CARLTON CONWAY.
“But love so lightly plighted,
Our love with torch unlighted,
Paused near us unaffrighted,
Who found and left him free.
None seeing us cloven in sunder,
Will weep, or laugh, or wonder,
Light love stands clear of thunder,
And safe from winds at sea.”
November has set in with its yellow fogs and gloom, and the Berangers
are back in Belgrave Square, for the dual weddings come off in another
ten days, and the _trousseau_ requires her ladyship’s taste and personal
supervision in the finishing touches.
Trixy, whose nature is made up of frivolity and bagatelles, and to whom
the colour of a dress or the shape of a bonnet are solemn subjects for
reflection and consideration, is an enthusiastic shopper, but not so
Zai.
It is seldom that she can call up courage enough to wade through Elise’s
and Worth’s establishments, to devote her whole and sole attention to
the important point as to whether her chemisette shall be edged with
Valenciennes or Honiton.
Zai is studiously learning to care for the man she is going to marry in
a few days, and this subject engrosses her to the expulsion of all
extraneous matter.
Down on her knees beside her little white curtained bed she prays that
the gift of “loving” Lord Delaval may be given her. Downstairs, while he
sits beside her, the same prayer goes on in her heart, for, born and
bred in Belgravia, Zai is the best little thing that ever tried to do
her duty towards God and man.
This much has been vouchsafed her, that Carlton Conway, who has been the
stumbling block in her path to reaching the goal she desires, has never
turned up on the scene to open by his presence the old wound, which Zai
firmly believes now is closed for always.
Once she has heard him mentioned at an afternoon tea, but it was only to
the effect that his marriage with Miss Meredyth was put off for a while.
Zai has never forgotten, never will forget perhaps, the days when Carl
was all in all to her. She lived an enchanted life during the time, for
all the love her girl’s heart knew swept into one great channel and
poured itself out at his feet. Paradise had opened for her out of the
dull monotony of Belgravian life and moments--golden with the light of
romance--had shone on her with a radiance like unto no other radiance of
time. And she certainly had not stayed then to count the cost of the
bitter desolation that followed.
After all Eve herself would hardly have surrendered the memory of Eden
for all the joys to be found on earth, and she must have dreamed of it
full many a time and waked to weep such tears of unavailing regret as
have watered this sad planet of ours most plenteously.
The London world outside is full of fog and gloom, with a few feeble gas
lamps struggling through it, but inside the drawing-room in Belgrave
Square with its firelight and luxury is conducive enough to “dreaming.”
So Zai gives herself up to this delicious pastime, and, strangely
enough, Carl does not appear as central figure. Possibly her earnest
prayers for oblivion of him and his falsity have been answered; anyway
it is a blond face with deep blue eyes and hair that shines up like gold
under the sunbeams, that her mind’s eye sees, while her broad white lids
are closed.
“Dreaming, my sweet! Is it of me?”
Some one bends over her. Some one’s hand drops softly on her shoulder,
and when she looks up, some one’s handsome face is very close to her
own. Suddenly--Zai blushed furiously afterwards when she thought of
it--she slips her arm round his neck and draws down his head till his
lips rest upon her own.
It is the first voluntary caress she has given him.
To say that Lord Delaval is amazed, bewildered, enchanted, all in the
same moment, would be to say very little indeed. A great joy and wonder
take possession of him, and for a second he is almost an unresponsive
party, but in the next instant he has her in his arms, close against his
heart, and to indemnify himself for loss of time, he rains down kisses
on her charming face from brow to chin.
Kisses that come so fast--so fast, so eagerly, so fiercely even, that
Zai stands almost stunned with all that her first demonstration of love
for him has called down on her.
Then he sits down on the sofa beside her and, putting his arm round her,
draws her near him.
He had felt that kiss she gave him go through him like an electric shock
that sent the blood rushing through his veins, and made his pulses throb
hard.
Scores of women had offered him kisses before, and he had accepted them
or rejected them according to his mood, but this kiss, that the girl he
is going to marry had volunteered of her own accord, seemed quite
different to the rest. Then a sudden thought came like a stab.
“Zai,” he asks gravely, “are you sure--_quite_ sure--that you are acting
according to your feelings in marrying me?”
She looks up at him in surprise. His face is quite pale, but his eyes
seem to burn strangely.
“Quite sure,” she answers quietly, convinced in her own mind that she
_is_ sure--perfectly sure of the fact.
“Darling Zai! You have never given me a chance before to tell you how I
love you--love you with all my heart! to tell you that I will strain
every nerve to make you care for me as I care for you! But there is one
thing you must confess to me. Loving you as I do I shall be a very
lenient judge, my child. Do you love me enough to be true to me always?”
She knows she does not love him as she had loved Carl. That had been a
mad phantom, possessing her heart and her brain. But she knows if she
marries this man she will make him a good and true wife.
She is _sure_ that, in deed and word, and even thought, she will be
loyal and faithful to him always.
The fitful pink colour comes and goes on her cheek, the big grey eyes
droop as they have a habit of doing, but a smile--a little ghost of a
smile, hovers round her pretty red lips.
“I love you, and I shall be true to you always!” she says, and Lord
Delaval, cynical as he is--sceptical of all things, _feels_ that her
words are genuine, and he starts and his face grows radiant.
“Zai!” he cries breathlessly.
And bending, he puts his hand under the rounded chin and lifts up the
little drooping face towards him. Zai’s eyes are still downcast, but he
manages to read their language pretty well, and he sees the lips part in
something between a quiver and a laugh.
“Is it so--say?” he whispers passionately, throwing his arms round her
and gathering her close until her face rests against his. “Zai, for
God’s sake, is it so? Don’t--_don’t_ take away my new-born hope, but
tell me that you really love me and only me!”
“I love only you.”
And when she says this Zai feels that her prayers are answered, and the
old love for Carlton Conway is conquered.
“Look at me, my darling child!”
She looks up, and in the soft grey eyes he reads honesty and truth, and
on the impulse of the moment he stoops, and his lips cling feverishly,
almost fiercely, to hers.
Zai starts away from him then, and for a second she seems scared, white,
trembling.
His wild, fierce kiss has sent the blood back from her cheek to her
heart, that throbs with a pain that makes her faint and sick. Then the
pretty pink colour creeps slowly back, and of the passionate caress that
has lingered on her mouth there is born a new feeling for her betrothed
husband.
“Zai, you hated me once, I believe,” he says reproachfully. “I wonder
why?”
“Never mind, since I love you now,” she replies.
“You hated me when you cared for Conway, Zai!”
He looks at her keenly as he deals what she thinks a random shot, but
which is really a premeditated speech, for ever since Gabrielle’s words,
Lord Delaval has been jealous for the very first time in his life.
Never before has he felt the pangs of the green-eyed monster. It may be
because he has never before perhaps felt a true and pure love.
Zai laughs, but the laugh is a little forced.
“You see, Delaval, if you did not care about me you would not be
jealous! The past belongs to me, you know, but the future is
yours--won’t that content you?” she asks softly. “Shall I promise that
it is only you that I shall love for the rest of my life?”
“Suppose you couldn’t keep your promise, Zai. Suppose an old influence
was too strong for you--what then?”
“An old influence! No one could have any influence over me now but you,
Delaval!”
“Will you swear that you will stick to me through thick and thin? Will
you swear that no other man shall come between us ever?”
She does not answer.
A feeling a little rebellious creeps up in her heart. It is hard--so
hard--to be doubted like this, when she has so bravely cast from her
all sentiment for her old lover--when she is “really and earnestly
caring” for this man.
“You can’t answer for yourself, Zai!” he exclaims angrily. “Or perhaps
you _won’t_ answer?”
Still she does not say a word, but hides her face against his arm.
So he moves away from her and faces her, his arms crossed over his
chest, and speaks slowly and deliberately:
“Zai, when you know that a man is hungering and thirsting for a word of
reassurance--when you _must_ feel that it kills me to be in uncertainty
of your _real_ feeling you keep that word locked up in your bosom--you
put a seal on your lips--you are thinking what a happier fate would have
been yours as Conway’s wife.”
The suddenness of these last words sends a thrill through her, and
involuntarily she starts.
“Delaval, Mr. Conway is probably a married man by this time, and I
really think you forget that I am just going to be _your_ wife.”
“Will you always remember you are my wife?” he asks.
“I am not likely ever to let the fact escape my notice,” she answers
gravely. “Mr. Conway is nothing to me but an acquaintance; as far as
_love_ is concerned, he and I are as far removed from one another as if
he or I were _dead_.”
“Bah!” he says roughly, “don’t think all that goody-goody sentiment is a
safeguard for errant fancies. Morality now-a-days is at a very low ebb,
and marital obligations go a precious little way against
inclination--certainly where _men_ are concerned. On your honour, Zai,
if Conway was free and could marry you, would you still have me?”
“On my honour I would have you and no one else--if I _may_?” she asks
with a deprecatory smile.
Whereupon he catches her once more in his arms.
“Now,” he says, “while I hold you like this--heart to heart, hand in
hand, and lip to lip--come, Zai! give me your lips--there!--I will put
your love to a test! Zai, Zai!--for God’s sake--don’t you fail me now!”
“I shall never fail you,” she answers in a low voice.
“Not if I tell you that----”
He pauses. He really dreads to see her start and shrink away from him
perhaps--he dreads to see the sweet lovelight in her grey eyes fade
into coldness or hardness--he dreads to lose the delicious guerdon of
these soft, delicious lips.
“Not if you tell me _anything_.”
“Zai, Conway _is_ a free man. His marriage with Miss Meredyth is broken
off entirely. Her people found out something about Flora Fitzallan, of
the Bagatelle Theatre. I know for a fact that he will never be allowed
to marry her. Well?”
“I think,” she says, and putting her arms around his neck she lifts up a
pair of sweet, soft eyes, “I think that it is a very bad thing for Mr.
Conway to have lost a rich wife, and that his misfortune is my gain, for
_now_ you will believe that----”
“That what?” he asks eagerly.
“That who he marries is no concern of mine so long as I----”
“Well?”
“Marry--_you_!” she says, and as she clings to this man who is to be her
husband, she thanks God that she can go down on her knees beside him and
swear to love, honour, and obey him so long as they both shall live.
“My darling! my own, own darling!” he whispers, in his most melodious
voice, and his voice can be not only melodious but _séduisante_ when he
likes. “Listen, Zai. I have never been a good man; but I swear that the
day of our marriage I’ll commence a new life. You will never regret that
you have taken me, Zai. So help me Heaven!”
The recording angel carried up this oath, but the other angels blotted
it out with tears.