you? Don't you understand that I love you desperately, that I
can't bear my life because I love you so, and because I see you
drowning? I'm telling you this in spite of myself. But I know now it had
to be. I swear to you, if you'll trust me, if you'll come away with me,
you shan't repent. Let me put you somewhere in a safe and beautiful
place. That's all I ask. I want no more. I shall force myself to want no
more."
"You--love me?" Mary repeated, still in the dream that was made of music
and moonlight, the ripple of the sea and the stirring of something new
in her nature of which all these sweet and beautiful things seemed part.
"Love! I never thought this could happen to me."
Suddenly he caught her hands and held them so that she was forced to
turn and look at him, instead of gazing out at sea and moonlight.
"Does it mean anything to you?" he asked, almost fiercely.
"Oh, a great deal," she answered. "I hardly know how much yet. It is so
wonderful--so new. Yet somehow not new. I must think about it. I
must----"
It was on her lips to say "I must pray about it," but something stopped
her. He was strange to her still, in spite of the miracle that was
happening, and there were some thoughts which must be kept in the heart,
in silence. Perhaps if she had not kept back those words, much of the
future might have been different, for he must have guessed at once that,
if she were sincere, his thoughts of her had been false thoughts.
"Don't stop to think. Promise me now," he cut her short.
The note of insistence in his voice frightened her, and seemed to break
the music of the dream. "I can't promise!" she exclaimed. "I've never
wanted to marry. It never seemed possible. I----"
Something like a groan was forced from him. She broke off, drawing in
her breath sharply. "What is the matter?" she asked. "Are you
suffering?"
"Yes," he said. "I am suffering. It's my fault, for not making you
understand, and yours because you haven't let me believe in you, worship
you as the angel you were meant to be. I don't know what you are, but
whatever you are I love you with all there is of me. Only--what I asked
was--that you'd let me take you out of this life to something better.
Now don't misunderstand in another way! I'd rather die a thousand deaths
than wrong you. I ask nothing from you for myself. When I knew that you
were safe I'd go, and not even see you again, unless--but how can I
explain that I mean only good for you, with no evil or selfishness, yet
not marriage?"
"Not marriage!"
Mary wrenched her hands away, and stepped back from him. There were men,
she knew, who loved women but did not marry them. She had learned this
thing through the tragedy of her schoolmate, her friend, whose life had
been swallowed up in mystery and darkness because men could be vile and
treacherous, taking everything and giving nothing. No one save himself
could have made her believe that this deep-eyed Prince was such a man.
After all, the light in which she had seen their souls together in the
beginning of things had been a false light. She had never known his
soul, for what she thought she knew had been very noble and splendid,
and the reality was bad. It was as if she had begun to open the door of
her heart, to let in a white dove, and peeping out had seen instead a
vulture. She slammed the door shut; and the sweet new thing that had
stirred in the depths of her nature fell back asleep or dead.
"I'm going down now," she said, in a toneless voice. "Don't come with
me. I never want to speak to you again."
[Illustration: "'I CAN'T PROMISE!' SHE EXCLAIMED. 'I'VE NEVER WANTED TO
MARRY'"]
She turned away with an abrupt mechanical movement like a doll wound up
to walk, but he snatched the lace scarf that was wrapped round her arm,
and held her back for an instant.
"I implore you----" he begged. Her answer was to drop the scarf, and
leave it in his hands. She seemed to melt from his grasp like a snow
wreath; and not daring to follow then, he was left alone on the bridge
with the black and horrible ghost of his own mistake.