The sun sank, leaving a pale glory of silver-green light over the
clear-cut edges of the mountain range. Masses of heavy, purple clouds
threatened the silver halo, and in the remote west, a smoky, yellow
flare lingered over the Esterelles. One little star trembled like a pure
spirit above the highest peaks, and under the Tête du Chien the closely
coiled ring of lights at Monte Carlo twinkled through the growing
darkness.
Far away, up an inland valley, a single splash of crimson light showed
where some chance fire raged unchecked among the mountain forest-growth.
Through the perfume of orange trees a floating smoke-wrack of burning
wood spent itself upon the warm air. The air was full too of early
evening sounds--the barking of dogs, the crack of a whip lash, the
hardly-caught metallic murmur of human voices, the rattle of a receding
train, and over all the croaking of the frogs, and the sighing of the
sea.
Giles swung along the road on his way back to the villa like a man in a
dream.
“_Buona Sera!--buona Sera!_”--the words rang in his ears. The blood was
coursing through his veins, and his pulses beat wildly. For the time he
was no longer conscious of that ever haunting thought, “What the devil
was he doing in that galley?” He let himself go on the flood tide of his
passion. Jocelyn’s image danced along the road in front of him. He saw
her pale face, under her shady hat, looking at him with soft, dark eyes,
through the dim shadows of every road-side tree.
He had walked, like a man possessed, up the long hill to the Pont St.
Louis. The gendarmes whom he passed at the Customs looked after him
curiously.
“_Buona Sera!_ There is one who marches, hein? Diabe enragé d’un
Anglais. _Peste!_ he has not stopped for the gambler’s leap. _Buona
Sera, signore!_” In the alternative they decided that he had broken the
bank.
“_Buona Sera!_” Over the bridge, with its sheer descent to the dim
caves on the one side, and the twinkling cottage lights on the other,
and up and still up the hill. He could smell the perfume of her dress in
every evening scent, in the salt whiffs wafted from below, in the
fragrance of the lonely pine trees above the road.
“_Buona Sera! Buona Sera!_” The words were in the distant croaking of
the frogs, on every murmur of the breaking waves.
As he drew his breath freely again after the steep ascent, he looked far
out over the cliffs, to the westward, in the still evening light, and
his thoughts flew to the girl as she had stood on the hotel steps waving
her hand to him. How he loved the delicate, dainty figure, the turn of
the slender neck, the pure line of her profile, the softly pointed chin!
He pictured her as she had sat under the olive in the afternoon, looking
up at the sky through the delicate tracery of its leaves--the creamy
white line of the pretty throat bent back, the long, supple hands lying
in her lap. He felt an intense, unreasoning delight that, for good or
evil, he had told her of his love; then an infinite, tender compassion
for her tremulous silence, for the little, swaying, helpless motion of
her head and hands, for the swift, dewy glance of her dark eyes.
She _knew_--nothing could take that from him; she _knew_, and she had
been glad to know.
Now that the keynote had been struck, all the deep chords, unstirred for
so many years in his mind, sounded with a full consonance; all the
great, unsatisfied longing hitherto unshadowed in his deeply
affectionate nature had taken to itself shape, all the vast gambling
possibility in him was fiercely aroused.
The latent force, the unspent passion of the years that he had idled
away, shallow and indifferent, in a long, unbroken compromise with life,
asserted themselves now with a fatal vehemence. He was not a man who
could love without passion. Passion would play its full part in his
love, neither more nor less; and he knew it.
In the changes that his mind rang on the situation, and the bewildered
jangling of his thoughts, the idea of recoil was the only one that did
not come to him. He would go forward, at what cost he did not know, he
did not stop to count. He hugged to himself, undiscerning of what it
meant, the defeat of the eternal compromise.
Again he moved homewards, now idling slowly along, and her words, “The
evening is coming over everything, like a cool blessing,
gentle--gentle,” sounded in his ears, and he could see again her arms
outstretched as though to take it to herself.
He came presently through the scented night to the villa, and let
himself in with a sudden, chill feeling of utter languor. He flung
himself into a long chair in the unlighted drawing-room, and, worn out,
fell fast asleep.
To Irma, as she raised the curtains that divided the room from her own
boudoir, there was the look of a wrecked man about him as he lay there.
The long figure was thrown carelessly down in its dusty, white clothes,
the neck bent slightly back, and the head rested on an arm twisted
behind him. A bar of yellow light from the half-shaded lamp she held in
her hand fell across his lean, sun-tanned face and neck, sharpening the
features, and throwing into relief the lines which seam a man’s face
when sleep follows on the fiercer emotions. She set the lamp upon a
table, and stood, leaning painfully against the wall, thinking.
Her husband! those two words were the epitome of her thoughts. She bent
forward, and gazed at him long and closely, as if she had never seen him
before. How tired he looked! After all, it was the face of a
stranger!--ten years of married life, and the face of a stranger! She
smiled, a very weary smile. A fine face, with a good brow and chin, now
that it was rid of the mask it had worn to her these ten years! She read
in its lines things she had never known were there, and _another_ woman
had brought them into the face! _That_ was the mischief of it! and the
pain! She passed her thin hand across her eyes with a sudden, swift
gesture. In her own mind, too, she was finding things she had not
suspected. She had thought it impossible she should ever feel _that_
pain, that sudden jealous spasm.
She stood quite motionless, a bent figure, thinking. The day of her
wedding came back to her, a day of indifferent obedience to her parents.
All the long vista of days since rose before her mind--a level,
monotonous line of ghosts.
Her lips trembled as if with cold; she muttered to herself in Polish, “I
have no claim upon him.” What was it to her that he should go from her?
what had it ever been? Go from her! when he had never been hers. And
yet--a vision of Jocelyn, as she had stood that morning, smiling and
graceful, talking to the birds, rose before her. A blind, wearing pain
of jealous regret was come to torture her. She thought, “It is hard!”
She moved, with one hand on her breast, to the window and stood, looking
out into the soft, hazy night. The shadow of her drooping, white-robed
figure fell across the bar of light from the flaring lamp.
Yes! He had been very good to her, very good and gentle--few men, she
thought, would have been so gentle to a helpless log, such as she had
always been. And what had she given him in return? And now--too late!
Well, it was natural, this which was happening, only she
wished--bitterly, fiercely, vainly wished--that it had not come. She
felt tired, and very far spent; he would not have had to wait long!
A faint stir of air ruffled the lace round her thin throat; a whisper
behind her said, “Jocelyn!”
She turned to see Giles sitting up, with one hand stretched out, and
rubbing his eyes with the other; as she turned he woke to his full
consciousness, and a low “Ah, you!” escaped from his lips.
Again a choking spasm of jealousy came upon her, again a vision of the
girl passed before her eyes, but she held the quiver out of her voice.
“It does not matter,” she said, but her eyes, black and mournful, looked
wild in the dim, smoky light.
Giles put his hands before his face, and bent forward in his chair.
“I am sorry,” was all he said.
Irma turned from the window, and straightened her drooping figure. She
took the lamp in her hand, and moved to the door.
“Good night, Giles! It does not matter, there is nothing to be done, you
know--nothing.”
The voice sounded staccato, level, monotonous, as if the words were
ground out of her; only her eyes, in the backward look she gave him, had
meaning.
And from the bent figure, in the darkness of the room behind her, came a
muttered word--“Nothing.”