SONIA found herself, after that meeting, in a state of helpless
irresolution. She could take no action. She could not even make plans.
She could only drift. There was only one solace--work; and she was now
generally the last person at the atelier, staying there until the light
failed. She had got over all her timidity about being there after the
others. The old concierge was apt to put her head in now and then, to
nod to her, and give her a sense of protection; and sometimes she would
come in and chat with her, while she was doing such sketchy sort of
tidying up as an atelier admits of.
A few days had gone by without her having seen or heard of Harold.
Martha seemed to divine that the princess wanted to talk only of her
work and her atelier interests, and had tacitly adapted herself to her
friend. They often worked together now, after regular hours, but Martha
generally found it necessary to go before her friend was ready.
One afternoon Martha had left rather earlier than usual, in order to
keep an appointment with her brother, and Sonia was at work all alone,
save for the companionship of her little terrier Inkling--a tiny,
jet-black creature that wore a collar of little silver bells, which,
Sonia had amused Martha by saying, had caused some one to give him the
name of “Tinkling Inkling.” She did not often bring her pet to the
atelier, for fear he might be troublesome. This afternoon, however, she
knew that Etienne would not be there; and when the little fellow,
palpitating with eagerness, had looked at her beseechingly from the seat
of the carriage where she had just shut him in, she had suddenly snapped
her fingers and twisted her lips into a sound of encouragement, and he
had leaped out of the carriage window, and followed her with an air of
perfect understanding that this unusual privilege made a demand on him
to be on his best behavior.
He had been propriety itself all the afternoon, and Sonia had seen and
appreciated his heroic self-control in not barking at the model, whom he
had looked at with inveterate disapproval, only expressed by one little
whispered growl. The class of society to which the model belonged were
Inkling’s natural enemies; and whether, in spite of nudeness, he
recognized this man as a member of that class, or whether the nudeness
itself outraged his sense of propriety, certain it was that, during all
the hours in which his mistress was painting, Inkling lay at her feet,
with his eyes fixed unwinkingly upon his enemy, ready to take advantage
of the first excuse to fly at him.
No such occasion had arisen, however; and now the model was gone, and
Inkling, off duty at last, was enjoying the reaction of a sound nap at
his mistress’s feet.
The room was so profoundly still that Sonia was startled by a rap at the
door, gently though it was given. Even Inkling did not wake at it. She
looked up from her easel, expecting to see her footman come to announce
the carriage, or some workman delivering supplies for the atelier, and
saw, instead, Harold Keene standing only a few feet from her. She knew
that the swing-door had closed behind him, and that they were alone
together. Her heart shook, and for a moment she could not speak. He came
forward a little, and said in French:
“I beg your pardon, princess. I came for my sister to fill an
engagement. Is she not here?”
“She has just gone,” answered Sonia, also in French. “She expected to
meet you at the apartment.”
“I have just been there. Not finding her, I came on here. I suppose I
passed her on the way.”
Inkling had opened his eyes at the sound of voices, but, seeing that the
model-throne was empty and his enemy gone, he had not troubled himself
further. As Harold ceased speaking, a look of sudden interest came over
the dog, and he got up, his little bells a-tinkle, and trotted across to
where Harold stood.
No sooner had he looked at him than he uttered a gruff bark of surprise,
and no sooner had he snuffed once at the legs of his trousers than he
grew frantic with excitement. He barked and yelped, and jumped up on him
with such evidences of wild delight that no man with a kind heart in his
bosom could have refused some recognition of such a welcome.
Harold stooped and patted him, speaking to him in English.
Somehow, to have him treat a dog like that, and to address her in cold
formality, in a foreign language, by a pompous title which did not
belong to her, seemed to Sonia wilfully cruel.
Inkling, still frantic with delight, left Harold, and rushed over to
her, yelping and barking, and shaking his tail violently, looking up in
her face with eloquent insistency. Then he ran back to Harold, and again
back to her, with fluttering agitation.
Sonia’s spirit did not falter, however, and her voice was firm and
steady as she said in English:
“Why do you speak to Inkling in English, and to me in French?”
“Because Inkling and I are old friends, who have a common language,
while the Princess Mannernorff is a stranger and a foreigner.”
“It seems very childish to keep up that farce.”
“I thought it was your wish.”
“And you despise me, probably, for the deception I have practised in
passing myself off for the Princess Mannernorff! I did not do it
deliberately,” she said, with an almost childlike air of contrition and
confession. “It has hurt me all along to be deceiving Martha; but some
one told her I was a Russian princess, and as my mother had been one
before her marriage, and my aunt, with whom I live, is the Princess
Mannernorff, I let the false impression remain, and even took advantage
of it. It was wrong, I know; but I did want to hold on to Martha’s
friendship a little longer. However,” she said, her face and voice
hardening, “it is simply a question of time; and a few weeks sooner or
later, what does it matter?”
“Why is it a question of time?” said Harold. “Why should you not keep
that friendship always, if you care for it? Martha shall know nothing
from me.”
There was a moment’s silence. Then Sonia said:
“I thought it possible that you might disapprove of our friendship.”
“Why should I? It is a thing absolutely between Martha and yourself.”
“She would cast me off immediately if she knew the truth, and any moment
an accident may reveal it to her.”
“Such an accident is most unlikely. It could, as things are now, come
about only through me, and I shall be on my guard.”
How confident and strong he was! It roused all the pride in her. The
sense of weakness which had overcome her at their last meeting, and
which for a moment had threatened her in this one, was utterly gone.
“Besides,” went on Harold, quickly, “I believe you are wholly wrong in
thinking that she would give you up if, by chance, she should discover
what you have so carefully guarded from her. I see no reason why she
should.”
He had spoken in English, since she had criticized his using French, and
Inkling seemed at least partly satisfied, as he stood midway between the
two, with his front legs wide apart, as if to keep his body firm, while
his tail wriggled wildly, and his head turned from one to the other with
a quickness which was enough to make him dizzy. He was alertly aware of
them, but they had both forgotten him, in the keen absorption in each
other which underlay their outward composure.
“Have you, then, told her nothing?” said Sonia, in answer to his last
words.
“Only the simple fact.”
“What fact?” she said, looking him in the face with a certain hardness
and defiance.
“That the woman whom I had loved no longer loved me; that she had
repudiated my name and every connection with me, and had asked for a
divorce, which I was taking all possible steps to give her as soon as it
could be done.”
“And do you think that Martha, feeling as she does, would continue the
acquaintance of a woman who had cast off her brother with no stronger
reason than that?”
“It was sufficient for me. There could not be a stronger reason for
divorce than absence of love on either side.”
“The world does not agree with you,” she said.
“Yet I fancy Martha would. If it came to remarriage on either side, her
verdict would perhaps be condemnation; but I think she would consider
separation a higher thing than a loveless marriage.”
Somehow, there was a spirit in these words that touched her heart. Her
voice, for the first time, was a little unsteady as she said:
“You do believe that, at least! You do feel that I could never think of
another marriage!”
“I have always felt it. Indeed, I may say I have known it. I know that
you see the inevitableness of all this as clearly as I do. I have often
wished, for your sake, that I had never seen you, to put this blight
upon your life.”
“And have not I also blighted yours? Do you suppose that I never think
of that?”
“It need not trouble you, if you do. In my case there was a
compensation, and a sufficient one. In your case there is none.”
She knew what he meant; that his love for her, and that happy month of
marriage, had been enough to pay him for having afterward lost her; and
she knew that he held the fact that she had never really loved him to
have barred her from any compensation at all. Why did she so resent his
assuming this? Had she not told him, in language of such emphatic
decision that it rang even now in her ears, that she had found out that
she had made a great mistake, and that she had never loved him? He had
simply taken her at her word.
She wilfully ignored the true meaning of his last words, as she went on:
“It is a mistake to think that my life has no compensations. My work,
whether it ever amounts to anything or not, is a great compensation.
The friendship of Martha is another. You are very good to wish not to
take that from me; but the present sham conditions cannot be kept up
after we separate. Fortune has favored us almost miraculously as it is.
She heard that there was a Russian princess studying here, and some one
mistakenly pointed me out for her. I had already seen her name on her
canvases, and knowing that your mother and sisters were in Paris, of
course I knew exactly who she was. Independent of this, her face and
manner had strongly attracted me, so I saw no reason why we might not be
friends, provided I could keep from her who I was. As soon as I saw that
she believed me to be the princess, the fact that my aunt was a Russian
and had Russian servants opened the way to my carrying on the idea; and
so far there has been no trouble. My little Russian name for Sophia
helped me, too. If she had known me as Sophia or Sophie, she would
probably have recoiled from me, even if she had had no suspicion as to
my identity.”
“I beg you not to have that thought,” said Harold. “If the time ever
comes when the truth must be declared to Martha, let me be the one to
tell her; and I promise you there shall be no recoil--no lessening of
her friendship for you.”
“Thank you,” said Sonia, coldly. “You were always a generous man.”
Her tone smote discordantly upon Harold. It seemed a sort of compulsory
tribute to him, which he had no fancy for from her.
“I am thinking of Martha, too,” he said. “She is very lonely in her
life, and rarely goes out to any one, in spite of her ardent nature.
This friendship with you is very valuable to her, and I am anxious that
nothing shall disturb it.”
“Thank you for correcting me,” returned the other, quickly; “though I
did not really suppose that it was for my sake that you were willing to
take so much trouble.”
She knew that this speech was silly, petulant, and unworthy of her, but
she wished him to understand that she asked and expected nothing of him.
He could not be so cool and steady during this interview unless he had
ceased to care for her. She quite realized that he had, and she wished
him to know that she accepted it as a matter of course.
Inkling, meantime, had grown very uneasy. He felt that things were not
going well, and he now began to show symptoms of distress, instead of
the wild delight of the moment before. He ran whimpering from one to the
other; and when they took no notice of him, he sprang upon the lap of
his mistress, and, uttering the most expressive plaints and beseechings,
tried to lick her face. Sonia, in a fit of irritation very
characteristic of her, gave him a hard little slap, which sent him out
of her lap, whining, and running to Harold for pity. He was not really
hurt; and she felt cross with the clever little brute for posing as a
victim so successfully.
“Don’t touch him!” she cried imperatively to Harold. “He’s only
pretending to get your pity. You sha’n’t pat him or speak to him. If you
do, I’ll be very angry.”
The effect which these words had upon Harold would have surprised her,
could she have known it. They were so like her, so absolutely herself,
that they brought back the past with a rush; and it seemed such a hollow
pretense to suppose that they were separated, and compelled to be as
strangers to each other, that he came nearer to losing his head than he
had done yet.
Ignoring Inkling’s fawnings and plaints, he said suddenly:
“I am forgetting that Martha is waiting for me”; and then, changing his
tone, and speaking in French, he added:
“May I take you to your carriage, princess?”
She answered him in French, as prompt and easy as himself. She thanked
him for his offer, but declined it, saying that her servant would let
her know when her carriage arrived. She added that she was not ready to
leave the atelier yet, as she had lost time, which she must now make up.
He bowed in silence, turned, and walked away. Inkling made a weak effort
to follow him, but was scared into a sudden and humiliated return by the
imperious command of his mistress. The little creature looked so
ridiculously distressed, as he sat on his haunches near her, with his
ears dropped and his tail nerveless and still beneath him, that Sonia’s
irritation deepened as she put up her brushes and paints; and when she
had washed her hands and was emptying the basin, she yielded to a sudden
impulse and dashed half the meager supply of water over him.
“There, you little idiot!” she said crossly. “That’s for your ridiculous
nonsense in trying to make out that I care one pin for him, or anything
about him. I’ll very soon convince _him_ that I don’t; and if ever _you_
dare to act in such a way again, I’ll sell you to the concierge on the
spot!”
Inkling gave every indication of a complete understanding of this
threat, which had the effect of bringing him at once to a state of cowed
dejection.