A FEW days later Martha came to the atelier in a state of only
half-concealed excitement. She had a plan which she broached to the
princess with some timidity. She began by saying that her brother was
compelled to be absent from Paris during the whole of the next day, and
that, as it was Sunday, and there would be no work at the atelier, she
would have the whole day on her hands.
“Come and spend it with me,” said the princess.
“Oh, if you would only come and spend it with _me_!” said Martha, so
wistfully that her friend laughed gaily, and said:
“Why not?”
“Harold takes an early train, and will not be back until night,” said
Martha; “and it would be such joy to have you in my own room, sitting in
my own chair, lying on my own bed, standing on my own rugs, and giving
me sweet associations with these things forever.”
“Of course I’ll come--with pleasure,” said Sonia, pausing in her work to
answer Martha’s whispered words.
So, in this dream, at least, Martha was not to be disappointed; and she
parted from her friend with the delightful expectation that she was to
see her next as her guest.
The young girl waked early next morning, and had her first breakfast
with her brother; and after he had gone she found the time long while
she waited for her visitor. No definite hour had been agreed upon, and
she was afraid that the princess would come far too late to suit her
eager longing. Still she had not liked to urge too much upon her.
Martha had ordered heaps of flowers to make her room and the little
boudoir which adjoined it look attractive; and she took Harold in to
inspect them before he went away. He rushed through hurriedly, said
everything was charming, gave her a hasty kiss, and was gone.
She stood at the window, which looked upon the Place de la Madeleine,
and waited a long time, thinking deeply. The flower-market below was
unusually rich, as the day was warm and springlike; and it presently
occurred to her that among the glowing masses of bloom exposed to view
there were some varieties of flowers which she did not have. She
therefore determined to fill up a part of the time of waiting by going
down to get some of these. Hastily putting on her hat, she ran down the
winding stairway, crossed the open space, and was soon threading her way
among the flower-stalls under the shadow of the beautiful great church.
She kept her eye on the entrance to her apartment-house, however; and as
she knew the princess’s carriage and livery, she felt that there was no
danger of failing to see her friend, should she happen to arrive during
her brief absence.
The princess, however, did not come in her carriage, or, rather, she
sent it away after having crossed the thronged streets of the Place de
la Concorde, and, wrapped in her dark cloak, she walked quickly along
with the foot-passengers until she reached the house of which she was in
search. Then she slipped quietly in, and mounted the steps to the third
story.
Her ring was answered by a man-servant,
[Illustration: “‘I BEG YOUR PARDON,’ HE SAID AGAIN.”]
who explained that his young mistress had just gone down to the
flower-market for a moment, and who ushered her into the large salon to
wait.
Scarcely was she seated there when the bell rang again, and the servant
opened the door to admit Harold. He had forgotten an important paper,
and had come back for it in great haste. He knew that it was his part to
avoid the princess in case she should have arrived; but concluding that
she would, of course, be with Martha in her own rooms, he came directly
into the salon, which was the nearest way of reaching his own apartment.
When he had entered, and the door was closed behind him, he took two or
three steps forward, and then stopped as if petrified in his place.
The princess had risen to her feet, and stood confronting him, her face
as pale and agitated as his own.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, taking off his hat mechanically; “did you,
perhaps, wish to see me?”
“No,” she answered; “I wished to see your sister. She has gone across to
the flower-market.”
Her eyes had fallen under his, and she felt that she was trembling as
she stood in front of him and answered his questions as mechanically as
a stupid child.
“I beg your pardon,” he said again; and he seemed to grow paler still as
he stood there irresolute.
“Do you wish to see my sister alone?” he then said. “I don’t understand.
Do you wish me to stay or to go?”
“I wish you to go,” she said, rallying a little as the thought occurred
to her that Martha might return. “Your sister is expecting me. I came
with the understanding that you were to be away.”
A light broke over him, but it cast a sudden shadow on his face.
“You are, then, the princess of whom she has spoken to me,” he said. “I
beg your pardon.”
“I am Sophia Rutledge,” she said. “Martha believes me to be a princess,
and I let her think it. Some one in the atelier told her so. What will
you tell her now?”
“Exactly what you wish.”
“Say nothing. Let her keep her delusion. Her friendship is dear to me; I
do not wish it turned to hate.”
[Illustration: “AMONG THE FLOWER STALLS.”]
“I shall say nothing,” he said.
They both stood silent there a moment, looking away from each other.
Then the woman, feeling her knees grow weak and trembling under her,
sank back into her seat; and the man, urged by some impulse of
self-protection which demanded that he should fly, had bowed and left
the room before she had quite recovered from the momentary dizziness
which had possessed her as she fell into her chair. She heard the front
door close behind him presently, and knew that he was gone. Then she
felt that she must brace herself to meet Martha calmly.
When the young girl, a few moments later, came in with her load of
flowers, and smilingly uttered her apologies and surprise at having
missed her, her friend’s senses seemed somehow to return, and she was
able to answer calmly.
It seemed to Martha that the beautiful princess looked ill, and she was
tenderly anxious about her; but she little suspected that during those
few moments of her absence Sonia and her old love had been face to face,
or, more marvelous still, that Harold had seen again the woman who had
been his wife.
X
THE impression left upon the mind of Sonia by that meeting with Harold
was an intensely disturbing one. Even the stirrings of old feeling, and
the memories of past pleasures and pains, which the sight of him had
recalled, were less strong in her than a certain feeling of humiliation.
She felt that she had been overcome by so great a weakness that she must
have made a self-betrayal of which it nearly maddened her to think.
Knowing how completely she had been thrown off her guard by this totally
unexpected meeting, she felt that every emotion of her heart, which she
herself was so conscious of, had been laid bare to him, and she could
not rest for the torment of that thought. Her hours with Martha were
therefore disturbed and unsatisfactory to them both; and when, soon
after the mid-day meal, Martha asked her if she would like to drive, she
accepted the relief of that idea with alacrity, only stipulating that
they should not go to the crowded Bois.
Martha ordered the carriage, and they drove about for an hour or two,
stopping several times to go in and look at churches which they had
often seen, but never entered. In some of these vespers were in
progress, and they paid their sous for seats near the door, and sat down
for a few moments; but the music played too dangerously upon Sonia’s
overwrought feelings, and she hurried her friend away.
In one or two of the smaller churches there were only silent kneeling
figures here and there, and the two women walked about, looking at the
mixture of dignified antiquity and tawdry decoration on every side, and
reading the tablets all about the approach to the chancel, erected as
thank-offerings to Mary and Joseph for favors granted. In spite of her
inward perturbation, Sonia could not help smiling at the economy of
words on some of these. One or two had merely, “Merci, Joseph,” or
“Merci, Marie et Joseph,” while the more elaborate ones recorded the
thanks of the giver of the tablet for a favor received--the restoration
of a beloved child from illness, the conversion of an erring son, the
rescue of a husband from shipwreck, and even the miraculous
intervention of Mary and Joseph to restore to health a little boy who
had been gored by a bull. The very ignorance of it was touching to the
two women, and the conviction that it was in each of these poor hearts a
reaching upward kept them from feeling any scorn.
As they returned to their carriage, Martha, who during the recent scene
had been furtively watching her friend’s face, now saw upon it an
expression which she was at a loss to account for. Was it, she wondered,
religious devotion, stirred by the associations of the church, which
made the lovely face beside her look so passionately tense with feeling?
For the first time it occurred to her to wonder what her friend’s
religion was.
“Are you a Catholic, Sonia?” she said.
The answer came impulsively:
“No, I am not a Catholic. It is easier to say what I am not than what I
am--except that, before and beyond all, I am a miserable woman.”
As these words escaped her the lack of self-control of which they gave
proof was so alarming to her that she begged her friend to take her home
at once, saying that she was really not well, and must be alone to
rest. Martha felt chilled and hurt. It was all so disappointing, and she
seemed so completely put at a distance. The day which she had looked
forward to with such eager joy had turned out dreary and sad. There was
nothing to do, however, but to drive her friend back to her apartment.
When they got there, Sonia turned and kissed her warmly, but said
nothing; and Martha drove home, feeling lonely and perplexed.
She did not expect to see the princess at the atelier next morning; but
to her amazement, when she got there quite early herself, the beautiful,
lithe figure was already before the easel, hard at work. There was,
moreover, an air of strength and self-reliance about her which offered
the greatest contrast to her manner of the day before.
As Martha came into the room, Sonia, who was one of the quiet group
around the model--a thin child who twitched and wriggled and could not
keep still for two consecutive minutes--waved her a welcome with a
little flourish of her brush, and gave her a bright, decided nod. It was
too late for Martha to get a position near her, so talk was impossible
until the midday recess; but that gesture, glance, and bow of the head
were enough of themselves to put new spirit into the girl, and she found
her place, and fell to work, going ahead with more vim than she had been
able to command for a long time.
When rest-time came the two friends showed their canvases to each other,
and both of them could see the improvement in their work. Feeling much
encouraged, they went off to the butcher’s shop, selected their chops,
and while waiting for them to be cooked, sat at their little table in
the _crémerie_, and talked.
At first they spoke only of their atelier work and Etienne’s criticisms
and suggestions; but when that was pretty much talked out for the
moment, Sonia, with a sudden change of manner, said abruptly:
“I want to atone to you for the gruesome mood that I was in when I went
to see you yesterday. If you’ll invite me again, I will be
different--and, oh, by the way, I’ve got over that foolish idea that I
had about not meeting your brother. If it would give you any pleasure, I
don’t in the least object. It would certainly be very silly to let him
spoil this beautiful chance of our being together, as it would if I
refused to meet him.”
Martha looked at her in surprise. She had so entirely made up her mind
that the powers had decreed that these two beings should not meet that
Sonia’s words rather disconcerted her.
“Oh, are you not pleased?” said the latter, disappointedly. “I thought
it would delight you.”
“So it does,” said Martha, quickly; “but, to be perfectly frank, I had
so entirely accepted the idea that there might be some unknown danger in
a meeting between you two that I had given it up; and now that the
likelihood of it comes again, some sense of danger comes with it. You
both seem such tremendous forces--in my eyes, at least,--that it is not
like any ordinary acquaintanceship. It is very foolish, though; for even
two locomotives may rush toward each other without danger, if each is
solid on its own track, leading to its different destination. And surely
no harm is done when they come very close, and exchange signals of
friendliness, and then part, and go their opposite ways.”
“Perfectly sage and true! Most wisely spoken!” said Sonia. “So you are
reconciled now, are you? What weathercocks we women are! I am sure I may
say it of you as well as of myself, contrasting your former eagerness
with your present reluctance for this meeting. Well, I suppose it’s a
part of our nature, and I don’t know that men are so very different.”
“Harold is different,” said Martha.
“Oh, no doubt _he_ is quite, quite the immaculate,” said her friend,
lightly; and then, with a sudden change, she added in tones of extreme
earnestness:
“Martha, you have never told him one word about me--have you? Nothing, I
mean, of what I have told you or let you see concerning myself. All that
was and must remain sacred between you and me.”
“Not a word, not a syllable!” cried Martha. “How could you even ask? He
knows of you only as my atelier friend, and that you are a Russian
princess, and he knows of my visits to you, and my love and admiration
for you; but not one word of what your confidence has taken me into
about yourself personally. I told him how little I knew or cared to know
about you--that you were a young and beautiful widow, whose past
history was wholly unknown to me. What you have let me see of the
writing which that history has made upon your heart was a sacred
confidence which no power could ever draw out of me.”
“I knew it, dear. I never doubted it. Don’t defend yourself, as if I had
distrusted you. It is because I do trust you that I consent to meet your
brother. I would certainly not willingly make the acquaintance of any
man who could possibly be supposed to know as much of my heart and its
weaknesses as I have revealed to you.”
“And when will you come to me again?” said Martha, allowing herself to
feel unchecked the joy which the prospect before her stirred within her
heart.
“I will dine with you to-morrow, if you like,” said Sonia, with an air
of decision.
It was an intense surprise to Harold when Martha told him that the
princess was to dine with her next evening. He at once proposed to go
out and leave them _tête-à-tête_, but his wonder increased when he was
told that the princess had avowed her willingness to meet him. After
hearing that, there was but one thing for him to do. This he saw
plainly; but at the same time he realized that a more difficult ordeal
could not possibly be put before him. What could be her object in a
course so extraordinary, and what could be the feeling in her heart to
make such a course possible?
He had believed her to be deeply moved, as no sensitive woman could fail
to be, by their unexpected meeting of the day before; but that she
should deliberately wish to repeat the meeting looked like the most
heartless caprice. She had always been capricious, daring, and
impetuous, and had loved to do unusual and exciting things; but that he
could excuse as a part of her character and individuality. Heartless he
had never had occasion to think her. Even her sudden recoil from him and
repudiation of their marriage he believed to be the result of some
commanding quality of her fine nature, which he could not help
reverencing, even though he did not comprehend it.
The courtship of Harold Keene and Sophia Rutledge had been very short,
and their wedding sudden. He had met the young English girl in London
near the close of the season; had seen her first in her court-dress, at
her presentation; and had afterward spent ten days with her at a country
house. Their mutual attraction had been a current which had swept
everything before it; and when it had to be decided whether or not she
should go on a voyage to Japan with her aunt, as had been planned,--a
prospect which would separate them for months to come,--they took things
into their own hands, and were married at short notice. The parents of
Miss Rutledge were both dead. Her father, an Englishman, had married a
Russian; and it was her mother’s sister with whom she was supposed to
live, though she had spent most of her grownup years, and all of her
childhood, in England. Her aunt was now a widow and a feverishly
enthusiastic traveler, and the girl had looked forward with some
pleasure to the long travels ahead of them. Her sudden marriage to the
young American, introduced to her by some common friends, changed her
life absolutely; but Harold was determined that she should realize at
least one of her ardent dreams of travel, and take a journey up the
Nile. Soon after their marriage they had set out on this journey, and
the history of its rapturous beginning and miserable ending was known
only to themselves.
In this way it had happened that Harold’s wife had never been seen by
his family, and he had even declined to send them a photograph of her.
He said he disliked photographs, and none could ever give a fair
representation of his beautiful wife. He wrote Martha that she must do
her best to restrain her impatience, as they were to come at once to
America at the end of their honeymoon on the Nile, and to make their
home there, while he settled down to work.
Instead of this, however, came the brief announcement of their
separation, which almost broke Martha’s heart. She had put aside any
natural feeling of deprivation and pain, to throw herself, heart and
soul, into the delight of Harold’s romantic marriage, and as the young
couple dreamed their way up the old Nile, she dreamed it with them. It
is probable that few people in the world get the intense joy out of
their personal experiences of love that this ardent and impassioned girl
derived from the mere imagination of her brother’s happiness. The blow
that followed it was therefore very keen and deep. The courage and
complete reserve which her brother had shown in the matter had given her
strength to bear it; but, in spite of that, a permanent shadow had been
cast upon her life.