Now the Duke had turned his yacht from Naples merely to amuse himself
(that is to say, to annoy his wife); but is it not a fact, as _The
Morning Post_ lately asked in reference to our treating with the Soviet
Republic, that it is dangerous to play with fire? So it happened that
the Duke had not been gay of his new enchantment for long before all
others palled on him, and he awoke one morning to recognise that he
could not, try as he would, do without the one enchantment that was
called Ava Lamb. Those American sisters, first the one and then the
other, were fated, it appeared, to ravish his imagination to the
exclusion of the whole race of womankind. And he had all the more
leisure in which to contemplate his dilemma insomuch as Miss Lamb,
pleading the importunity of friends, would sometimes not see him for
days at a time.
In the meanwhile the Duchess, in London, was preparing to petition the
Courts to release her from her unfortunate marriage; and after the usual
correspondence had passed between the lawyers of both parties, and the
usual evidence collected, the majesty of the law pronounced the usual
decree and everyone said the usual things.
Impatiently the Duke in Paris awaited the wire which would tell him that
he was no longer the husband of Leonora Mall; and when it came he
delayed only long enough to instruct his valet to telephone his London
florists to send the ex-Duchess a basket of flowers before calling on
Miss Ava Lamb at her hotel.
However, she was not at home. The Duke protested. Even so, she was not
at home. The Duke felt rebuked for not having conformed to the decencies
of divorce so far as to wait twenty-four hours; and in all humility he
returned the next day.
However, she was not at home. The Duke pleaded. Even so, she was not at
home; for, her maid said, she was resting before the ardours of the
night journey to Cherbourg, whence she would embark for New York. The
Duke scarce awaited the end of the astounding news. Miss Lamb was lying
down. Calm and cold, she said:
“What does this mean, Duke? How dare you force yourself on me like
this?”
Fair, tall, intent, the Duke further dared her displeasure by raising
her unwilling hand to his lips. Twilight filled the room. Outside, the
motors raced across the Place Vendôme. The Duke said:
“I have dared everything on this one throw. Ava, I love you.”
Miss Lamb said to her maid, “Go,” and she went.
The Duke smiled unsteadily, saying: “Well? Ava, what have you to say?”
Where she lay on her couch in the dusk, her face was like a pale white
flower. But he could not see her eyes, because they were closed. The
dress she wore was black. The hand that lay outstretched on her black
dress was as soft as a temptation, and he said: “I have a ring for that
hand that has not its peer in the world. I love you. Ava, will you marry
me?”
He could not see her eyes, because they were closed. But still the dusk
lacked the courage to steal the red from her mouth, and the Duke saw
that her mouth was parted in a queer sad smile.
“Why do you smile?” he whispered, and he said unsteadily: “I know why.
You do not believe I love you, you do not believe I know how to love,
you think me the shallow, vain braggart that I have shown to you in the
guise of myself until this moment. But I love you, Ava, more than life.
I love you, Ava, with all the youthful love I had for your sister
increased a thousandfold by the knowledge I now have of myself: for it
is by loving that men come to know themselves, and it is by knowing
themselves in all humility that men can love with the depths of their
hearts. Ava, I do love you terribly! Won’t you speak, won’t you say one
word, do you disdain my love so utterly as that? Yet I can’t blame you,
for I have spent my life in proving that my love is despicable. I have
been proud, pitiless, impious. I am soiled. But, Ava, even a fool may
come to know the depths of his folly; and I who know so much of desire,
dearly beloved, know that I have never loved until this moment. Still
you won’t speak? Ava, I did not think you so ungenerous when in my
vanity I first fell under your gentle enchantment. Dear, your silence is
destroying all of me but my love. Won’t you give me even so much as a
queen will give a beggar, that, had he been another man in another
world, he might have kissed her hand?”
Now night had extinguished all but the last tapers of twilight, and in
the dark silence the maid whispered to his ear: “Your Grace, she is
asleep.”