NOT LOVE, BUT PITY.
Doris’ own face grew a little paler as she looked at him, so haggard
was his; and yet his pallor lent an added charm to his delicately-cut
features and expressive, deeply-colored eyes bent upon her with a
strange, intent look, as she sat on the edge of the hammock, and half
trembling, for she knew not what reason, waited for him to speak. She
was startled by the changed appearance of the man, who was usually
self-possession itself. He stood for a moment in silence, leaning
against one of the trees to which the hammock was slung, his arms
folded, his head sunk on his breast, and a nightingale in a neighboring
tree commenced to sing; all her life afterward Doris never heard a
nightingale without recalling this night.
“Miss Marlowe,” he said, at last, and he spoke in a voice so low that
it seemed to harmonize with the voice of the bird. “If I were wise I
should let you go, even now! But--I cannot, I cannot! Chance is too
strong for me. It sent you back to find me--as you found me, and I
must speak to you, and perhaps for the last time. I am leaving the
villa--Italy. I go to England to-morrow.”
Doris glanced up at him; a streak of light from one of the brilliant
windows fell across his handsome face, and she saw that, with all his
self-command, his lips trembled.
“I am sorry,” she murmured, and a faint thrill of regret stirred her.
She knew that he had been her friend, that with all his apparent
coldness and reserve he had never lost an opportunity of quietly
serving her. “I am afraid you have heard bad news.”
“No,” he said. “I have heard no bad news, for the best of reasons;
there is no one to send me news of any kind, bad or good. I am a man
without a friend in the world.”
“Ah, no!” she said, almost inaudibly.
“I am not forgetting you, nor Lady Despard,” he said. “But you--but
Lady Despard, for whose kindness I am, and shall ever be,
grateful--will she remember me after one week’s absence, excepting as
that of the man whose voice helped to while away an idle half-hour, and
amuse her friends? And why should she?” he added, not bitterly, but
with a grave sadness that touched Doris deeply. “I am, as I have always
been, alone in the world--a man of no account, a speck of dust dancing
in the sunbeam one moment, the next, floating in the gutter. Don’t
think I say this to excite your pity. No! It is because I want you to
remember what I am, how worthless and insignificant--just Percy Levant,
‘the man who sings for Lady Despard!’”
He smiled with a bitter self-scorn which lent to his face an air of
tragedy that fascinated Doris.
“And now you wonder, seeing that I am basking in the sunshine just
at present, that I should wish to leave it, and sink into the mire
again. I don’t wish it. If I could I would remain at the Villa Rimini,
to play the part of Lady Despard’s singing man, till she grew weary,
or the voice which renders me acceptable lost its novelty and became
valueless. But I cannot stay. A power stronger than my will is driving
me, and if you had not come back to seek for her ladyship’s bracelet, I
should have gone without a word of farewell to you, who are the cause
of my flight.”
Doris started and looked up at him.
“I?” she said, her brows drawn together with startled trouble.
“Yes, you, Miss Marlowe,” he said, quietly, but with something in the
music of his voice that thrilled Doris. “You will listen while I try
and tell you? Heaven knows, I find it hard enough. Be patient with
me--oh, be patient with me!” He held out his hand with a sudden gesture
of entreaty, then let it fall to his side. “How poor, how friendless,
how completely alone I am, you know; but I am base enough to be proud
as well, and all my life I have been prouder of nothing more than my
power to repay the world’s scorn of my poverty and abjectness with my
scorn for the world. I prided myself on the fact that I had no heart.
For other men there might be happiness, a life shared with some one
whom they loved, and who loved them in return; for me, the social
outcast, the pariah, there could be no such thing as love, no hope
that any woman could be found to share my poverty and my hopelessness.
So I went through the world, hardening my heart, and telling myself
that at least I should be spared the madness which men call love.”
He paused a moment, and looked at her downcast face, then went on:
“This was before I went to Chester Gardens. You don’t remember that
night, I dare say; I shall never forget it, for it was the night upon
which I first saw you--first learned that all my pride was to melt at
the sight of a woman’s face, at the sound of a woman’s voice. Miss
Marlowe, if I had been a wise man, I would have taken my hat and gone
out of your presence never to return; but the spell was wrought, and I
consented to come here in the train of Lady Despard, as her jester--her
singing man. I would have come in the capacity of her footman or
bootboy, if there had been no other place for me, no other way of being
near you----”
Doris looked up with a pale, startled face, and made a movement to
depart, but he stretched out his hand again pleadingly.
“Ah! wait! Let me finish. I fought hard against the influence which had
fallen on me--fought day by day, with all my strength; but against the
spell you had, all unconsciously, woven around me, fighting was of as
little avail as it would be to try and stem the incoming tide. The iron
had entered my soul, and I knew all at once that my heart and life were
bound up in one sentiment, my intense love for you!”
Doris rose tremblingly.
“I have said it now,” he continued. “My secret is out. I love you,
Miss Marlowe--I, Lady Despard’s camp follower, the jester of the Villa
Rimini, have dared to love its brightest ornament!”
And he laughed with mingled sadness and bitterness.
“I was mad, was I not? I ought to have selected her lady’s maid--any
one of the maids about the place. But Miss Marlowe! The beautiful
creature for whose smile lords and princes, men of fame and note,
were willing to contend! Mad! Yes! But all love is madness, so they
say, and--well, that is my only excuse. And now, before you send me
away with one of those gentle smiles of yours, let me tell you what I
have to offer you. Myself--and nothing! I have nothing but my voice
to depend upon. I lay it at your feet, knowing well that at a word
from you other men would lay their coronets and their gold there.” He
laughed again. “Not much to offer, Miss Marlowe; but it is my all, and
my life goes with it! And yet, if you stooped to take it--well”--he
drew a long breath and his magnificent eyes seemed to glow--“well, I
think I could make a good fight of it! The world should hear of Percy
Levant, and you should not be ashamed of the man whose hand you had
stooped to take. Yes!”--he bent forward with outstretched hands. “With
your love to encourage me, with you by my side to make the struggle
worth while, I would win a name which at least might be not unworthy
of you! Ah, think a moment!” he pleaded, his voice suddenly quivering
in its intensity. “Think what your answer means to me! To any of these
others it might matter a good deal, I grant, whether you said them
‘yes’ or ‘no;’ but they have so many other things to live for--rank,
wealth, place in the world! But I! I have nothing but this wild mad
love of mine, this deep love for you which seems part and parcel of
my very being! Miss Marlowe--Doris--it is a beggar who pleads to you
for the one chance which will lift him from a life which has never yet
known happiness to one of hope and perfect joy! Think and--ah, I love
you! I love you! Don’t send me away!” and he was on his knees beside
her, his face upturned to hers with an expression which a man might
wear who is indeed pleading for his life.
Doris looked down at him speechlessly. His passionate avowal, the
wonderful music of every word, the handsome face and thrilling eyes
affected her strangely; but she was more moved by the confession of
his lowliness and loneliness than by aught else. She, too, was she
not lowly enough and lonely enough, also? This, at least, made a bond
between them.
She did not love him, but--she pitied him; and pity, with such a girl
as Doris, is indeed, near akin to love.
What should she say to him? The thought of having to tell him that
there was no hope for him smote her with a keen sense of pain! She
dreaded seeing his face as she dealt the blow. She herself had loved,
you see, and could sympathize with him. Heaven! how hard it was that
she should have to rob the friendless, solitary man of his one chance
of happiness! She faltered and hesitated; and a light of hope--wild,
almost maddening hope--burned in his eyes.
“Doris!” he breathed; “Doris!”
“Hush! hush!” she said. “Ah! why have you told me this? Why didn’t you
go without telling me?”
“Forgive me!” he answered. “I was going. If you had not come back in
the moment of my struggle, you would not have seen me again! And now I
have told you! You hesitate!”
“I hesitate because----” she paused, and looked down at him with sweet,
troubled gravity and tenderness, the tenderness of a woman who is
about to deal a man who loves her the deadliest blow he can receive at
her hands. “Because I cannot love you. I”--her voice broke, but she
struggled with it and went on--“I care nothing for rank or wealth;
they are nothing to me. I should say what I have said if you were a
prince. I shall never marry any one, Mr. Levant!” She turned her head
aside, but he saw the tears fill her eyes. “I am sorry, sorry, sorry!”
she murmured. “There is no one I like better. I did not know, I never
guessed that you wished--that you wished me to be your wife; but I knew
that you were my friend, and I was proud that it should be so.”
“Your friend!” he breathed. “Only friend! Ah, Doris! many and many a
night I have wandered here, watching the light in your window, and
wondering whether by some miracle I should win you! Your friend! Well,
I played my part well--I hid my heart’s secret while it was possible.”
“Yes,” she said, gently. “I never guessed it! And now we must part--I
must lose my friend! But I am grateful--ah, so grateful. You speak
as if I were so far above you! You forget that I also am alone, and
lowlier than yourself, for I am a woman, while you are a man, with all
the world before you.”
“No,” he said; “all the world lies behind me. Losing you I say good-by
to any hope of happiness; good-by to ambition! Percy Levant and the
world have done with each other from to-night!”
“Oh, no! no!” she murmured, pleadingly. “You do not know! If I told
you that I am not worthy of your love; that I am not only poor and
friendless, but”--her face went paler, and her lips quivered--“but
nameless! That my life has been wrecked----”
“Wait! wait!” he said, with a strange expression on his face, his voice
suddenly hoarse. “Tell me nothing! I know--I know as surely as that
these stars are above us, that not an ignoble thought, not one unworthy
deed, has ever stained your life. What sorrows have come to you have
been undeserved. Nothing could shake my faith in you, my queen, for you
are my heart’s queen. Ah, Doris, give yourself to me from to-night! Let
me make a fresh life for you; let me teach you to forget the past; let
me make the future for you! Say yes, for my sake--or your own! Yes, for
your own! See how confident I am that I can make you forget--make you
happy! It is my love gives me confidence. I ask for so little--I don’t
ask you to love me! I ask you to confide yourself and your future to
me. I know that I shall win your love--I am not afraid.” His face lit
up as if transfigured by the hope that had sprung up within his breast.
“With you by my side I can face the world, and vanquish it! Doris!
Doris!”
She put her hand to her eyes, and her lips quivered.
“And you will be content?” she murmured, almost inaudibly. “Content to
accept so little for all you offer me--for so much love?”
“Content? Yes!” he responded, fervently, with a world of meaning in his
voice. “Yes, I shall be content! I can guess, though you shall tell me
nothing now, dearest, that there has been some one else, some other
man, who proved unworthy the great treasure of your love, that you have
not forgotten him, and the sorrow he caused you! I ask nothing! I am
content to wait, and win back your heart for myself, and I shall win
it! Now, my queen, give me my sentence,” and he held his hand out to
her.
Half-dazed by his passionate pleading, touched by the generosity of
his faith and belief in her, thinking of him and not of herself, Doris
slowly let her hand fall into his.
He did not take her in his arms, but his hand closed on hers and held
it in a close grasp, then, as he pressed his lips to it, he murmured:
“My queen! my queen!” with a passionate reverence that would have moved
a harder heart than Doris’.
She drew her hand from his clasp gently, and he did not offer to retain
it, as if he meant to show her that his promise to be content to wait
until he had won her love was something more than an empty phrase.
“Good-night,” he murmured. “Good-night, Doris! Some day you will know
how happy you have made me! Some day when I have taught you to know
what happiness means! Good-night, my love, my queen!”
She looked at him for a moment through a mist of tears--tears that fell
upon the grave of her old love--and then glided from his side.
He stood, where she had left him, watching her till the glimmer of her
white dress faded from his sight; then he threw himself on the ground
and covered his eyes with his hands.
“Great Heaven!” he murmured, “am I mad or dreaming? Is she mine, mine,
mine? Oh, my darling, my beautiful! I will keep my word! You shall
be happy! I swear it! I swear----” he raised his hand to the silent,
star-gemmed sky, then stopped and stared with a sudden horror, for
there in front of him stood Mr. Spenser Churchill. He stood with his
pale, smooth face smiling unctuously down upon him, a half-mocking
smile curving the sleek lips.
“Ah, my dear Percy!” he murmured, smoothly. “How do you do? How do you
do? Surprised to see me. Yes. You look rather startled. Almost as if
you had forgotten me!”
Percy Levant rose to his feet, his eyes still fixed on the smiling face.
“By Heaven;” he breathed, almost with a groan. “I had forgotten you!”
“Really? Now wasn’t that a little ungrateful, eh? To forget your best
friend--one who has always had your best and truest interests at heart!
Tut, tut, my dear Percy.”
“When--when did you come?” demanded the other, in a low voice.
“Almost this moment. I have just looked in at the villa, and greeted
our fair hostess. Hearing that my dear young friend, Miss Marlowe,
was in the garden, I asked permission to come in search of her,
and--er--found her so deeply engaged that I did not venture to intrude
myself.”
Percy Levant looked from one side to the other.
“You--you have been listening?” he said.
Mr. Spenser Churchill looked very much shocked.
“My dear Percy, what a dreadful charge! Listening? Certainly not!
Seeing you--er--immersed in each other’s conversation, I took a little
stroll, and waited until the interview had come to a close.”
Percy Levant leaned against the tree with his arms folded, his head
bent upon his breast, but his eyes still fixed upon the other man’s.
His face was pale, and there were great drops of sweat upon his brow.
“And how goes our little arrangement, my dear Percy? Am I to
congratulate you? Though I didn’t listen, as you so cruelly suggested,
I gathered that your suit was meeting with a favorable reception. Did
my judgment play me false, or has Miss Marlowe accepted you?”
The younger man remained silent for a moment; then he said, almost
inaudibly:
“She--accepted me.”
Spenser Churchill nodded with a smile of satisfaction.
“Capital! I congratulate you, my dear Percy. I congrat----”
The smooth, oily voice broke off suddenly, for Percy Levant had seized
the speaker by the shoulder, and held him in a grasp of steel.
“Silence!” he groaned out between his teeth. “What devil prompted you
to come here to-night?--Heaven!--to-night!”
“My dear Percy, I came to see how you were progressing; not that I was
anxious! Oh, dear, no! I knew that that handsome face and lovely voice
of yours would prove irresistible; but I wanted to see for myself how
our little scheme was going on----”
“And I had forgotten you!” dropped from Percy Levant’s lips. “Yes, I
swear it! I remembered nothing but that I loved her----”
Mr. Spenser Churchill’s lips wreathed in a rather painful smile, for
the grasp of the strong hand made him shudder.
“You--you fiend, you cannot believe it, cannot understand! How should
such as you believe that I had forgotten our devilish contract, that
I should love her for herself alone----” He broke off and his head
dropped.
“Come, come, my dear Percy, the delicate sentiment you have expressed
does you credit. Of course you love Miss Marlowe for herself, and
the fact that you happen to know that she is not so poor as she
thinks herself--in fact, that in marrying her you make a rich man
of yourself--goes for nothing. Of course, of course! Very nice
and--er--proper. But--would you mind taking your hand from my shoulder;
you have remarkably strong fingers, my dear Percy! But I trust you will
not forget that I have a curious document in my possession----”
Percy Levant withdrew his hand with a sudden and violent thrust that
caused the philanthropist to spin round like a teetotum.
“Remember? Yes, I remember!” he said, hoarsely. “It would be as well
for you if I had continued to forget it! Keep out of my sight while you
are here, or I will not answer for myself!”