Phases of an Inferior Planet Part 59

"Is it clear?" she asked, excitedly. "If it is clear, I must go out. I feel as if I were caged."

Miss Ramsey raised the shades, revealing the murky aspect of a variable day.

"It is not quite clear," she answered. "I don't think you had better venture out. There is a damp wind."

"Very well," responded Mariana. She rose and dressed herself hurriedly; then she sat down with Miss Ramsey to breakfast, but she had little appet.i.te, and soon left the table, to wander about the house with a nervous step.

"I can't settle myself," she said, a little pettishly.

Going up-stairs to her room presently, she threw herself into a chair before the fire, and looked into the long mirror hanging on the opposite wall.

She was possessed with a pulsating memory of the evening before--of Anthony, and of the kiss he had left upon her lips. Then swift darts of fear shot through her that it might all be unreal--that, upon leaving her, he had yielded once more to the sway of his judgment. She did not want judgment, she wanted love.

As she looked at her image in the long mirror, meeting her haggard face and dilated eyes, she grew white with the foreboding of failure. What was there left in her that a man might love? What was she--the wreck of a woman's form--that she could immortalize a man's fugitive desire? Was it love, after all? Was it not pity, pa.s.sing itself for pa.s.sion? Her cheeks flamed and her pulses beat feverishly.

She turned from the gla.s.s and looked at her walking-gown lying upon the bed.

"I can't wait," she said, breathlessly. "I must see him. He must tell me with his own lips that it is true."

She dressed herself with quivering fingers, stumbling over the b.u.t.tons of her coat. Then she put on her hat and tied a dark veil over her face.

As she came down-stairs she met Miss Ramsey in the hall.

"Mariana, you are not going out!" she exclaimed.

"Only a little way," said Mariana.

"But it has clouded. It may rain."

"Not before I return. Good-bye."

She opened the hall door. Pausing for an instant upon the threshold, a soft, damp air struck her, and overhead a ray of sunshine pierced the clouds.

She fastened the furs at her throat and descended to the street.

At first she had no definite end in view, but when she had walked a block the idea of seeing Anthony grew stronger, and she turned in the direction of his house. The contact of the moist air invigorated her, and she felt less weak than she had believed herself to be. When she reached the rectory she hesitated a moment with her hand upon the bell, trembling before the thought of seeing him--of hearing him speak. She rang, and the door was opened.

"Can I see Father Algarcife?" she asked.

Agnes eyed her curiously.

"Why, he's at church!" she responded. "He's been gone about a half-hour or so. Is it important?"

"No, no," answered Mariana, her voice recovering. "Don't say I called, please. I'll come again."

"Perhaps you'll step in and rest a bit. You look tired. You can sit in the study if you like."

"Oh no, I will go on. I will go to the church." She started, and then turned back. "I believe I will come in for a few minutes," she said.

She entered the house and pa.s.sed through the open door into the study. A bright fire was burning, and the dog was lying before it. She seated herself in the easy-chair, resting her head against the cushions. Agnes stood on the rug and looked at her.

"You are the lady that came once in that terrible storm," she said.

"Yes, I am the one."

"Would you like a gla.s.s of water--or wine?"

Mariana looked up, in the hope of dismissing her.

"I should like some water, please," she said, and as Agnes went into the dining-room she looked about the luxurious study with pa.s.sionate eyes.

It was so different from the one at The Gotham, that comfortless square of uncarpeted floor, with the pine book-shelves and the skull and cross-bones above the mantel.

The desk, with its hand-carving of old mahogany, recalled to her the one that he had used when she had first known him, with its green baize cover splotched with ink.

The swing of the rich curtains, the warmth of the Turkish rugs, the portraits in their ma.s.sive frames, jarred her vibrant emotions. How could he pa.s.s from this to the farm in the South--to the old, old fight with poverty and the drama of self-denial? Would she not fail him again, as she had failed him once before? Would she not shatter his happiness in a second chance, as she had shattered it in the first?

The tears sprang to her eyes and scorched her lids. She rose hastily from her chair.

When the servant returned with the gla.s.s of water she drank a few swallows. "Thank you," she said, gently. "I will go now. Perhaps I will come again to-morrow."

She pa.s.sed to the sidewalk and turned in the direction of the church, walking rapidly. She had not thought of his being at church. Indeed, until entering his study she had forgotten the office he held. She had remembered only that he loved her.

As she neared the building an impulse seized her to turn and go back--to wait for him at the rectory. The sound of the intoning of the gospel came to her like a lament. She felt suddenly afraid.

Then several persons brushed her in pa.s.sing, and she entered the heavy doors, which closed behind her with a dull thud.

After the grayness of the day without, the warmth and color of the interior were as vivid as a revelation. They enveloped her like the perfumed air of a hot-house, heavy with the breath of rare exotics--exotics that had flowered amid the ardent glooms of mediaevalism and the colorific visions of cloistered emotions. Entering a pew in the side-aisle, she leaned her head against a stone pillar and closed her eyes in sudden restfulness. That emotional, religious instinct which had always been a part of her artistic temperament was quickened in intensity. She felt a desire to worship--something--anything.

When she raised her lids the colors seemed to have settled into harmonious half-tones. The altar, which had at first showed blurred before her eyes, dawned through the rising clouds of incense. She saw the white of the altar-cloth, and the flaming candles, shivering from a slight draught, and above the crucifix the Christ in his purple robes, smiling his changeless smile.

Within the chancel, through the carving of the rood-screen, she saw the flutter of the white gowns of the choristers, and here and there the fair locks of a child.

Then the priest came to the middle of the altar, his figure softened by circles of incense, the sanctuary lamp burning above his head.

He sang the opening phrase of the Creed, and the choir joined in with a full, reverberating roll of male voices, while the heads of the people bowed.

Mariana did not leave her seat, but sat motionless, leaning against the pillar of stone.

From the first moment that she had seen him, wearing the honors of the creed he served, her heart had contracted with a throb of pain. This was his life, and what was hers? What had she that could recompense him for the sacrifice of the Eucharistic robes and the pride of the Cross?

He came slowly forward to the altar steps, his vestments defined against the carving of the screen, his face white beneath the darkness of his hair.

When the notices of the festivals and fasts were over, he lifted his head almost impatiently as he p.r.o.nounced the text, his rich voice rolling sonorously through the church:

"For who knoweth what is good for man in this life, all the days of his vain life which he spendeth as a shadow? For who can tell a man what shall be after him under the sun?"

And he spoke slowly, telling the people before him in new phrases the eternal truth--that it is good for a man to do right, and to leave happiness to take care of itself--the one great creed to which all religions and all nations have bowed. He spoke the rich phrases in his full, beautiful voice--spoke as he had spoken a hundred times to these same people--to all, save one.