An Engagement of Convenience Part 14

She stood up straight, all her muscles tense, her limbs quivering. The pallor had gone; her face glowed with an exultation that was almost of triumph. He stood spellbound at her revelation, unable to find a word.

"Ah, you don't understand what it is to be free again! Degradation! I tasted it to its depths. Yours was no degradation! You know nothing of it. I was tied to a brute--no, the brutes are decent and lovable. He was lower--he was lower."

Her voice broke in a sob, though no tears came. Wyndham was still silent; he would not seek to penetrate her last reserve. "Don't think me too horrible," she pleaded. "You are the only living being to whom I have bared my soul. You were the one to whom my mind flew as my friend--I have waited for this moment. You must not set me down as a monster."

"A monster!" he exclaimed. He was thrown off his irksome guard, and the instant was fatal! "Oh, no, no! I shall always hold you for what you are, for what you have always been to me--a rare princess!"

"I have always been to you--" she echoed, then broke off, her bosom heaving, her eyes flashing out with the full comprehension of his almost unwitting avowal. Then she went pale to the lips again. "You never spoke," she breathed, "and I did not guess."

He realised, half in a daze, that his secret had escaped him; yet--with swift change of mood--he was recklessly glad that she understood at last: even as, standing before her, he, too, understood at last--reading her distress, treasuring her implied reproach for its clear significance, though it put him on his defence.

"I was not even on the footing of a guest in this house. The very bread that kept me alive was not my own. It is the law of the world."

"You were wrong. There is no law."

"There is the law of pride," he argued. "We men do not stoop to happiness, we stoop only to degradation.... And then I feared to break the spell," he went on, seeking a lighter strain. "The wonderful princess would disappear, and I should be left rubbing my eyes."

"But it was you who disappeared. The princess thought you shunned her, and she was left--to weep--"

He hung his head like a broken reed. He had no longer anything to hide; he had already sufficiently disclosed to her that his marriage was to be a loveless one. She would understand and respect his first desire to keep his true relation to Alice sacred from her gaze. But Lady Betty's revelation of tragic experience had swept him off his feet. He had responded to her great emotion; had confessed his allegiance to her through all and despite all. His life seemed linked to hers with a mystic, enduring pa.s.sion. And yet were they not hopelessly sundered?

"'Men must work and women must weep,'" she quoted. "Ah, well! we never can win our ideals; life is always a compromise. Perhaps it's a blessing to see our clear obligations."

"Yes--if one has the strength to turn one's eyes aside from the dreams; but saddening otherwise."

"Saddening otherwise," she echoed pensively. "But I thank you that I am still the wonderful princess, even after my terrible confession."

He took a step forward, and seized her hand impulsively.

"Never believe otherwise, no matter what you may hear of me. Whether this be the last time I see you or not, whether I fail and be broken again, my last breath shall proclaim my allegiance to--the wonderful princess! Listen, the woman I am marrying is more than goodness itself.

I cannot pretend to match her; my manhood falls below her womanhood. But into the inner chamber of my life she can never enter. Out of loyalty to her I gave you to understand that I had given my affections. That is true, but not in the sense I led you to believe. There is no reason why I should not be open now; it would be a poor compliment to you after all this mutual confidence if I could not bare to you the absolute truth.

And the absolute truth is--I have sold myself for safety, for the sake of my art, and for the sake of my sister. It would be unendurable were there not the mitigation of the esteem I have for the woman I am marrying, and for the many qualities of kindness and goodness in that whole household. But she is not my true mate. Unlimited as is her virtue in a hundred ways, she herself is yet limited. My work must find inspiration entirely apart from her. May I think of you, princess, as my inspiration?"

"She is a good woman. You must be loyal to her."

"It would be no disloyalty; I should be cherishing the ideal."

She was smiling and radiant again. "I can scarcely stop you--I see it would certainly be rash to try. Well, goodbye now; I have a thousand little neglected things crying to me. And your moments, too, are precious. You will be here again one of these mornings?"

"To-morrow," he said. "For the present, we may be friends?"

"Till the tide sweeps us apart."

"The cruel tide!" he murmured. "But you will always be the wonderful princess," he insisted again.

"I shall try to be worthy of the t.i.tle."

She gave him a charming curtsey, flitted away down the room, threw him yet a smile, and disappeared behind the panelled door through which she had come.

XVII

For some time Wyndham stood with his head still bowed as Lady Betty's voice lingered in his ear. Her figure was still there before him, her lovely girl's face radiant with the smile with which she had vanished, her slender form in all its upright grace; a nymph of whom Botticelli had caught a glimpse on a spring morn when the world was rediscovering beauty.

He tried to recall the scene that had just been enacted, and dizzily held it all in a flash. He and Lady Betty were in love with each other!

The fact that he had always cherished the thought of her held a deeper significance than he had known! Throughout all his sufferings--throughout all her sufferings--an ideal friendship for each other had subsisted in their minds. He had supposed her as indifferent as she was unattainable; that his love was one of those secret, mocking dramas that sometimes play themselves out in the souls of men and women. Yet it was to him that her deepest thought had turned! She had enshrined him in her heart! And he lying the whilst in darkness and misery!

It was precious now--this new sweetness that had come to him. Sweetness!

His thought broke off at the word. Rather was it a bitter irony! Lady Betty and he had been cheated by life. Could he be even sure his eyes would behold her again? Was she not the soul of honour and rect.i.tude!

For a deep instant they had been swept towards each other; but at once her att.i.tude towards his marriage had been clear and p.r.o.nounced, and she might even now be bitterly regretting their meeting.

He sat down at last, and took up his work again; but his mind was utterly unfitted for concentration on any task. Better to get back again to his own studio, he told himself. So he stowed away his materials in a corner, and presently slipped downstairs; telling the butler, whom he met in the hall, that he would be there again at ten the following day.

At t.i.te Street men were tacking down a thick green length of Turkey carpet on his staircase, and Alice was superintending the operation.

Here was his comfortable future in active preparation! And already he felt the atmosphere swallowing him up, claiming him body and soul.

He stayed a moment on the landing, affecting an interest in the proceedings. When he turned into the studio Alice came after him.

"You hardly seem well, dear," she said, observing him anxiously.

"You surprise me," he returned. "I am not conscious of any aches or pains," he added, with an implication of gaiety.

She did not seem convinced. "This malarial air must have affected you,"

she insisted.

"I don't say I find it pleasant." He seized the poker, as if glad to make a diversion, and stirred the fire energetically. "I'm a little bit disgusted, too; the day wasn't as clear as I hoped--there was a good deal of mist about."

"Better luck to-morrow!" she said.

He struck hard at a k.n.o.b of coal, making a dreadful clatter. "I hope so, indeed," he answered, thinking it curious that Alice should now be expecting him to go to Grosvenor Place as a matter of course. "At any rate," he added, as it struck him Alice might reasonably be hoping for some account of his morning's visit, "they were kind to me--just as of old. Lady Lakeden sent me refreshments, and afterwards came herself to see how things were progressing."

"I suppose Lady Lakeden is a sister of the earl," she conjectured.

"No, his daughter--a mere girl," he explained, with the flicker of a laugh. "It was a great surprise. It is only a few years back that I was asked to her wedding. After that, I got out of touch with them, and I did not know she had lost her husband very soon after the marriage. He met with an accident on the Alps."

Alice was blanched. "How terrible!" she whispered.

There was a silence. Wyndham held his hands to the flame he had been at such pains to create. He hoped he had satisfied her interest sufficiently; for, of course, the whole scene between himself and Lady Betty must be kept from her inviolate. Was it not for Alice's own sake and happiness?

"It makes me afraid!" said Alice, breaking the silence. "Perhaps n.o.body is allowed to keep too great a happiness."

He winced. "She was always kind to me," he said, evading the train of her reflection. "I spent many hours at my post in those ancient times, and there were always un.o.btrusive attentions that made my work the easier."

"I should like to know and love her," said Alice pensively.