Paul was never quite sure of what happened that evening--everything
was so wonderful, so unusual, so unlike his ordinary life. The gate
was unlocked he found when he got there, but no one appeared to be
inside, and he bounded up the steps and on to the terrace. Silence and
darkness--was she fooling him then? No, there she was by one of the
windows; he could dimly see her outline as she passed into the room
beyond, through some heavy curtains. That was why no light came
through to the terrace. He followed, dropping them after him also, and
then he found himself in a room as unlike a hotel as he could
imagine. It may have had the usual brocade walls and gilt chairs of
the "best suite," but its aspect was so transformed by her subtle
taste and presence, it seemed to him unique, and there were masses of
flowers--roses, big white ones--tuberoses--lilies of the valley,
gardenias, late violets. The light were low and shaded, and a great
couch filled one side of the room beyond the fireplace. Such a couch!
covered with a tiger-skin and piled with pillows, all shades of rich
purple velvet and silk, embroidered with silver and gold--unlike any
pillows he had ever seen before, even to their shapes. The whole thing
was different and strange--and intoxicating.
The lady had reached the couch, and sank into it. She was in black
still, but gauzy, clinging black, which seemed to give some gleam of
purple underneath. And if he had not been sure that in daylight he had
thought they were green, he would have sworn the eyes which now looked
into his were deepest violet, too.
"Come," she said. "You may sit here beside me and tell me what you
think."
And her voice was like rich music--but she had hardly any accent. She
might have been an Englishwoman almost, for that matter, and yet he
somehow knew that she was not. Perhaps it was she pronounced each
word; nothing was slurred over. Without her hat she looked even more
attractive, and certainly younger. But what was age or youth? And what
was beauty itself, when a woman whose face was neither young nor
beautiful could make him feel he was looking at a divine goddess, and
thrilling as he had never dreamt of doing in his short life?
If any one had told Paul this was going to happen to him, this
experience, he would have laughed them to scorn. To begin with, he was
rather shy with ladies as a rule, and had not learnt a trick of
_entreprenance_. It took him quite a while to know one well
enough to even talk at ease. And yet here he was, embarked upon an
adventure which savoured of the Arabian Nights.
He came forward and sat down, and he could feel the pulse beating in
his throat. It all seemed perfectly natural at the time, but
afterwards he wondered how she had known his name was Paul--and how it
had all come to pass.
"For three days you have thought of me, Paul--is it not so?" she said,
half closing her lids.
But he could only blurt out "Yes!" while he devoured her with his
eyes.
"We are both--how shall I say--drifting--holiday-making--trying to
forget. And we must talk a little together, _n'est-ce pas_? Tell
me?"
"Oh, yes!" said Paul.
"You are beautiful, you know, Paul," she went on. "So tall and
straight like you English, with curly hair of gold. Your mother must
have loved you as a baby."
"I suppose she did," said Paul.
"She is well? Your mother, the stately lady?"
"Very well--do you know her?" he asked, surprised.
"Long ago I have seen her, and I knew you at once, so like you
are--and to your uncles, especially the Lord Hubert."
"Uncle Hubert is a rotter!"
"A--rotter?" inquired the lady. "And what is that?" And she smiled a
divine smile.
Paul felt ashamed. "Oh! well, it _is_ a rotter, you know--that
_is_--like Uncle Hubert, I mean."
She laughed again. "You do not explain well, but I understand you. And
so you only resemble the Uncle Hubert on the outside--that is good."
Paul felt jealous. Lord Hubert Aldringham's reputation--for some
things--was European. "I hope so," he said with emphasis. "And you
knew him well then, too?"
"I never said so," replied the lady. "I saw him once--twice
perhaps--years ago--at the marriage of a princess. There, it has made
you frown, we will speak no more of the Uncle Hubert!" and she leant
back and laughed.
Paul felt very young. He wanted to show her he was grown up, and he
wanted a number of things which had never even formed themselves in
his imagination before. But she went on talking.
"And your _cotelettes_ were tough, Paul, and you were so cross
that first evening, and hated me! And oh! Paul, you had far too much
wine for a boy like you!"
He reddened to the roots of his fair wavy hair, and then he hung his
head.
"I know I did--it was beastly of me--but I was so--upset--I--"
"Look at me," she said, and she bent forward over him--a gliding
feline movement infinitely sinuous and attractive.
Then he looked, his big blue eyes still cloudy with a mist of shame.
"You must tell me why you were upset, baby--Paul!"
How often she said his name! lingering over it as if it were music. It
thrilled him every time.
Then he gained courage.
"But how did you know anything about it--or what I had--or what I
drank? You never once raised your eyelids all the time!"
"Perhaps I can see through them when I want to--who knows!" and she
laughed.
"And you wanted to--wanted to see through them?"
He was gazing at her now, and she suddenly looked down, while the most
beautiful transparent pink flushed her soft white cheeks, turning her
into a tender girl almost. The change was so sudden, it startled Paul,
and emboldened him.
"You wanted to!" he repeated in a glad voice. "You wanted to see me?"
"Yes," she whispered, and she looked up at him, but this time there
was mischief in her eyes.
"Is that why you sighed then among the ivy? What made you sigh?"
She paused a moment, and then she said slowly: "A number of
things. You seemed so young, and so beautiful, and so--asleep."
"Indeed I wasn't asleep!" Paul exclaimed. "It would take a great deal
more port than that to make me go to sleep. I was thinking of--" And
then he saw she had not meant that kind of sleep, and felt a fool--and
wondered.
She helped him out.
"All this time you have not told me why you were upset--upset enough
to drink bad port. That was naughty of you, Paul."
"I was upset--over you. I was angry because I was so interested--" and
he reddened again.
She leant back among the purple cushions, her figure so supple in its
lines, it made him think of a snake. She half closed her eyes
again--and she spoke low in a dreamy voice:
"It was fate, Paul. I knew it when I entered the room. I felt it again
among the green trees, and so I ran from you--but to-night it is
_plus fort que moi_--so I called you to come in."
"I am so glad--so _glad_," said Paul.
She remained silent. Her eyes in their narrowed lids gleamed at him,
seeming to penetrate into his very soul. And now he noticed her mouth
again. It neither drooped nor smiled, it was straight, and chiselled
and strong, and small rather, and the lower lip was rounded and
slightly cleft in the centre. A most appetising red flower of a mouth.
By this time Paul was more or less intoxicated with excitement, he had
lost all sense of time and place. It seemed as if he had known her
always--that there never had been a moment when she had not filled the
whole of his horizon.
They were both silent for a couple of minutes. As far as he could
gather from her inscrutable face, she was weighing things--what
things?
Suddenly she sprang up, one of those fine movements of hers full of
cat-like grace.
"Paul," she said, "listen," and she spoke rather fast. "You are so
young, so young--and I shall hurt you--probably. Won't you go
now--while there is yet time? Away from Lucerne, back to Paris--even
back to England. Anywhere away from me."
She put her hand on his arm, and looked up into his eyes. And there
were tears in hers. And now he saw that they were grey.
He was moved as never yet in all his life.
"I will not!" he said. "I may be young, but to-night I know--I want to
live! And I will chance the hurt, because I know that only you can
teach me--just how--"'
Then his voice broke, and he bent down and covered her hand with
kisses.
She quivered a little and drew away. She picked up a great bunch of
tuberoses, and broke off all their tops. "There, take them!" she said,
pressing them into his hands, and those against his heart. "Take them
and go--and dream of me. You have chosen. Dream of me to-night and
remember--there is to-morrow."
Then she glided back from him, and before he realised it she had gone
noiselessly away through another door.
Paul stood still. The room swam; his head swam. Then he stumbled out
on to the terrace, under the night sky, the white blossoms still
pressed against his heart.
He must have walked about for hours. The grey dawn was creeping over
the silent world when at last he went back to the hotel and to his
bed.
There he slept and dreamt--never a dream! For youth and health are
glorious things. And he was tired out.
The great sun was high in the heavens when next he awoke. And the room
was full of the scent of tuberoses, scattered on the pillow beside
him. Presently, when his blue eyes began to take in the meaning of
things, he remembered and bounded up. For was not this the
commencement of his first real day?