"Not because I am--indifferent. No, no. I can't explain why the feeling
came. It was gone in a moment. And now--"
"Now you are happy?"
He caught her hand and she left it in his.
"Yes, very happy."
Bellairs bent over her and kissed her--as he lifted himself up a white
hand appeared on the rail of the companion that led from the lower to
the upper deck of the _Hatasoo_. Clarice wearily dragged herself up.
She was wrapped in a shawl and looked very ill. Betty ran to help her.
"I thought I must get a little air," she said feebly. "How d'you do, Mr
Bellairs?"
She sank down in a chair.
Bellairs felt like a man between two fires.
* * * * *
Two days later Lord Braydon gave his consent to his daughter's
engagement with Bellairs, and Lady Betty ran to tell Clarice. She had
not previously said a word to her friend of what had passed between her
and Bellairs. He had begged her to keep silence until he had spoken to
Lord Braydon, and she had promised and had kept her promise. But now she
rushed into the saloon where Clarice was playing Chopin, and, throwing
her arms round her friend, told her the great news. The body of Clarice
became rigid in her arms.
"And the king has consented," Betty cried.
The king was her father.
"Clarice, Clarice, isn't it wonderful?"
"Wonderful! I thought so when you told me. But already I begin to doubt
if it is."
"To doubt, Clarice?"
"To doubt whether anything a man does is wonderful."
That was all Clarice said. Then she kissed Betty, and went on playing
Chopin feverishly, while Betty told, to the accompaniment of the music,
all that was in her heart.
"And," she said at last, "I love him, Clarice; I love him intensely. I
shall always love him."
Clarice played a final chord and got up.
Bellairs lunched on the dahabeeyah that day and Clarice met him as
usual. Her manner gave no sign of any mental disturbance. Perhaps it was
curiously calm. He wondered a little, but was too happy to wonder much.
Joy made him cruel, for nothing is so cruel as joy. Only he was glad
that Clarice had so much pride, for he thought now that in her pride lay
his safety. He no longer feared that she would condescend to a scene,
and he even thought that perhaps she did not feel so deeply as he had
supposed.
"After all," he said to himself exultantly, "there's no harm done. I
need not have been so conscience-stricken. What is a pretty speech and a
kiss to a woman who has lived, travelled over the world, read widely,
thought many things? Now, if I had treated Betty in such a way I should
be a blackguard. She could not have understood. She could only have
suffered. I will never hurt her--Betty!"
His nature was so full of her that it could no longer hold any thought
of Clarice. And for a little while, as Bellairs dived into Betty's
heart, he was astonished at the passion he found there, and
congratulated himself on having released her from bondage. Now, at
least, he was teaching her to be herself. He was killing the echo and
creating a voice, a beautiful, clear, radiant voice that would sing to
him, to him alone.
"Betty has a great deal in her," he said to Clarice once.
"Yes--a great deal. Who put it there, do you think?"
"Who? Why, nobody. Surely you would not say that all you yourself have
of--of strength, originality, courage, was put into you by some other
man or woman."
"No. I would not say that. But then--I am not Betty."
Bellairs felt irritated.
"Please don't run Betty down," he exclaimed hastily.
"I! I run down Betty! I don't think you understand what I feel about
Betty. She is the one perfect being I know. I worship her."
"I am sure you do," he said, mollified. "And you have done much for her,
perhaps too much."
"I cannot tell that--yet," Clarice answered. "Some day I may know
whether I have done very much, or very little."
"Some day--when?"
"Perhaps very soon."
Bellairs wondered what she meant, and wondered, too, why he had a sudden
sense of uneasiness.
It was a day or two after this conversation that a light cloud seemed to
float across his lover's happiness with Betty. He could not tell the
exact moment when it came, nor from what quarter it journeyed. But he
felt the obscuring of the sun and the lessening of the lovely warmth of
intimacy. He was chilled and alarmed, and at night, when he was alone
with Betty in the stern of the _Hatasoo_ bidding her good-bye, he could
not refrain from saying:--
"Betty, is anything the matter?"
"The matter, Jack?"
"Yes. Are you quite happy to-day? Quite as happy as you were yesterday?"
"I suppose so--I believe so."
But she did not speak with a perfect conviction, and Bellairs was more
gravely troubled.
"I am certain something is wrong," he persisted. "I have done something
that has offended you, or said something stupid. What is it? Do tell
me."
"I can't. There is nothing to tell. Really, there is not."
"You would tell me if there was?"
"Of course."
"And you love me as much as ever?"
"Oh, yes."
He looked into her eyes, asking them mutely to tell him the truth. And
he thought their expression was strangely cold. The light had surely
faded out of them. He kissed her silently and went forward. Clarice was
standing there looking at the rising moon.
"Good-night," he said, holding out his hand.
"How grave you look," she answered, not seeing the hand.
"The moonlight makes people look unnatural."
"It does not reach the deck yet."
"Good-night," he said again, and he went down the stairs.
She looked after him with a smile. When he had gone, she turned her head
and called.
"Betty!"
"Yes!"
"Come here and sit with me. Let us watch the moon. Don't talk. I want to
think--and to make you think--as I do."
The cloud which Bellairs had fancied he noticed did not dissolve in the
night. It was not drawn up mysteriously into the sun to fade in gold. On
the contrary, next day he could no longer pretend to himself that his
anxiety as a lover rendered him foolishly self-conscious, dangerously
observant of the merest trifles. There really was a change in Betty, and
a change which grew. He became seriously alarmed. Could it be possible
that the ardent passion which she had displayed in the first moments of
their engagement was already subsiding as cynics say passion subsides
after marriage? Such a supposition seemed ridiculous. The ardour which
has never fulfilled itself is not liable to cool. And Betty was a young
girl who had not known love before. If she tired of it after so short
an experience of its delights, she could be nothing less than a wholly
unnatural and distorted being. And she was strangely natural. Bellairs
rode out alone with her along the built-up brown roads into the desert,
and tried to interest her, but she was abstracted and seemed deep in
thought. Often she didn't hear what he was saying, and when she did hear
and replied, her answers were short and careless, and rather dismissed
than encouraged the subject to which they were applied. Bellairs, at
last, gave up attempting to talk, and from time to time stole a cautious
glance at her pretty face. He noticed that it wore a puzzled expression,
as if she were turning over something in her mind and could not come to
a conclusion about it. She did not look exactly sad, but merely grave
and distrait. At length he exclaimed, determined to rouse her into some
sort of comradeship:--
"You never caught that headache, did you?"
"Clarice's, you mean? No."
"Is it coming on now?"
"Oh, no. I feel perfectly well. What made you think it was?"
"You won't talk to me, and you look so preternaturally serious. I am
sure I have unwittingly offended you?"
"No, you haven't. You are just as you always are, better to me than I
deserve."
"You deserve the best man in the world."
"I already have the best woman."
"Mdlle. Leroux?"
"Yes; Clarice."
"You admire her very much."
"Of course. I would give anything to be like her."