WE MEET
And this was Geraldine Wilder, or Gerald--Geraldine Wilder, if you
please.
This half ghostly being, with brown rippling hair and a face like the
face of a wild rose. And the dress of wonderful black lace that seemed
draped round the slight figure by the fingers of the wind, and the milk
white neck, rising like the stem of some graceful flower to support the
small brown head, and the _elegance_ of the whole apparition. I love to
think of it even still. But it was Beatrice Sinclair. Oh, yes, beyond
any manner of doubt, it was Beatrice Sinclair, and as we gazed at each
other for one short second the claws of the falcon _tore_ at my wrist.
Then this vision of the past came across the room and held up its
face to be kissed. And it was like two dead lovers kissing through
a veil--so it seemed to me. And yet I could have laughed as she sat
down in the great arm chair opposite mine, to see the subtle turn of
the body with which she arranged the train of her dress, the graceful
manner of sitting down, and then to remember that "Miss Geraldine was
a boy;" and then the glimpse of immaculate white petticoat! it seemed
like a witticism one could not laugh at because one was in church.
I laugh now as I think of it, at least I smile, for I haven't strength
to get up a real laugh, and then somehow I cry, perhaps because I am so
weak.
Geraldine sat down, and then we began to talk. I talked at random, for
I was so busy examining and admiring her I couldn't think of other
things. The little division at the end of the nose seemed somehow the
most delightful thing I had ever seen, except maybe the arched instep
of the tiny foot that peeped like a brown mouse from beneath the skirt.
What a lout I felt beside her. I felt awkward, and stupid, and just as
a mole might feel if it were made to sit in the sun. I began to stutter
and stammer, and might have made a dreadful fool of myself, only that
the recollection shot up in my mind, "she's a boy"; as long as I kept
that in mind I was all right, but the instant I began to think of her
as a girl, my stupidity returned.
We talked, mercy, what modest and innocent talk, the whole college of
Cardinals and the old Pope himself might have listened and been the
better for it, but they would not have been much the wiser.
"Gerald--I mean Geraldine--how old are you?"
"I am sixteen years."
"You have never been away from home, you have never seen a city?"
"What is a city?"
"Oh, it's a place, a horrible place where it's all smoke, and houses,
and noise."
Geraldine shook her head. She could not imagine what such a place as
this could be like.
"Are there many more people in the world from where you come?" asked
Geraldine after a pause, resting her chin on her hand and gazing at me
with a deep, far-away look, as if she recognised me dimly but was not
quite sure.
"Oh, yes; but has your father never told you about the world and the
people in it?"
"No," said Geraldine, with a shake of the head; "he told me it was a
bad place, and I must never go there, that was all."
"Have you never wished to go there?"
"No, never, till--till now."
"Why now?"
"I would like to go there if it is the place you come from."
Geraldine was gazing at me now intensely--I know no other word--with
eyes that seemed appealing to me to say something; never had I been
gazed at so before.
I could only falter out, "Why?"
"Because," said Geraldine, "I think I know where you come from, I
think I have seen you there, but it was in a dream, and we were not
dressed as we are, but I am not sure. _Who_ are you?"
I have never heard anything so soft and yet so full of a kind of fire
as those words.
"Has not your father told you, Geraldine?"
"No--he said a lady was coming to see me, but that was all."
"I am Beatrice Sinclair, Geraldine."
"But that is only a name."
A thought shot like a horrible zig-zag firework through my brain; it
was, "Geraldine, I was once your murderer."
Then bang from tragedy to comedy. I began to laugh, for no earthly
reason, and Geraldine caught the laugh as it flew on her beautiful
lips, and we both laughed at each other like two children--at nothing.
Then we talked for an hour about--nothing.
As Geraldine vanished that night to her own rooms I called her back,
and she came back from the dark corridor like a beautiful ghost.
I only wanted to kiss her again, but she seemed to think that a
perfectly good reason for my calling her back.
Then I went to bed and cried like a fool; then I got out of bed and
hunted round the room in the dark, guess what for--a match-box, guess
what to find--my cigarette box. I really think I must once have been a
man.