Bye-Ways Part 20

"Well, then, since you say that, I will answer your question. I tried to win your heart because I wanted to win Betty's!"

"What do you mean?"

"That Betty is practically you--or was, your echo, in word, deed, thought. Her mind, her heart, followed yours in everything. I loved her, and I knew that if I made you like me very much she must follow you in that feeling as in others. Since you don't love me, I can dare to tell you this."

Clarice sat silent.

"Are you angry?" he asked.

"Go on," she said.

"That's all." Again a silence.

"It was your fault in a way," Bellairs said awkwardly. "You made Betty your other self. Why did you not let her alone?"

"Can a strong nature help impressing itself on others?"

"Oh, I don't know. I'm no psychologist. But--you must let Betty alone now," he said.

"Suppose I can't. Suppose this sympathy between us has got beyond my control?"

"I shall release Betty from this bondage to you," Bellairs said, "my love will--"

"You! Your love!" Clarice said. And she burst into a laugh.

Bellairs suddenly leaned forward across the table.

"I believe you hate me," he exclaimed.

She, on her part, leaned forward till her face was near his.

"You're right," she whispered; "I do hate you. Now you know what's the matter with Betty."

For a moment Bellairs did not understand.

"Now--I know--" he repeated. "I don't--Ah!" Comprehension flashed upon him.

"You devil," he said--"you she-devil! Curse--curse you!" Clarice laughed again. Bellairs sprang up.

"No, no, I won't believe it," he cried. "I can't. The thing's impossible."

"Is it? The pendulum of my heart has swung back from love to hate.

Betty's is following."

"No, no!"

"Wait, and you will see. Already she seems to care less for you. You yourself have remarked it."

"I have not," he said with violence.

"To-morrow she will care less, and so less--less--till she too--hates you."

"Never!"

"Only wait--and you will know. And now, good-night. I must really write my letter. It is to my mother, and must go by to-morrow's mail."

She resumed her writing quietly. Bellairs watched her for a moment. Then he strode out of the room, across the gangway, up the bank.

How dark the night was.

The explanation of Clarice struck Bellairs with a benumbing force. In vain he argued to himself that it was not the true one, that no heart could follow another as she said Betty's followed hers, that no nature could merely for ever echo another's. Some furtive despair lurking in his soul whispered that she had spoken the truth. An appalling sense of utter impotence seized him, as it seizes a man who fights with a shadow.

But he resolved to fight. His whole life's happiness hung on the issue.

On the following day he forced himself to be cheerful, gay, talkative.

He went early to the dahabeeyah, and proposed to Lord Braydon a picnic to Thebes. Lord Braydon a.s.sented. A hamper was packed. The boat was ordered. The little party a.s.sembled on the deck of the _Hatasoo_ for the start; Lady Braydon, in a wide hat and sweeping grey veil, Clarice with her big white parasol lined with pale green, Lord Braydon in his helmet, his eyes protected by enormous spectacles. But where was Betty? Abdul, the dragoman, went to tell her that they were going. She came, without her hat, or gloves, holding a palm leaf fan in her hand.

"I am not coming," she said.

Clarice glanced at Bellairs. He pressed his lips together and felt that he was turning white underneath the tan the Egyptian sun rays had painted on his cheeks. Lady Braydon protested.

"What's the matter, Betty?" she said. "The donkeys are ordered and waiting for us on the opposite bank. Why aren't you coming?"

"I have got a headache. I'm afraid of the sun to-day." All persuasion was useless. They had to set out without her. Bellairs was bitterly angry, bitterly afraid. He could scarcely make the necessary effort to be polite and talkative, but Lord and Lady Braydon readily excused his gloom, understanding his disappointment, and Clarice no longer desired his conversation. That night he did not see Betty. She was confined to her cabin and would see no one but Clarice. On the following day Bellairs went very early to the dahabeeyah and asked for her. Abdul took his message, and, after an interval, returned to him with the following note:--

"DEAR MR BELLAIRS,--I am very sorry I cannot see you this morning, but I am still very unwell. I think the mental agony I have been and am undergoing accounts for my condition. I must tell you the truth. I cannot marry you. I mistook my feeling for you. I honestly thought it love. I find it is only friendship. Can you ever forgive me the pain I am causing you?

I cannot forgive myself. But I should do you a much greater wrong by marrying you than by giving you up. I have told my father and mother. See them if you like. We sail to-morrow morning for a.s.souan.

"BETTY."

Bellairs, crumpling this note in his hand, would have burst forth into a pa.s.sion of useless rage and despair, but Abdul's l.u.s.trous eyes were fixed upon him. Abdul's dignified form calmly waited his pleasure.

"Where is Lord Braydon?" said Bellairs, "I must see him."

"His lordship is on the second deck, sir."

"Take me to him."

The interview that followed only increased the despair of Bellairs. Lord Braydon was most sympathetic, most courteously sorry, but he said that his daughter's decision was absolutely irrevocable, and he could not attempt to coerce her in such an important matter.

"At any rate, I must see her before you sail," said Bellairs at last. "I think she owes me at least that one last debt."

"I think so too," said Lord Braydon. "Come at six. I will undertake that you shall see her."

How Bellairs spent the intervening hours he could never remember. He did not go back to the hotel; he must have wandered all day along the river bank. Yet he felt neither the heat, nor any fatigue, nor any hunger. At six o'clock he reached the dahabeeyah. Lady Betty was sitting alone on the deck. She looked very pale and grave.

"My father and mother and Clarice have gone up to the hotel," she said.

"That Austrian is playing again this evening."