Adam Johnstone's Son Part 24

"I can't live without you--it comes to that. Can't you see?"

The short plain words shook oddly as they fell from his lips. The two stood quite still, each looking into the other's face. Brook grew paler still, but the colour rose in Clare's cheeks. She tried to meet his eyes steadily, without feeling that he could control her.

"I'm sorry," she said, "I'm very sorry."

"You sha'n't say that," he answered, cutting her words with his, and sharply. "I'm tired of hearing it. I'm glad I love you, whatever you do to me; and you must get to like me. You must. I tell you I can't live without you."

"But if I can't--" Clare tried to say.

"You can--you must--you shall!" broke in Brook, hoa.r.s.ely, his eyes growing brighter and fiercer. "I didn't know what it was to love anybody, and now that I know, I can't live without it, and I won't."

"But if--"

"There is no 'if,'" he cried, in his low strong voice, fixing her eyes with his. "There's no question of my going mad, or dying, or anything half so weak, because I won't take no. Oh, you may say it a hundred times, but it won't help you. I tell you I love you. Do you understand what that means? I'm in G.o.d's own earnest. I'll give you my life, but I won't give you up. I'll take you somehow, whether you will or not, and I'll hide you somewhere, but you sha'n't get away from me as long as you live."

"You must be mad!" exclaimed the young girl, scarcely above her breath, half-frightened, and unable to loose her eyes from the fascination of his.

"No, I'm not mad; only you've never seen any one in earnest before, and you've been condemning me without evidence all along. But it must stop now. You must tell me what it is, for I have a right to know. Tell me what it all is. I will know--I will. Look at me; you can't look away till you tell me."

Clare felt his power, and felt that his eyes were dazzling her, and that if she did not escape from them she must yield and tell him. She tried, and her eyelids quivered. Then she raised her hand to cover her own eyes, in a desperate attempt to keep her secret. He caught it and held it, and still looked. She turned pale suddenly. Then her words came mechanically.

"I was out there when you said 'good-bye' to Lady Fan. I heard everything, from first to last."

He started in surprise, and the colour rose suddenly to his face. He did not look away yet, but Clare saw the blush of shame in his face, and felt that his power diminished, while hers grew all at once, to overmaster him in turn.

"It's scarcely a fortnight since you betrayed her," she said, slowly and distinctly, "and you expect me to like you and to believe that you are in earnest."

His shame turned quickly to anger.

"So you listened!" he exclaimed.

"Yes, I listened," she answered, and her words came easily, then, in self-defence--for she had thought of it all very often. "I didn't know who you were. My mother and I had been sitting beside the cross in the shadow of the cave, and she went in to finish a letter, leaving me there. Then you two came out talking. Before I knew what was happening you had said too much. I felt that if I had been in Lady Fan's place I would far rather never know that a stranger was listening. So I sat still, and I could not help hearing. How was I to know that you meant to stay here until I heard you say so to her? And I heard everything. You are ashamed now that you know that I know. Do you wonder that I disliked you from the first?"

"I don't see why you should," answered Brook stubbornly. "If you do--you do. That doesn't change matters--"

"You betrayed her!" cried Clare indignantly. "You forgot that I heard all you said--how you promised to marry her if she could get a divorce.

It was horrible, and I never dreamt of such things, but I heard it. And then you were tired of her, I suppose, and you changed your mind, and calmly told her that it was all a mistake. Do you expect any woman, who has seen another treated in that way, to forget? Oh, I saw her face, and I heard her sob. You broke her heart for your amus.e.m.e.nt. And it was only a fortnight ago!"

She had the upper hand now, and she turned from him with a last scornful glance, and looked over the low wall at the sea, wondering how he could have held her with his eyes a moment earlier. Brook stood motionless beside her, and there was silence. He might have found much in self-defence, but there was not one word of it which he could tell her. Perhaps she might find out some day what sort of person Lady Fan was, but his own lips were closed. That was his view of what honour meant.

Clare felt that her breath came quickly, and that the colour was deep in her cheeks as she gazed at the flat, hot sea. For a moment she felt a woman's enormous satisfaction in being absolutely unanswerable. Then, all at once, she had a strong sensation of sickness, and a quick pain shot sharply through her just below the heart. She steadied herself by the wall with her hands, and shut her lips tightly.

She had refused him as well as accused him. He would go away in a few moments, and never try to be alone with her again. Perhaps he would leave Amalfi that very day. It was impossible that she should really care for him, and yet, if she did not care, she would not ask the next question. Then he spoke to her. His voice was changed and very quiet now.

"I'm sorry you heard all that," he said. "I don't wonder that you've got a bad opinion of me, and I suppose I can't say anything just now to make you change it. You heard, and you think you have a right to judge.

Perhaps I shouldn't even say this--you heard me then, and you have heard me now. There's a difference, you'll admit. But all that you heard then, and all that you have told me now, can't change the truth, and you can't make me love you less, whatever you do. I don't believe I'm that sort of man."

"I should have thought you were," said Clare bitterly, and regretting the words as soon as they were spoken.

"It's natural that you should think so. At the same time, it doesn't follow that because a man doesn't love one woman he can't possibly love another."

"That's simply brutal!" exclaimed the young girl, angry with him unreasonably because the argument was good.

"It's true, at all events. I didn't love Mrs. Crosby, and I told her so.

You may think me a brute if you like, but you heard me say it, if you heard anything, so I suppose I may quote myself. I do love you, and I have told you so--the fact that I can't say it in choice language doesn't make it a lie. I'm not a man in a book, and I'm in earnest."

"Please stop," said Clare, as she heard the hoa.r.s.e strength coming back in his voice.

"Yes--I know. I've said it before, and you don't care to hear it again.

You can't kill it by making me hold my tongue, you know. It only makes it worse. You'll see that I'm in earnest in time--then you'll change your mind. But I can't change mine. I can't live without you, whatever you may think of me now."

It was a strange wooing, very unlike anything she had ever dreamt of, if she had allowed herself to dream of such things. She asked herself whether this could be the same man who had calmly and cynically told Lady Fan that he did not love her and could not think of marrying her.

He had been cool and quiet enough then. That gave strength to the argument he used now. She had seen him with another woman, and now she saw him with herself and heard him. She was surprised and almost taken from her feet by his rough vehemence. He surely did not speak as a man choosing his words, certainly not as one trying to produce an effect.

But then, on that evening at the Acropolis--the thought of that scene pursued her--he had doubtless spoken just as roughly and vehemently to Lady Fan, and had seemed just as much in earnest. And suddenly Lady Fan was hateful to her, and she almost ceased to pity her at all. But for Lady Fan--well, it might have been different. She should not have blamed herself for liking him, for loving him perhaps, and his words would have had another ring.

He still stood beside her, watching her, and she was afraid to turn to him lest he should see something in her face which she meant to hide.

But she could speak quietly enough, resting her hands on the wall and looking out to sea. It would be best to be a little formal, she thought.

The sound of his own name spoken distinctly and coldly would perhaps warn him not to go too far.

"Mr. Johnstone," she said, steadying her voice, "this can't go on. I never meant to tell you what I knew, but you have forced me to it. I don't love you--I don't like a man who can do such things, and I never could. And I can't let you talk to me in this way any more. If we must meet, you must behave just as usual. If you can't, I shall persuade my mother to go away at once."

"I shall follow you," said Brook. "I told you so the other day. You can't possibly go to any place where I can't go too."

"Do you mean to persecute me, Mr. Johnstone?" she asked.

"I love you."

"I hate you!"

"Yes, but you won't always. Even if you do, I shall always love you just as much."

Her eyes fell before his.

"Do you mean to say that you can really love a woman who hates you?" she asked, looking at one of her hands as it rested on the wall.

"Of course. Why not? What has that to do with it?"

The question was asked so simply and with such honest surprise that Clare looked up again. He was smiling a little sadly.

"But--I don't understand--" she hesitated.

"Do you think it's like a bargain?" he asked quietly. "Do you think it's a matter of exchange--'I will love you if you'll love me'? Oh no! It's not that. I can't help it. I'm not my own master. I've got to love you, whether I like it or not. But since I do--well, I've said the rest, and I won't repeat it. I've told you that I'm in earnest, and you haven't believed me. I've told you that I love you, and you won't even believe that--"

"No--I can believe that, well enough, now. You do to-day, perhaps. At least you think you do."

"Well--you don't believe it, then. What's the use of repeating it? If I could talk well, it would be different, but I'm not much of a talker, at best, and just now I can't put two words together. But I--I mean lots of things that I can't say, and perhaps wouldn't say, you know. At least, not just now."

He turned from her and began to walk up and down across the narrow terrace, towards her and away from her, his hands in his pockets, and his head a little bent. She watched him in silence for some time.