"And what is your pleasure, fair queen?" Hector said, as they listened
to the diminishing noise of the widow's Mercédès. "We are alone, and we
have the world before us. Issue your commands."
"No," said Theodora, and she pouted her red lips. "I want you to settle
that. I want you to arrange for whatever you think would give me the
greatest pleasure. Then I shall know if you understand me and guess what
I would like."
This was the most daring speech she had ever made, and she was surprised
at her own temerity.
"Very well," he said. "That means you belong to me until they return,"
and a thrill ran through him. "Has not your father, has not your
hostess, given you into my charge? And, now you yourself have sealed the
compact, we shall see if I can make you happy."
As he said the words "you belong to me," Theodora thrilled too--a
sensation as of an electric shock almost quivered through her. Belonged
to him--ah!--what would that mean?
He called his chauffeur, who started the automobile and drove under the
covered _porte cochère_ where they stood.
Lord Bracondale had not spoken all the time he was helping her in and
arranging rugs with the tenderest solicitude, but when they were settled
and started--it was a coupé with a great deal of glass about it, so that
they got plenty of air--he turned to her.
"Now, do you know what I am going to do with you, madame? I shall only
unfold my plans bit by bit, and watch your face to see if I have chosen
well. I am going to take you first to the Petit Trianon, and we are
going to walk leisurely through the rooms. I am not going to worry you
with much sight-seeing and tourists and lessons of history, but I want
you to glance at this setting of the life picture of poor Marie
Antoinette, because it is full of sentiment and it will make you
appreciate more the _hameau_ and her playground afterwards. Something
tells me you would rather see these things than all the fine pictures
and salons of the stiff château."
"Oh yes," said Theodora; "you have guessed well this time."
"Then here we are, almost arrived," he said, presently.
They had been going very fast, and could see the square, white house in
front of them, and when they alighted at the gates she found the
guardian was an old friend of Lord Bracondale's, and they were left free
to wander alone in the rooms between the batches of tourists.
But every one knows the Petit Trianon, and can surmise how its beauties
appealed to Theodora.
"Oh, the poor, poor queen!" she said, with a sad ring in her expressive
voice, when they came to the large salon; "and she sat here and played
on her harpsichord--and I wonder if she and Fersen were ever alone--and
I wonder if she really loved him--"
Then she stopped suddenly; she had told herself she must never talk
about love to any one. It was a subject that she must have nothing to do
with. It could never come her way, now she was married to Josiah Brown,
and it would be unwise to discuss it, even in the abstract.
The same beautiful, wild-rose tint tinged the white velvet as once
before when she had spoken of _Jean d'Agrève_, and again Lord Bracondale
experienced a sensation of satisfaction.
But this time he would not let her talk about the weather. The subject
of love interested him, too.
"Yes, I am sure she did," he said, "and I always shall believe Fersen
was her lover; no life, even a queen's, can escape one love."
"I suppose not," said Theodora, very low, and she looked out of the
window.
"Love is not a passion which asks our leave if he may come or no, you
see," Hector continued, trying to control his voice to sound
dispassionate and discursive--he knew he must not frighten her. "Love
comes in a thousand unknown, undreamed-of ways. And then he gilds the
world and makes it into heaven."
"Does he?" almost whispered Theodora.
"And think what it must have been to a queen, married to a tiresome,
unattractive Bourbon--and Fersen was young and gallant and thoughtful
for her slightest good, and, from what one hears and has read, he must
have understood her, and been her friend as well--and sometimes she must
have forgotten about being a queen for a few moments--in his arms--"
Theodora drew a long, long breath, but she did not speak.
"And perhaps, if we knew, the remembrance of those moments may have
been her glory and consolation in the last dark hours."
"Oh! I hope so!" said Theodora.
Then she walked on quickly into the quaint, little, low-ceilinged
bedroom. Oh, she must get out into the air--or she must talk of
furniture, or curtain stuffs, or where the bath had been!
Love, love, love! And did it mean life after all?--since even this
far-off love of this poor dead queen had such power to move her. And
perhaps Fersen was like--but this last thought caused her heart to beat
too wildly.
There were no roses now, she was very pale as she said: "It saddens me,
this. Let us go out into the sun."
They descended the staircase again almost in silence, and on through the
little door in the court-yard wall into the beautiful garden beyond.
"Show me where she was happy, where you know she was happy before any
troubles came. I want to be gay again," said Theodora.
So they walked down the path towards the _hameau_.
"What have I done?" Lord Bracondale wondered. "Her adorable face went
quite white. Her soul is no longer the open book I have found it. There
are depths and depths, but I must fathom them all."
"Oh, how I love the spring-time!" exclaimed Theodora, and her voice was
full of relief. "Look at those greens, so tender and young, and that
peep of the sky! Oh, and those dear, pretty little dolls' houses! Let us
hasten; I want to go and play there, and make butter, too! Don't you?"
"Ah, this is good," he said; "and I want just what you want."
Her face was all sweet and joyous as she turned it to him.
"Let's pretend we lived then," she said, "and I am the miller's daughter
of this dear little mill, and you are the bailiff's son who lives
opposite, and you have come with your corn to be ground. Oh, and I shall
make a bargain, and charge you dear!" and she laughed and swung her
parasol back, while the sun glorified her hair into burnished silver.
"What bargain could you make that I would not agree to willingly?" he
asked.
"Perhaps some day I shall make one with you--or want to--that you will
not like," she said, "and then I shall remind you of this day and your
gallant speech."
"And I shall say then as I say now. I will make any bargain with you,
so long as it is a bargain which benefits us both."
"Ah, you are a Normand, you hedge!" she laughed, but he was serious.
They walked all around the _laiterie_, and all the time she was gay and
whimsical, and to herself she was saying, "I am unutterably happy, but
we must not talk of love."
"Now you have had enough of this," Lord Bracondale said, when they were
again in view of the house, "and I am going to take you into a forest
like the babes in the woods, and we shall go and lose ourselves and
forget the world altogether. The very sight of these harmless tourists
in the distance jars upon me to-day. I want you alone and no one else.
Come."
And she went.
"I have never been here before," said Theodora, as they turned into the
Forest of Marly. "And you have been wise in your choice so far. I love
trees."
"You see how I study and care for the things which belong to me," said
Hector. It gave him ridiculous pleasure to announce that sentence
again--ridiculous, unwarrantable pleasure.
Theodora turned her head away a little. She would like to have continued
the subject, but she did not dare.
Presently they came to a side _allée_, and after going up it about a
mile the automobile stopped, and they got out and walked down a green
glade to the right.
Oh, and I wonder if any of you who read know the Forest of Marly, and
this one green glade that leads down to the centre of a star where five
avenues meet? It is all soft grass and splendid trees, and may have been
a _rendezvous de chasse_ in the good old days, when life--for the
great--was fair in France.
It is very lonely now, and if you want to spend some hours in peace you
can almost count upon solitude there.
"Now, is not this beautiful?" he asked her, as they neared the centre,
"and soon you will see why I carry this rug over my arm. I am going to
take you right to the middle of the star until you see five paths for
you to choose from, all green and full of glancing sunlight, and when
you have selected one we will penetrate down it and sit under a tree. Is
it good--my idea?"
"Very good," said Theodora. Then she was silent until they reached the
_rond-point_.
There was that wonderful sense of aloofness and silence--hardly even the
noise of a bird. Only the green, green trees, and here and there a
shaft of sunlight turning them into the shade of a lizard's back.
An ideal spot for--poets and dreamers--and lovers--Theodora thought.
"Now we are here! Look this way and that! Five paths for us to choose
from!"
Then something made Theodora say, "Oh, let us stay in the centre, in
this one round place, where we can see them all and their
possibilities."
"And do you think uncertain possibilities are more agreeable perhaps
than certain ends?" he asked.
"I never speculate," said Theodora.
"As you will, then," he said, while he looked into her eyes, and he
placed the rug up against a giant tree between two avenues, so that
their view really only extended down three others now.
"We have turned our backs on the road we came," he said, "and on another
road that leads in a roundabout way to the Grande Avenue again. So now
we must look into the unknown and the future."
"It seems all very green and fair," said Theodora, and she leaned back
against the tree and half closed her eyes.
He lay on the grass at her feet, his hat thrown off beside him, and in
a desert island they could not have been more alone and undisturbed.
The greatest temptation that Hector Bracondale had ever yet had in his
life came to him then. To make love to her, to tell her of all the new
thoughts she had planted in his soul, of the windows she had opened wide
to the sunlight. To tell her that he loved her, that he longed to touch
even the tips of her fingers, that the thought of caressing her lips and
her eyes and her hair drove the blood coursing madly through his veins.
That to dream of what life could be like, if she were really his own,
was a dream of intoxicating bliss.
And something of all this gleamed in his eyes as he gazed up at her--and
Theodora, all unused to the turbulence of emotion, was troubled and
moved and yet wildly happy. She looked away down the centre avenue, and
she began to speak fast with a little catch in her breath, and Hector
clinched his hands together and gazed at a beetle in the grass, or
otherwise he would have taken her in his arms.
"Tell me the story of all these avenues," she said; "tell me a fairy
story suitable to the day."
And he fell in with her mood. So he began:
[Illustration: "Once Upon a Time There Was a Fairy Prince and
Princess."]
"Once upon a time there was a fairy prince and princess, and a witch
had enchanted them and put them in a green forest, but had set a
watch-dog over Love--so that the poor Cupid with his bow and arrows
might not shoot at them, and they were told they might live and enjoy
the green wood and find what they could of sport and joy. But Cupid
laughed. 'As if,' he said, 'there is anything in a green wood of good
without me--and my shafts!' So while the watch-dog slept--it was a warm,
warm day in May, just such as this--he shot an arrow at the prince and
it entered his heart. Then he ran off laughing. 'That is enough for one
day,' he said. And the poor prince suffered and suffered because he was
wounded and the princess had not received a dart, too--and could not
feel for him."
"Was she not even sympathetic?" asked Theodora, and again there was that
catch in her breath.
"Yes, she was sympathetic," he continued, "but this was not enough for
the prince; he wanted her to be wounded, too."
"How very, very cruel of him," said Theodora.
"But men are cruel, and the prince was only a man, you know, although he
was in a green forest with a lovely princess."
"And what happened?" asked Theodora.
"Well, the watch-dog slept on, so that a friendly zephyr could come, and
it whispered to the prince: 'At the end of all these allées, which lead
into the future, there is only one thing, and that is Love; he bars
their gates. As soon as you start down one, no matter which, you will
find him, and when he sees your princess he will shoot an arrow at her,
too.'"
"Oh, then the princess of course never went down an allée," said
Theodora--and she smiled radiantly to hide how her heart was
beating--"did she?"
"The end of the story I do not know," said Lord Bracondale; "the fairy
who told it to me would not say what happened to them, only that the
prince was wounded, deeply wounded, with Love's arrow. Aren't you sorry
for the prince, beautiful princess?"
Theodora opened her blue parasol, although no ray of sunshine fell upon
her there. She was going through the first moment of this sort in her
life. She was quite unaccustomed to fencing, or to any intercourse with
men--especially men of his world. She understood this story had himself
and herself for hero and heroine; she felt she must continue the
badinage--anything to keep the tone as light as it could be, with all
these new emotions flooding her being and making her heart beat. It was
almost pain she experienced, the sensation was so intense, and Hector
read of these things in her eyes and was content. So he let his voice
grow softer still, and almost whispered again:
"And aren't you sorry for the prince--beautiful princess?"
"I am sorry for any one who suffers," said Theodora, gently, "even in a
fairy story."
And as he looked at her he thought to himself, here was a rare thing, a
beautiful woman with a tender heart. He knew she would be gentle and
kind to the meanest of God's creatures. And again the vision of her at
Bracondale came to him--his mother would grow to love her perhaps even
more than Morella Winmarleigh! How she would glorify everything
commonplace with those tender ways of hers! To look at her was like
looking up into the vast, pure sky, with the light of heaven beyond. And
yet he lay on the grass at her feet with his mind full of thoughts and
plans and desires to drag this angel down from her high heaven--into his
arms!
Because he was a man, you see, and the time of his awakening was not
yet.
X
Man is a hunter--a hunter always. He may be a poor thing and hunt only a
few puny aims, or he may be a strong man and choose big game. But he is
hunting, hunting--something--always.
And primitive life seems like the spectrum of light--composed of three
primary colors, and white and black at the beginning and ending of it.
And the three colors of blue, red, and yellow have their counterparts in
the three great passions in man--to hunt his food, to continue his
species, and to kill his enemy.
And white and black seem like birth and death--and there is the sun,
which is the soul and makes the colors, and allows of all combinations
and graduations of beautiful other shades from them for parallels to all
other qualities and instincts, only the original are those great primary
forces--to hunt his food, to continue his species, and to kill his
enemy.
And if this is so to the end of time, man will be the same, I suppose,
until civilization has emasculated the whole of nature and so ends the
world! Or until this wonderful new scientist has perfected his
researches to the point of creating human life by chemical process, as
well as his present discovery of animating jellyfish!
Who knows? But by that time it will not matter to any of us!
Meanwhile, man is at the stage that when he loves a woman he wishes to
possess her, and, in a modified form, he wishes to steal her, if
necessary, from another, or kill the enemy who steals her from him.
But the Sun of the Soul is there, too, so the poor old world is not in
such a very bad case after all.
And how the _bon Dieu_ must smile sadly to Himself when He looks down on
priests and nuns and hermits and fanatics, and sees how they have
distorted His beautiful scheme of things with their narrow ideas. Trying
to eliminate the red out of His spectrum, instead of ennobling and
glorifying it all with the Sun of the Soul.
And all of you who are great reasoners and arguers will laugh at this
ridiculous little simile of life drawn by a woman; but I do not care. I
have had my outburst, and said what I wanted to. So now we can get back
to the two--who were not yet lovers--under their green tree in the
Forest of Marly.
"But you must be able to guess the end," Theodora was saying; "and oh, I
want to know, if all the roads were barred by love--how did they get out
of the wood?"
"They took him with them," said Lord Bracondale, and he touched the edge
of her dress gently with a wild flower he had picked in the grass, while
into his eyes crept all the passion he felt and into his voice all the
tenderness.
Now if Theodora had ever read _La Faute de L'Abbé Mouret_ she would have
known just what proximity and the spring-time was doing for them both.
But she had not read, and did not know. All she was conscious of was a
wild thrilling of her pulses, an extraordinary magnetic force that
seemed to draw her--draw her nearer--nearer to what? Even that she did
not know or ask herself. Beyond that it was danger, and she must fly
from it.
"I do not want to talk of any of those things to-day," she said,
suddenly dropping her parasol between them. "I only want to laugh and be
amused, and as you were to devise schemes for my happiness, you must
amuse me."
He looked up at her again and he noticed, for all this brave speech,
that her hands were trembling as she clutched the handle of her blue
parasol.
Triumph and joy ran through him. He could afford to wait a little longer
now, since he knew that he must mean something, even perhaps a great
deal, to her.
And so for the next half-hour he played with her, he skimmed over the
surface of danger, he enthralled her fancy, and with every sentence he
threw the glamour of his love around her, and fascinated her soul. All
his powers of attraction--and they were many--were employed for her
undoing.
And Theodora sat as one in a dream.
At last she felt she _must_ wake--must realize that she was not a happy
princess, but Theodora, who must live her dull life--and this--and
this--where was it leading her to?
So she clasped her hands together suddenly, and she said:
"But do you know we have grown serious, and I asked you to amuse me,
Lord Bracondale!"
"I cannot amuse you," he said, lazily, "but shall I tell you about my
home, which I should like to show you some day?" And again he began to
caress the farthest edge of her dress with his wild flower. Just the
smallest movement of smoothing it up and down that no one could resent,
but which was disturbing to Theodora. She did not wish him to stop, on
the contrary--and yet--
"Yes, I would like to hear of that," she said. "Is it an old, old
house?"
"Oh, moderately so, and it has nooks and corners and views that might
appeal to you. I believe I should find them all endowed with fresh charm
myself, if I could see them with you"--and he made the turning-point of
his flower a few inches nearer her hand.
Theodora said nothing; but she took courage and peeped at him again. And
she thought how powerful he looked, and how beautifully shaped; and she
liked the fineness of the silk of his socks and his shirt, and the cut
of his clothes, and the wave of his hair--and last of all, his brown,
strong, well-shaped hands.
And then she fell to wondering what the general scheme of things could
be that made husbands possess none of these charms; when, if they did,
it could all be so good and so delicious, instead of a terribly irksome
duty to live with them and be their wives.
"You are not listening to a word I am saying!" said Hector. "Where were
your thoughts, cruel lady?"
She was confused a little, and laughed gently. "They were away in a land
where you can never come," she said.
He raised himself on his elbow, and supported his head on his hand,
while he answered, eagerly:
"But I must come! I want to know them, all your thoughts. Do you know
that since we met on Monday you have never been for one instant out of
my consciousness. And you would not listen then to what I told you of
friendship when it is born of instantaneous sympathy--it is because in
some other life two souls have been very near and dear. And that is our
case, and I want to make you feel it so, as I do. Tell me that you
do--?"
"I do not know what I do feel," said Theodora. "But perhaps--could it be
true that we met when we lived before; and when was that? and who were
we?"
"It matters not a jot," said he. "So long as you feel it too--that we
are not only of yesterday, you and I. There is some stronger link
between us."
For one second they looked into each other's eyes, and each read the
other's thoughts mirrored there; and if his said, in conscious,
passionate words, "I love you," hers were troubled and misty with
possibilities. Then she jumped up from her seat suddenly, and her voice
trembled a little as she said:
"And now I want to go out of the wood."
He rose too and stood beside her, while he pointed to the glade to the
left of the centre they were facing.
"We must penetrate into the future then," he said, "because I told my
chauffeur to meet us on the road where I think that will lead to. We
cannot go back by the way we have come."
And she did not answer; she was afraid, because she remembered all those
avenues were barred by--love.
As he walked beside her, Hector Bracondale knew that now he must be
very, very careful in what he said. He must lull her fears to sleep
again, or she would be off like a lark towards high heaven, and he would
be left upon earth.
So he exerted himself to interest and amuse her in less agitating ways.
He talked of his home and his mother and his sister. He wanted Theodora
to meet them. She would like Anne, he said, and his mother would love
her, he knew. And again the impossible vision same to him, and he felt
he hated the face of Morella Winmarleigh.
Usually when he had been greatly attracted by a married woman before, he
had unconsciously thought of her as having the qualities which would
make her an adorable mistress, a delicious friend, or a holiday
amusement. There had never been any reverence mixed up with the affair,
which usually had the zest of forbidden fruit, and was hurried along by
passion. It had always only depended upon the woman how far he had got
beyond these stages; but, as he thought of Theodora, unconsciously a
picture always came to him of what she would be were she his wife. And
it astonished him when he analyzed it; he, the scoffer at bonds, now to
find this picture the fairest in the world!
And as yet he was hardly even dimly growing to realize that fate would
turn the anguish of this desire into a chastisement of scorpions for
him.
Things had always been so within his grasp.
"We shall go to England on Tuesday," Theodora said, as they sauntered
along down the green glade. "It is so strange, you know, but I have
never been there."
"Never been to England!" Hector exclaimed, incredulously.
"No!" and she smiled up at him. All was at peace now in her mind, and
she dared to look as much as she pleased.
"No. Papa used to go sometimes, but it was too expensive to take the
whole family; so we were left at Bruges generally, or at Dieppe, or
where we chanced to be. If it was the summer, often we have spent it in
a Normandy farm-house."
"Then how have you learned all the things you know?" he asked.
"That was not difficult. I do not know much," she said, gently, "and
Sarah taught me in the beginning, and then I went to convents whenever
we were in towns, and dear papa was so kind and generous always; no
matter how hard up he was he always got the best masters available for
me--and for Clementine. Sarah is much older, and even Clementine five
years."
"I wonder what on earth you will think of it--England, I mean?" He was
deeply interested.
"I am sure I shall love it. We have always spoken of it as home, you
know. And papa has often described my grandfather's houses. Both my
grandfathers had beautiful houses, it seems, and he says, now that I am
rich and cannot ever be a trouble to them, the family might be pleased
to see me."
She spoke quite simply. There never was room for bitterness or irony in
her tender heart. And Hector looked down upon her, a sort of worship in
his eyes.
"Papa's father is dead long ago; it is his brother who owns Beechleigh
now," she continued--"Sir Patrick Fitzgerald. They are Irish, of course,
but the place is in Cambridgeshire, because it came from his
grandmother."
"Yes, I know the old boy," said Hector. "I see him at the turf--a fiery,
vile-tempered, thin, old bird, about sixty."
"That sounds like him," said Theodora.
"And so you are going to make all these relations' acquaintance. What an
experience it will be, won't it?" His voice was full of sympathy. "But
you will stay in London. They are all there now, I suppose?"
"My Grandfather Borringdon, my mother's father, never goes there, I
believe; he is very old and delicate, we have heard. But I have written
to him--papa wished me to do so; for myself I do not care, because I
think he was unkind to my mother, and I shall not like him. It was cruel
never to speak to her again--wasn't it?--just because she married papa,
whom she loved very much--papa, who is so handsome that he could never
have really been a husband, could he?"
Then she blushed deeply, realizing what she had said.
And the quaintness of it caused Hector to smile while he felt its
pathos.
How _could_ they all have sacrificed this beautiful young life between
them! And he slashed off a tall green weed with his stick when he
thought of Josiah Brown--his short, stumpy, plebeian figure and bald,
shiny head, his common voice, and his pompousness--Josiah Brown, who had
now the ordering of her comings and goings, who paid for her clothes and
gave her those great pearls--who might touch her and kiss her--might
clasp and caress her--might hold her in his arms, his very own, any
moment of the day--or night! Ah, God! that last thought was
impossible--unbearable.
And for one second Hector's eyes looked murderous as they glared into
the distance--and Theodora glanced up timidly, and asked, in a
sympathetic voice: What was it? What ailed him?
"Some day I will tell you," he said. "But not yet."
Then he asked her more about her family and her plans.
They would stay in London at Claridge's for a week or so, and go down to
Bessington Hall for Whitsuntide. It would be ready for them then. Josiah
had had it all furnished magnificently by one of those people who had
taste and ordered well for those who could afford to pay for it. She was
rather longing to see it, she said--her future home--and she could have
wished she might have chosen the things herself. Not that it mattered
much either way.
"I am very ignorant about houses," she explained, "because we never
really had one, you see, but I think, perhaps, I would know what was
pretty from museums and pictures--and I love all colors and forms."
He felt sure she would know what was pretty. How delightful it would be
to watch her playing with his old home! The touches of her gentle
fingers would make everything sacred afterwards.
At last they came to the end of the green glade--and temptation again
assailed him. He _must_ ruffle the peace of her soft eyes once more.
"And here is the barrier," he said, pointing to a board with "_Terrain
réservé_" upon it--_Réserveé pour la chasse de Monsieur le Président_,
"The barrier which Love keeps--and I want to take him with us as the
prince and princess did in the fairy tale."
"Then you must carry him all by yourself," laughed Theodora. "And he
will be heavy and tire you, long before we get to Versailles."
This time she was on her guard--and besides they were walking--and he
was no longer caressing the edge of her dress with his wild flower; it
was almost easy to fence now.
But when they reached the automobile and he bent over to tuck the rug
in--and she felt the touch of his hands and perceived the scent of
him--the subtle scent, not a perfume hardly, of his coat, or his hair, a
wild rush of that passionate disturbance came over her again, making her
heart beat and her eyes dilate.
And Hector saw and understood, and bit his lips, and clinched his hands
together under the rug, because so great was his own emotion that he
feared what he should say or do. He dared not, dared not chance a
dismissal from the joy of her presence forever, after this one day.
"I will wait until I know she loves me enough to certainly forgive
me--and then, and then--" he said to himself.
But Fate, who was looking on, laughed while she chanted, "The hour is
now at hand when these steeds of passion whose reins you have left loose
so long will not ask your leave, noble friend, but will carry you
whither they will."