I first met you in the lovely South, and you gave me the happiness of
feeling that my society was not displeasing to you. These were golden
days! Your fresh young beauty, your clear young eyes and voice made the
world new again for me, a travel-worn soldier, already beginning to find
the world a tinsel-trimmed hearth with little warmth, and a great deal
of ashes. Weary of the nomadic life of a Russian soldier, I fell to
dreaming of another kind of existence, a sweet, peaceful life at your
side. I would have consecrated the rest of my days to the dear task of
making you happy. Ambition and glory, I would have said good-bye to all
that, for my noblest ambition would have been to reign supreme in your
heart. You judged me unworthy, and I have never ceased to mourn the
fading of my beloved dream--nay, I mourn it to-day more than ever. If
only I had found you happy," he added insinuatingly.
"You are unwise, General, to talk to me of that winter," rejoined Dora.
"Can I ever forget that, thanks to you, one single day, one single hour
of it turned me from a light-hearted, innocent, ignorant girl into a
woman?--innocent still, but no longer ignorant of the sad and degrading
side of existence. Ah, in those few moments, I had passed out for ever
from the sweet calm garden of girlhood into the dusty crowded highway of
the world, and there I saw one of the saddest sides of life--the
humiliation and despair of a woman dismissed, cast off by the man who
should have passed the rest of his days in shielding her."
"It was not my fault that you overheard my wretched secret; but a
foolish liaison, which seemed to a strictly nurtured girl so vile a
thing, can it, must it make me for ever odious to a sweet and gracious
woman who knows the world? How many men have succeeded in keeping on
virtue's path altogether? The members of the Young Men's Christian
Association are not recruited from among the ranks of our society."
"Does wrong become right by multiplication?" said Dora, who was not
sorry to see the turn that the conversation had taken, a turn which
would give her the opportunity of making a little sermon that should
cool down the ardour of the General. "I shall never be able to
understand why the men who belong to what is called Society should not
be expected to conduct themselves as honourably as those of the modest
middle classes. It is from above that example should come, and, believe
me, it will have to come from above, or society will disappear for want
of having fulfilled its mission."
"Well, well, you may be right," said Sabaroff; "but listen to my story.
For months, for years, I could not bear to think of all that I had lost
in losing you. Was it any wonder that I went half mad and ran into all
kind of excesses? The light of your pure eyes was turned away from me. I
tossed about like a rudderless ship, and only my ambition saved me from
wreckage of body and soul."
"Does it not seem to you a little cowardly," said Dora, glad to recover
the thread of her little sermon, "for a man to lay the blame for such a
life at a woman's door, because he would not exercise the self-control
that thousands of women have to exercise almost all their lives? Do you
think it is only men who feel? Ah, believe me, there are few women who
have not had, at some period of their lives, to suffer and be silent, to
hold a bursting heart, and go about the daily task, with its cruel,
half-mechanical routine, which leaves the mind free to dwell on all the
misery that stirring scenes might help it to forget. Those who give way
to their despair, society mocks at; those who abandon themselves to
their passions, society puts outside the pale."
Dora began to feel that she was putting too much heat into her reply.
With an attempt at a tone of indifference, she went on--
"But tell me more about that saving grace of ambition, General. It has
made you a great and powerful man."
"Great, no; powerful, yes," replied Sabaroff, and he laid an insinuating
stress on the word _yes_, which did not escape Dora's notice. "But, of
all the satisfaction which my present position of confidence with my
imperial master has brought me, nothing is so sweet as the power of
doing what I am going to do for you."
"I am so proud you approve of the shell--then you will have it taken up
by the Russian Government?
"Yes," said Sabaroff, "I have the paper here ready to sign, and am only
waiting for a telegram from St. Petersburg, which I have ordered to be
brought to me here if it should happen to arrive before ten o'clock" ...
"My husband will be so glad!"
"Ah, 'my husband will be glad,'" repeated Sabaroff, in a half-mocking
tone; "Mrs. Grantham, will _you_ be glad?--Dora," said he, warming as he
proceeded, "do you not realise that what I am going to do is for your
sake, and not for the man who has won the only woman I ever loved?"
On hearing herself called by her Christian name, Dora was indignant.
"General, once more I beg of you, I'm afraid you forget yourself."
At this moment a servant entered the room.
"A telegram for his Excellency," said he. Then he handed the telegram to
the General, and retired after receiving Dora's order to bring tea.
Sabaroff read the despatch to Dora: "Approved by Council of War. Final
decision left to you. If you yourself approve, offer five hundred
thousand roubles."
Dora was standing at the fireplace, with one foot on the fender.
Sabaroff, with the telegram in his hand, gave her a look which seemed to
say: "When I said _powerful_, you see I was right."
The servant brought the tea, which he placed on a table near Dora, and
retired.
Dora poured out two cups.
"No milk, I think--a little rum and some lemon, _a la Russe_?"
"Thank you," said Sabaroff.
He cut himself a slice of lemon, helped himself to rum, and began to sip
his tea.
There was an unbroken silence for a couple of minutes.
"You are not offended with me?" he resumed. "Ah, forgive me if I have
called you by your beautiful first name, your sweet name of Dora, it is
the only one I ever give you in my thoughts. Here is a pansy," he said,
opening his pocket-book, "a flower that you dropped at Monte Carlo.
There is no Mrs. Grantham for me; there is Dora, the name I cannot
forget."
"This man really loved me, then," said Dora to herself, "and loves me
still perhaps." The thought displeased her, but it was not insulting.
She thought of the pansies which had come regularly, year after year, on
the anniversary of her marriage. Then, if he loved her still, she had
everything to fear in this solitary tete-a-tete. She resolved to be more
than ever on her guard.
"But it is precisely my other name, General, that I would have you
remember always," she said, with a calm smile.
"If I thought of that one, I should not be here now; I should never come
to this house," said Sabaroff. "I should not be now preparing to sign
this paper, which is to enrich still further the man to whom you gave
yourself, the man who already possesses the only thing I ever really
craved. Shall I sign? Why should I?" said he, drawing from his pocket an
envelope containing a blank contract. "What will be my thanks? What is
to be my reward?"
"Oh, General," said Dora, nervous but still smiling, "you are too good a
patriot to need any incentive but the love of your country."
"No, Mrs. Grantham, that is not enough. I love my country, but I do not
love your husband. For you alone I sign. To you I turn for my reward.
Ah, let me hear from those lovely lips that you have only kind, pitying
thoughts for the man who still worships you and loves you as you are
worthy to be loved."
Sabaroff's eyes were lit with a strange fire, and threw burning glances
upon Dora. She began to tremble. This man frightened her.
"Of course, General, I am grateful, I" ... She felt incapable of
finishing the phrase. "Must I go through with this?" she thought. "Oh
that I could get rid of this man!"
Sabaroff did not take his eyes off her face. He was striving to read her
inmost thoughts.
"I have no resentment," she continued; "I have long ago forgotten what
passed between us, and if you will do the same, here is my hand."
Sabaroff unfolded the paper which he had taken from the envelope, placed
it on the table and signed it. Dora was still holding out her hand to
him. Sabaroff seized it and drew her close to him.
"Dora," he exclaimed, "my Dora!"
"You forget, once more you forget," she said, freeing herself. "If my
husband were here" ...
"If your husband were here!" cried Sabaroff, with a sneer. "Once for
all, is it possible that you do not see the role that your husband is
playing? Are you indeed so blind? Tell me, does a man encourage a former
lover of his wife about his house constantly, a lover who was on the
point of becoming her _fiance_, and who perhaps loves her still? Does he
miss the train when he knows that his wife will be alone with that man
for a whole evening? No, my dear Mrs. Grantham, a man misses everything
you like to name, but he does not miss such a train as that. Ah, let us
have no more of these pretences. You know perfectly well what he is,
that husband of yours who missed his train. You know that you have no
love left for him, that you only feel the most profound contempt for
that man who, to put a fortune in his purse, does not hesitate to play
the _mari complaisant_."
"No, it's impossible, it is not true," cried Dora, suffocating with
indignation; "spare me your suppositions."
"You shall not make me believe that you do not despise him. I have
watched you both carefully from the first day that I have visited your
house. Do not deceive me, do not attempt to deceive yourself. You do not
love your husband. I have seen how your noble heart has shrunk from
contact with so sordid a nature, as his has proved to be in the past few
months. He may have loved you once in his cool, jellyfish fashion;
perhaps you have loved him yourself, but since his new craze for wealth
has ousted you from his consideration, except when you are useful to him
as a bait, you have hated him--ah, worse than that, you have despised
him. You know that he is not worthy of you, who have the soul as well as
the body of an angel. No, you are not blind; you are not a child, to sit
down tamely under his treatment of you. Be a woman, take a woman's
revenge. Only give me a tithe of the love he has held so lightly and I
will be your slave, your adoring slave to my dying day. Dora, I love
you," he cried as he advanced towards her.
"I can listen to no more of this. You have tried my patience too far
already. I thank you, in my husband's name, General, for having signed
this paper; but I don't feel well,--have pity on me. You have before you
a woman full of gratitude for what you have done; it would not be
generous to take advantage of it to press your company upon me in my
present state. Leave me now, please."
"Leave you! leave you! Ah, ah! And this is my reward? Now that you have
obtained all you want, you dismiss me. Dora, take care. You are too
intelligent, too much of a woman, not to see that my love for you has
come back to me redoubled, that it blinds me, makes me mad, and that
your resistance only adds fuel to the fire."
"Go, I beseech you, at once," exclaimed Dora, now thoroughly alarmed;
"go, I command you. Nothing will force me to listen to you any longer--I
tell you I am suffering tortures; you say that you love me, then, spare
me and go."
"So, then," said he reproachfully, "you let me see you, let me come here
almost day after day until I cannot live away from you, and then, when
you have done your despicable husband's work, you dismiss me with a
_many thanks, good-bye_. No, Dora," he added, raising his voice, "I will
not be dismissed so. Look at me well," he said, seizing her arm; "do I
look like a man who can be so lightly played with?"
"Let me go; you hurt me," cried Dora, distracted with indignation; "how
dare you treat me so?"
"How dare I?" said Sabaroff. "You wonder how I dare? Ah, wonder rather
that I kept silent so long with your beautiful face before me, your
voice and eyes bewitching me, your lips so near, all your loveliness
making mad riot in my pulses! What do you think I am made of? Does one
take a starving wretch to see a banquet spread, and, when he has just
begun to eat, then cast him out, because he dares to say he is hungry
still? Does one offer rich wine to a weary traveller, and, when he has
taken but one sip from the cup, dash it from his lips and bid him
begone? In your presence, Dora, I am craving for your love."
"Philip, where are you?" cried the poor woman wildly, and feeling more
dead than alive.
She made towards the door, but Sabaroff intercepted her passage.
"Dora," said he, "why keep up this farce any longer? Be honest. Unmask
yourself, for I am convinced you are wearing a mask. Why do you call
your husband? You know that he is not here, and you must know only too
well why he is not here. Your husband has kept away to-night, that you
may be alone with me. You cannot but despise him, a creature who, when
he had won it, knew not how to value the prize I crave in vain. And now
that I have found you suffering tortures at his callousness, you will
not let me tell you how I love you--passionately, madly! Ah, since it is
he who throws you into my arms, come and make your home there; you
shall never repent the step--I swear it!"
"Ah, enough, enough, spare me any more indignities," cried Dora, with
head proudly uplifted. "General Sabaroff! leave, leave this house
instantly."
So saying, she made a movement towards the bell.
"Dora!" cried Sabaroff, seizing her in his strong arms.
She struggled, and finished by freeing herself from his grasp.
"Go this moment, I tell you. You have treated me as you would not dare
treat a servant-girl in a low lodging-house, you have treated me as if
you took me for a Mimi Latouche--you are a coward!"
Dora was nearly at the end of her strength. She was wild, at bay,
without power to cry for help. A coquette would have known how to defend
herself. Knowing to what she exposes herself, the coquette always
prepares a line of retreat before engaging in the battle; but a woman as
pure as Dora is almost defenceless in the presence of a man who has
burned his ships and who intends to stop at nothing: she has no weapons
for such a contest. Dora was paralysed with fright and indignation. She
made a last and supreme effort to reach the bell; but Sabaroff stopped
her, and seizing her more firmly than he had done before, he cried--
"My reward! I claim my reward for so much patience!"
She was in his arms, panting, almost unconscious. He strained her to his
heart, and kissed her passionately on the eyes, on the lips again and
again. Exhausted by the struggle, Dora yet made a supreme effort, and
succeeded in once more freeing herself from Sabaroff's hold; but he
caught her by the arm, which he kissed devouringly. Dora sank fainting
on the sofa.
At this moment the door opened, and Gabrielle, with agony depicted on
her face, rushed into the room. She had come to fetch her sister, to
take her to Eva's bedside, for the child had grown rapidly worse. Seeing
Sabaroff on his knees gazing at Dora, she drew back, stifling a cry,
and, wringing her hands in despair, she disappeared.
Sabaroff heard the cry, but did not move. After a moment, turning round
and seeing no one, he rang the bell, hurriedly impressed a further kiss
on the forehead of the unconscious woman, and left without waiting for
the arrival of a servant.
When the servant entered, Dora had regained consciousness.
"Did you ring, ma'am?"
"No," she said; "what is it?"
She looked around her, passing her hand over her eyes and forehead. She
realised that she was alone. Her eyes were haggard. She looked wild,
half mad.
"Where is he?" she said; "gone?"
Then she fixed her eyes on the servant, who seemed to have a message to
deliver.
"Well, what is it?" she repeated.
"Miss Gabrielle," replied the man, "told me to say that she had sent for
the doctor, and that he is now with Miss Eva. Will you, please, go up at
once, ma'am?"
Dora gazed fixedly at the man. She had not heard, or, rather, she had
not taken in a single word of the servant's message. She signed to him
to go, and he left.
Taking her head in both hands, she tried to remember what had been
happening.
"My body burns," she murmured; "I feel as if I had been bitten by a
reptile." Her eyes fell on her arm, where Sabaroff's kiss had left a
mark that was still red. A cry of disgust and horror escaped her. She
gazed again at her arm, leapt to her feet, and paced the room almost
foaming with rage. To wipe out that mark was her one thought. With her
handkerchief she rubbed the burning spot, and, with a movement of fury,
sucked it and spat as if she had been sucking poison from the bite of a
snake. She was unrecognisable, transformed into a tigress ready to
spring upon any who might come near. Suddenly an idea lit up her face,
as she passed the fireplace in her furious pacings. She seized the poker
and thrust it in among the live coals.
"Yes, yes, I will, I'll do it," she muttered.
Suddenly she heard a cab stop outside, and the street door open and
close noisily. Philip, for it was he, bounded upstairs and rushed into
the drawing-room. It was half-past eleven.
Dora had the poker in her hand. She put it back into the fire.
"Ah, my dear Dora," said Philip, quite out of breath, "I can't tell you
how sorry I am to have been delayed all these hours. I missed the nine
o'clock train, as I explained in my wire; but I must tell you all about
that by and by. It's a long story. I left Paris at noon, as you know,
but the train broke down between Canterbury and Chatham, and got in
three hours late. But for that, I should have been here at eight. The
General is gone, of course?" he added.
Dora stood motionless, speechless. She merely nodded her head
affirmatively.
"How shall I ever be able to excuse myself to him? I wish now that I had
followed your suggestion and put off this dinner, so as not to run such
a risk. When you travel, you start, but you don't know what may happen
before you reach home again."
He caught sight of the paper, which Sabaroff had signed, lying on the
table. He seized it eagerly and began to read.
"What is this?" he exclaimed, overcome with joy. "Why, it is the
purchase of my shell by the Russian Government! The General ought to
have stayed. You should have kept him ... I should have been so happy to
thank him myself ... but, I understand; the proprieties, I suppose; he
did not like to stay on during my absence.... Five hundred thousand
roubles! here it is, all set down and signed.... Ah, my Dora, my
darling!"
Dora did not move. She was pale as death. She looked at him with eyes
that appeared to see nothing.
Philip made as if he would seize her in his arms. She recoiled
affrighted.
"Don't touch me! Don't come near me!" she cried in a voice that gurgled.
"Dora, what has happened? Heavens, you frighten me. What is the matter?
Why, you are trembling, you can scarcely stand. Speak, speak, what is
it?"
"Where have you been and where have you come from?"
"But I have just told you what happened to me. I missed the nine o'clock
train and there was an accident ... but what is the use of trying to
explain anything to you in your present state? You evidently do not
understand. I ask you again. What has been happening here to put you in
such a state?"
"Ah, ah, he asks me what has happened!" she hissed, snatching the paper
from Philip's hands. "This has happened. Your ambition is satisfied now.
Here is the signature that gives you half a million of roubles, the gold
for which you did not hesitate to make me submit to the society of a
betrayer of women, a protector of Mimi Latouche, a man against whom my
whole womanhood revolted. Stung by your heartless indifference to my
pleadings, stung by your taunts that I no longer helped you, I have
goaded myself to endure his presence constantly. And now, I think my
task is ended; I have paid the price; so take the paper--it is yours. It
is signed. The gold will be handed to you."
"Dora, for God's sake, tell me, what does it mean? You never spoke to me
like this before," gasped Philip, in a voice choking with anger and
excitement.
"Hush!" continued Dora, "your ambition is realised. Your fortune is more
than doubled; but when you are counting it up, think of me, your wife,
in the arms of that man, every fibre of my powerless body revolting at
the kisses of his polluted lips. Yes, the lips of that libertine have
soiled mine; on my face, on my arms, he pressed his burning kisses.
Look, look at this arm. See for yourself the mark that will not go. I am
stained, contaminated. Oh! am I mad? No, I have drunk the bitter
draught, I have gone through the mire of degradation; and now, is the
nightmare ended? Are you satisfied, or shall I call him back to offer
him the rest?"
"I will kill him!" cried Philip.
"Ah, rather kill me; that would be more generous," exclaimed Dora. "Take
your money, and now let me go--unless," she added, with a sneer, "you
have some other War Minister that you wish to take your invention;
think, I am here to pay the price they may exact for their approval."
"Dora, this is madness--you are out of your mind."
"I soon should be if I stayed here."
Dora broke off suddenly. The coming of the servant flashed across her
mind. He had brought a message. What was it?
"Yes, yes, of course, I remember. Gabrielle sent for me a few moments
ago--she had called the doctor to Eva--Eva! Ah, let me go to my child,"
she cried, waving Philip aside as he was going to speak again.
But before she reached the door, Gabrielle had opened it.
"Are you coming?" said the poor girl, with tears in her voice.
"Eva?"
"Yes, she is worse; it is diphtheria."
Dora realised now the full import of the former message. With one
horror-struck look at the distressed white face before her, she rushed
from the room uttering a broken cry--
"Eva!"
Gabrielle followed after her, and Philip was left crushed, stunned,
incapable yet of understanding clearly the terrible scene which he had
just witnessed, or the new terror with which he was brought face to
face.
XIV
EVA
Philip dropped into an armchair. His forehead was bathed in
perspiration. He was seized with a convulsive trembling, caused by the
rage that he felt at not being able to avenge there and then the
outrageous conduct of General Sabaroff towards his wife. If he had known
at that moment where to find the Russian, he would have gone straightway
and had it out with him. He went through a torment of impotent fury and
disappointment at thinking that his arrival had been but a few moments
too late.
"Fool that I was!" he cried, "what have I done? Then Dora thinks"--he
dared not utter his thought--"and, if so, I am guilty in her mind of the
vilest, the most despicable act that a man can commit--it is a frightful
idea! And yet my indifference, my insistence that Dora should receive
that man, when she implored me not to oblige her to submit to his
company--Sabaroff loves her still then? Or does he, too, believe that he
was encouraged by me? Oh, but the thought is horrible! The idea of it is
maddening. Fool that I have been!"
For the first time he saw the enormity of his conduct. He called himself
coward and criminal. In that dreadful hour he awoke from his dream and
became himself again. The veil fell from his eyes, the transformation
was complete. To do him justice there was no more inventor, no more
blindly ambitious seeker after wealth, but the Philip of former days
with no thought but for Dora. He would have given, that night, his last
farthing for a smile from her!
Philip rose suddenly from his seat. He must take a resolution on the
spot. He was face to face with a vital crisis on which all his future
life depended. His first impulse was to go to Dora and throw himself at
her feet to implore her pardon. "No," he said to himself, "as long as
that contract exists, there is nothing to be done." He held it in his
hands, that paper which had cost Dora so much. It burned to the touch.
He looked at it twice, and he read it through. His mind was at once made
up--tear up the thing, and fling it in the face of Sabaroff!
During this time there was much movement, much sound of coming and going
on the staircase and in the hall. Suddenly Philip recognised the voice
of Dr. Templeton saying, "It is the only way to save her, at least the
only hope." Upon this a servant came rapidly downstairs, and Philip
stopped him in the hall to ask--
"Where are you going?"
"To St. George's Hospital," was the reply.
"For Miss Eva? Is she worse?"
"Yes, sir; it appears that they are going to perform tracheotomy," said
the man, who had heard the word and repeated it correctly.
Philip flew upstairs. When he reached the door of Eva's room, saw the
child half choking and unconscious, and saw Dora kneeling by the
bedside, he dared not enter, but stood in the doorway--heart-broken,
pale, and immobile as death. That which crowned his misery and despair
was the fact that Dora had not thought of sending down for him in such a
moment as this. With difficulty he repressed the sob that rose from his
heart. He realised then all the depth of the abyss that separated him
now from his wife and child, an abyss of his own digging. No, he,
adoring Eva as he did, dared not penetrate into the room where she lay.