And I, too, have to apologize. I failed to keep my appointment.”
He swung round at the mockingly spoken words, to find that Santa had
stolen up behind him. Until now he had had no time to notice her. His
anger was so intense that it held him silent. After all that she had
done and had intended to do to him, she had the effrontery to jest! Did
she think that he was as much her dupe as the fool who had died for her
in the woods of Vincennes?
But his anger was short-lived and left him sternly cold. She was
changed. Her fastidious elegance was a thing of the past. She was
commonly attired as any fisher-girl. Her cheap blouse was rent at the
neck; its sleeves were stained and in tatters. Her rough skirt had been
nearly trodden off. She was tom and disheveled. She had suffered even
more from her adventure than had Varensky. Her hat lay crushed at her
feet in the grass. With her wounded hands she “was doing her best to
twine the thick coils of her hair into place. She stood confessed for
what she was, a fugitive from justice. The wildness of the landscape
made a fitting setting. She looked startlingly untamed. She might have
passed for a peasant Ophelia, except that her gray eyes were calm and
her manner nonchalant.
“There are a good many things, besides missing your appointment, for
which you have to apologize.”
“I can explain--”
He cut her short. “Between you and me no explanations are necessary.”
She jerked back her head, flattening her hands against her sides like a
soldier standing at attention. “Why not?”
He took his time to answer. “Because you're nothing to me.”
Her face went white, then flamed scarlet, as though he had struck
her with his open palm. “Nothing to you!” She spoke slowly. “I, Santa
Gorlof, am nothing to you! You're the first man to whom I ever offered
my heart. I would lie down in the mud that you might walk over me. I'd
let you beat me like a dog if I might only follow you. I'd starve that
you might be fed, go thirsty that you might drink, break my body that
you might not suffer. I would die if it would give you pleasure.” Seeing
that her rhetoric was having no effect, she sank her voice. “When I
could have escaped, I waited for you. I risked my freedom for one last
sight of you.” She clutched at her breast, choking down a sob. “And you
tell me that I'm nothing to you!”
He was determined to remain unmoved by her emotion. Regarding her
stonily, he asked: “What right had you to believe that you were anything
to me?”
She laughed forlornly. “No right at all.”
“If I had ever cared for you,” he continued, “in your present
predicament it would all be ended.”
She raised her brows contemptuously. “Of course.”
“You see, I've found out the sort of woman you are.”
“What sort?”
“Need I recall?”
He turned away, searching hollows and clumps of bushes for bobbing heads
of watchers. Her captors might be closing in on her. Her indifference
to her danger was disconcerting. With eyes still fixed on the distant
landscape, he revealed his thoughts.
“Your talk of love is paltry. It's tragic farce. You have a husband.
You're liable to be jailed at any moment.”
He expected she would retort. When she maintained silence, he glanced
down at his feet, ashamed of what he felt himself compelled to tell her.
“Love! If it were true, and if your affection were desired, you have no
love to offer. Nothing that is you is yours. Your hours are numbered.
Your body and your life are forfeit. The man who is your husband is
leading the hue-and-cry against you. If you think you can persuade me to
go to the scaffold for you, rid yourself of the thought. There'll be no
repetition of the woods of Vincennes. The victim in that case was your
lover; I'm not.” He met her eyes. “You never deceived me for a second.
From the moment we left the _Ryndam_, I knew who it was had pushed
Prince Rogovich overboard.”
“If you knew,” she asked quietly, “why didn't you have me arrested?”
“It was none of my business.”
“But you were kind after we'd landed. At the hotel you arranged to
breakfast with me.”
“I couldn't bring myself to believe you were guilty.”
“And yet, after you had believed, you followed me to Seafold.”
“The detective instinct.” He spoke testily. “Morbid curiosity.”
“No.” She said it wistfully. Her face softened. “You followed me
because, even against your will, you still cared for me. You pitied me.
You were chivalrous. You refused to condemn me unheard. You hoped there
was some mistake. You followed me to make sure.”
“And you've made me sure.” He rapped out the words. “Since you insist
on the truth, I came to Seafold hoping to find you innocent. If I had I
should have fought for you. Whereas--”
“Whereas?” she prompted nervously.
“I found you'd done to me what you've done to every other man who ever
befriended you--betrayed me and had me lured into an ambush where, for
all I know, you'd given orders for me to be shot.”
“But you weren't.”
“No thanks to you. Your husband was ahead of you, hidden in the bushes,
waiting for you. If we hadn't given the signal that warned you--”
“But you gave it.” She spoke triumphantly. “I'd trapped you, and yet you
didn't want me to be caught. To have shown generosity at a moment when
you thought that I was threatening your life, you must still have been
fond of me.”
“Thought!” He drew back from her, revolted by her insincerity. “You left
no room for thought. You were diabolically explicit. You knew that I
could prove your guilt. You meant to kill me in order that I might be
silenced.”
Her eyes filled. She stretched out her arms beseechingly. They fell
hopelessly as he retreated from her.
“Don't misjudge me,” she implored. “I'm a woman who's finished. A woman,
as you reminded me, whose hours are numbered--my body and my life are
forfeit. It's true what you said: nothing that I am belongs to me. If
you like to put it that way, I'm a woman who has nothing to offer. And
yet I love you--the first man with whom I was ever in love, now when
it's too late. You don't believe me; you're thinking of the many others.
Let it pass. I had to see you once more. I couldn't come to you; you
were surrounded by my enemies. To persuade you to come to me, I had to
trick you. Until it was safe to visit you, I had to have you held by
force. I compelled Anna, Madame Varensky to--”
He made an impatient gesture. “Enough! I'm wondering to how many men
you've made that speech before. I've heard all about your appeals to
chivalry. If you were a man---- Unfortunately you're not, so I have a
sentimental compunction about abandoning you. What are your plans? When
I saw the ship I hoped you had escaped.”
“I had.”
“And you came back! Why?”
“Varensky was landing from the boat that had been sent to take me off.”
She was laying claim to some obscure nobility, making a final bid for
his admiration.
“The mist's clearing,” he said brusquely. “In another half-hour you'll
be visible for miles. If you're seen here, you'll be taken.”
“I won't.”
“You think not?”
She smiled languidly. It was her arch, mysterious way of smiling that
had first attracted him. “Why don't you go?” she whispered in her
hoarse, parched voice. “You loathe and despise me. You grudge me every
moment we're together. I've done what was right; I'm willing to pay the
penalty. I've earned a rest. I'm tired--you can't guess how tired.”
Now that she wanted him to go, he gazed at her with a new interest.
If the trackers were hot upon his trail, what would be his sensations?
Would he be able to be courteous and to talk calmly? Whatever might be
her crimes, she had courage. What if it were true that by some tortuous
process of reasoning she did actually believe she had done right? And
what if it were true that she had intended him no harm, but had only
attempted to win him by violence? The uneasy doubt took shape in his
mind that he might have misjudged her. It would be a splendid memory
to have, if she were wrongly executed--this gleaming morning, the larks
singing, the blue-patched sky, the valiant sun, the rosy-tinted dew, and
himself fleeing from the forlornness of a woman! Every man's hand was
against her. She believed she had done right.
He regarded her less coldly. She was perfect as on the day when all
Europe had gone wild over her. And this masterpiece of loveliness, which
had been known as Santa Gorlof, was doomed to be destroyed!
“Go.” She stamped her foot hysterically. “You torture me.”
He faced her obstinately. “What are you proposing? You've some plan in
mind. Madame Varen-sky called this 'the road out.' Is it possible for
you to take it?”
“I know a shorter route.”
“You're certain?”
“Please leave me. You must leave me. I'm a woman who has nothing to
offer. You're a man who has everything to lose.”
He squared his lips. “I don't like the sound of this shorter route. I
want to know more about it.”
As he made a step toward her, she dodged and broke from him, dashing
toward the cliff. On the very edge he caught her. She struggled
dangerously, but he stumbled back with her crushed against him.
“You little fool!”
She lay quiet, her face pressed against his cheek. Then she fell to
sobbing.
“What difference would it make? Why wouldn't you let me do it?”