/Denzil/ recoiled a step backward, then with an impulsive movement
strode close up to him, his face unnaturally flushed and his eyes
glittering with an evil fire.
“You--you love her! What!--in one short hour, you--who have often
boasted to me of having no heart, no eyes for women except as models
for your canvas,--you say now that you love a woman whom you have
never seen before to-night!”
“Stop!” returned Gervase somewhat moodily, “I am not so sure about
that. I _have_ seen her before, though where I cannot tell. But the
fire that stirs my pulses now seems to spring from some old passion
suddenly revived, and the eyes of the woman we are both mad for--well!
they do not inspire holiness, my dear friend! No,--neither in you nor
in me! Let us be honest with each other. There is something vile in
the composition of Madame la Princesse, and it responds to something
equally vile in ourselves. We shall be dragged down by the force of
it,--_tant pis pour nous!_ I am sorrier for you than for myself, for
you are a good fellow, _au fond_; you have what the world is learning
to despise--sentiment. I have none; for as I told you before, I have
no heart, but I have passions--tigerish ones--which must be humored;
in fact, I make it my business in life to humor them.”
“Do you intend to humor them in this instance?”
“Assuredly! If I can.”
“Then,--friend as you have been, you can be friend no more,” said
Denzil fiercely. “My God! Do you not understand? My blood is as warm
as yours,--I will not yield to you one smile, one look from Ziska!
No!--I will kill you first!”
Gervase looked at him calmly.
“Will you? _Pauvre garçon!_ You are such a boy still,
Denzil,--by-the-bye, how old are you? Ah, I remember now,--twenty-two.
Only twenty-two, and I am thirty-eight! So in the measure of time
alone, your life is more valuable to you than mine is to me. If you
choose, therefore, you can kill me,--now, if you like! I have a very
convenient dagger in my belt--I think it has a point--which you
are welcome to use for the purpose; but, for heaven’s sake, don’t
rant about it--do it! You can kill me--of course you can; but you
cannot--mark this well, Denzil!--you cannot prevent my loving the same
woman whom you love. I think instead of raving about the matter here in
the moonlight, which has the effect of making us look like two orthodox
villains in a set stage-scene, we’d better make the best of it, and
resolve to abide by the lady’s choice in the matter. What say you? You
have known her for many days,--I have known her for two hours. You have
had the first innings, so you cannot complain.”
Here he playfully unfastened the Bedouin knife which hung at his belt
and offered it to Denzil, holding it delicately by the glittering
blade.
“One thrust, my brave boy!” he said. “And you will stop the Ziska
fever in my veins at once and forever. But, unless you deal the
murderer’s blow, the fever will go on increasing till it reaches its
extremest height, and then …”
“And then?” echoed Denzil.
“Then? Oh--God only knows what then!”
Denzil thrust away the offered weapon with a movement of aversion.
“You can jest,” he said. “You are always jesting. But you do not
know--you cannot read the horrible thoughts in my mind. I cannot
resolve their meaning even to myself. There is some truth in your
light words; I feel, I know instinctively, that the woman I love has
an attraction about her which is not good, but evil; yet what does
that matter? Do not men sometimes love vile women?”
“Always!” replied Gervase briefly.
“Gervase, I have suffered tortures ever since I saw her face!”
exclaimed the unhappy lad, his self-control suddenly giving way. “You
cannot imagine what my life has been! Her eyes make me mad,--the
merest touch of her hand seems to drag me away invisibly. …”
“To perdition!” finished Gervase. “That is the usual end of the
journey we men take with beautiful women.”
“And now,” went on Denzil, hardly heeding him, “as if my own despair
were not sufficient, you must needs add to it! What evil fate, I
wonder, sent you to Cairo! Of course, I have no chance with her now;
you are sure to win the day. And can you wonder then that I feel as if
I could kill you?”
“Oh, I wonder at nothing,” said Gervase calmly, “except, perhaps, at
myself. And I echo your words most feelingly,--What evil fate sent me
to Cairo? I cannot tell! But here I purpose to remain. My dear Murray,
don’t let us quarrel if we can help it; it is such a waste of time. I
am not angry with you for loving _la belle_ Ziska,--try, therefore,
not to be angry with me. Let the fair one herself decide as to our
merits. My own opinion is that she cares for neither of us, and,
moreover, that she never will care for any one except her fascinating
self. And certainly her charms are quite enough to engross her whole
attention. By the way, let me ask you, Denzil, in this headstrong
passion of yours,--for it is a headstrong passion, just as mine
is,--do you actually intend to make the Ziska your wife if she will
have you?”
“Of course,” replied Murray, with some haughtiness.
A fleeting expression of amusement flitted over Gervase’s features.
“It is very honorable of you,” he said, “very! My dear boy, you shall
have your full chance. Because I--I would not make the Princess Madame
Gervase for all the world! She is not formed for a life of
domesticity--and pardon me--I cannot picture her as the contented
châtelaine of your grand old Scotch castle in Ross-shire.”
“Why not?”
“From an artistic point of view the idea is incongruous,” said Gervase
lazily. “Nevertheless, I will not interfere with your wooing.”
Denzil’s face brightened.
“You will not?”
“I will not--I promise! But”--and here Gervase paused, looking his
young friend full in the eyes, “remember, if your chance falls to the
ground--if Madame gives you your _congé_--if she does not consent to
be a Scottish châtelaine and listen every day to the bagpipes at
dinner,--you cannot expect me then to be indifferent to my own
desires. She shall not be Madame Gervase,--oh, no! She shall not be
asked to attend to the _pot-au-feu_; she shall act the rôle for which
she has dressed to-night; she shall be another Charmazel to another
Araxes, though the wild days of Egypt are no more!”
A sudden shiver ran through him as he spoke, and instinctively he drew
the white folds of his picturesque garb closer about him.
“There is a chill wind sweeping in from the desert,” he said, “an
evil, sandy breath tasting of mummy-dust blown through the crevices of
the tombs of kings. Let us go in.”
Murray looked at him in a kind of dull despair.
“And what is to be done?” he asked. “I cannot answer for
myself--and--from what you say, neither can you.”
“My dear friend--or foe--whichever you determine to be, I can answer
for myself in one particular at any rate, namely, that as I told you,
I shall not ask the Princess to marry me. You, on the contrary, will
do so. _Bonne chance!_ I shall do nothing to prevent Madame from
accepting the honorable position you intend to offer her. And till the
fiat has gone forth and the fair one has decided, we will not fly at
each other’s throats like wolves disputing possession of a lamb; we
will assume composure, even if we have it not.” He paused, and laid
one hand kindly on the younger man’s shoulder, “Is it agreed?”
Denzil gave a mute sign of resigned acquiescence.
“Good! I like you, Denzil; you are a charming boy! Hot-tempered and a
trifle melodramatic in your loves and hatreds,--yes!--for that you
might have been a Provençal instead of a Scot. Before I knew you I
had a vague idea that all Scotchmen were, or needs must be,
ridiculous,--I don’t know why. I associated them with bagpipes, short
petticoats and whisky. I had no idea of the type you so well
represent,--the dark, fine eyes, the strong physique, and the
impetuous disposition which suggests the South rather than the North;
and to-night you look so unlike the accepted _café chantant_ picture
of the ever-dancing Highlander that you might in very truth be a
Florentine in more points than the dress which so well becomes you.
Yes,--I like you--and more than you, I like your sister. That is why I
don’t want to quarrel with you; I wouldn’t grieve Mademoiselle Helen
for the world.”
Murray gave him a quick, half-angry side-glance.
“You are a strange fellow, Gervase. Two summers ago you were almost in
love with Helen.”
Gervase sighed.
“True. Almost. That’s just it. ‘Almost’ is a very uncomfortable word.
I have been almost in love so many times. I have never been drawn by a
woman’s eyes and dragged down, down,--in a mad whirlpool of sweetness
and poison intermixed. I have never had my soul strangled by the coils
of a woman’s hair--black hair, black as night,--in the perfumed meshes
of which a jewelled serpent gleams … I have never felt the insidious
horror of a love like strong drink mounting through the blood to the
brain, and there making inextricable confusion of time, space,
eternity, everything, except the passion itself; never, never have I
felt all this, Denzil, till to-night! To-night! Bah! It is a wild
night of dancing and folly, and the Princess Ziska is to blame for it
all! Don’t look so tragic, my good Denzil,--what ails you now?”
“What ails me? Good Heavens! Can you ask it!” and Murray gave a
gesture of mingled despair and impatience. “If you love her in this
wild, uncontrolled way …”
“It is the only way I know of,” said Gervase. “Love must be wild and
uncontrolled to save it from _banalité_. It must be a summer
thunderstorm; the heavy brooding of the clouds of thought, the
lightning of desire, then the crash, the downpour,--and the end, in
which the bland sun smiles upon a bland world of dull but wholesome
routine and tame conventionality, making believe that there never was
such a thing known as the past storm! Be consoled, Denzil, and trust
me,--you shall have time to make your honorable proposal, and Madame
had better accept you,--for your love would last,--mine could not!”
He spoke with a strange fierceness and irritability, and his eyes were
darkened by a sudden shadow of melancholy. Denzil, bewildered at his
words and manner, stared at him in a kind of helpless indignation.
“Then you admit yourself to be cruel and unprincipled?” he said.
Gervase smiled, with a little shrug of impatience.
“Do I? I was not aware of it. Is inconstancy to women cruelty and want
of principle? If so, all men must bear the brunt of the accusation
with me. For men were originally barbarians, and always looked upon
women as toys or slaves; the barbaric taint is not out of us yet, I
assure you,--at any rate, it is not out of me. I am a pure savage; I
consider the love of woman as my right; if I win it, I enjoy it as
long as I please, but no longer,--and not all the forces of heaven and
earth should bind me to any woman I had once grown weary of.”
“If that is your character,” said Murray stiffly, “it were well the
Princess Ziska should know it.”
“True,” and Gervase laughed loudly. “Tell her, _mon ami_! Tell her
that Armand Gervase is an unprincipled villain, not worth a glance
from her dazzling eyes! It will be the way to make her adore me! My
good boy, do you not know that there is something very marvellous in
the attraction we call love? It is a pre-ordained destiny,--and if one
soul is so constituted that it must meet and mix with another, nothing
can hinder the operation. So that, believe me, I am quite indifferent
as to what you say of me to Madame la Princesse or to anyone else. It
will not be for either my looks or my character that she will love me
if, indeed, she ever does love me; it will be for something
indistinct, indefinable but resistless in us both, which no one on
earth can explain. And now I must go, Denzil, and claim the fair one
for this waltz. Try and look less miserable, my dear fellow,--I will
not quarrel with you on the Princess’s account, nor on any other
pretext if I can help it,--for I don’t want to kill you, and I am
convinced your death and not mine would be the result of a fight
between us!”
His eyes flashed under his straight, fierce brows with a sudden touch
of imperiousness, and his commanding presence became magnetic, almost
over-powering. Tormented with a dozen cross-currents of feeling, young
Denzil Murray was mute;--only his breath came and went quickly, and
there was a certain silently-declared antagonism in his very attitude.
Gervase saw it and smiled; then turning away with his peculiarly
noiseless step and grace of bearing, he disappeared.