Over the garden a waning moon silvered the water in the pool and
picked out from banked masses of bloom a tall lily here and there.
All the blossom-spangled vines were misty with the hovering wings of
night-moths. Through alternate bands of moonlight and dusk the jet
from the pool split into a thin shower of palely flashing jewels,
sometimes raining back on the water, sometimes drifting with the wind
across the grass. And through the dim enchantment moved Athalie,
leaning on Clive's arm, like some slim sorceress in a secret maze,
silent, absent-eyed, brooding magic.
Already into her garden had come the little fantastic creatures of the
night as though drawn thither by a spell to do her bidding. Like a fat
sprite a speckled toad hopped and hobbled and scrambled from their
path; a tiny snake, green as the grass blades that it stirred, slipped
from a pool of moonlight into a lake of shadow. Somewhere a small owl,
tremulously melodious, called and called: and from the salt meadows,
distantly, the elfin whistle of plover answered.
Like some lost wanderer from the moon itself a great moth with
nile-green wings fell flopping on the grass at the girl's feet. And
Clive, wondering, lifted it gingerly for her inspection.
Together they examined the twin moons shining on its translucent
wings, the furry, snow-white body and the six downy feet of palest
rose. Then, at Athalie's request, Clive tossed the angelic creature
into the air; and there came a sudden blur of black wings in the
moonlight, and a bat took it.
But neither he nor she had seen in allegory the darting thing with
devil's wings that dashed the little spirit of the moon into eternal
night. And out of the black void above, one by one, flakes from the
frail wings came floating.
To and fro they moved. She with both hands clasped and resting on his
arm, peering through darkness down at the flowers, as one perfume,
mounting, overpowered another--clove-pink, rocket, lily, and petunia,
each in its turn dominant, triumphant.
Puffs of fragrance from the distant sea stirred the garden's tranquil
air from time to time: somewhere honeyed bunches hung high from locust
trees; and the salt meadow's aromatic tang lent savour to the night.
"I must go back to town," he said irresolutely.
He heard her sigh, felt her soft clasp tighten slightly over his arm.
But she turned back in silence with him toward the house, passed in
the open door before him, her fair head lowered, and stood so, leaning
against the newel-post.
"Good night," he said in a low voice, still irresolute.
"Must you go?"
"I ought to."
"There is that other bedroom. And Mrs. Connor has gone home for the
night."
"I told her to remain," he said sharply.
"I told her to go."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted you to stay--this first night here--with me--in the
home of my youth which you have given to me again."
He came to her and looked into her eyes, framing her face between his
hands:
"Dear, it would be unwise for me to remain."
"Because you love me?"
"No." He added with a forced smile: "I have put on armour in our
behalf. No, that is not the reason."
"Then--may you not stay?"
"Suppose it became known? What would you do, Athalie?"
"Hold my head high ... guilty or not."
"You don't know what you are saying."
"Not exactly, perhaps.... But I know that I have been changing. This
day alone with you is finishing the transformation. I'm not sure just
when it began. I realise, now, that it has been in process for a long,
long while." She drew away from him, leaned back on the banisters.
"I may not have much time;--I want to be candid--I want to think
honestly. I don't desire to deny even to myself that I am now become
what I am--a stranger to myself."
He said, still with his forced smile; "What pretty and unknown
stranger have you so suddenly discovered in yourself, Athalie?"
She looked up at him, unsmiling: "A stranger to celibacy.... Why do
you not take me, Clive?"
"Do you understand what you are saying!"
"Yes. And now I can understand anything _you_ may say or do ... I
couldn't, yesterday." She turned her face away from him and folded her
hands over the newel-post. And, not looking at him, she said: "Since
we have been here alone together I have known a confidence and
security I never dreamed of. Nothing now matters, nothing causes
apprehension, nothing of fear remains--not even that ignorance of fear
which the world calls innocence.
"I am what I am; I am not afraid to be and live what I have become....
I am capable of love. Yesterday I was not. I have been fashioned to
love, I think.... But there is only one man who can make me
certain.... My trust and confidence are wholly his--as fearlessly as
though he had become this day my husband....
"And if he will stay, here under this roof which is not mine unless it
is his also--here in this house where, within the law or without it,
nevertheless everything is his--then he enters into possession of what
is his own. And I at last receive my birthright,--which is to serve
where I am served, love where love is mine--with gratitude, and
unafraid--"
Her voice trembled, broke; she covered her face with her hands; and
when he took her in his arms she leaned her forehead against his
breast:
--"Oh, Clive--I can't deny them!--How can I deny them?--The little
flower-like faces, pleading to me for life!--And their tender
arms--around my neck--there in the garden, Clive!--The winsome lips
on mine, warm and heavenly sweet; and the voices calling, calling from
the golden woodland, calling from meadow and upland, height and
hollow!--And sometimes like far echoes of wind-blown laughter they
call me--gay little voices, confident and sweet; and sometimes,
winning and shy, they whisper close to my cheek--mother!--mother--"
His arms fell from her and he stepped back, trembling.
She lifted her pale tear-stained face. And, save for the painted
Virgins of an ancient day he never before had seen such spiritual
passion in any face--features where nothing sensuous had ever left an
imprint; where the sensitive, tremulous mouth curved with the
loveliness of a desire as innocent as a child's.
And he read there no taint of lesser passion, nothing of less noble
emotion; only a fearless and overwhelming acknowledgment of her
craving to employ the gifts with which her womanhood endowed her--love
and life, and service never ending.
* * * * *
In her mother's room they sat long talking, her hands resting on his,
her fresh and delicate face a pale white blur in the dusk.
It was very late before he went to the room allotted him, knowing that
he could not hope for sleep. Seated there by his open window he heard
the owl's tremolo rise, quaver, and die away in the moonlight; he
heard the murmuring plaint of marsh-fowl, and the sea-breeze stirring
the reeds.
Now, in this supreme crisis of his life, looking out into darkness he
saw a star fall, leaving an incandescent curve against the heavens
which faded slowly as he looked.
Into an obscurity as depthless, his soul was peering, now, naked,
unarmoured, clasping hands with hers. And every imperious and furious
tide that sweeps the souls and bodies of men now mounted
overwhelmingly and set toward her. It seemed at moments as though
their dragging was actually moving his limbs from where he sat; and he
closed his eyes and his strong hand fell on the sill, grasping it as
though for anchorage.
Now,--if there were in him anything higher than the mere clay that
clotted his bones--now was the moment to show it. And if there were a
diviner armour within reach of his unsteady hand, he must don it now
and rivet it fast in the name of God.
Darkness is a treacherous councillor; he rose heavily, and turned the
switch, flooding the room with light, then flung himself across the
bed, his clenched fists over his face.
In his ears he seemed to hear the dull roar of the current which, so
far through life, had borne him on its crest, tossing, hurling him
whither it had listed.
It should never again have its will of him. This night he must set his
course forever.
"Clive!"
But the faint, clear call was no more real, and no less, than the
voice which was ringing always in his ears, now,--no softer, no less
winning.
"Clive!"
After a moment he raised himself to his elbows and gazed,
half-blinded, toward the door. Then he got clumsily to his feet,
stumbled across the floor, and opened it.
She stood there in her frail chamber robe of silk and swansdown,
smiling, forlornly humorous, and displaying a book as symbol of her
own insomnia.
"Can't you sleep?" she asked. "We'll both be dead in the morning. I
thought I'd better tell you to go to sleep when I saw your light break
out.... So I've come to tell you."
"How could you see that my window was lighted?"
"I was leaning out of my window listening to the little owl, and
suddenly I saw the light from yours fall criss-cross across the
grass.... Can't you sleep?"
"Yes. I'll turn out the light. Will _you_ promise to go to sleep?"
"If I can. The night is so beautiful--"
With a gay little smile and gesture she turned away; but halfway down
the corridor she hesitated and looked back at him.
"If you are sleepless," she called softly, "you may wake me and I'll
talk to you."
There was a window at the end of the corridor. He saw her continue on
past her door and stand there looking out into the garden. She was
still standing there when he closed his door and went back to his
chair.
The night seemed interminable; its moonlit fragrance unendurable. With
sleepless eyes he gazed into the darkness, appalled at the
future--fearing such nights to come--nights like this, alone with
her; and the grim battle to be renewed, inexorably renewed until that
day should come--if ever it was to come--when he dared take in the
name of God what Destiny had already made his own, and was now
clamouring for him to take.
After a long while he rose from the window, went to his door again,
opened it and looked out. And saw her still leaning against the window
at the corridor's dim end.
She looked around, laughing softly as he came up: "All this--the
night, the fragrance, and you, have hopelessly bewitched me. I can't
sleep; I don't wish to.... But you, poor boy--you haven't even
undressed. You look very tired and white, Clive. Why is it you can't
sleep?"
He did not answer.
"Shall I get my book and read aloud to you? It's silly stuff--love,
and such things. Shall I?"
"No--I'm going back," he answered curtly.
She glanced around at him curiously. For, that day, a new
comprehension of men and their various humours had come to enlighten
her; she had begun to understand even where she could not feel.
And so, tenderly, gently, in shy sympathy with the powerful currents
that swept this man beside her,--but still herself ignorant of their
power, she laid her cool cheek against his, drawing his head closer.
"Dearest--dearest--" she murmured vaguely.
His head turned, and hers turned instinctively to meet it; and her
arms crept up around his neck.
Then of a sudden she had freed herself, stepped back, one nervous arm
outflung as if in self-defence. But her hand fell, caught on the
window-sill and clung there for support; and she rested against it
breathing rapidly and unevenly.
"Athalie--dear."
"Let me go now--"
Her lips burned for an instant under his; were wrenched away:
"Let me go, Clive--"
"You must not tremble so--"
"I can't help it.... I am afraid. I want to go, now. I--I want to
go--"
There was a chair by the window; she sank down on it and dropped her
head back against the wall behind.
And, as he stood there beside her, over her shoulder through the open
window he saw two men in the garden below, watching them.
Presently she lifted her head. His eyes remained fixed on the men
below who never moved.
She said with an effort; "Are you displeased, Clive?"
"No, my darling."
"It was not because I do not love you. Only--I--"
"I know," he whispered, his eyes fixed steadily on the men.
After a silence she said under her breath: "I understand better now
why I ought to wait for you--if there is any hope for us,--as long as
there is any chance. And after that--if there is no chance for
us--then nothing can matter."
"I know."
"To-night, earlier, I did not understand why I should deny myself to
myself, to you, to _them_.... I did not understand that what I wished
for so treacherously masked a--a lesser impulse--"
He said, quietly: "Nothing is surer than that you and I, one day,
shall face our destiny together. I really care nothing for custom,
law, or folk-way, or dogma, excepting only for your sake. Outside of
that, man's folk-ways, man's notions of God, mean nothing to me: only
my own intelligence and belief appeal to me. I must guide myself."
"Guide me, too," she said. "For I have come into a wisdom which
dismays me."
He nodded and looked down, calmly, at the two men who had not stirred
from the shadow of the foliage.
She rose to her feet, hesitated, slowly stretched out her hand, then,
on impulse, pressed it lightly against his lips.
"That demonstration," she said with a troubled laugh, "is to be our
limit. Good night. You will try to sleep, won't you?... And if I am
now suddenly learning to be a little shy with you--you will not
mistake me; will you?... Because it may seem silly at this late
date.... But, somehow, everything comes late to me--even love, and its
lesser lore and its wisdom and its cunning. So, if I ever seem
indifferent--don't doubt me, Clive.... Good night."
* * * * *
When she had entered her room and closed the door he went downstairs,
swiftly, let himself out of the house, and moved straight toward the
garden.
Neither of the men seemed very greatly surprised; both retreated with
docile alacrity across the lawn to the driveway gate.
"Anyway," said the taller man, good-humouredly, "you've got to hand it
to us, Mr. Bailey. I guess we pinch the goods on you all right this
time. What about it?"
But Clive silently locked the outer gates, then turned and stared at
the shadowy house as though it had suddenly crumbled into ruins there
under the July moon.