Bella Donna Part 91

With such abrupt and adroit decisiveness had Meyer Isaacson acted, so swift and cunning had been his physical carrying out of his sudden resolve--a resolve, perhaps, determined by her frigid malice--that for a moment Mrs. Armine lost all command of her powers--even, so it seemed, all command of her thoughts and desires. When the door shut and she was alone, she stood where she was and at first did not move a finger. She felt dull, unexcited, almost sleepy, and as one who is dropping off to sleep sometimes aimlessly reiterates some thought, apparently unconnected with any other thought, unlinked with any habit of the mind, she found herself, in imagination, with dull eyes, seeing the Arabic characters above the doorway of the _Loulia_, dully and silently repeating the words Baroudi had chosen as the motto of the boat in which this thing--Isaacson's departure to Nigel--had happened:

"The fate of every man have we bound about his neck."

So it was. So it must be. With an odd and almost grotesque physical response to the meaning which at this moment she but vaguely apprehended, she let her body go. She shrank a little, drawing her shoulders forward, like one on whom a burden that is heavy is imposed.

About her neck had been bound this fate. But the movement, slight though it was, recalled the woman who had defied and had bled the world--had defied the world of women, and had bled the world of men. And, like a living thing, there sprang up in her mind the thought:

"I'm the only woman on board this boat."

And she squared her shoulders. The numbness pa.s.sed, or she flung it angrily from her. And she had the door open and was through the doorway in an instant, and crying out in the long corridor that led to the room of the faskeeyeh:

"Nigel! Nigel! What do you think of my surprise?"

There were energy and beauty in the cry, and she came into the room with a sort of soft rush that was intensely feminine. The men were there.

Nigel was sitting up, but leaning against cushions on the divan close to the upright piano, on which stood the score of "Gerontius." Isaacson was standing before him, bending, and holding both his hands strongly, in an att.i.tude that looked almost violent. Behind him, in the Eastern house of Baroudi the spray of the little fountain aspired, and the tiny gilded ball rose and fell with an airy and frivolous movement.

Mrs. Armine was not reasoning as she came in to these two. She was acting purely on the prompting of an instinct long proved by life. There was within her no mental debate. She did not know how long she had stood alone. She did not ask herself whether Meyer Isaacson had had time to say anything, or, if he had had time, what it was likely that he had said. She just came in with this soft rush, went to her husband, sat down touching him, put her hand on his shoulder, with the fingers upon his neck, and said:

"What do you think of my surprise? I dared it! Was I wrong? Has it done you any harm, Nigel?"

As she spoke she looked at the face of Isaacson and she knew that he had not spoken. A natural flush came to join the flush of rouge on her cheeks.

"Nigel, you've got to forgive me!" she said.

"Forgive you!"

The weak voice spoke with a stronger note than it had found on the balcony. Isaacson let go his friend's hands. He moved. The almost emotional protectiveness that had seemed mutely to exclaim, "I'll save you! Here's a hand--here are two strong hands--to save you from the abyss!" died out of his att.i.tude. He stood up straight. But he kept his eyes fastened on his friend. Never in his consulting-room had he looked at any patient as he now looked at Nigel Armine, with such fiercely searching eyes. His face said to the leaning man before him: "Give up your secrets. I mean to know them all."

"Forgive you!" Nigel repeated.

Feebly he put out one hand and touched his wife. He was looking almost dazed.

"And to-night, when I--when I said, 'If only Isaacson were here!' did you know then?"

"That he was coming? Yes, I knew. And I nearly had to tell you--so nearly! But, you see, a woman can keep a secret."

"How did you know?"

He looked at Isaacson. But Isaacson let her answer. It was enough for him that he was with his friend. He did not care about anything else.

And all this time he was at doctor's work.

"We met this morning in the temple of Edfou, and I told Doctor Isaacson about your sunstroke, and asked him to come up to-night and see you."

She lied with the quiet aplomb which Isaacson remembered almost enjoying in the Savoy Restaurant one night, when they were grouped about a supper-table. Quietly then she had handed him out the lies which he knew to be lies. She had made him presents of them, and as he had received her presents then, he received them now, but a little more indifferently. For he was deeply attentive to Nigel.

That colour, that dropped wrist, the cruel emaciation, the tremulous hands, the pathetic eyes that seemed crying for help--what did they indicate? And there were other symptoms, even stronger, in Nigel that already had almost a.s.sailed the doctor, as if clamouring for his notice and striving to tell a story.

"But why are you here, in Egypt?" asked Nigel. "You didn't come out because--?"

"No, no," said Isaacson.

"But then"--a smile that was rather like tears came into the sick man's face--"but then perhaps you came to--to see our happiness! You remember my letter, Ruby?"

"Yes," she said.

His hand still lay on hers.

"Well, since then it's been a bad time for me. But that happiness has never failed me--never."

"And it never shall," she said.

As she spoke she looked up again at Isaacson, and he read a cool menace in her eyes. Those eyes repeated what her voice had told him on the other side of that door. They said: "My enemy can never find a friend in my husband." But now that Isaacson saw these two people together, he realized the truth of their relations as words could never have made him realize them.

There was a little silence, broken only by the tiny whisper of the faskeeyeh. Then Mrs. Armine said gently:

"Now, Nigel, you've had your surprise, and you ought to sleep. Doctor Isaacson's coming back to-morrow to have a consultation with Doctor Hartley at four o'clock."

She spoke as if the whole matter were already arranged.

"Sleep! You know I can't sleep. I never can sleep now."

"Is the insomnia very bad?" asked Isaacson, quietly.

"I never can sleep scarcely. The nights are so awful."

"Yes, Nigel, dearest. But to-night I think you will sleep."

"Why to-night?"

"Because of this happy surprise I arranged for you. But I shall be sorry I arranged it if you get excited. Do you know how late it is? It is past eleven. You must let Doctor Isaacson go to the felucca. Our bargain was that to-night he should not attempt to hear all about you or enter into the case. It would not be fair to Doctor Hartley."

"d.a.m.n Doctor Hartley!" murmured the sick man, almost peevishly.

"I know. But we must behave nicely to him. Be good now, and go to bed. I have told Doctor Isaacson a lot, and I know you'll sleep now you can feel he's near you."

"I don't want anything more to do with Hartley. He knows nothing. I won't have him to-morrow."

He spoke crossly.

"Nigel!"

She put her hand upon his.

"Forgive me, dearest! Oh, what a brute I am!"

Tears came into his eyes.

"I martyrize her, I know I do," he said to Isaacson; "but I don't believe it's my fault. I do feel so awfully ill!"