I didn't speak again to Irene. The reason was that three days later I
received a little note of invitation to lunch at Seymour Crescent from
Cesarine Vivian.
I didn't want to accept it, and yet I didn't know how to help myself. I
went, determined beforehand as soon as ever lunch was over to take away
the yacht to the Scotch islands, and leave Cesarine and all her
enchantments for ever behind me. I was afraid of her, that's the fact,
positively afraid of her. I couldn't look her in the face without
feeling at once that she exerted a terrible influence over me.
The lunch went off quietly enough, however. We talked about Haiti and
the West Indies; about the beautiful foliage and the lovely flowers;
about the moonlight nights and the tropical sunsets; and Cesarine grew
quite enthusiastic over them all. "You should take your yacht out there
some day, Mr. Tristram," she said softly. "There is no place on earth so
wild and glorious as our own beautiful neglected Haiti."
She lifted her eyes full upon me as she spoke. I stammered out, like one
spell-bound, "I must certainly go, on your recommendation, Mdlle.
Cesarine."
"Why Mademoiselle?" she asked quickly. Then, perceiving I misunderstood
her by the start I gave, she added with a blush, "I mean, why not 'Miss
Vivian' in plain English?"
"Because you aren't English," I said confusedly. "You're Haitian, in
reality. Nobody could ever for a moment take you for a mere
Englishwoman."
I meant it for a compliment, but Cesarine frowned. I saw I had hurt her,
and why; but I did not apologize. Yet I was conscious of having done
something very wrong, and I knew I must try my best at once to regain my
lost favour with her.
"You will take some coffee after lunch?" Cesarine said, as the dishes
were removed.
"Oh, certainly, my dear," her father put in. "You must show Mr. Tristram
how we make coffee in the West Indian fashion."
Cesarine smiled, and poured it out--black coffee, very strong, and into
each cup she poured a little glass of excellent pale neat cognac. It
seemed to me that she poured the cognac like a conjuror's trick; but
everything about her was so strange and lurid that I took very little
notice of the matter at that particular moment. It certainly was
delicious coffee: I never tasted anything like it.
After lunch, we went into the drawing-room, and thence Cesarine took me
alone into the pretty conservatory. She wanted to show me some of her
beautiful Haitian orchids, she said; she had brought the orchids herself
years ago from Haiti. How long we stood there I could never tell. I
seemed as if intoxicated with her presence. I had forgotten now all
about my distrust of her: I had forgotten all about Irene and what I
wished to say to her: I was conscious only of Cesarine's great dark
eyes, looking through and through me with their piercing glance, and
Cesarine's figure, tall and stately, but very voluptuous, standing close
beside me, and heaving regularly as we looked at the orchids. She talked
to me in a low and dreamy voice; and whether the Chateau Larose at lunch
had got into my head, or whatever it might be, I felt only dimly and
faintly aware of what was passing around me. I was unmanned with love, I
suppose: but, however it may have been, I certainly moved and spoke that
afternoon like a man in a trance from which he cannot by any effort of
his own possibly awake himself.
"Yes, yes," I overheard Cesarine saying at last, as through a mist of
emotion, "you must go some day and see our beautiful mountainous Haiti.
I must go myself. I long to go again. I don't care for this gloomy,
dull, sunless England. A hand seems always to be beckoning me there. I
shall obey it some day, for Haiti--our lovely Haiti, is too beautiful."
Her voice was low and marvellously musical. "Mademoiselle Cesarine," I
began timidly.
She pouted and looked at me. "Mademoiselle again," she said in a pettish
way. "I told you not to call me so, didn't I?"
"Well, then, Cesarine," I went on boldly. She laughed low, a little
laugh of triumph, but did not correct or check me in any way.
"Cesarine," I continued, lingering I know not why over the syllables of
the name, "I will go, as you say. I shall see Haiti. Why should we not
both go together?"
She looked up at me eagerly with a sudden look of hushed inquiry. "You
mean it?" she asked, trembling visibly. "You mean it, Mr. Tristram? You
know what you are saying?"
"Cesarine," I answered, "I mean it. I know it. I cannot go away from you
and leave you. Something seems to tie me. I am not my own master....
Cesarine, I love you."
My head whirled as I said the words, but I meant them at the time, and
heaven knows I tried ever after to live up to them.
She clutched my arm convulsively for a moment. Her face was aglow with a
wonderful light, and her eyes burned like a pair of diamonds. "But the
other girl!" she cried. "Her! Miss Latham! The one you call Irene! You
are ... in love with her! Are you not? Tell me!"
"I have never proposed to Irene," I replied slowly. "I have never asked
any other woman but you to marry me, Cesarine."
She answered me nothing, but my face was very near hers, and I bent
forward and kissed her suddenly. To my immense surprise, instead of
struggling or drawing away, she kissed me back a fervent kiss, with lips
hard pressed to mine, and the tears trickled slowly down her cheeks in a
strange fashion. "You are mine," she cried. "Mine for ever. I have won
you. She shall not have you. I knew you were mine the moment I looked
upon you. The hand beckoned me. I knew I should get you."
"Come up into my den, Mr. Tristram, and have a smoke," my host
interrupted in his bluff voice, putting his head in unexpectedly at the
conservatory door. "I think I can offer you a capital Manilla."
The sound woke me as if from some terrible dream, and I followed him
still in a sort of stupor up to the smoking room.