Next day, when the manservant asked me into the tiny boudoir in the Rue
de Courcelles, I found Yolande, in a pretty tea-gown of cream silk
adorned with lace and ribbons, seated in an armchair in an attitude of
weariness. The sun-shutters were closed, as on the previous day, for
the heat in Paris that July was insufferable, and in the dim light her
wan figure looked very fair and fragile. The qualities which imparted
to her a distinct individuality were the beautiful combination of the
pastoral with the elegant--of simplicity with elevation--of spirit with
sweetness.
She gave vent to a cry of gladness as I entered, rose, and stretching
out her hands in welcome, drew a seat for me close to her. I looked at
her standing before me in her warm, breathing, human loveliness.
"You are better, Yolande? Ah! how glad I am!" I commenced. "Last
night I believed that you were dead."
"And if I had died would it really have mattered so very much to you?"
she asked in a low, intense voice. "You have forgotten me for three
whole years until now."
"I know--I know!" I cried. "Forgive me."
"I have already forgiven," she said, allowing her hand still to remain
in mine. "But I have been thinking to-day--thinking ever so much."
Her voice was weak and faltering, and I saw that she was not herself.
"Thinking of what?"
"Of you. I have been wondering whether, if I had died, you would have
sometimes remembered me?"
"Remembered you?" I said earnestly. "Why, of course, dearest. Why do
you speak in such a melancholy tone?"
"Because--well, because I am unhappy, Gerald!" she cried, bursting into
sudden tears. "Ah! you do not know how I suffer--you can never know!"
I bent and stroked her hair, that beautiful red-gold hair that I had so
often heard admired in the great salons in Brussels. It had been bound
but lightly by her maid, and was secured by a blue ribbon. She had
apologised for receiving me thus, but declared that her head ached, and
it was easier so. Doctor Deane had called twice that morning, and had
pronounced her entirely out of danger.
"But why are you suffering?" I asked, caressing her and striving to
charm away her tears. "Cannot you confide in me?"
She shook her head in despair, and her body was shaken by a convulsive
sob.
"Surely there is confidence between us?" I urged. "Do you not remember
that day long ago when we walked one evening in the sunset hand-in-hand,
as was our wont, along the river-path towards La Roche? Do you not
remember how you told me that in future you would have no single secret
from me?"
"Yes," she answered hoarsely, with an effort, "I recollect."
"Then you intend to break your promise to me?" I whispered earnestly.
"Surely you will not do this, Yolande? You will not hide from me the
cause of all this bitterness of yours?" She was silent. Her breast,
beneath its lace, rose quickly and fell again. Her tear-filled eyes
were fixed upon the carpet.
"I would not break my promise," she said at last, clasping my hand
convulsively and lifting her eyes to mine; "but, alas! it is now
imperative."
"Why imperative?"
"I must suffer alone," she responded gloomily, shaking her head. Her
countenance was as pale as her gown, and she shivered as though she were
cold, although the noonday heat was suffocating.
"Because you refuse to tell me anything or allow me to assist you?" I
said. "This is not in accordance with the promise made and sealed by
your lips on that evening long ago."
"Nor have your actions been in accordance with your own promise," she
said slowly and distinctly.
"To what do you refer?"
"You told me that you loved me, Gerald," she said in a deep voice,
suddenly grown calm. "You swore by all you held most sacred that I was
all the world to you, and that no one should come between us. Yet past
events have shown that you have forgotten those words of yours on the
day when we idled in the Bois beneath the trees. You, too, remember
that day, do you not--the day when our lips met for the first time, and
we both believed our path would in future be strewn with flowers? Ah!"
she sighed, "and what an awakening life has been to me since then!"
"We parted because of your refusal to satisfy me as to the real state of
your feelings towards the man who was my enemy," I said rather warmly.
"But was it justifiable?" she asked in a tone of deep reproach and
mingled sweetness. Her blue eyes looked full upon me--those eyes that
had held me in such fascination in the golden days of youth. "Has any
single fact which you have since discovered verified your suspicions?
Tell me truthfully;" and she leaned towards me in an attitude of deepest
earnestness.
"No," I answered honestly, "I cannot say that my suspicions have ever
been verified."
"And because of that you have returned to me when it is too late."
"Too late!" I cried. "What do you mean?"
"Exactly what I have said. You have come back to me when it is too
late."
"You speak in enigmas, Yolande. Why not be more explicit?"
Her pale lips trembled, her eyes were brimming with tears, her chilly
hand quivered in mine. She did not speak for some moments, but at last
said in a low, tremulous voice half choked by emotion:
"Once you loved me, Gerald,--of that I feel confident; and I
reciprocated your affection, God knows! Our love was, perhaps, curious,
inasmuch as you were English and I was of a different creed and held
different ideas from those which you considered right. It is always the
same with a man and woman of different nationality--there must be a
give-and-take principle between them. Between us, however, there was
perfect confidence until, by a strange combination of circumstances--by
a stroke of the sword of Fate--that incident occurred which led to our
estrangement."
She paused, her blanched lips shut tight. "Well?" I asked, "I am all
attention. Why is it too late now for me to make reparation for the
past?"
I loved her with all my soul. I was heedless of those words of the old
Baronne, of Anderson's suspicions, and Kaye's denunciation. Even if she
were a spy, I adored her. The fire of that old love had swept upon me,
and I could not hold back, even though her touch might be as that of a
leper and her lips venomous.
"Reparation is impossible," she answered hoarsely. "Is not that
sufficient?"
"No, it is not sufficient," I answered clearly. "I will not be put off
by such an answer."
"It were better," she cried--"better that I had died yesterday than
suffer like this. You rescued me from death only to torture me."
Her words aroused within me a distinct suspicion that her strange
illness had been brought to pass because, using some mysterious means,
she had made an attempt against her own life. I believed that she had
suffered, and was still suffering, from the effects of some poison, the
exact nature of which neither Deane nor Trepard could as yet determine.
"I do not seek to torture you, dearest," I protested. "Far from it. I
merely want to know the truth, in order that I may share your
unhappiness, as your betrothed ought to do."
"But you are not my betrothed."
"I was once."
"But not now. You taunt me with breaking that promise which I made
three years ago, yet you yourself it was who played me false--who left
me for your prim, strait-laced English miss!"
In an instant the truth was plain. She was aware that I had transferred
my affections to Edith! Someone had told her--no doubt with a good many
embellishments, or perhaps some scandalous story. In the salons through
which we of the diplomatic circle are compelled to move, women's tongues
are ever at work match-making and mischief-making. On the Continent
love and politics run always hand-in-hand. That is the reason why the
most notorious of the demi-monde in Paris, in Vienna, and in Berlin are
the secret agents of their respective Governments; and many are the
honest men innocently denounced through jealousy and kindred causes. A
false declaration of one or other of these unscrupulous spies has before
now caused the downfall of a Ministry or the disgrace of a noble and
patriotic politician.
"I know to whom you refer," I said, with bowed head, after a moment's
pause. "It is currently reported that I love her. I have loved her. I
do not seek to deny it. When a man sustains such a blow as I sustained
before we parted, he often rushes to another woman for consolation. The
influence of that second woman often prevents him from going to the bad
altogether. It has been so in my case."
"And you love her now?" she cried, the fire of fierce jealousy in her
eyes. "You cannot deny it!"
"I do deny it," I cried. "True, until yesterday I held her in esteem,
even in affection; but it is not so now. All my love for you, Yolande,
has returned to me. Our parting has rendered you dearer and sweeter to
me than ever."
"I cannot believe it," she exclaimed falteringly.
"I swear that it is so. In all my life, although am compelled to treat
women with courtesy and sometimes to affect flirtation, because of my
profession as a diplomatist, I have loved only one woman--yourself;" and
I raised her chilly hand to my lips, kissing it fervently.
Mine was no mere caprice at that moment. With an all-consuming passion
I loved her, and was prepared on her account to make any sacrifice she
demanded. Let the reader remember what had already been told me, and
reflect that, like many another man, I loved madly, and was heedless of
any consequences that might follow. In this particular I was not alone.
Thousands before me had been allured to their ruin by a woman's eyes,
just as thousands of brave women's hearts have been broken and their
lives wrecked by men's false oaths of fidelity. I have heard wiseacres
say that the woman only suffers in such cases; the man never. Whether
that rule proves always true will be shown in this strange story of my
own love.
She drew her hand away slowly, but forcibly, saying:
"You cannot love two women. Already you have shown a preference for a
wife of your own people."
"It is all over between us," I protested. "Mine was a mere passing
fancy, engendered, I think, by the loneliness I suffered when I lost
you."
"Ah," (she smiled sadly), "that is all very well! A woman, when once
played false by the man she loves and trusts, is never the
same--_never_!"
"Then am I to understand, Yolande, that you refuse to pardon me, or to
accept my affection?"
"I have already pardoned you," she faltered; "but to accept the love you
once withdrew from me without just reason is, I regret to say,
impossible."
"You speak coldly, as though you were refusing a mere invitation to
dinner, or something of no greater importance," I protested. "I offer
you my whole heart, my love--nay, my life;" and I held her hand again,
looking straight into those wonderful eyes, now so calm, so serious,
that my gaze wavered before them.
Slowly she shook her head, and her trembling breast rose and fell again.
"Ours was a foolish infatuation," she answered with an effort. "It is
best that we should both of us forget."
"Forget!" I cried. "But I can never forget you, Yolande. You are my
love. You are all the world to me."
Her eyes were grave, and I saw that tears stood in them.
"No," she protested quietly; "do not say that. I cannot be any more to
you than other women whom you meet daily. Besides, I know well that in
the diplomatic service marriage is a serious drawback to any save an
ambassador."
"When a man is in love as I am with you, dearest, he throws all thoughts
of his career to the winds; personal interests are naught where true
love is concerned."
"You must not--nay, you shall not--wreck your future on my account," she
declared in a low, intense voice. "It is not just either to yourself or
to the Englishwoman who loves you."
"Why do you taunt me with that, Yolande?" I asked reproachfully. "I do
not love her. I have never truly loved her. I was lonely after you had
gone out of my life, and she was amusing,--that was all."
"And now you find me equally amusing--eh?" she remarked, with just a
touch of bitter sarcasm.
"Why should you be jealous of her?" I asked. "You might just as well
be jealous of Sibyl, Lord Barmouth's daughter."
"With the latter you are certainly on terms of most intimate
friendship," she answered with a smile. "I really wonder that I did not
object to her in the days long ago."
"Ah!" I laughed, "you certainly had no cause. It is true that we have
been good friends ever since the day when she arrived home from the
convent-school at Bruges, a prim young miss with her hair tied up with
ribbon. Thrown constantly together, as we were, I became her male
confidant and intimate friend; hence my licence to give her counsel in
many matters and sometimes to criticise those actions of which I don't
approve."
"Then if that is so, you care a little for her--just a little? Now
admit it."
"I don't admit anything of the kind," I answered frankly. "For five
years we have been constantly together; and times without number, at
Lady Barmouth's request, I have acted as her escort here and there,
until she looks upon me as a kind of necessary appendage who has a right
to chaff her about her flirtations and annoy her by judicious sarcasm.
I don't entertain one single spark of love for her. In brief, she has
developed into an essentially smart girl, in the true sense of the word,
and by reason of our constant companionship knows that to attempt a
flirtation with me would result in a most dismal failure. I accused her
once, not long ago, of having designs upon my heart, whereupon she
replied that to accomplish such a thing would be about as easy as to win
the affection of the bronze Neptune in the garden-fountain of the
Embassy."
"You have been seen together a great deal of late?"
"Who told you so?"
"A friend who knows you both." Then she added: "From my information I
hear that last season you danced so much with her and were so constantly
at her side that people were talking of a match between you."
"Ridiculous!" I exclaimed. "Of course gossips are always too ready to
jump to ill-formed conclusions. As one of the staff of the Embassy, and
her most intimate male friend, it was only courtesy to take her beneath
my care. When she had no other partner and wanted to dance, then she
sometimes asked me. I think she did it to annoy me, for she knew that I
was never fond of dancing."
"Do you remember the Countess of Flanders' balls at Brussels--how we
danced together?" she remarked.
"Remember them!" I echoed. "They were in the golden days when
everything seemed to our eyes couleur de rose--the days when our love
was perfect."
She sighed again, but no word escaped her. She was, I knew, reflecting
upon those blissful days and nights when we met here and there at all
hours and at all the best houses in Brussels, dining, lunching, dancing,
and gossiping--together always.
"Will you not resolve to forget the past, Yolande?" I asked fervently,
taking her hand in mine again. "Come, tell me that you will--that you
will not hold me aloof like this? I cannot bear it--indeed I can't, for
I love you;" and I bent until my lips touched her finger-tips.
"I cannot!" she cried at last, with an effort rising and firmly
withdrawing her hand from my grasp.
"You cannot? Why?" I demanded, taken somewhat aback by her sudden
attitude of determination.
"I will not allow you to ruin yourself, Gerald, on my account," she
declared in a very low but calm voice.
"But why should my love for you prove my ruin?" I cried madly. "The
truth is that you do not love me. Why not admit it at once?"
"You are in error," she hastened to protest. "I do love you. I love
you to-day with the same fond affection as I entertained for you until
that day--fatal to me--when you turned your back upon me and left me.
But, alas! we can never now be the same to one another as we were then."
She paused for a moment to regain breath; then, pale-faced, with eyes
filled with tears, she gripped my arm frantically, crying: "Gerald, my
love, hear me! These are my last words, but I pronounce them--I make
confession--so that you may understand the barrier that now lies between
us."
"Well," I said, "speak--tell me!"
"Ah!" she cried hoarsely, covering her face with her hands, "you wring
this confession from me. I am the most unhappy girl in all the world.
Would that I were dead that it was all ended! If I did not love you,
Gerald, I should deceive you, and leave you to discover the truth after
our marriage. But I cannot--I cannot! Even though we shall part to-day
for ever, I have resolved to be frank with you because I still have one
single spark of honesty left within my heart!"
"I don't understand," I exclaimed. "Tell me."
"Then listen," she said in a hard, unnatural voice, after a few moments
of hesitation. "When we were lovers in the old days I was, as you know,
a pure, honest, upright woman, with thoughts only for my God and for
yourself. But I am that no longer. I am unworthy your love, Gerald. I
am unfit to be your wife, and can never be--never!" and she threw
herself upon the couch near by and burst into a flood of tears, while I
stood there rigid as a statue.