An odour of spirits evaporated in the warm winds of May which came
through the open window. The rich velvet sofa of early English design
was littered with proofs and copies of the _Pilgrim_, and the stamped
velvet was two shades richer in tone than the pale dead-red of the
floorcloth. Small pictures in light frames harmonized with a green
paper of long interlacing leaves. On the right, the grand piano and
the slender brass lamps; and the impression of refinement and taste
was continued, for between the blue chintz curtains the river lay
soft as a picture of old Venice. The beauty of the water, full of
the shadows of hay and sails, many forms of chimneys, wharfs, and
warehouses, made panoramic and picturesque by the motion of the great
hay-boats, were surely wanted for the windows of this beautiful
apartment.
Mike and Frank stood facing the view, and talked of Lily Young, whom
Mike was momentarily expecting.
"You know as much about it as I do. It was only just at the end that
you spoke to your cousin and I got in a few words."
"What did you say?"
"What could I say? Something to the effect that the convent must be a
very happy home."
"How did you know she cared for you?"
"I always know that. The second time we went there she told me she
was going to leave the convent. I asked her what had decided her to
take that step, and she looked at me--that thirsting look which women
cannot repress. I said I hoped I should see her when she came to
London; she said she hoped so too. Then I knew it was all right. I
pressed her hand, and when we went again I said she would find a
letter waiting for her at the post-office. Somehow she got the letter
sooner than I expected, and wrote to say she'd come here if she
could. Here is the letter. But will she come?"
"Even if she does, I don't see what good it will do you; it isn't as
if you were really in love with her."
"I believe I am in love; it sounds rather awful, doesn't it? but she
is wondrous sweet. I want to be true to her. I want to live for her.
I'm not half so bad as you think I am. I have often tried to be
constant, and now I mean to be. This ceaseless desire of change is
very stupid, and it leads to nothing. I'm sick of change, and would
think of none but her. You have no idea how I have altered since I
have seen her. I used to desire all women. I wrote a ballade the
other day on the women of two centuries hence. Is it not shocking
to think that we shall lie mouldering in our graves while women are
dancing and kissing? They will not even know that I lived and was
loved. It will not occur to them to say as they undress of an
evening, 'Were he alive to-day we might love him.'"
THE BALLADE OF DON JUAN DEAD
My days for singing and loving are over,
And stark I lie in my narrow bed,
I care not at all if roses cover,
Or if above me the snow is spread;
I am weary of dreaming of my sweet dead,
All gone like me unto common clay.
Life's bowers are full of love's fair fray,
Of piercing kisses and subtle snares;
So gallants are conquered, ah, well away!--
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.
O happy moths that now flit and hover
From the blossom of white to the blossom of red,
Take heed, for I was a lordly lover
Till the little day of my life had sped;
As straight as a pine-tree, a golden head,
And eyes as blue as an austral bay.
Ladies, when loosing your evening array,
Reflect, had you lived in my years, my prayers
Might have won you from weakly lovers away--
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.
Through the song of the thrush and the pipe of the plover
Sweet voices come down through the binding lead;
O queens that every age must discover
For men, that man's delight may be fed;
Oh, sister queens to the queens I wed.
For the space of a year, a month, a day,
No thirst but mine could your thirst allay;
And oh, for an hour of life, my dears,
To kiss you, to laugh at your lovers' dismay--
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.
ENVOI
Prince was I ever of festival gay,
And time never silvered my locks with gray;
The love of your lovers is as hope that despairs,
So think of me sometimes, dear ladies, I pray--
My love was stronger and fiercer than theirs.
"It is like all your poetry--merely meretricious glitter; there is no
heart in it. That a man should like to have a nice mistress, a girl
he is really fond of, is simple enough, but lamentation over the
limbo of unborn loveliness is, to my mind, sheer nonsense."
Mike laughed.
"Of course it is silly, but I cannot alter it; it is the sex and not
any individual woman that attracts me. I enter a ball-room and I see
one, one whom I have never seen before, and I say, 'It is she whom I
have sought, I can love her.' I am always disappointed, but hope is
born again in every fresh face. Women are so common when they have
loved you."
Startled by his words, Mike strove to measure the thought.
"I can see nothing interesting in the fact that it is natural to you
to behave badly to every woman who gives you a chance of deceiving
her. That's what it amounts to. At the end of a week you'll tire of
this new girl as you did of the others. I think it a great shame. It
isn't gentlemanly."
Mike winced at the word "gentlemanly." For a moment he thought of
resentment, but his natural amiability predominated, and he said--
"I hope not. I really do think I can love this one; she isn't like
the others. Besides, I shall be much happier. There is, I know, a
great sweetness in constancy. I long for this sweetness." Seeing by
Frank's face that he was still angry, he pursued his thoughts in the
line which he fancied would be most agreeable; he did so without
violence to his feelings. It was as natural to him to think one way
as another. Mike's sycophancy was so innate that it did not appear,
and was therefore almost invariably successful. "I have been the
lover of scores of women, but I never loved one. I have always hoped
to love; it is love that I seek. I find love-tokens and I do not know
who were the givers. I have possessed nothing but the flesh, and I
have always looked beyond the flesh. I never sought a woman for her
beauty. I dreamed of a companion, one who would share each thought;
I have dreamed of a woman to whom I could bring my poetry, who could
comprehend all sorrows, and with whom I might deplore the sadness of
life until we forget it was sad, and I have been given some more or
less imperfect flesh."
"I," said Frank, "don't care a rap for your blue-stockings. I like a
girl to look pretty and sweet in a muslin dress, her hair with the
sun on it slipping over her shoulders, a large hat throwing a shadow
over the garden of her face. I like her to come and sit on my knee in
the twilight before dinner, to come behind me when I am working and
put her hand on my forehead, saying, 'Poor old man, you are tired!'"
"And you could love one girl all your life--Lizzie Baker, for
instance; and you could give up all women for one, and never wander
again free to gather?"
"It is always the same thing."
"No, that is just what it is not. The last one was thin, this one
is fat; the last one was tall, this one is tiny. The last one was
stupid, this one is witty. Some men seek the source of the Nile, I
the lace of a bodice. A new love is a voyage of discovery. What is
her furniture like? What will she say? What are her opinions of love?
But when you have been a woman's lover a month you know her morally
and physically. Society is based on the family. The family alone
survives, it floats like an ark over every raging flood. But you
may understand without being able to accept, and I cannot accept,
although I understand and love family life. What promiscuity of body
and mind! The idea of never being alone fills me with horror to lose
that secret self, which, like a shy bird, flies out of sight in the
day, but is with you, oh, how intensely in the morning!"
"Nothing pleases you so much as to be allowed to talk nonsense about
yourself."
Mike laughed.
"Let me have those opera-glasses. That woman sitting on the bench is
like her."
The trees of the embankment waved along the laughing water, and in
scores the sparrows flitted across the sleek green sward. The porter
in his bright uniform, cocked hat, and brass buttons, explained the
way out to a woman. Her child wore a red sash and stooped to play
with a cat that came along the railings, its tail high in the air.
"They know nothing of Lily Young," Mike said to himself; and knowing
the porter could not interfere, he wondered what he would think if he
knew all. "If she comes nothing can save her, she must and shall be
mine."
Waterloo Bridge stood high above the river, level and lovely. Over
Charing Cross the brightness was full of spires and pinnacles, but
Southwark shore was lost in flat dimness. Then the sun glowed and
Westminster ascended tall and romantic, St. Thomas's and St. John's
floating in pale enchantment, and beneath the haze that heaved and
drifted, revealing coal-barges moored by the Southwark shore, lay a
sheet of gold. The candour of the morning laughed upon the river;
and there came a little steamer into the dazzling water, her smoke
heeling over, coiling and uncoiling like a snake, and casting
tremendous shadow--in her train a line of boats laden to the edge
with deal planks. Then the haze heaved and London disappeared, became
again a gray city, faint and far away--faint as spires seem in a
dream. Again and again the haze wreathed and went out, discovering
wharfs and gold inscriptions, uncovering barges aground upon the
purple slime of the Southwark shore, their yellow yards pointing like
birds with outstretched necks.
The smoke of the little steamer curled and rolled over, now like a
great snake, now like a great bird hovering with a snake in its
talons; and the little steamer made pluckily for Blackfriars. Carts
and hansoms, vans and brewers' vans, all silhouetting. Trains slip
past, obliterating with white whiffs the delicate distances, the
perplexing distances that in London are delicate and perplexing as
a spider's web. Great hay-boats yellow in the sun, brown in the
shadow--great hay-boats came by, their sails scarce filled with the
light breeze; standing high, they sailed slowly and picturesquely,
with men thrown in all attitudes; somnolent in sunshine and pungent
odour--one only at work, wielding the great rudder.
"Ah! if she would not disappoint me; if she would only come; I would
give my life not to be disappointed.... Three o'clock! She said she
would be here by three, if she came at all. I think I could love
her--I am sure of it; it would be impossible to weary of her--so
frail--a white blonde. She said she would come, I know she wanted
to.... This waiting is agony! Oh, if I were only good-looking!
Whatever power I have over women I have acquired; it was the desire
to please women that gave me whatever power I possess; I was as soft
as wax, and in the fingers of desire was modified and moulded. You
did not know me when I was a boy--I was hideous. It seemed to me
impossible that women could love men. Women seemed to me so beautiful
and desirable, men so hideous and revolting. Could they touch us
without a revulsion of feeling? Could they really desire us? That
is why I could not bear to give women money, nor a present of any
kind--no, not even a flower. If I did all my pleasure was gone;
I could not help thinking it was for what they got out of me that
they liked me. I longed to penetrate the mystery of women's life.
It seemed to me cruel that the differences between the sexes should
never be allowed to dwindle, but should be strictly maintained
through all the observances of life. There were beautiful beings
walking by us of whom we knew nothing--irreparably separated from
us. I wanted to be with this sex as a shadow is with its object."
"You didn't find many opportunities of gratifying your tastes in
Cashel?"
"No, indeed! Of course the women about the town were not to be
thought of." Unpleasant memories seemed to check his flow of words.
Without noticing his embarrassment, Frank said--
"After France it must have been a horrible change to come to Ireland.
How old were you?"
"About fourteen. I could not endure the place. Every day was so
appallingly like the last. There was nothing for me to do but to
dream; I dreamed of everything. I longed to get alone and let my
fancy wander--weaving tales of which I was the hero, building castles
of which I was the lord."
"I remember always hearing of your riding and shooting. No one knew
of your literary tastes. I don't mind telling you that Mount Rorke
often suspected you of being a bit of a poacher."
Mike laughed.
"I believe I have knocked down a pheasant or two. I was an odd
mixture--half a man of action, half a man of dreams. My position in
Cashel was unbearable. My mother was a lady; my father--you know how
he had let himself down. You cannot imagine the yearnings of a poor
boy; you were brought up in all elegance and refinement. That
beautiful park! On afternoons I used to walk there, and I remember
the very moments I passed under the foliage of the great beeches and
lay down to dream. I used to wander to the outskirts of the wood as
near as I dared to the pleasure-grounds, and looking on the towers
strove to imagine the life there. The bitterest curses lie in the
hearts of young men who, understanding refinement and elegance, see
it for ever out of their reach. I used to watch the parade of dresses
passing on the summer lawns between the firs and flowering trees.
What graceful and noble words were spoken!--and that man walking into
the poetry of the laburnum gold, did he put his arm about her? And I
wondered what silken ankles moved beneath her skirts. My brain was on
fire, and I was crazed; I thought I should never hold a lady in my
arms. A lady! all the delicacy of silk and lace, high-heeled shoes,
and the scent and colour of hair that a _coiffeur_ has braided."
"I think you are mad!"
Mike laughed and continued--
"I was so when I was sixteen. There was a girl staying there. Her
hair was copper, and her flesh was pink and white. Her waist, you
could span it. I saw her walking one day on ..."
"You must mean Lady Alice Hargood, a very tall girl?"
"Yes; five feet seven, quite. I saw her walking on the terrace with
your uncle. Once she passed our house, and I smarted with shame of it
as of some restless wound, and for days I remembered I was little
better than a peasant. Originally we came, as you know, of good
English stock, but nothing is vital but the present. I cried and
cursed my existence, my father and the mother that bore me, and that
night I climbed out by my window and roved through the dark about the
castle so tall in the moonlight. The sky that night was like a soft
blue veil, and the trees were painted quite black upon it. I looked
for her window, and I imagined her sleeping with her copper hair
tossed in the moonlight, like an illustration in a volume of Shelley.
"You remember the old wooden statue of a nymph that stood in the
sycamores at the end of the terraces; she was the first naked woman I
saw. I used to wander about her, sometimes at night, and I have often
climbed about and hung round those shoulders, and ever since I have
always met that breast of wood. You have been loved more truly; you
have been possessed of woman more thoroughly than I. Though I clasp a
woman in my arms, it is as if the Atlantic separated us. Did I never
tell you of my first love affair? That was the romance of the wood
nymph. One evening I climbed on the pedestal of my divinity, my cheek
was pale ..."
"For God's sake, leave out the poetics, and come to the facts."
"If you don't let me tell my story in my own way I won't tell it at
all. Out of my agony prayer rose to Alice, for now it pleased me to
fancy there was some likeness between this statue and Lady Alice. The
dome of leafage was sprinkled with the colour of the sunset, and as I
pressed my lips to the wooden statue, I heard dead leaves rustling
under a footstep. Holding the nymph with one arm, I turned and saw a
lady approaching. She asked me why I kissed the statue. I looked away
embarrassed, but she told me not to go, and she said, 'You are a
pretty boy.' I said I had never seen a woman so beautiful. Again
I grew ashamed, but the lady laughed. We stood talking in the
stillness. She said I had pretty hands, and asked me if I regretted
the nymph was not a real woman. She took my hands. I praised hers,
and then I grew frightened, for I knew she came from the castle; the
castle was to me what the Ark of the Covenant was to an Israelite.
She put her arm about me, and my fears departed in the thrilling of
an exquisite minute. She kissed me and said, 'Let us sit down.'"
"I wonder who she was! What was her name? You can tell me."
"No, I never mention names; besides, I am not certain she gave her
right name."
"Are you sure she was staying at the castle? For if so, there would
be no use for her to conceal her name. You could easily have found
it out."
"Oh, yes, she was staying at the castle; she talked about you all.
Don't you believe me?"
"What, all about the nymph? I am certain you thought you ought to
have loved her, and if what Harding says is right, that there is more
truth in what we think than in what we do, I'm sure you might say
that you had been on a wedding-tour with one of the gargoyles."
Mike laughed; and Frank did not suspect that he had annoyed him.
Mike's mother was a Frenchwoman, whom John Fletcher had met in Dublin
and had pressed into a sudden marriage. At the end of three years of
married life she had been forced to leave him, and strange were the
legends of the profanities of that bed. She fled one day, taking her
son with her. Fletcher did not even inquire where she had gone; and
when at her death Mike returned to Ireland, he found his father in a
small lodging-house playing the flute. Scarcely deigning to turn his
head, he said--"Oh! is that you, Mike?--sit down."
At his father's death, Mike had sold the lease of the farm for three
hundred pounds, and with that sum and a volume of verse he went to
London. When he had published his poems he wrote two comedies. His
efforts to get them produced led him into various society. He was
naturally clever at cards, and one night he won three hundred pounds.
Journalism he had of course dabbled in--he was drawn towards it by
his eager impatient nature; he was drawn from it by his gluttonous
and artistic nature. Only ten pounds for an article, whereas a
successful "bridge" brought him ten times that amount, and he
revolted against the column of platitudes that the hours whelmed in
oblivion. There had been times, however, when he had been obliged to
look to journalism for daily bread. The _Spectator_, always open to
young talent, had published many of his poems; the _Saturday_ had
welcomed his paradoxes and strained eloquence; but whether he worked
or whether he idled he never wanted money. He was one of those men
who can always find five pounds in the streets of London.
We meet Mike in his prime--in his twenty-ninth year--a man of various
capabilities, which an inveterate restlessness of temperament had
left undeveloped--a man of genius, diswrought with passion,
occasionally stricken with ambition.
"Let me have those glasses. There she is! I am sure it is she--there,
leaning against the Embankment. Yes, yes, it is she. Look at her. I
should know her figure among a thousand--those frail shoulders, that
little waist; you could break her like a reed. How sweet she is on
that background of flowing water, boats, wharfs, and chimneys; it all
rises about her like a dream, and all is as faint upon the radiant
air as a dream upon happy sleep. So she is coming to see me. She will
keep her promise. I shall love her. I feel at last that love is near
me. Supposing I were to marry her?"
"Why shouldn't you marry her if you love her? That is to say, if this
is more than one of your ordinary caprices, spiced by the fact that
its object is a nun."
The men looked at each other for a moment doubtful. Then Mike
laughed.
"I hope I don't love her too much, that is all. But perhaps she will
not come. Why is she standing there?"
"I should laugh if she turned on her heel and walked away right under
your very nose."
A cloud passed over Mike's face.
"That's not possible," he said, and he raised the glass. "If I
thought there was any chance of that I should go down to see her."
"You couldn't force her to come up. She seems to be admiring the
view."
Then Lily left the embankment and turned towards the Temple.
"She is coming!" Mike cried, and laying down the opera-glass he took
up the scent and squirted it about the room. "You won't make much
noise, like a good fellow, will you? I shall tell her I am here
alone."
"I shall make no noise--I shall finish my article. I am expecting
Lizzie about four; I will slip out and meet her in the street.
Good-bye."
Mike went to the head of the staircase, and looking down the
prodigious height, he waited. It occurred to him that if he fell, the
emparadised hour would be lost for ever. If she were to pass through
the Temple without stopping at No. 2! The sound of little feet and
the colour of a heliotrope skirt dispersed his fears, and he watched
her growing larger as she mounted each flight of stairs; when she
stopped to take breath, he thought of running down and carrying her
up in his arms, but he did not move, and she did not see him until
the last flight.
"Here you are at last!"
"I am afraid I have kept you waiting. I was not certain whether I
should come."
"And you stopped to look at the view instead?"
"Yes, but how did you know that?"
"Ah! that's telling; come in."
The girl went in shyly.
"So this is where you live? How nicely you have arranged the room.
I never saw a room like this before. How different from the convent!
What would the nuns think if they saw me here? What strange
pictures!--those ballet-girls; they remind me of the pantomime.
Did you buy those pictures?"
"No; they are wonderful, aren't they? A friend of mine bought them
in France."
"Mr. Escott?"
"Yes; I forgot you knew him--how stupid of me! Had it not been for
him I shouldn't have known you--I was thinking of something else."
"Where is he now? I hope he will not return while I am here. You did
not tell him I was coming?"
"Of course not; he is away in France."
"And those portraits--it is always the same face."
"They are portraits of a girl he is in love with."
"Do you believe he is in love?"
"Yes, rather; head over heels. What do you think of the painting?"
Lily did not answer. She stood puzzled, striving to separate the
confused notions the room conveyed to her. She wore on her shoulders
a small black lace shawl and held a black silk parasol. She was very
slender, and her features were small and regular, and so white was
her face that the blue eyes seemed the only colour. There was,
however, about the cheek-bones just such tint as mellow as a white
rose.
"How beautiful you are to-day. I knew you would be beautiful when you
discarded that shocking habit; but you are far more beautiful than I
thought. Let me kiss you."
"No, you will make me regret that I came here. I wanted to see where
you lived, so that when I was away I could imagine you writing your
poems. Have you nothing more to show me? I want to see everything."
"Yes, come, I will show you our dining-room. Mr. Escott often gives
dinner-parties. You must get your mother to bring you."
"I should like to. But what a good idea to have book-cases in the
passages, they furnish the walls so well. And what are those rooms?"
"Those belong to Escott. Here is where I sleep."
"What a strange room!" discountenanced by the great Christ. She
turned her head.
"That crucifix is a present from Frank. He bought it in Paris. It is
superb expression of the faith of the Middle Ages."
"Old ages, I should think; it is all worm-eaten. And that Virgin? I
did not know you were so religious."
"I do not believe in Christianity, but I think Christ is
picturesque."
"Christ is very beautiful. When I prayed to Him an hour passed like
a little minute. It always seemed to me more natural to pray to Him
than to the Virgin Mary. But is that your bed?"
Upon a trellis supported by lion's claws a feather bed was laid. The
sheets and pillows were covered with embroidered cloth, the gift of
some unhappy lady, and about the twisted columns heavy draperies hung
in apparent disorder. Lily sat down on the pouff ottoman. Mike took
two Venetian glasses, poured out some champagne, and sat at her feet.
She sipped the wine and nibbled a biscuit.
"Tell me about the convent," he said. "That is now a thing over and
done."
"Fortunately I was not professed; had I taken vows I could not have
broken them."
"Why not? A nun cannot be kept imprisoned nowadays."
"I should not have broken my vows."
"It was I who saved you from them--if you had not fallen in love with
me ..."
"I never said I had fallen in love with you; I liked you, that was
all."
"But it was for me you left the convent?"
"No; I had made up my mind to leave the convent long before I saw
you. So you thought it was love at first sight."
"On my part, at least, it was love at first sight. How happy I am!--I
can scarcely believe I have got you. To have you here by me seems so
unreal, so impossible. I always loved you. I want to tell you about
myself. You were my ideal when I was a boy; I had already imagined
you; my poems were all addressed to you. My own sweet ideal that none
knew of but myself. You shall come and see me all the summer through,
in this room--our room. When will you come again?"
"I shall never come again--it is time to go."
"To go! Why, you haven't kissed me yet!"
"I do not intend to kiss you."
"How cruel of you! You say you will never come and see me again; you
break and destroy my dream."
"How did you dream of me?"
"I dreamed the world was buried in snow, barred with frost--that I
never went out, but sat here waiting for you to come. I dreamed that
you came to see me on regular days. I saw myself writing poems to
you, looking up to see the clock from time to time. Tea and wine were
ready, and the room was scented with your favourite perfume. Ting!
How the bell thrilled me, and with what precipitation I rushed to the
door! There I found you. What pleasure to lead you to the great fire,
to help you to take off your pelisse!"
The girl looked at him, her eyes full of innocent wonderment.
"How can you think of such things? It sounds like a fairy tale. And
if it were summer-time?"
"Oh! if it were summer we should have roses in the room, and only a
falling rose-leaf should remind us of the imperceptible passing of
the hours. We should want no books, the picturesqueness of the river
would be enough. And holding your little palm in mine, so silken and
delicately moist, I would draw close to you."
Knowing his skin was delicate to the touch, he took her arm in his
hand, but she drew her arm away, and there was incipient denial in
the withdrawal. His face clouded. But he had not yet made up his mind
how he should act, and to gain time to think, he said--
"Tell me why you thought of entering a convent?"
"I was not happy at home, and the convent, with its prayers and
duties, seemed preferable. But it was not quite the same as I had
imagined, and I couldn't learn to forget that there was a world of
beauty, colour, and love."
"You could not but think of the world of men that awaited you."
"I only thought of Him."
"And who was he?"
"Ah! He was a very great saint, a greater saint than you'll ever be.
I fell in love with Him when I was quite a little girl."
"What was his name?"
"I am not going to tell you. It was for Him I went into the convent;
I was determined to be His bride in heaven. I used to read His life,
and think of Him all day long. I had a friend who was also in love,
but the reverend mother heard of our conversations, and we were
forbidden to speak any more of our saints."
"Tell me his name? Was he anything like me?"
"Well, perhaps there is a something in the eyes."
The conversation dropped, and he laid his hand gently upon her foot.
Drawing it back she spilt the wine.
"I must go."
"No, dearest, you must not."
She looked round, taking the room in one swift circular glance, her
eyes resting one moment on the crucifix.
"This is cruel of you," he said. "I dreamed of you madly, and why do
you destroy my dream? What shall I do?--where shall I go?--how shall
I live if I don't get you?"
"Men do not mind whom they love; even in the convent we knew that."
"You seem to have known a good deal in that convent; I am not
astonished that you left it."
"What do you mean?" She settled her shawl on her shoulders.
"Merely this; you are in a young man's room alone, and I love you."
"Love! You profane the word; loose me, I am going."
"No, you are not going, you must remain." There was an occasional
nature in him, that of the vicious dog, and now it snarled. "If you
did not love me, you should not have come here," he said interposing,
getting between her and the door.
Then she entreated him to let her go. He laughed at her; then
suddenly her face flamed with a passion he was unprepared for, and
her eyes danced with strange lights. Few words were spoken, only a
few ejaculatory phrases such as "How dare you?" "Let me go!" she
said, as she strove to wrench her arms from his grasp. She caught up
one of the glasses; but before she could throw it Mike seized her
hand; he could not take it from her, and unconscious of danger (for
if the glass broke both would be cut to the bone), she clenched it
with a force that seemed impossible in one so frail. Her rage was
like wildfire. Mike grew afraid, and preferring that the glass should
be thrown than it should break in his hand, he loosed his fingers. It
smashed against the opposite wall. He hoped that Frank had not heard;
that he had left the chambers. He seized the second glass. When she
raised her arm, Mike saw and heard the shattered window falling into
the court below. He anticipated the porter's steps on the staircase
and his knock at the door, and it was with an intense relief and
triumph that he saw the bottle strike the curtain and fall harmless.
He would win yet. Lily screamed piercingly.
"No one will hear," he said, laughing hoarsely.
She escaped him and she screamed three times. And now quite like a
mad woman, she snatched a light chair and rushed to the window. Her
frail frame shook, her thin face was swollen, and she seemed to have
lost control over her eyes. If she should die! If she should go mad!
Now really terrified, Mike prayed for forgiveness. She did not
answer; she stood clenching her hands, choking.
"Sit down," he said, "drink something. You need not be afraid of me
now--do as you like, I am your servant. I will ask only one thing of
you--forgiveness. If you only knew!"
"Don't speak to me!" she gasped, "don't!"
"Forgive me, I beseech you; I love you better than all the world."
"Don't touch me! How dare you? Oh! how dare you?"
Mike watched her quivering. He saw she was sublime in her rage, and
torn with desire and regret he continued his pleadings. It was some
time before she spoke.
"And it was for this," she said, "I left my convent, and it was of
him I used to dream! Oh! how bitter is my awakening!"
She grasped one of the thin columns of the bed and her attitude
bespoke the revulsion of feeling that was passing in her soul;
beneath the heavy curtains she stood pale all over, thrown by the
shock of too coarse a reality. His perception of her innocence was a
goad to his appetite, and his despair augmented at losing her. Now,
as died the fulgurant rage that had supported her, and her normal
strength being exhausted, a sudden weakness intervened, and she
couldn't but allow Mike to lead her to a seat.
"I am sorry; words cannot tell you how sorry I am. Why do you tremble
so? You are not going to faint, say--drink something." Hastily he
poured out some wine and held it to her lips. "I never was sorry
before; now I know what sorrow is--I am sorry, Lily. I am not ashamed
of my tears; look at them, and strive to understand. I never loved
till I saw you. Ah! that lily face, when I saw it beneath the white
veil, love leaped into my soul. Then I hated religion, and I longed
to scale the sky to dispossess Heaven of that which I held the one
sacred and desirable thing--you! My soul! I would have given it to
burn for ten thousand years for one kiss, one touch of these
snow-coloured hands. When I saw, or thought I saw, that you loved me,
I was God. I said on reading your sweet letter, 'My life shall not
pass without kissing at least once the lips of my chimera.'"
Words and images rose in his mind without sensation or effort, and
experiencing the giddiness and exultation of the orator, he strove to
win her with eloquence. And all his magnetism was in his hands and
eyes--deep blue eyes full of fire and light were fixed upon
her--hands, soft yet powerful hands held hers, sometimes were
clenched on hers, and a voice which seemed his soul rose and fell,
striving to sting her with passionate sound; but she remained
absorbed in, and could not be drawn out of, angry thought.
"Now you are with me," he said, "nearly mine; here I see you like a
picture that is mine. Around us is mighty London. I saved you from
God, am I to lose you to Man? This was the prospect that faced me,
that faces me, that drove me mad. All I did was to attempt to make
you mine. I hold you by so little--I could not bear the thought that
you might pass from me. A ship sails away, growing indistinct, and
then disappears in the shadows; in London a cab rattles, appears and
disappears behind other cabs, turns a corner, and is lost for ever. I
failed, but had I succeeded you would have come back to me; I failed,
is not that punishment enough? You will go from me; I shall not get
you--that is sorrow enough for me; do not refuse me forgiveness. Ah!
if you knew what it is to have sought love passionately, the high
hopes entertained, and then the depth of every deception, and now
the supreme grief of finding love and losing. Seeing love leave me
without leaving one flying feather for token, I strove to pluck
one--that is my crime. Go, since you must go, but do not go
unforgiving, lest perhaps you might regret."
Lily did not cry. Her indignation was vented in broken phrases, the
meaning of which she did not seem to realize, and so jarred and
shaken were her nerves that without being aware of it her talk
branched into observations on her mother, her home life, the convent,
and the disappointments of childhood. So incoherently did she speak
that for a moment Mike feared her brain was affected, and his efforts
to lead her to speak of the present were fruitless. But suddenly,
waxing calm, her inner nature shining through the eyes like light
through porcelain, she said--
"I was wrong to come here, but I imagined men different. We know so
little of the world in the convent.... Ah, I should have stayed
there. It may be but a poor delusion, but it is better than such
wickedness."
"But I love you."
"Love me! ... You say you have sought love; we find love in
contemplation and desire of higher things. I am wanting in
experience, but I know that love lives in thought, and not in violent
passion; I know that a look from the loved one on entering a room,
a touch of a hand at most will suffice, and I should have been
satisfied to have seen your windows, and I should have gone away, my
heart stored with impressions of you, and I should have been happy
for weeks in the secret possession of such memories. So I have always
understood love; so we understood love in the convent."
They were standing face to face in the faint twilight and scent of
the bedroom. Through the gauze blind the river floated past,
decorative and grand; the great hay-boats rose above the wharfs and
steamers; one lay in the sun's silver casting a black shadow; a barge
rowed by one man drifted round and round in the tide.
"When I knelt in the choir I lifted my heart to the saint I loved.
How far was He from me? Millions of miles!--and yet He was very near.
I dreamed of meeting Him in heaven, of seeing Him come robed in white
with a palm in His hand, and then in a little darkness and dimness I
felt Him take me to His breast. I loved to read of the miracles He
performed, and one night I dreamed I saw Him in my cell--or was it
you?"
All anger was gone from her face, and it reflected the play of her
fancy. "I used to pray to you to come down and speak to me."
"And now," said Mike, smiling, "now that I have come to you, now that
I call you, now that I hold my arms to you--you the bride-elect--now
that the hour has come, shall I not possess you?"
"Do you think you can gain love by clasping me to your bosom? My
love, though separated from me by a million miles, is nearer to me
than yours has ever been."
"Did you not speak of me as the lover of your prayer, and you said
that in ecstasy the nuns--and indeed it must be so--exchange a
gibbeted saint for some ideal man? Give yourself; make this afternoon
memorable."
"No; good-bye! Remember your promises. Come; I am going."
"I must not lose you," he cried, drunk with her beauty and doubly
drunk with her sensuous idealism. "May I not even kiss you?"
"Well, if you like--once, just here," she said, pointing where white
melted to faint rose.
Mastered, he followed her down the long stairs; but when they passed
into the open air he felt he had lost her irrevocably. The river was
now tinted with setting light, the balustrade of Waterloo Bridge
showed like lace-work, the glass roofing of Charing Cross station was
golden, and each spire distinct upon the moveless blue. The splashing
of a steamer sounded strange upon his ears. The "Citizen" passed! She
was crowded with human beings, all apparently alike. Then the eye
separated them. An old lady making her way down the deck, a young man
in gray clothes, a red soldier leaning over the rail, the captain
walking on the bridge.
Mike called a hansom; a few seconds more and she would pass from him
into London. He saw the horse's hooves, saw the cab appear and
disappear behind other cabs; it turned a corner, and she was gone.