Innocent : her fancy and his fact Part 56

She trembled a little. Something cold and terrifying began to creep through her blood.

"Yes--I know," she faltered, nervously--"You said--you said we would arrange everything together to-day."

"True! So I did! Well, I will!" He drew closer to her and took her little hand in his own. "You see, dear, we can't live on the heights of ecstasy for ever" and he smiled,--a forced, ugly smile--"We've had a very happy time together, haven't we?"--and he was conscious of a certain nervousness as he felt her soft little body press against him in answer--"But the time has come for us to think of other things--other interests--your career,--my future--"

She looked up at him in sudden alarm.

"Amadis!" she said--"What is it? You frighten me!--you speak so strangely! What do you mean?"

"Now if you are unreasonable I shall go away!" he said, with sudden harshness, dropping her hand--"I shall leave you here by yourself without another word!"

She turned deathly pale--then flushed a faint crimson--a sense of giddy faintness overcame her,--she put up her hands to her head tremblingly, and loosening her hat took it off as though its weight oppressed her.

"I--I am not unreasonable, Amadis," she faltered--"only--I don't understand--"

"Well, you ought to understand," he answered, heatedly--"A clever little woman like you who writes books should not want any explanation.

You ought to be able to grasp the whole position at a glance!"

Her breath came and went quickly--she tried to smile.

"I'm afraid I'm very stupid then," she answered, gently--"For I can only see that you seem angry with me for nothing."

He took her hand again.

"Dear little goose, I am not angry," he said--"If you were to make me a 'scene' I SHOULD be angry--very angry! But you won't do that, will you?

It would upset my nerves. And you are such a wise, independent little person that I feel quite safe with you. Well, now let us talk sensibly,--I've a great deal to tell you. In the first place, I'm going to Algiers."

Her lips were dry and stiff, but she managed to ask--

"When?"

"Oh, any time!--to-morrow... next day--before the week is over, certainly. There are some fine subjects out there that I want to paint--and I feel I could do good work--"

Her hand in his contracted a little,--she instinctively withdrew it...

then she heard herself speaking as though it were someone else a long way off.

"When are you coming back?"

"Ah!--That's my own affair!" he answered carelessly--"In the spring perhaps,--perhaps not for a year or two--"

"Amadis!"

The name sprang from her lips like the cry of an animal wounded to death. She rose suddenly from his side and stood facing him, swaying slightly like a reed in a cruel wind.

"Well!" he rejoined--"You say 'Amadis' as though it hurt you! What now?"

"Do you mean," she said, faintly--"by--what--you--say,--do you mean--that we are--to part?"

The strained agony in her eyes compelled him to turn his own away. He got up from the settee and left her where she stood.

"We must part sooner or later," he answered, lightly--"surely you know that?"

"Surely I know that!" she repeated, with a bewildered look,--then running to him, she caught his arm--"Amadis! Amadis! You don't mean it!--say you don't mean it!--You can't mean it, if you love me! ... Oh, my dearest!--if you love me! ..."

She stopped, half choked by a throbbing ache in her throat,--and tottered against him as though about to fall. Alarmed at this he caught her round the waist to support her.

"Of course I love you!" he said, hurriedly--"When you are good and reasonable!--not when you behave like this! If I DON'T love you, it will be quite your own fault--"

"My own fault?" she murmured, sobbingly--"My own fault? Amadis! What have I done?"

"What have you done? It's what you are doing that matters! Giving way to temper and making me uncomfortable! Do you call that 'love'?"

She dropped her hand from his arm and drew herself away from him. She was trembling from head to foot.

"Please--please don't misunderstand me!" she stammered, like a frightened child--"I--I have no temper! I--I--feel nothing--I only want to please you--to know what you wish--"

She broke off--her eyes, lifted to his, had a strange, wild stare, but he was too absorbed in his own particular and personal difficulty to notice this. He went on, speaking rapidly--

"If you want to please me you will first of all be perfectly normal,"

he said--"Make up your mind to be calm and good-natured. I cannot stand an emotional woman all tantrums and tears. I like good sense and good manners. You ought to have both, with all the books you have read--"

She gave a sudden low laugh, empty of mirth.

"Books!" she echoed--and raising her arms above her head she let them drop again at her sides with a gesture of utter abandonment. "Ah yes!

Books! Books by the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"

Her hair was ruffled and fell about her face,--her cheeks had flamed into a feverish red. The tragic beauty of her expression annoyed him.

"Your hair is coming down," he said, with a coldly critical smile--"You look like a Bacchante!"

She paid no attention to this remark. She was apparently talking to herself.

"Books!" she said again--"Such sweet love-letters and poems by the Sieur Amadis de Jocelin!"

He grew impatient.

"You're a silly child!" he said--"Are you going to listen to me or not?"

She gazed at him with an almost awful directness.

"I am listening!" she answered.

"Well, don't be melodramatic while you listen!" he retorted--"Be normal!"

She was silent, still gazing fixedly at him.

He turned his eyes away, and taking up one of his brushes, dipped it in colour and made a great pretence of working in a bit of sky on his canvas.