The band was playing very softly, very dreamily; it might have been a
lullaby. The girl who stood on the balcony of the great London house,
with the moonlight pouring full upon her, stooped, and nervously,
fumblingly, picked up a spray of syringa that had fallen from among the
flowers on her breast.
The man beside her, dark-faced and grave, put out a perfectly steady
hand.
"May I have it?" he said.
She looked up at him with the start of a trapped animal. Her face was
very pale. It was in striking contrast to the absolute composure of his.
Very slowly and reluctantly she put the flower into his outstretched
hand.
He took it, but he took her fingers also and kept them in his own.
"When will you marry me, Nina?" he asked.
She started again and made a frightened effort to free her hand.
He smiled faintly and frustrated it.
"When will you marry me?" he repeated.
She threw back her head with a gesture of defiance; but the courage in
her eyes was that of desperation.
"If I marry you," she said, "it will be purely and only for your money."
He nodded. Not a muscle of his face moved.
"Of course," he said. "I know that."
"And you want me under those conditions?"
There was a quiver in the words that might have been either of scorn or
incredulity.
"I want you under any conditions," he responded quietly. "Marry my money
by all means if it attracts you! But you must take me with it."
The girl shrank.
"I can't!" she whispered suddenly.
He released her hand calmly, imperturbably.
"I will ask you again to-morrow," he said.
"No!" she said sharply.
He looked at her questioningly.
"No!" she repeated, with a piteous ring of uncertainty in her voice.
"Mr. Wingarde, I say No!"
"But you don't mean it," he said, with steady conviction.
"I do mean it!" she gasped. "I tell you I do!"
She dropped suddenly into a low chair and covered her face with a moan.
The man did not move. He stared absently down into the empty street as
if waiting for something. There was no hint of impatience about his
strong figure. Simply, with absolute confidence, he waited.
Five minutes passed and he did not alter his position. The soft strains
in the room behind them had swelled into music that was passionately
exultant. It seemed to fill and overflow the silence between them. Then
came a triumphant crash and it ended. From within sounded the gay buzz
of laughing voices.
Slowly Wingarde turned and looked at the bent, hopeless figure of the
girl in the chair. He still held indifferently between his fingers the
spray of white blossom for which he had made request.
He did not speak. Yet, as if in obedience to an unuttered command, the
girl lifted her head and looked up at him. Her eyes were full of misery
and indecision. They wavered beneath his steady gaze. Slowly, still
moving as if under compulsion, she rose and stood before him, white and
slim as a flower. She was quivering from head to foot.
The man still waited. But after a moment he put out his hand silently.
She did not touch it, choosing rather to lean upon the balustrade of the
balcony for support. Then at last she spoke, in a whisper that seemed to
choke her.
"I will marry you," she said--"for your money."
"I thought you would," Wingarde said very quietly.
He stood looking down at her bent head and white shoulders. There were
sparkles of light in her hair that shone as precious metal shines in
ore. Her hands were both fast gripped upon the ironwork on which she
leant.
He took a step forward and was close beside her, but he did not again
offer her his hand.
"Will you answer my original question?" he said. "I asked--when?"
In the moonlight he could see her shivering, shivering violently. She
shook her head; but he persisted.
His manner was supremely calm and unhurried.
"This week?" he said.
She shook her head again with more decision.
"Oh, no--no!" she said.
"Next?" he suggested.
"No!" she said again.
He was looking at her full and deliberately, but she would not look at
him. She was quaking in every limb. There was a pause. Then Wingarde
spoke again.
"Why not next week?" he asked. "Have you any particular reason?"
She glanced at him.
"It would be--so soon," she faltered.
"What difference does that make?" A very strange smile touched his grim
lips. "Having made up your mind to do something disagreeable, do you
find shirking till the last moment makes it any easier--any more
palatable? Surely the sooner it's over--"
"It never will be over," she broke in passionately. "It is for all my
life! Ah, what am I saying? Mr. Wingarde"--she turned towards him, her
face quivering painfully--"be patient with me! I have given my promise."
The smile on his face deepened into something that closely resembled a
sneer.
"How long do you want me to wait?" he said. "Fifty years?"
She drew back sharply. But almost instantly he went on speaking.
"I will yield a point," he said, "if it means so much to you. But, you
know, the wedding-day will dawn eventually, however remote we make it.
Will you say next month?"
The girl's eyes wore a hunted look, but she kept them raised with
desperate resolution. She did not answer him, however. After a moment he
repeated his question. His face had become stern. The lines about his
mouth were grimly resolute.
"Will you say next month, Nina?" he said. "It shall be the last day of
it if you wish. But--next month."
His tone was inexorable. He meant to win this point, and she knew it.
Her breath came quickly, unevenly; but in face of his mastery she made a
great effort to control her agitation.
"Very well," she said, and she spoke more steadily than she had spoken
at all during the interview. "I will marry you next month."
"Will you fix the day?" he asked.
She uttered a sudden, breathless laugh--the reckless laugh of the loser.
"Surely that cannot matter!" she said. "The first day or the last--as
you say, what difference does it make?"
"You leave the choice tome?" he asked, without the smallest change of
countenance.
"Certainly!" she said coldly.
"Then I choose the first," he rejoined.
And at the words she gave a great start as if already she repented the
moment of recklessness.
The notes of a piano struck suddenly through the almost tragic silence
that covered up the protest she had not dared to utter. A few quiet
chords; and then a woman's voice began to sing. Slowly, with deep,
hidden pathos, the words floated out into the night; and, involuntarily
almost, the man and the girl stood still to listen:
Shadows and mist and night,
Darkness around the way,
Here a cloud and there a star,
Afterwards, Day!
Sorrow and grief and tears,
Eyes vainly raised above,
Here a thorn and there a rose;
Afterwards, Love!
The voice was glorious, the rendering sublime. The spell of the singer
was felt in the utter silence that followed.
Wingarde's eyes never left his companion's face. But the girl had turned
from him. She was listening, rapt and eager. She had forgotten his very
presence at her side. As the last passionate note thrilled into silence
she drew a long breath. Her eyes were full of tears.
Suddenly she came to earth--to the consciousness of his watching
eyes--and her expression froze into contemptuous indifference. She
turned her head and faced him, scorning the tears she could not hide.
In her look were bitter dislike, fierce resistance, outraged pride.
"Some people," she said, with a little, icy smile, "would prefer to say
'Afterwards, Death!' I am one of them."
Wingarde looked back at her with complete composure. He also seemed
faintly contemptuous.
"You probably know as much of the one as of the other," he coolly
responded.