Phyllis of Philistia Part 16

"Oh, my G.o.d!"

He had sprung to his feet and was pacing the room before her.

"You say that you want me. Oh, my love, my love, do you fancy for a moment that your longing for me is anything to be compared to my longing for you?"

"My beloved, my beloved!"

His arms were about her. His lips were upon hers. She kissed him as he kissed her.

Then she turned her head away so that his kisses fell upon her cheek instead of her mouth. She turned it still farther and they fell upon her neck--it was exquisite in its shape--and lay there like red rose-leaves clinging to a carved marble pillar.

"Wait," she said. "Wait; let me talk to you."

She untwined his arms from about her--the tears were still in her eyes as she tried to face him.

"Why should you still have tears?" said he. "If anything stood between us and love, there might be room for tears, but nothing stands between us now. I am yours, you are mine."

"That is the boast of a man who sees only the beginning of a love; mine are the tears of a woman who sees its end, and knows that it is not far off."

"How can you say that? The end? the end of love such as ours? Oh, Ella!"

"Oh, listen to me, my love! I am ashamed of the part I have played during the past six months--since we were together on the Arno, and you are ashamed, too."

"I am not ashamed. I have no reason to be ashamed."

"No; you are not ashamed of the part you have played; but you are ashamed of me, Bertie."

"Oh you? I--ashamed of you? Oh, my darling, if you talk longer in that strain I will be ashamed of you."

"You are ashamed of me--I have sometimes felt it. A man with a heart such as I know yours to be, cannot but be ashamed of a woman, who, though the wife of another man, allows him to kiss her--yes, and who gives him kiss for kiss. Oh, go away--go away! I have had enough of your love--enough of your kisses, enough shame! Go away! I never wish to see you again--to kiss you again."

She had walked to the other end of the room, and stood under a Venetian mirror--it shone like a monstrous jewel above her head--looking at him, her hands clenched, her eyes flashing through the tears that had not yet fallen.

He had had no experience of women and their moods, and he was consequently amazed at her att.i.tude. He took a step toward her.

"No--no," she cried angrily. "I will not have any more of you. I tell you that I have had enough. I find now that what I mistook for love was just the opposite. I believe that I hate you. No--no, Bertie, not that, it cannot be that, only----Oh, I know now that it is not hate for you that I feel--it is hate for myself, hate for the creature who is hateful enough to stand between you and the happiness which you have earned by patience, by constancy, by self-control. Yes, I hate the creature who is idiotic enough to put honor between us, to put religion between us, to put her soul's salvation between us."

"Ella, Ella, why will you not trust me?" he said, when she had flung herself into a chair. He was standing over her with his hands clasped behind him. He was beginning to understand something of her nature; of the nature of the woman to whom love has come as a thief in the night.

He was beginning to perceive that she had, in her ignorance, been ready to entertain love without knowing what was entailed by entertaining him.

"If you would only trust me, all would be well."

She almost leaped from her chair.

"Would it?" she cried. "Would all be well? Would it be well with my soul? Would it be well with both of us in the future? Would it be well with my husband?"

He laughed.

"I know your husband," he said.

"And I know him, too," said she. "He cares for me no more than I care for him, but he has never been otherwise than kind to me. I think of him--I think of him. I know the name that men give to the man who tries to make his friend's wife love him. It is not my husband who has earned that name, Mr. Courtland."

He looked into her face, but he spoke no word. Even he--the lover--was beginning to see, as in a gla.s.s, darkly, something of the conflict that was going on in the heart of the woman before him. She had uttered words against him, and they had stung him, and yet he had a feeling that, if he had put his arms about her again, she would have held him close to her as she had done before; she would have given him kiss for kiss as she had done before. It is the decree of nature that the lover shall think of himself only; but had he not told Phyllis that his belief was that Nature and Satan were the same? He was sometimes able to say, "_Retro me, Sathana_"--not always. He said it now, but not boldly, not loudly--in a whisper. The best way of putting Satan behind one is to run away from him. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Yes, but, on the whole, it is safer to show him a clean pair of heels than to enter on an argument with him, hoping that he will be amenable to logic.

Herbert Courtland said his, "_Retro me_," in a whisper, half hoping, as the gentlewoman with the m.u.f.fins for sale hoped, that he would escape notice. For a few moments he ceased to think of himself. He thought of that beautiful thing before him--she was tall, and her rosy white flesh was as a peach that has reached its one hour of ripeness--he thought of her and pitied her.

He had not the heart to put his arms about her, though he knew that to do so would be to give him all the happiness for which he longed. What was he that he should stand by and see that struggle tearing her heart asunder?

"My poor child!" said he, and then he repeated his words, "My poor child! It would have been better if we had never come together. We are going to part now."

She looked at him and laughed in his face.

He did not know what this meant. Had she been simply acting a part all along? Had she been playing a comedy part all the while he was thinking that a great tragedy was being enacted? Or was it possible that she was mocking him? that her laugh was the laugh of the jailer who hears a prisoner announce his intention of walking out of his cell?

"Good-by," said he.

She fixed her eyes upon his face, then she laughed again.

He now knew what she meant by her laugh.

"Perhaps you may think that you have too firm a hold upon me to give me a chance of parting from you," said he. "You may be right; but if you tell me to go I shall try and obey you. But think what it means before you tell me to leave you forever."

She did think what it meant. She looked at him, and she thought of his pa.s.sing away from her forever more. She wondered what her life would be when he should have pa.s.sed out of it. A blank? Oh, worse than a blank, for she would have ever present with her the recollection of how he had once stood before her as he was standing now--tall, with his brown hands clenched, and a paleness underlying the tan of his face. "The bravest man alive"--that was what Phyllis had called him, and Phyllis had been right. He was a man who had fought his way single-handed through such perils as made those who merely read about them throb with anxiety.

This was the man of whom she knew that she would ever retain a memory--this was the man whom she was ready to send back to the uttermost ends of the earth.

And this was to be the reward of his devotion to her! What was she that she could do this thing? What was she that she should refrain from sacrificing herself for him? She had known women who had sacrificed themselves to men--such men! Wretched things! Not like that man of men who stood before her with such a look on his face as it had worn, she knew, in the most desperate moments of his life, when the next moment might bring death to him--death from an arrow--from a wild beast--from a hurricane.

What could she do?

She did nothing.

She made no effort to save herself.

If he had put his arms about her and had carried her away from her husband's house to the uttermost ends of the earth, she would not have resisted. It was not in her power to resist.

And it was because he saw this he went away, leaving her standing with that lovely Venetian mirror glittering in silver and ruby and emerald just above her head.

"You have been right; I have been wrong," said he. "Don't try to speak, Ella. Don't try to keep me. I know how you love me, and I know that if I ask you to keep me you will keep me until you die. Forgive me for my selfishness, my beloved. Good-by."

She felt him approach her and she felt the hands that he laid upon her bare shoulders--one on each side of her neck. She closed her eyes as he put his face down to hers and kissed her on the mouth--not with rapturous, pa.s.sionate lips, but still with warm and trembling lips. She did not know where the kiss ended, she did not know when his hands were taken off her shoulders. She kept her eyes closed and her mouth sealed.

She did not even give him a farewell kiss.

When she opened her eyes she found herself alone in the room.

And then there came to her ears the sound of the double whistle for a hansom. She stood silently there listening to the driving up of the vehicle--she even heard the sound of the closing of the ap.r.o.n and then the tinkling of the horse's bells dwindling into the distance.

A sense of loneliness came to her that was overwhelming in its force.

"Fool! fool! fool!" she cried, through her set teeth. "What have I done?

Sent him away? Sent him away? My beloved!--my best beloved--my man of men. Gone--gone! Oh, fool! fool!"