"Give me your wrist," I said sternly.
She looked at me too surprised at my tone to speak.
I put out my hand and took her bare arm, her sleeves were to the elbows,
and I deliberately put the three bracelets on while she stood petrified.
"I have had enough of your disagreeable temper," I said in the same
voice. "You will wear these, and anything else I choose to give you,
though your rudeness will soon remove my desire to give you anything."
She was absolutely flabbergasted, but I had touched her pride.
"I apologize if I have seemed rude," she said at last. "I--suppose you
have the right really--only--" And her whole slender body quivered with
a wave of rebellion.
"Let us say no more about the matter, but go into lunch, only you will
find that I am not such a weakling, as you no doubt supposed you would
have to deal with." I hobbled up from my chair, Burton discreetly not
having entered the room. Alathea gave me my crutch, and we went in to
the dining-room.
While the servants were in there I led the conversation upon the war
news, and ordinary subjects, and she played the game, but when we were
alone with the coffee, I filled her glass with Benedictine, which she
had refused when Burton handed the liqueurs. She had taken no wine at
all.
"Now drink whatever toast you like," I told her. "I am going to drink
one to the time when you don't hate me so much and we can have a little
quiet friendship and peace."
She sipped her glass, and her eyes became inscrutable. What she was
thinking of I do not know.
I find myself watching those eyes all the time. Every reflection passes
through them, they are as expressive of all shades of emotion as the
eyes of a cat, though the beautiful Madonna tenderness I have never seen
again since the day when she held the child in her arms, and I was rude
to her.
When we went back into the salon I knew that I was passionately in love
with her. Her restiveness is absolutely alluring, and excites all my
hunting instinct. She looks quite lovely, and the subtle magnetism which
drew me the first days, even when she appeared poor and shabby, and red
of hand, is stronger than ever--I felt that I wanted to crush her in my
arms and devour her, the blood thumped in my temples, I had to use every
atom of my will with myself, and lay back in my chair and closed my eye.
She went straight to the piano and began to play. It seemed as though
she were talking, telling me of the passion in her soul. She played
weird Russian dances and crashed agonizing chords, then she played
laments, and finally a soft and soothing thing of McDowell's, and every
note had found an echo in me, and I had followed, it almost seemed, all
her pain.
"You play divinely, child," I said, when she had finished. "I am going
to rest now, will you give me some tea later on?"
"Yes," and her voice was quite meek, while she helped me with my
crutch, and I went to the door of my room.
"I would like you to wear nice soft teagowns. My eye gets so wearied
with everything bright after a while. I hope--you have got all you want,
and that your room is comfortable?"
"Yes, thanks."
I bowed and went on into my room and shut the door. Burton was waiting
to help me to lie down.
"It has been a very tiring day for you, Sir Nicholas," he said, "and for
her Ladyship also."
"Go and have a rest yourself, Burton, you have been up since cock crow,
the new man Antoine can call me at five." And soon I was in a land of
blissful dreams.
Of course it was the very irony of fate that Suzette should have
selected this very afternoon to come in and thank me for the Villa which
she was just now going down to see--!
Antoine opened the door to her while Burton was out. I heard afterwards
that she told him she had an appointment with me when he had hesitated
about letting her in. She was quite quietly dressed and had no great
look of the _demi-monde_, and a new footman, blunted with war service,
was probably impervious even to the very strong scent which she was
saturated with--that perfume which I had never been able entirely to
cure her liking for, and which she reverted to using always when she
went away from me, and had to be corrected of again and again when she
returned.
Antoine came to my room by the passage, and said "a lady was in the
salon to see me by appointment."
For a moment I was not suspicious. I thought it might be Coralie, and
fearing Alathea might be somewhere about, and it might be awkward for
her, I hastened to rise and go in to see and get rid of the inopportune
guest. I told Antoine he must never let anyone in again without
permission.
It was just growing dim in the salon, about half-past four o'clock, and
a figure rose from the sofa by the fire as I entered.
"_Mon chou--mon petit cheri_!" I heard, simultaneously with a softly
closing sound of the door behind the screen, which masks the entrance to
the room from the hall--Antoine leaving I supposed at the time, probably
it was Alathea I surmised afterwards!
"Suzette!" I exclaimed angrily. "Why do you come here?"
She flew to me and held out her arms, expressing affection and grateful
thanks. She had come for no other reason only just to express her
friendly appreciation! To get rid of her was all I desired. I never was
more angry, but to show it would have been the poorest game. I did not
tell her it was my wedding day. I just said I was expecting some
relatives, and that I knew she would understand and would go at once.
"Of course," she said, and shook me by the hand. I was still standing
with my crutch. She was passing to see her cousin Madame Angier, in the
flat above, and could not resist the temptation to come in.
"It must be the very last time, Suzette," I said. "I have given you all
that you wanted, and I would rather not see you again."
She pouted, but agreed, and I drew her to the door and saw her into the
corridor, and even followed her to the front door. She was chatting all
the time. I did not answer. I was speechless with rage, and could have
sworn aloud, when at last I heard the door shut between us, then I
strode back into my room, praying that Alathea _had_ been unaware of my
visitor.
Nemesis, on one's wedding day!
I waited until five and then went back into the sitting-room to my
chair, and Antoine brought in the tea, and turned on the lights, and a
moment or two afterwards Alathea came in. Her eyes were stony, and as
she advanced up the room she sniffed the air disgustedly, her fine
nostrils quivering. Suzette's pungent perfume was no doubt still present
to one coming from outside!
Hauteur, contempt and disgust, expressed themselves in my little
darling's blue eyes. There was nothing to be said--_qui s'excuse
s'accuse--!_
She wore a soft lavender frock, and was utterly delectable, and when I
reflected that but for this impassable barrier, which my own action in
the past had been the means of erecting between us, I might now have
made her love me, and that on this, our wedding day, she might have been
coming into my arms. I could have groaned aloud.
"May I open the window," she said with the air of an offended Empress.
"Yes, do, open it wide," and then I laughed aloud cynically. I could as
easily have cried.
Alathea would not of course have spoken about her suspicions, to do so
would have inferred that she took an interest in me beyond that of a
secretary; every impression she always has given me is that nothing in
my life can matter to her one jot. But I know that this affair of
Suzette does matter to her, that she resents it bitterly, that it is the
cause of her smouldering anger with me. She resents it because she is a
woman, and, how I wish I might believe that it is because she is not as
indifferent towards me as she pretends.
She poured out the tea. I expect my face looked like the devil, I did
not speak, I knew I was frowning angrily. A rising wind blew the curtain
out and banged the window. She got up and shut it, then she threw some
cedar dust on the fire from the box which it is kept in on a table near.
She had seen Burton do this no doubt. I love the smell of cedar burning.
Then she came back and poured out the tea and we both drank it silently.
The room looked so comfortable and home like, with its panelling of old
pitch pine, cleaned of its paint and mellowed and waxed, so that it
seems like deep amber, showing up the greyish pear-wood carvings. One
might have been in some room in old England of about 1699. Everything
looked the setting for a love scene. The glowing lamps, apricot shaded,
and the firelight, and the yellow roses everywhere, and two human
beings who belonged to one another and were young, and not cold of
nature, sitting there with faces of stone, and in each one's heart
bitterness. Again I laughed aloud.
The mocking sound seemed to disturb my bride. She allowed her tea cup to
rattle as she put it down nervously.
"Would you like me to read to you," she asked icily.