BY
AMELIE RIVES
(PRINCESS TROUBETZKOY)
_Author of "The Quick or the Dead," "World's-End," etc._
_WITH FRONTISPIECE IN COLOR BY_
_ALFRED JAMES DEWEY_
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Copyright, 1914, 1915, by_
AMELIE TROUBETZKOY
TO
MY FRIEND
VIOLA ROSEBORO
WITH MUCH LOVE
I
Sophy smiled at her image in the mirror, and her grey eyes smiled back
at her. The shadows under them--warm, golden stains like those on a
bruised magnolia leaf--gave them a mysterious, impassioned look. She
felt that she was going to have a happy evening.
In those days, in the early '90s, electric light was not much used in
the houses in Regent's Park. Candles in brass sconces lighted her
dressing-table. They brought out flickering shimmers from her gown of
white brocade. Sleeves were full that year. The transparent masses of
azalea pink, drooping on either side of her slender body, made it look
slenderer. These sleeves were like huge orchids, and from them her arms
drooped stamenlike in the soft, gold wash from the candles.
Matilda, her little Kentish maid, could not keep her eyes away from her.
As she hooked the long, tightly wound sash of azalea pink she kept
peering at her lady's image in the glass. There, Sophy's eyes met hers.
She smiled again--at Tilda this time.
"Will you wear anything on your hair, m'm?" asked the girl, smiling
shyly in return.
Sophy considered, looking at the curve of her head from different angles
in a little hand-glass.
"No," she said, at last; "just the pearls to-night."
Her hair, dark and richly shaded like a breadth of veined mahogany, was
drawn loosely back into a big, shining knot low on her neck. Her
eyebrows were darker than her hair, long, slender, and straight. When
she laughed or smiled her eyes too grew long and slender.
She glanced at the pearls that the girl was now clasping about her
throat. They had been a wedding-gift from her brother-in-law, Lord
Wychcote. Poor Gerald! She was fond of him. He was the only one of the
family who had been really nice to her. Yes, they were fond of each
other. She touched the cold, heavy pearls and thought pityingly of his
dark eyes so often full of pain. Then she thought of how Cecil sometimes
spoke brutally to him, and she shivered.
"A goose on your grave, m'm?" said Tilda. "Let me fetch a scarf."
She brought a scarf of old lace, delicate as the skeleton of an elm-leaf
left by caterpillars, and threw it over Sophy's shoulders. Then handed
her her fan, gloves, and handkerchief, and taking the white
evening-cloak on her arm, waited for her mistress to leave the room.
Sophy gave a last look over her shoulder as she turned from the mirror.
Yes, she liked the dark curve of her head unbroken by any
ornament--besides, she did not wish to wear anything that Cecil had
given her, to-night. The pink-and-white gown was three years old--had
been part of her trousseau. She had had it remodelled in the house by a
clever little seamstress.
She went slowly down the stairway, through the square white hall. The
Georgian house was simple and cheerful. Sophy especially liked the
Sheraton furniture and white panelling, because they reminded her of her
Virginia home "Sweet-Waters." How happy she could have been in a house
like this, if only.... Her eyes darkened. She stood still for a moment
in the middle of the stairway, and Tilda halted patiently behind her.
Then, before the girl could ask if anything were needed, she went on
again with her swift, light step, and passed across the hall into the
drawing-room.
As she had expected, her husband was there already. He was seated at one
end of a deep, chintz-covered sofa holding a book close to his bent face
and the light of a lamp that stood on a little table near-by. His great
figure seemed hunched and crouched together. Sophy hated these crouching
attitudes of his. They made her feel that he was preparing to spring on
something--to worry it. And she noticed how dull his thick, fair hair
looked in the lamplight--"staring" like the coat of a horse out of
condition. She knew that he had not been well for the last two years,
but his illness puzzled her--with its violent interruptions of alternate
rage and high spirits, its long stretches of indifferent apathy.
She did not go up to him, but stood in the middle of the room as she had
stood in the middle of the stairway, watching him. Was he going to be
"nice," and let her enjoy her rare outing? Or was he going to be?...
There were several things that Cecil Chesney could be which made his
wife shiver again and draw her underlip between her teeth.
He was so absorbed in his book that he did not know she stood there
watching him, studying him. His face had a curious expression. It seemed
to her that it looked slightly swollen. His lips hung apart. Every now
and then he moistened them slowly with his tongue. It was so like a cat
licking its chops that Sophy shivered again. She was not exactly afraid
of him but she felt dread.
Then she said in her warm, clear contralto:
"I'm ready, Cecil."
He did not start, but his eyelids drew together and his lips closed. He
laid one hand flat upon the open pages of the book and sat gazing at her
between his drawn-up lids. Then his face loosened; he hunched his
shoulders still more, giving a short, harsh laugh.
"By God!" he said. "You _are_ a beauty!"
Sophy went white. She stood still, moving one slight foot nervously on
the polished floor. Chesney sat looking at her. He smiled and his upper
lip curled in the middle and at the corners.
"Come here," he said.
She dropped her chin slightly and looked steadily back at him from under
her straight brows. Her dilated pupils made her eyes seem black.
"What for?" she said, in a low voice.
"I'll show you when you come."
"We'll be late, Cecil. It takes over half an hour from here to the
Arundels'."
The smile left his lips.
"Come here to me," he said slowly. His voice had no expression in it; he
spoke as an automaton might have spoken, but Sophy took a few reluctant
steps in his direction. Then she stopped again and said:
"I do so hate to be late! Won't you start now?"
His eyes opened wide, and he threw a look at her like a missile. It was
what Sophy knew as his "red look." She went swiftly up to him.
"There," she said; "show me what you want to, and then we'll go."
But his eyelids had drawn together again, and he looked up at her with
his mocking smile. Yes; his face was slightly swollen--puffy about the
lips and eyes.
"Won't you show it to me, Cecil?" she asked.
"I've changed my mind," he drawled.
Something in Sophy's breast shrivelled.
"Very well," she said quietly; "then we can go at once."
Chesney sank his head deeper in his shoulders, settled his body deeper
in the sofa.
"That's what I've changed my mind about," he said. "I'm not going."
"But...."
"I'm not going."
"It's a dinner, Cecil.... It will be very rude."
"I'm not going."
"Shall I say you're ill?"
"You're not going, either."
He grinned it at her, gloating on the expression of her face. She went
pale again, then crimson. Her eyebrows flickered passionately.
"I am going," she said, in a still voice.
Then she felt his fingers go softly round her arm.
"Sit down by me," he said, drawing her delicately downward by the arm he
held. Her dignity kept her from resisting. She was drawn down among the
deep cushions beside him. The warmth that his great body had left on
them struck her bare arms and shoulders, giving her a feeling of
repulsion. As she sat there, armed within against him, she could not
escape from breathing his breath, his face was so close to hers. Its
odour of mingled wines, cognac, cigarette smoke, sickened her. The
strong, sooty smell of cloth from the arm against her own added a new
pang, for this smell of London cloth, which was so distinct to her
foreign sense, had been once associated with the fascination of love.
Now he leaned his face forward and looked into her eyes, and she noticed
with that inward shrivelling how strange his were--so much paler than
they used to be--curiously glassy--the pupils mere specks of black in
the centre of the greenish iris.
"What's the use of posing to me?" he said, with a sort of blandness.
"Posing to you?"
"Yes--quite so. Doing the 'chastest icicle on Dian's Temple.' You
forget--don't you? I've seen the hidden fire."
Sophy said nothing. The blood started to her cheek again as under a
whip.
He moistened his lips in that slow way, and smiled.
"Haven't I? Eh?"
She turned him a very quiet, haughty profile.
"I don't pretend to understand your moods, Cecil."
"You shall share this present one."
"I think not."
"I think--'yes.'"
He flung his arm suddenly around her, drawing her close.
"Look here," he said; and, taking his hand from the pages of the book
where it had been resting, he lifted the volume toward her. As her eyes
lowered themselves to the book, his fastened upon her face. The next
moment she had sprung up, thrusting him from her. The book lay sprawled
on the floor between them. It was a very rare volume of morbidly
licentious engravings, repulsive, abominable.
She was livid with scorn and loathing. Her breast heaved. She felt the
scalding of furious tears against her eyelids. She could not speak; and
with that bracelet of his big, soft fingers about her wrist, he held
her, laughing silently, convulsed with laughter.
But in Sophy there sprang to life something that was as dangerous as
anything in him.
She said, whispering: "You'll be sorry all your life if you don't take
your hand from me."
The light eyes wavered. Then he flung back her hand.
"Damme if you're worth the candle!" he said.
She turned and began walking quietly away from him.
This seemed quite to frenzy him.
He leaped over the fallen book and came at her like a bull, his head
lowered. He took her by both shoulders.
"Look here!" he said. "What do you mean by wearing those pearls of
Gerald's all the time?"
Sophy looked at him whitely. She smiled.
"They were given me to wear, I believe."
"He's in love with you--with his brother's wife! But I'll not have his
baubles on your neck, nor antlers on my own head. Off with them!"
She stood frozenly. Her dark eyes poured scorn upon him. He made a
snatch at the necklace--another. She stood quite motionless, while the
great, angry hands snatched at her throat. His last clutch broke the
string. The pearls rained down, some into her bosom, the greater part
upon the polished floor. He stood heavily, gazing at the little white
drops, as they rolled over the dark wood of the parquet.
While he gazed as if hypnotised, Sophy went swiftly out into the hall.
She closed the door behind her. Her voice roused him, saying: "Mr.
Chesney isn't feeling well enough to go out to-night. I shall go alone.
Is the cab there?"
He heard the butler's voice answering.
She knew that he would not make a scene before the servants. Changing
quickly to another mood, he glanced at the closed, door, grinning at her
astuteness. Then carefully he gathered up the fallen pearls and dropped
them into his pocket.
Filling a liqueur glass with cognac from the table which the butler had
already arranged for the evening, he slouched back to the sofa and
lifted the fallen volume. The brandy calmed him still further. He sat
there for two hours sipping the cognac, moistening his lips slowly every
now and then, poring over the licentious pictures.