Rest well assured that now I see
Nor shall hereafter blinded be.
“Ask Madame la Princesse if she can receive me for a moment.”
Basil, emerging from his dressing-room where he had removed the
stains of travel, spoke in his usual quiet voice, and Célèste
courtesied to the ground without daring to raise her eyes, for she
was terribly afraid of the Prince, and her share in the escapade of
two weeks ago filled her with extreme alarm; so she passed on ahead
of him toward Laurence’s apartments with suitable haste, and for
once without indulging in any coquettishly tripping steps.
For a very few moments only Basil waited in the entrance-hall, and
then Célèste threw wide the door of the little salon preceding the
bedroom and effaced herself murmuring in a subdued voice:
“Madame la Princesse awaits Monsieur le Prince.”
Inside the air was almost stiflingly hot with that heat which one
expects to find only in forcing-houses, and the violent perfume of
heady flowers added to the illusion and positively took one by the
throat. Laurence did not believe in the modest fragrance of violets
and roses; to please her blossoms must be tropically sensational in
scent and color, erratic of shape if possible, and especially very
costly; wherefore the vases all over the suite bristled with a
newly hybridized lily, red and yellow in gaudy streaks like a
South-American parrot, and pouring forth from their pointed petals
torrents of pungent muskiness.
Half sitting, half reclining on the piled-up cushions of her favorite
pink velvet lounge, enveloped like a _bon-bon-à-surprise_ in folds
upon folds of flesh-tinted gauze forming the most amiable of princely
_sauts-de-lit_, she awaited her husband in apparent calm, although
her heart was beating uncomfortably. She knew she was in for a scene
of some kind or other, and had prepared for it by repeating to
herself over and over again: “I must stand firm; I must stand firm at
any cost! Men are afraid of scenes, even when they bring them about
themselves.” But she had not expected to find Basil quite so cool and
indifferent upon his return to her after several weeks, nor so
unimpressed by the skilful _mise-en-scène_ she had prepared; and
when he omitted even the formal hand-kiss of greeting and merely
bowed before her, she felt a sudden sinking of her throbbing heart,
as if it were going down into her rose-lined slippers--pretty little
slippers, which, with the accompanying silken ankles, were, as usual,
effectively in evidence.
“You are not very effusive?” she faltered, her head slightly on one
side, her lovely eyes radiating electric currents. “After all those
days!” It was a favorite formula of speech with her, evidently, for
she was certainly not thinking just now of Neville or of the Hôtel
de Plenhöel.
Basil, one elbow on the chimneypiece, gazed down at her, totally
unmoved. Perchance he, too, had prepared himself carefully for this
interview.
“You might never have seen me again,” she continued, raising herself
a little and pouting up at him like a mischievous child who wants
caresses. “For it was a miracle that I was saved!”
Again she threw him a little appealing glance full of pathos, but his
face was set and hard as flint, and suddenly Régis’s words
flashed through her mind: “_If ever Basil learns that you have
stepped down from the pedestal upon which he placed you, he will be
unmerciful._”
“Why don’t you speak?” she exclaimed, nervously sitting up and
letting her feet drop to the carpet.
And then Basil laughed, a short, incisive laugh that cut like the
lash of a whip. There are some laughs far more expressive than even
the most forceful words, and this was one of that sort.
“Let me impress upon you the advisability of implicit truthfulness on
your part, Laurence, before we go any further with this,” he said,
coldly.
“Are you going to be ugly to me!” she exclaimed, joining her hands
together protestingly, “and just because I was afraid of your
murderous peasants? Are you going to be horrid, Basil dear ... to
poor little me?”
Basil gulped down something in his throat--possibly the pungence of
those flaring lilies--his arm fell limply to his side, and he stared
at her in amazement. “You will make a mistake,” he said, slowly, “if
you try to go on hoodwinking me. It was well enough in the past, but
that sort of thing is done with.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, flushing crimson. “What do you mean?
When have I tried to hoodwink you?”
“For more than five long persevering years. No, don’t interrupt me;
wait till I have pointed out a few things to you.”
The soft laces about her neck seemed of a sudden to have been
transformed into an implacable garotte, and she tore at them with
shaking fingers. She was ashy pale now, even to her stiffening lips.
He need not have forbidden her to speak, for she could not have done
so had she tried.
“For over five long weary years,” he quietly resumed, “you have made
of me a mere purveyor of luxuries, of pleasures, of amusements. I
fully admire your cleverness in raising yourself to the position I
gave you; but not, however, the self-sufficiency that caused you to
neglect the obligations that position entails. You scarcely showed
shrewdness in this respect, but I was ready after a few weeks of your
company to take much for granted, to pardon much, and to adopt any
_modus-vivendi_ which would make it easier for you and me to keep up
the farce of what I, at least, in my imbecility had thought to be a
love marriage. I saw your failings; I discovered, one by one, faults
I had never believed you capable of, but I thought you at least
honest, and so I managed to endure the disappointment of finding in
you nothing of what I had expected. I never doubted your honesty,
mind you--never once. That saved all!”
He paused, bit his under lip, and went on in the same slow,
deliberate way: “I discovered, to my extreme sorrow, that you did not
love me as you claimed you did. It was a bitter pill for me to
swallow; but even then I found excuses for you. The temptation of
great wealth and--permit me to add in simple justice--of a state
almost unequaled here or elsewhere. You were young, well-born, and
poor. This is not a--taunt, far from it--but a straight and plain
statement. Your beauty entitled you to the best that this earth can
provide, and, meeting me on your road, you intentionally dazzled me,
using, perhaps, not the most delicate of means to do so; but I was
too blind then to discriminate--my fault entirely! I confess that I
was to blame for not having been more keen-sighted, and even to-day I
rest that blame upon myself.”
He turned his gaze away from the wild stare of her eyes, and at once
she tottered to her feet. “Basil!” she cried. “Basil, I love you; you
know I love you and have always loved you!” And, so queerly are women
constructed, that at that moment when she was being shown in one
flash how completely she had lost him, she felt with a keen pang how
far above other men he towered, how fine and strong he really was,
and what a lover he might have remained, but for her own wilful
folly.
He did not move, he quietly continued bending his grave eyes upon
her, scanning from head to foot this beautiful creature offering
herself in a flash of awakening passion; her light draperies clinging
to her like foam about Aphrodite, her glorious eyes wet with tears
more genuine than had ever glistened there, her white arms yearningly
stretched out to him.
“What a pity,” he said, simply, “that you should not have thought of
all this before!”
She half fell back as if he had struck her, then, impelled by a swift
instinct to do all that she could to save herself, she suddenly flung
herself at him, her head upon his breast, her loose-piled hair,
shaken from its fastening ribbon by the violence of the action,
tumbling like a mantle in lustrous ripples all around her.
“Basil! _My_ Basil!” she moaned. “I am yours, only yours!” One part
of her brain was working feverishly, for she must try to guess--and
that quickly--what he knew, what had changed him so; the other part
was inert and dazed. It was a crucial moment.
Firmly he detached her clinging hands from his shoulders, and,
holding her by both slender wrists, he pressed her gently toward the
lounge; but her hitherto dormant fighting powers were fully aroused
now, and she struggled free, to fling herself in utter abasement at
his feet, clasping his knees desperately. An expression of
indescribable pain contracted his features, but she did not see that;
all she knew was that he lifted her up ever so gently, as though she
were a mere object to be removed from his path, and placed her in the
same impersonal way where she had sat before.
Limitless astonishment mingled now with her terror and confusion. Was
this the man whom she had led by the proverbial silken thread?
“Don’t you realize,” he was saying, “that you can no longer
influence me; that I clearly see through the tricks and shams you
have always practised upon me; that my eyes are wide open at last?”
Gripping the edge of the lounge with both hands, she stared at him in
utter consternation, helpless, defeated, robbed at one stroke of all
her weapons.
“Women,” he pursued in that well-controlled, level tone that gave her
such a sense of powerlessness, “hold different views of honor from
what we do. I had never quite believed this, because our women are
apart from the common herd, but you have convinced me. You are
alarmed at the thought--not of losing me, but what I represent to
you, and you are at the present minute perfectly willing to surrender
unconditionally, even after what I have just told you, were I
cowardly enough to accept such a surrender. You think that my anger
will pass; but you may as well know that this is not going to be the
case, because you have robbed me not only of the present, but of the
past--because you have never been faithful to me, even when you first
put your hand in mine and swore to be true, and because now I do not
believe in you and never will!”
“But what makes you say these hideous things?” she gasped. “What have
I done to deserve such cruelty--such contempt--such injustice?”
There was still something wanting in his accusation--she felt it
instinctively; something she dreaded to hear him tell, and yet must
know; something he, a gentleman, hated to say.
“The knowledge that you have always betrayed me,” he said at last;
“you who married me for gain, because your lover was too poor to be a
welcome husband!”
“My lover!” she shrieked. “That is false! I have no lover!”
“Pardon me, madame,” he said, “some time ago I found it was
necessary for my honor to learn what I could about your
past--and--your present. A little late, no doubt, but what will you?
We Russians are hard to rouse, but still harder to deceive twice
over. Long before you knew me Neville Moray was your lover--he has
continued to be so ever since. How far your--affection carried you
before our marriage I do not know--but since then you have seen him
at regular intervals, secretly, shamefully, and now”--his voice broke
suddenly in a horrible way--“now I am forced to doubt the legitimacy
of your son.”
From the long gallery beyond her apartments gay, childish shouts came
ringing to their ears.
“Hop! Hop, Garrassime! Kick out your heels, horsey! Go faster! Go
faster!” Piotr was calling out at the top of his voice, and in the
small, heavily perfumed salon there was silence, tense and terrible,
an oppressive lull in a storm. There was a burst of laughter, and the
galloping of little feet pursuing Garrassime, the merry jingle of the
silver bells, of the bridle with which the boy was driving his human
steed, and then silence again.
Laurence had fallen forward against the cushions, her face hidden,
both hands covering her ears. Basil drew a deep breath, and suddenly
tears rose to his eyes. Slowly he walked to a window, and, his back
toward her, gazed unseeingly at the immense _steppe_ rolling out from
the rocks far below. The magnificent isolation of the place was
almost tragic in its completeness, and from that height the vast
wrinklings of the unspotted snow-field seemed wrought from
imperishable marble by the craft of some giant sculptor, enamoured of
Eternity.
“Hear me, Basil!” murmured Laurence, hoarsely. “What you say is
monstrous--false to the core. The boy is _yours_--_yours_, do you
hear me?” There was the ring of truth in her words now, but the man
who listened had ceased to believe once and for all. A bad woman may
inspire passion, but not the love that trusts and comprehends.
“How can I know?” came from the window, in a voice so altered that
she did not recognize it, and abruptly started forward to see who had
spoken. “How can I know,” went on the lifeless, monotonous
accusation, “since you were always untrue? Had you, tired of my
tenderness, yielded to a sudden impulse and given yourself to
another, you might yet have had some shadow of an excuse, perhaps.
You would have merely sunk, in so doing, to the level of those women
who break faith because it is their whim or their nature to do so.
But what of the crime committed by a free agent in accepting another
man’s name, his love and trust, when it has become no longer
possible to do so without black dishonor? You were talking a while
ago of your poltroonery with regard to my peasants--my people here.
What is that compared to the atrocious cowardice you were guilty of
when you greedily accepted me as your husband--your best friend, your
protector--knowing that you were no longer yours to dispose of, for a
fortune or otherwise?”
“You are cruel--unfair, and you know it! There has been nothing,
nothing, I tell you, that was serious between me and the--the--young
man you named just now. He was a childhood’s friend, nothing more.”
Basil did not turn, he shrugged his shoulders wearily, that was all;
and Laurence, cowed, daunted by this contemptuous silence, glanced
apprehensively at those broad shoulders in a quick, haunted way.
“Oh,” she cried, “won’t you look round? Won’t you read the truth in
my eyes? Take care, Basil, of what you are doing! Don’t push me too
far!” The sentence that had begun in entreaty ended in a snarl of
weak rage and menace that made Basil pivot on his heels and look at
her with new surprise.
“I believe, God forgive me, that you are attempting to threaten me!”
he said, holding back his anger with a strong effort.
She was hanging her head, but not in shame; her hands were clasped
between her knees, upon which the thin material of her dress drew
tightly, and she glanced up at him through her eyelashes.
“If I do anything desperate,” she said, between her teeth, “it will
be your fault.” And then in one of those moments of complete mental
abandonment--a sudden weakening of over-taxed faculties to which
women when cornered are liable--she committed the most fatal error of
all. “Who,” she asked, furiously--“who told you all this against me?
Was it Régis de Plenhöel who talked?”
Basil’s eyes were dark steel. “Régis de Plenhöel--Régis?” he
echoed. “What has he to do with all this? Surely you did not make him
your confidant?”
Too late she saw her terrible mistake. “No! No!” she cried, throwing
out protesting arms. “I don’t know what I am talking about. I did
not say that!” But the harm was done.
“So,” Basil said, “there are more than three of us to share this
abominable secret! Well, that alters the case--for the future, that
is!” He took a step toward her. “_À nous deux_, then, madame,” he
said, “for the present, at any rate. You are going to tell me exactly
in what way that chivalrous fellow Régis has been mixed up by you in
this shameful business, or else I’ll know the reason why!”
The poor devil who but an instant ago was inwardly writhing in agony
was gone. Nothing of him remained in evidence. It was now the judge,
calm and inexorable, who stood before her, and that judge was her
husband, and--a Prince--which will continue to make a difference
throughout the ages, especially to natures like hers, in spite of all
to the contrary that can be howled to the multitude or printed in
the malodorous pamphlets and “up-to-date” novels of a socialistic
press.
And now for the second time it was imperative for her to decide what
to say, instantly, in extenuation of her previous words. Her tortuous
mind flickered under the effort, but she chose her line of defense,
and spoke:
“That chivalrous fellow, Plenhöel, as you are pleased to call him,
is not quite the pure white knight you think him. He--since you force
me to say it--deigned from the first to look with favor upon
me--pardon me for adopting the grandiloquent style you use yourself!”
The sneer was unmistakable, and in her best manner.
Basil’s features grew a little more rigid. “Go on!” he said.
“When I came to Plenhöel, and--met you--he showed me at once that he
admired me. I might have married him instead of you had I wished it,
and become the stepmother of your adored ‘Gamin.’” She gave a
wicked crack of laughter, for she saw the swift spasm that contracted
his features as she pronounced the nickname of Marguerite; but this
was gone in a flash, and Basil was listening calmly and collectedly
again.
“Yes,” she hastily resumed, “I could have been the Marquise de
Plenhöel--not a thing to be despised when one comes to think of it!
Nor is this quite all, for when I was in Paris I had to defend myself
against quite a different sort of address from him. Oh! you will
pretend not to believe that, either; but one night I was forced to
run away from the Hôtel de Plenhöel, after a scene with him. He
snatched me up in his arms; he--”
Basil straightened himself mechanically, which made him seem of a
sudden absolutely gigantic.
“Do you,” he said, “really expect me to accept this paltry
explanation as the truth?” he asked.
She moved restlessly, but her flaming eyes did not flinch.
“You will continue to hold him innocent, I suppose,” she said,
bitterly. “Everybody, it seems, is innocent excepting me!”
“Not everybody!”
She drooped for a second beneath the taunt, but soon went on, as if
only spurred to new effort.
“Yet he is well known, your chivalrous Régis, as quite the contrary
of a woman-hater--very much the contrary! You said that to me
yourself long ago. A Don Juan, you called him, laughing. Well, what
is there so strange about his casting his handkerchief in my
direction?” She paused, panting a little.
“You use most befitting expressions,” Basil replied, “but you forget
that Régis and I were boys together, and that I know him to be as
incapable of making love--it is my turn to express regret for a
somewhat drastic plainness of speech--to a young girl intrusted to
his care, as of repeating the offense to my wife. I would refute the
testimony of my own eyes where he is in question.”
“They are, as a matter of fact, pretty gullible sometimes--your own
eyes!” she said, insolently, utterly unable to resist the temptation
of hitting back; but the dull flush on his face frightened her into
silence.
“My eyes are, as you very justly remark,” he acquiesced, “or, rather,
they have been, pretty dull. I think, however, that you have effected
a perfect cure, and that as an oculist you stand unrivaled. But do
let us understand each other, once, and for all time to come.”
“I ask no better,” she retorted, deceived by his surface calm.
“Very well, then. Listen to me, and listen with all your might,
because I shall not repeat what I tell you now. I want no scandal, no
stain upon my name. _We_ do not need such things to make it famous.
So, although in Russia, which you so greatly dislike, divorce and
annulment are obtainable under certain circumstances, I will never
resort to such humiliating means of separation; remember that. Life
for us in common has been rendered impossible by you, and I shall
provide for you elsewhere than under my own roof. You can have the
house in Paris and a suitable income as long as you conduct yourself
decently; also the villa at Beaulieu. Should you, however, attempt to
amuse yourself by further intrigues, I will know how to stop you. Of
your--of Captain Moray it is not worth while to speak, for I am going
to challenge and kill him as soon as I have done with you. This being
well understood, I will at once make all preparations for your
departure from here, on the plea that you are not able to bear the
severity of our climate, and you may go to Paris or Beaulieu (at your
choice) immediately. Your maid and courier will accompany you; the
staff of servants belonging to each of my establishments is there in
permanence, as you know.”
“And do you imagine that you can dispose of me as if I were a parcel
to be sent off by post at your pleasure?” She was white as paper, and
her obstinate jaw worked curiously as she spoke. “And this,” she
continued, rapidly, “because without proofs--tangible proofs--it
pleases you to accuse me of things I have never dreamed of doing?”
For the first time Basil’s extraordinary self-restraint showed
signs of giving way.
“You shall do as I say!” he broke in. “As to proofs, tangible or
otherwise, they are superabundantly in my hand since a week. Do you
wish me to tell you when and how and where your meetings with Captain
Moray took place? Do you desire to know any particular details
concerning those meetings, or your correspondence with him for the
past years, before and after you deigned to marry me? In my turn I
will warn you not to push me too far. We Palitzins are not a
particularly patient race. I must be really a remarkable exception to
have stood what I have. For a mere stray glance of coquetry lives
have been paid in the past, although, happily, until now our
Princesses have been honest and scrupulously loyal women. Believe me,
madame, you have nothing to gain by forcing a scandal which will
acquaint the world with what you have done, for then you will be a
_déclassée_, and of those there are too many already. All that
remains for me now is to ask you when you can be ready to leave
Tverna.”
“Like a dismissed servant,” she said, in a strangling voice. “And
Piotr? Do you intend to keep him?”
He passed his left hand quickly across his eyes. “Piotr,” he said,
with an effort, the blood receding from his face and leaving it
almost livid. “Piotr is officially at least a Prince Palitzin. He
belongs to us, and shall remain under my care, although not with me.
But this need not trouble you. He never was anything to you; the
maternal fiber being, I fear, not one of your numerous strong
points.”
“And,” she exclaimed, fiercely, “do you not care a jot about all
this? You have loved me passionately. Are you forgetting our years
together--our wedding-trip--everything?”
Basil looked at her for a moment, as if doubting the evidence of his
own ears. Her effrontery really astounded him. “Had I not mistaken my
feelings when I married you, this would have been much worse,” he
said, grimly. “As it is, the souvenirs you are so thoughtful as to
invoke make little impression on me!”
With an execration on her lips Laurence sprang up and came close to
her husband. “Ah!” she cried. “You mistook your feelings, did you?
And it is _you_ who dare to call me to account for my conduct? _You_,
who have loved Marguerite de Plenhöel from time immemorial, one
might say--and it is _you_ who blame me for what you pretend I have
done--_you_? No doubt she has not waited until now to reciprocate
your tender affection. I am--”
She did not finish, for with lightning-like rapidity his hand closed
upon her arm. “We will leave her name out of this, if you please!” he
said in a tone of command she had not yet heard from him. “You are
not fit to pronounce it. Nor have you the right to draw infamous
conclusions about her--or me, either--out of your richly furnished
stores of malice. You know without a peradventure that you are
slandering the purest of God’s creatures, and--a man who has given
you every reason to respect him. Now, please, no more noise, in the
interest of your own future. Try, if you can, to act with a little
more dignity--before others at least.”
He released her with a gesture bordering on disgust, and she fell
heavily into his arms in one of those short-lived fainting-fits that
are the usual resort of overstrained feminine nerves. He lifted her
to the lounge, gave a quick touch to her wrist--which would have
completely reassured him had he been at all anxious--and, striding to
the door, called Célèste.
“Your mistress is not well; look to her!” he said; and when Laurence
opened her eyes she saw that he was gone.