"AH! HOW FAIR MY WEAKNESS FINDS THEE"
Paul found no one in the hall of the house where Adrea lived to take
him to her, so after waiting a few minutes for her maid, whom the
porter had twice fruitlessly summoned, he ascended the stairs alone,
and knocked at the door of her rooms.
At first there was no reply. He tried again a little louder, and this
time there was a sound of some one stirring within.
"Come in, Celeste," was the drowsy answer.
He turned the handle and walked in, carefully closing the door behind
him. At first the room appeared to be in semi-darkness, for a clear
spring day's sunshine was brightening the streets which he had just
left, and here the heavy curtains were closely drawn, as though
to keep out every vestige of daylight. But gradually his eyes grew
accustomed to the shaded twilight and he could make out the familiar
objects of the room; for although it was only his second visit, they
were familiar already in his thoughts.
Strangely enough it seemed to him, after his first hasty glance
around, that the room was empty; but just then a sudden gleam from
the bright fire fell upon Adrea's hair, and he saw her. He stood for a
moment silent and motionless. She was curled up on a huge divan
drawn close to the fireplace, with her limbs doubled under her like a
panther's, and her arms, from which the loose sleeves had fallen back,
clasped half-bare underneath her head. The peculiar grace of movement
and carriage, which had made her dancing so famous, was even more
striking in repose, for there was a faint, insidious suggestion of
voluptuous movement in those motionless, crouching limbs, and the
_abandon_ of the shapely, dusky head, with its crown of dark, wavy
hair thrown back amongst the cushions. It was beauty of a strange
sort, the beauty almost of some wild animal; but Paul felt a most
unwilling admiration steal through his senses as he gazed down upon
her. Her tea-gown, a wonderful shade of shimmering green, tumbled and
disarranged out of all similitude to its original shape, followed the
soft perfections of her outline with such peculiar faithfulness that
it seemed to suggest even more than it concealed, leaving the gentle
tracery of her figure outlined there like a piece of living Greek
statuary. She turned slightly upon the couch, and a slipperless little
foot stole out from a sea of lace and white draperies which her uneasy
movement had left exposed, and swayed slowly backwards and forwards,
trying to reach the ground. Her eyes were still closed, but she was
not sleeping, for in a moment or two she spoke in a low, drowsy tone.
"Celeste, I told you not to disturb me for an hour. It isn't five
o'clock yet, is it?"
He roused himself, and moved a step further into the room. "It is
still a quarter to five, I think," he said. "I have come before my
time."
She opened her eyes, and then, seeing him, sprang into a sitting
posture. Her hair, which had escaped all bounds, was down to her
shoulders, and her gown, still further disarranged by her hasty
movement, floated around her in wonderful curves and angles. Had she
been a past mistress in the art of picturesque effects she could have
conceived nothing more striking. Paul felt all the old fear upon him
as he watched the firelight gleaming upon her startled, dusky face,
and the faint pink colouring, wonderfully suggestive of a blush, steal
into her cheeks. It seemed to him that she was as beautiful as a woman
could be, and yet so different from Lady May.
She rose, and, with a shrug of the shoulders and a quick, graceful
movement, shook out her skirts, and pushed the hair back from her
face. Then she held out her hand, and Paul found himself compelled,
against his will, to stand by her side.
"How strange that I should have overslept like this, and have taken
you for Celeste!" she said. "Yet perhaps it was natural; for, Monsieur
Paul, save Celeste, no one yet has permission to enter my chamber
unannounced. How comes it that I find you here to laugh at my
_deshabille_?"
He was silent for a moment, while she looked at him questioningly.
Her soft, delicate voice, with its very slight but piquant foreign
intonation, had often sounded in his reluctant yet charmed ears since
their last meeting; but now that he heard it again he felt how weak
were his imaginings, and what sweet music it indeed was.
"I am sorry," he answered; and the constraint which he was placing
upon his voice made it sound hard and cold. "The porter rang for your
maid twice whilst I waited in the hall; but as she did not come, I
thought I had better try and find the way myself."
"And I mistook your knock for Celeste's, and let you discover me
_comme cela_. Well, you were not to blame. See, I will just arrange my
hair here, and you need not look at me unless you like."
She stood up in front of a mirror, over which she lighted a shaded
candle, and for a moment or two her white hands flashed deftly in and
out amongst the dark, silky coils of disordered hair. Paul sat down,
and taking up a magazine which he found lying on the divan, tried to
concentrate his thoughts upon its contents. But he could not. Every
moment he found his eyes and his thoughts straying to that slim, lithe
figure, watching the play of her arms and the grace of her backward
pose. When she looked suddenly round, on the completion of her task,
their eyes met.
"Monsieur Paul, you are like all your sex--curious," she said lightly.
"Tell me, then, do you admire my coiffure?"
"Very much," he answered, glancing at the loose Grecian knot into
which she had gathered her disordered hair, and confined it with a
band of dull gold. "It is quite oriental, and it seems to suit you.
Not that I am any judge of such matters," he added quickly.
She moved away with a little, low laugh, and lit two or three more of
the shaded candles or fairy lamps which were placed here and there on
brackets round the room. Then she rang the bell, and gave some orders
to the maid.
"So you think my hair looks oriental," she said, sinking down upon a
huge cushion in front of the fire. "That is what the papers call me
sometimes--oriental. My early associations asserting themselves, you
see. I think I remember more of Constantinople than any place," she
went on dreamily, with her eyes fixed on the fire. "I was only a child
in those days, but it seemed to me then that nothing could be more
beautiful than the City of Mosques and the Golden Horn on a clear
summer evening. Why do I think of those days?" she added, shaking her
head impatiently. "Such folly! And yet I always think of them when I
am lonely."
He was suddenly and deeply moved with altogether a new feeling towards
her--one of responsibility. She was alone in the world, and it was his
father's hand which had rendered her so. How empty and barren had been
his conception of the burden which that deed had laid upon him! Like a
flash he seemed to see the whole situation in a new light. If, indeed,
she had drifted into ruin, the sin lay at his door. He should have
found her a mother; it should have been his care to have watched her
continually, and to have assured himself that she was contented and
happy. In those few moments the whole situation seemed to change, and
he even felt a hot flush of shame at his own coldness towards her. He
forgot the dancer, the woman of strange fascinations, the idol of the
_jeunesse doree_ of West London clubdom, and he remembered only the
fact that she was a lonely orphan with a most womanly light in her
soft, dark eyes, and that he had failed in his duty towards her.
Paul was essentially a "manly" man, self-contained, and with all
his feelings very much at his control; but at that moment he felt
something like a rush of tenderness towards this strange, dark-eyed
girl who lay coiled up at his feet. Involuntarily he stretched out his
hand and laid it, with an almost caressing gesture, upon her hair.
She started around, as though electrified, and looking up saw the
change in his face. It was the first kindly look or speech she had
had from him since they had met in London, and it had come so suddenly
that it seemed to have a strange effect upon her. A deep flush stole
into her face, and her eyes gleamed brilliantly. She drew a long
breath, and underneath her loose gown he could see her bosom rising
and falling quickly. Yet it all seemed so softened and womanly that
the thoughts which he had once had of her seemed like a distant
nightmare to him. The ethical and physical horror of her being--of her
ever becoming--what he feared, rose up strong within him, and deepened
at once his sense of responsibility towards her, and his new-born
tenderness. He took her hand gently, and was startled to find how cold
it was.
"So you do feel lonely, Adrea, sometimes," he said softly, "although
you have so many acquaintances."
The colour burned deeper for a moment in her cheeks. She looked at him
half reproachfully, half indignantly.
"Acquaintances! You mean the people who come to see me! I hate them
all! Sometimes they amuse me a little, but that is all. They are
nothing!"
"And you have no women friends?"
"None! How should I! But I do not care. I do not like English-women!"
"But, Adrea, it is not good for you,--this isolation from your sex."
At the sound of her Christian name, coming from his lips so gently,
almost affectionately, she looked up quickly. It seemed to him
almost as though some softening change had crept over her. Was it the
firelight, he wondered, or was it fancy?
"Good for me!" she said softly. "Have you just thought of that,
Monsieur Paul?"
Again he felt that pang of conscience; and yet, was she not a little
unjust to him?
"You took your life into your own hands," he reminded her. "You chose
for yourself."
"Yes, yes!" she answered, drawing a little nearer to him, till her
head almost rested upon his knees. "I do not blame you."
"It would have been so easy before to have found a home for you," he
went on, "and now you have made it so difficult."
"There is no need," she interrupted proudly; "I could keep myself now.
I do not want anything from you, Monsieur Paul,--save one thing!"
She raised her face to his, and it seemed to him to be all aglow with
a wonderful, new light. There was no mistaking the soft entreaty of
those strange, dark eyes so close to his, or the tremor in his tones.
And then, before he could answer her, before he could summon up
resolution enough to draw away, she had stolen softly into his arms,
and, with a little murmur of content, had rested her small, dusky
head, with its coronet of dark, braided hair, upon his shoulder, and
twined her hands around his neck.
"Paul! Monsieur Paul! I am lonely and miserable. Love me just a
little, only a little!" she pleaded.
It was the supreme moment for both of them. To her, coveting this
love with all the passionate force of her fiery oriental nature, time
seemed to stand still while she rested passively in his arms, neither
altogether accepted nor altogether repulsed. And to him, as he sat
there pale and shaken, fighting fiercely against this great temptation
which threatened his self-respect, his liberty of body and soul, life
seemed to have turned into a grim farce, full of grotesque lights and
shadows, mocking and gibing at all which had seemed to him sweet and
pure and strong. Her warm breath fell upon his cheek, and her eyes
maddened him. A curiously faint perfume from her clothes floated upon
the air, and oppressed him with its peculiar richness. He was a strong
man but at that moment he faltered. It seemed as though some unseen
hand were weaving a spell upon him, as though his whole environment
was being drawn in around him, and he himself were powerless. Yet,
even in that moment of intoxication, his reason did not altogether
desert him. He knew that if he opened his arms to receive that
clinging figure, and drew the delicate, tear-stained face, full
of mute invitation, down to his, to be covered with passionate
kisses,--he knew that at that moment he would sign the death-warrant
to all that had seemed fair and sweet and comely in his life. Forever
he must live without self-respect, a dishonoured man in his own eyes,
perhaps some day in hers,--for he had no more faith in her love than
in his.
He held her hands tightly in his,--he had unwound them gently from his
neck,--and stood up face to face with her upon the hearthrug. The soft
fire-light threw up strange, ruddy gleams, which glowed around her and
shown in her dark eyes, fixed so earnestly and so passionately upon
his.
"Adrea," he said, and his low, hoarse tone sounded harsh and
unfamiliar to his ears, "you do not know----"
She interrupted him, she threw her arms again around his neck, and her
upturned face almost met his.
"I do know! I do know! I understand--everything! Only I--cannot live
without you, Paul!"
Her head sank upon his shoulder; he could not thrust her away. Very
gently he passed his arms around her, and drew her to him. He knew
that he could trust himself. For him the battle was over. Even as she
had crept into his arms, there had come to him a flash of memory--a
sudden, swift vision. The walls of the dimly lit, dainty little
chamber, with all its charm of faint perfume, soft lights, and
luxurious drapings, had opened before him, and he looked out upon
another world. A bare Northumbrian moor, with its tumbled masses of
grey rock, its low-hanging, misty clouds and silent tarns, stretched
away before his eyes. A strong, fresh breeze, salt-smelling and
bracing, cooled his hot face. The roar of a great ocean thundered in
his ears, and an angry sunset burned strange colours into the
western sky. And with these actual memories came a healthier tone of
feeling--something, indeed, of the old North-country puritanism which
was in his blood. The sea spoke to him of the vastness of life, and
dared him to cast his away, soiled and tarnished, for the sake of a
brief, passionate delight. The breeze, nature's very voice, whispered
to him to stand true to himself, and taste once more and for ever the
deep joy of pure and perfect communion with her. The voices of his
past life spoke to him in one long, sweet chorus, and held up to him
those ideals to which he had been ever true. And blended with all were
memories, faint but sweet, of a fair womanly face, into whose clear
grey eyes he could never dare to look again if he yielded now to this
fierce temptation. A new strength came upon him, and brought with it a
great tenderness.
"Adrea, my child," he said softly, "you make me almost forget that I
am your guardian and you are my ward. Sit down here! I want to talk to
you."
He led her, dumb and unresisting, to a chair, and stood by her side.
"Adrea----"
She interrupted him, throwing his arms roughly from her shoulder, and
springing to her feet.
"How dare you touch me! How dare you stand there and mock me! Oh! how
I hate you! hate you! hate you!"
Her voice and every limb trembled with passion, and her face was as
pale as death. Before her anger he bowed his head and was silent.
Against the sombre background of dark curtains, her slim form seemed
to gain an added strength and dignity.
"You have insulted me, Paul de Vaux! Do I not owe you enough already,
without putting this to the score! Dare you think that it was indeed
my love I offered you--you who stood by and saw my father murdered
that you might be spared from shame and disgrace! Bah! Listen to me
and go! You have a brother? Good! I shall ruin him, shall break his
heart; and, when the task is over, I shall cast him away like an old
glove! Oh, it will be easy, never fear! I shall do it. Arthur is no
cold hypocrite, like you. He is my slave. And when I have ruined him,
have set my foot upon him, it will be your turn, Monsieur Paul de
Vaux. Listen! I will know my father's secret! I will know why he was
murdered! I will discover everything! Some day the whole world shall
know--from me. Now go! Out of my sight, I say! Go! go! go!"
With bowed head and face as white as death Paul walked out of the
room, with her words ringing in his ears like the mocking echoes of
some hideous nightmare.