Beyond Part 12

And she looked up into his face--it seemed to her so pathetic with its shining eyes and its staring whiteness that she could have burst into tears. She said gently:

"Gustav, it's all right. Lean on me; we'll go up."

His hands, that seemed to have no power or purpose, touched her cheeks, mechanically caressing. More than disgust, she felt that awful pity.

Putting her arm round his waist, she moved with him toward the stairs.

If only no one heard; if only she could get him quietly up! And she murmured:

"Don't talk; you're not well. Lean on me hard."

He seemed to make a big effort; his lips puffed out, and with an expression of pride that would have been comic if not so tragic, he muttered something.

Holding him close with all her strength, as she might have held one desperately loved, she began to mount. It was easier than she had thought. Only across the landing now, into the bedroom, and then the danger would be over. Done! He was lying across the bed, and the door shut. Then, for a moment, she gave way to a fit of shivering so violent that she could hear her teeth chattering yet could not stop them. She caught sight of herself in the big mirror. Her pretty lace was all torn; her shoulders were red where his hands had gripped her, holding himself up. She threw off her dress, put on a wrapper, and went up to him. He was lying in a sort of stupor, and with difficulty she got him to sit up and lean against the bed-rail. Taking off his tie and collar, she racked her brains for what to give him. Sal volatile! Surely that must be right. It brought him to himself, so that he even tried to kiss her. At last he was in bed, and she stood looking at him. His eyes were closed; he would not see if she gave way now. But she would not cry--she would not. One sob came--but that was all. Well, there was nothing to be done now but get into bed too. She undressed, and turned out the light. He was in a stertorous sleep. And lying there, with eyes wide open, staring into the dark, a smile came on her lips--a very strange smile! She was thinking of all those preposterous young wives she had read of, who, blushing, trembling, murmur into the ears of their young husbands that they "have something--something to tell them!"

VI

Looking at Fiorsen, next morning, still sunk in heavy sleep, her first thought was: 'He looks exactly the same.' And, suddenly, it seemed queer to her that she had not been, and still was not, disgusted. It was all too deep for disgust, and somehow, too natural. She took this new revelation of his unbridled ways without resentment. Besides, she had long known of this taste of his--one cannot drink brandy and not betray it.

She stole noiselessly from bed, noiselessly gathered up his boots and clothes all tumbled on to a chair, and took them forth to the dressing-room. There she held the garments up to the early light and brushed them, then, noiseless, stole back to bed, with needle and thread and her lace. No one must know; not even he must know. For the moment she had forgotten that other thing so terrifically important. It came back to her, very sudden, very sickening. So long as she could keep it secret, no one should know that either--he least of all.

The morning pa.s.sed as usual; but when she came to the music-room at noon, she found that he had gone out. She was just sitting down to lunch when Betty, with the broad smile which prevailed on her moon-face when someone had tickled the right side of her, announced:

"Count Rosek."

Gyp got up, startled.

"Say that Mr. Fiorsen is not in, Betty. But--but ask if he will come and have some lunch, and get a bottle of hock up, please."

In the few seconds before her visitor appeared, Gyp experienced the sort of excitement one has entering a field where a bull is grazing.

But not even his severest critics could accuse Rosek of want of tact. He had hoped to see Gustav, but it was charming of her to give him lunch--a great delight!

He seemed to have put off, as if for her benefit, his corsets, and some, at all events, of his offending looks--seemed simpler, more genuine. His face was slightly browned, as if, for once, he had been taking his due of air and sun. He talked without cynical submeanings, was most appreciative of her "charming little house," and even showed some warmth in his sayings about art and music. Gyp had never disliked him less. But her instincts were on the watch. After lunch, they went out across the garden to see the music-room, and he sat down at the piano. He had the deep, caressing touch that lies in fingers of steel worked by a real pa.s.sion for tone. Gyp sat on the divan and listened. She was out of his sight there; and she looked at him, wondering. He was playing Schumann's Child Music. How could one who produced such fresh idyllic sounds have sinister intentions? And presently she said:

"Count Rosek!"

"Madame?"

"Will you please tell me why you sent Daphne Wing here yesterday?"

"I send her?"

"Yes."

But instantly she regretted having asked that question. He had swung round on the music-stool and was looking full at her. His face had changed.

"Since you ask me, I thought you should know that Gustav is seeing a good deal of her."

He had given the exact answer she had divined.

"Do you think I mind that?"

A flicker pa.s.sed over his face. He got up and said quietly:

"I am glad that you do not."

"Why glad?"

She, too, had risen. Though he was little taller than herself, she was conscious suddenly of how thick and steely he was beneath his dapper garments, and of a kind of snaky will-power in his face. Her heart beat faster.

He came toward her and said:

"I am glad you understand that it is over with Gustav--finished--" He stopped dead, seeing at once that he had gone wrong, and not knowing quite where. Gyp had simply smiled. A flush coloured his cheeks, and he said:

"He is a volcano soon extinguished. You see, I know him. Better you should know him, too. Why do you smile?"

"Why is it better I should know?"

He went very pale, and said between his teeth:

"That you may not waste your time; there is love waiting for you."

But Gyp still smiled.

"Was it from love of me that you made him drunk last night?"

His lips quivered.

"Gyp!" Gyp turned. But with the merest change of front, he had put himself between her and the door. "You never loved him. That is my excuse. You have given him too much already--more than he is worth. Ah!

G.o.d! I am tortured by you; I am possessed."

He had gone white through and through like a flame, save for his smouldering eyes. She was afraid, and because she was afraid, she stood her ground. Should she make a dash for the door that opened into the little lane and escape that way? Then suddenly he seemed to regain control; but she could feel that he was trying to break through her defences by the sheer intensity of his gaze--by a kind of mesmerism, knowing that he had frightened her.

Under the strain of this duel of eyes, she felt herself beginning to sway, to get dizzy. Whether or no he really moved his feet, he seemed coming closer inch by inch. She had a horrible feeling--as if his arms were already round her.

With an effort, she wrenched her gaze from his, and suddenly his crisp hair caught her eyes. Surely--surely it was curled with tongs! A kind of spasm of amus.e.m.e.nt was set free in her heart, and, almost inaudibly, the words escaped her lips: "Une technique merveilleuse!" His eyes wavered; he uttered a little gasp; his lips fell apart. Gyp walked across the room and put her hand on the bell. She had lost her fear. Without a word, he turned, and went out into the garden. She watched him cross the lawn. Gone! She had beaten him by the one thing not even violent pa.s.sions can withstand--ridicule, almost unconscious ridicule. Then she gave way and pulled the bell with nervous violence. The sight of the maid, in her trim black dress and spotless white ap.r.o.n, coming from the house completed her restoration. Was it possible that she had really been frightened, nearly failing in that encounter, nearly dominated by that man--in her own house, with her own maids down there at hand? And she said quietly:

"I want the puppies, please."

"Yes, ma'am."

Over the garden, the day brooded in the first-gathered warmth of summer.

Mid-June of a fine year. The air was drowsy with hum and scent.

And Gyp, sitting in the shade, while the puppies rolled and snapped, searched her little world for comfort and some sense of safety, and could not find it; as if there were all round her a hot heavy fog in which things lurked, and where she kept erect only by pride and the will not to cry out that she was struggling and afraid.

Fiorsen, leaving his house that morning, had walked till he saw a taxi-cab. Leaning back therein, with hat thrown off, he caused himself to be driven rapidly, at random. This was one of his habits when his mind was not at ease--an expensive idiosyncrasy, ill-afforded by a pocket that had holes. The swift motion and t.i.tillation by the perpetual close shaving of other vehicles were sedative to him. He needed sedatives this morning. To wake in his own bed without the least remembering how he had got there was no more new to him than to many another man of twenty-eight, but it was new since his marriage. If he had remembered even less he would have been more at ease. But he could just recollect standing in the dark drawing-room, seeing and touching a ghostly Gyp quite close to him. And, somehow, he was afraid. And when he was afraid--like most people--he was at his worst.