There was fortunately a company assembled for dinner when John
Derringham descended to the restaurant and again joined his
_fiancée_--who never dined alone if she could help it, and reveled in
gay parties for every meal, with plenty of brilliant lights and the
chatter of other groups near at hand. Wherever she went, from Carlsbad
to Cairo, in the best restaurant you could always find her amidst her
many friends, feasting every night. And now the party consisted of some
of her compatriots, a Russian Prince, and an Italian Marchese. She
looked superbly beautiful; anger had lent a sparkle to her eyes and a
flush to her cheeks; no rouge was needed to-night, and she could
scintillate to her heart's content. She flashed words occasionally at
John Derringham, and he knew, and was horribly conscious all the time,
that once he would have found her most brilliant, but that now it was
exactly as when he had looked at the X-ray photograph of his own broken
ankle, where the sole thing which made a reality was the skeleton
substructure. He could only seem to see Cecilia Cricklander's vulgar
soul---the pink and white perfection of her body had melted into
nothingness.
He found himself listening for some of her parrot-utterances, as a
detached spectator, and taking a sort of ugly pleasure in recognizing
which were the phrases of Arabella. The man upon her left hand was
intelligent, and was gazing at her with the rapt attention beauty always
commands, and she was uttering her finest platitudes.
And once John Derringham leant back in his chair, when no one was
observing him, and laughed aloud. The supreme mockery of it all! And in
five weeks from this night this woman would be his wife!
_His wife!_ Ye gods!
They had no _tête-à-tête_ words before the party broke up, and had
hardly exchanged a sentence when, as the last guest was saying farewell,
Arabella, too, retired from the sitting-room.
So they were alone.
"Cecilia," he said, coming up quite close to her, "we started rather
badly to-night--at least let us be friends." And he held out his hand.
"Believe me, I wish to do all that I can to please you, but I am afraid
I make a very indifferent sort of lover. Forgive me,"
"Oh, you are well enough, I suppose," she said. "No man values what he
has won--it is only the winning of it that is any fun. I understand the
feeling myself. Don't let us talk heroics."
John Derringham smiled.
"Certainly not," he said.
And then she put up her face and let him kiss her, which he did with
some sickening revolt in his heart. Even her physical beauty had no more
any effect upon him--he would as soon have kissed Arabella.
So she sailed from the room again, with her mouth shut like a vice, and
her handsome eyes glancing at him over her shoulder.
Next day, after having kept him waiting for an hour to take her out, she
decided they should spend what remained of the morning at the Bargello.
And, when they got there, she did her best to be a charming companion,
and pressed him to lean upon her instead of his stick. But to his
awakened understanding what was even probably true in her talk and
comprehension of the gems of art, seemed false and affected, and he was
only conscious of one continual jar as she spoke.
A thousand little trifles, never remarked before, now appeared to loom
large in his vision. At last they came to the galleries above, to the
collection of the Della Robbias, and Mrs. Cricklander rhapsodized over
them, mixing them up with delightful unconcern. They were all just bits
of cheap-looking crockery to her eye, and it was impossibly difficult to
distinguish which was Luca's, Andrea's, or Giovanni's; and, security
having made her careless, she committed several blunders.
John Derringham laid no pitfalls for her--indeed, he helped her out when
he could. To-day each new discovery no longer made him smile with bitter
cynicism, he was only filled with a sense of discomfort and regret.
He stopped in front of Andrea's masterpiece, the tender young Madonna.
Something in the expression of the face made him think of Halcyone,
although the types of the two were entirely different; and Cecilia
Cricklander, watching, saw a look of deep pain grow in his eyes.
"I wish to goodness he would get well and be human and masterful and
brilliant, as he used to be," she thought. "I am thoroughly tired out,
trying to cope with him. He is no more use now than a bump on a log. I
am sorry I made him come here!"
"It is about time for lunch," said John Derringham, who could no longer
bear her prattle; and they returned to the hotel.
Arabella and an American man made the _partie carrée_, and Miss Clinker
did her best to help to get through the repast, and afterwards wrote in
a letter to her mother:
Mr. Derringham has arrived. He still looks dreadfully ill and
careworn, and I can see is feeling his position acutely. Since that
dreadful day when he found my notes in Gibbon, I have never dared to
look at him when in the company of M. E. I feel that distressing
sensation of hot and cold during the whole time. M. E., now that no
further great efforts are needed, chatters on with most disquieting
inconsequence. I can see she is very much upset at Mr. Derringham's
attitude. The impression that the Conservative Goverment cannot last
has had also a great effect upon her, and she has set me to find out
exactly the position and amount of prestige the wife of a rising
member of the Opposition would have. This morning she sent for me,
when she was dressing, to know if it were true, as Mr. Derringham had
told her, that, if the Radicals got in, they might last seven
years--because, if so, she would then be almost thirty-eight, and the
best days of her youth would be over. I do not dare to think what
these remarks may mean, but in connection with the fact that she
receives daily letters from Mr. Hanbury-Green--that unpleasant
Socialistic person who is coming so much to the front--I almost fear,
and yet hope, that there is some chance for Mr. Derringham's escape.
He is bearing his trouble as only an English gentleman could do, and
at lunch paid her every attention.
And old Mrs. Clinker smiled when she got this letter.
But by the end of the afternoon John Derringham's face wore no smiles; a
blank despair had settled upon him.
They drove along the Arno and into the Gardens.
It was warm and beautiful, but, so forceful is a hostile atmosphere
created between two people, they both found it impossible to make
conversation.
Mrs. Cricklander was burning with rage and a sense of impotency. She
felt her words and all her arts of pleasing were being nullified, and
that she was up against an odious situation in which her strongest
weapons were powerless. It made her nervous and very cross. She
particularly resented not being able to ascertain the cause of the
change in him, and felt personally aggrieved at his still being a
wretched wreck hobbling with a stick. He ought to have got quite well by
now--it was perfectly ridiculous. What if, after all, he would not be
worth while? But the indomitable part of her character made her
tenacious. She felt it was a different matter, throwing away what she
had won, to having to relinquish something that she knew she had never
really gained. She would make one more determined effort, and then, if
he would not give her love, he should be made to feel his bondage, she
would extort from him to the last ounce, her pound of flesh.
"John, darling," she said, slipping her hand into his, under the rug as
they drove, "this beautiful place makes me feel so romantic. I wish you
would make love to me. You sit there looking like Dante with a beard, as
cold as ice."
"I am very sorry," he answered, startled from a reverie. "I know I am a
failure in such sort of ways. What do you want me to say?"
This was not promising, and her annoyance increased.
"I want you to tell me you love me--over and over again," she whispered,
controlling her voice.
"Women always ask these questions," he said to gain time. "They never
take anything for granted as men do."
"No!" she flashed. "Not when a man's actions point to the possibility of
several other interpretations of his sentiments--then they want words to
console them. But you give me neither."
"I am not a demonstrative person," he responded. "I will do all I can to
make you happy, but do not ask me for impossibilities. You will have to
put up with me as I am."
"I shall decide that!" And she snatched away her hand angrily, and then
controlled herself--the moment had not yet come. He should not have
freedom, which now she felt he craved; he should remain tied until he
had at all events paid the last price of humiliation. So for the rest of
that day and those that followed she behaved with maddening
capriciousness, keeping him waiting for every meal and every
appointment--changing her mind as to what she would do--lavishing
caresses upon him which made him wince, and then treating him with
mocking coldness; but all with such extreme cleverness that she never
once gave him the chance to bring things to an open rupture. She was
beginning really to enjoy herself in this new game--it required even
more skill to torture and hold than to attract and keep at arm's length.
But at last John Derringham could bear no more.
They had continuous lunches and dinners with the gay party of Americans
who had been of the company on the first evening, and there was never a
moment's peace. A life in public was as the breath of Cecilia
Cricklander's nostrils, and she did not consider the wishes of her
betrothed. In fact, but for spoken sympathy over his shattered condition
and inability to walk much, she did not consider him at all, and exacted
his attendance on all occasions, whether too fatiguing for him or not.
The very last shred of glamour about her had long fallen from John
Derringham's eyes, and indeed things seemed to him more bald than they
really were. His proud spirit chafed from morning to night--chafed
hopelessly against the knowledge that his own action had bound him as no
ordinary bond of an engagement could. His whole personality appeared to
be changing; he was taciturn or cynically caustic, casting jibes at all
manner of things he had once held sacred. But after a week of abject
misery, he refused to bear any more, and when Mrs. Cricklander grew
tired of Florence, and decided to move on to Venice, he announced his
intention of taking a few days' tour by himself. He wished to see the
country round, he said, and especially make an excursion to San
Gimignano--that gem of all Italy for its atmosphere of the past.
"Oh! I am thoroughly tired of these moldy places," Mrs. Cricklander
announced. "The Maulevriers are in Venice, and we can have a delightful
time at the Lido; the new hotel is quite good--you had much better come
on with me now. Moping alone cannot benefit anyone. You really ought to
cheer up and get quite well, John."
But he was firm, and after some bickerings she was obliged to decide to
go to Venice alone with Arabella, and let her _fiancé_ depart in his
motor early the next morning.
Their parting was characteristic.
"Good night, Cecilia," John Derringham said. No matter how capricious
she could be, he always treated her with ceremonious politeness. "I am
leaving so very early to-morrow, we had better say good-by now. I hope
my going does not really inconvenience you at all. I want a little rest
from your friends, and, when I join you at Venice again, I hope you will
let me see more of yourself."
She put up her face, and kissed him with all the girlish rippling smiles
she had used for his seduction in the beginning.
"Why, certainly," she said. "We will be regular old Darbys-and-Joans; so
don't you forget while you are away that you belong to me, and I am not
going to give you up to anything or anybody--so long as I want you
myself!"
And John Derringham had gone to his room feeling more chained than ever,
and more bitterly resentful against fate.
As soon as he left her, she sat down at her writing-table and wrote out
a telegram to be sent off the first thing the next day. It contained
only three words, and was not signed.
But the recipient of it, Mr. Hanbury-Green, read it with wild emotion
when he received it in his rooms in London--and immediately made
arrangements to set off to Florence at once.
"I'll beat him yet!" he said to himself, and he romantically kissed the
pink paper. For, "You may come" was what he had read.