Pink Gods and Blue Demons Part 8

Loree, who had turned very white, sat staring at him, her lips slightly apart.

"Was _that_ Frederick Huffe?" she whispered at last. "That nice man who went away and never came back for the dance I had promised him?"

"My G.o.d! didn't you know?" exclaimed Dalkeith. "I _am_ sorry."

After he had gone she sat there a long time, very white and still. She was remembering acutely the lines of that pleasant, charming face, the satirical yet boyish blue eye behind the eye-gla.s.s, his gay and witty remarks, his zest for dancing. Yet all the while he was weary of life!

Death was at his elbow!

While she sat there meditating on the strangeness of men, and on the masks they year, concealing their true selves from the world, she saw an attendant approach the table where Mrs Cork was playing cards and hand her a telegram.

On reading it, Mrs Cork put down her cards and asked to be excused from the game. The words: "Bad News" were spoken in a calm voice, but as she pa.s.sed, Loree saw that her face was of a deadly pallor, haggard and wintry, with sombre eyes. No more was seen of her that day or the next.

The maids reported that her news seemed bad indeed and that she was prostrate, but no details transpired.

Loree longed miserably to go and condole, but dared not intrude upon one so bitterly offended with her. The next best thing seemed to be to try and explain and to ask for forgiveness. She spent the whole of an afternoon composing a penitent letter.

_Dear Mrs Cork_:--

I am so deeply sorry that you are offended with me. Please do not be.

It _was_ an impertinence on my part to put that note in your room, and I beg your pardon. But I did not do it out of any feeling except of pure friendliness and liking for you. Also, I had a reason for supposing that you were in need of money, and I thought it would be a nice way of spending the fifty pounds my husband had sent me for a birthday present by giving another woman a helping hand, just as I hope a woman would help me if ever I were in trouble.

Yours sincerely, Loraine Loree Temple.

She gave it to the maid for delivery and went down to dinner, though without the light heart a decent action should have ensured.

The fact that she had known the man who shot himself--danced, laughed, talked with him within half an hour of his desperate exit from the world obsessed her poignantly. She longed for something or some one to distract her from the sad memory, and with what relief did she find that Heseltine Quelch had returned, reappearing from nowhere as suddenly as he had gone. As she came down the stairs he, too, faultlessly groomed and debonair, crossed the hall. He was taking a pile of letters and telegrams from the hands of his man, but at sight of Loree he handed them back with the brief comment: "Put them in my room. I'll go through them later," and came straight to her, as the bee to the honey-flower.

As for her, after two dull, lonely days, the fire was lit once more, and the warmed herself and smiled in the glow of it. A certain recklessness entered into her, and she let his eyes enfold and caress her without the rebuke a woman knows so well how to introduce into her manner. After all, she said to herself, if he was so determined to hurt himself, why should she worry for him? People who go looking for scalps must expect scars. If she felt herself in danger, she could draw back and escape, as she had done that other night. What could he do but acquiesce? She was not in his power in any way. She had never given him encouragement to make a fool of himself. If he now mistook her very natural pleasure at having boredom relieved for any warmer feeling on her part, well--_tant pis_ for him! His blood was on his own head, and hers not the fault.

Thus she reasoned, justifying herself for once more plunging into the fascinating game, walking on the wild precipice, fluttering near the live wire on which _some_ women might meet disaster but to which she intended to remain invulnerable. The cruelty which so often comes with consciousness of power stirred her. She knew now that, though she felt the charm of Quelch, it would give her pleasure to punish him through his pa.s.sion for her. If she had seen that cold and resolute look on his face two evenings before, when he watched her tripping upstairs, she might not have been so sure of her power to punish.

They dined together. A gay and light-hearted pair of friends, so far as the world could see. Only they knew what secret currents were flashing and sparkling between them, fed by her alluring smiles and graces.

After coffee, he suggested the garden. It was very lovely out there amid the trees and wet roses. Loree resisted a little, yet it seemed safe enough within sound, almost within sight of the verandah, where several people loitered, smoking and gossiping.

But she kept to the clear, open paths, and it seemed politic now to infuse into her manner a tinge of coldness. Instantly, that grim resolute expression pa.s.sed over his face, but he said nothing, only bided his time, and when presently they came near a vine-laden pergola, he thrust an arm through hers and, with a suddenness that took her unawares, guided her into obscurity. Haughtily she disengaged herself, but, he remained facing her, standing between her and the hotel, and his words were arresting.

"You must stop fooling me, Loree. My love is too great to be blown hot upon one minute and cold the next."

"I don't think I understand--"

"Oh, beloved, you do! You know that I love you." His voice was of a tenderness indescribable. It played across her taut nerves like the bow on a violin.

"You must--be mad!" she faltered.

He smiled.

"Yes; a divine madness. You are touched with it, too."

"No! No!" she protested. He gave a short laugh and caught her in his arms, holding her close and kissing her rapidly and fiercely. She resisted, but he held her closer; she protested, but he drank the words off her lips. He swept her from her feet, holding her to his heart and taking his fill of her mouth, her eyes, her throat, her hair. It was as though a great wave of the sea had broken over her. She lost her voice, almost her senses, in the madness of the moment, but her heart knew fear and an agony of shame. At last he released her, and she leaned, like a flower broken in a storm, against the side of the pergola.

"How dare you! How dare you!" she breathed, white with anger.

"How dare I?" he said gently. "Oh, beloved one--lovely one--surely you have given the right!"

"Never! Never!" she denied pa.s.sionately.

He made a gesture to her breast, where something sparkled and shone. In her struggle to loose herself from his arms, the chain of diamonds had torn its way through the filmy tissue of her gown.

"Why, then, do you wear my jewels, Loree?"

There was a long silence after that. He stood looking at her with pleading eyes. She was like something carved and riven out of pallid marble.

"_Your_ jewels?" she whispered at last. "_Your_ jewels?"

He shrugged a little. His eyes did not lose their tenderness, but his smile was a little disdainful of the flashing chain.

"They are unworthy of your beauty, but you have done me the great honour to wear them."

Slowly her fingers felt for the stones and clasped them, her glance still in his.

"They are yours?" she murmured, still dazed and bewildered under the shock.

"No; yours, Loree, as all I have is yours. Only an earnest of things to come. You shall wreathe yourself in diamonds, the most beautiful the world has ever seen--as you yourself are and shall be the fairest jewel the world has ever seen, and mine."

"Your words are madness!" she stammered. "How can I be yours? I am a married woman."

"Oh, _that_!"--with a gesture and a scornful smile he brushed away marriage and every obstacle that stood between them.

"You are insane!" she insisted. "I never dreamed of such a thing. And how could I know that these were yours?" With a spurt of anger she added, "How dared you put them in my room?"

He only smiled tolerantly.

"You accepted them--and wore them."

"But--I did not know they were yours."

"Who then, loved one, did you think was showering almost priceless stones upon you?" he inquired with gentle irony.

"I--I don't know. I never thought about it at all. I just found them there--and though--" She broke down. It was true, but it sounded too puerile and childish.

"You thought that findings were keepings?" He laughed. "So they are, darling, as far as you are concerned. And for me, too, I have found you, and,"--his voice changed from laughter and became strong and soft and fierce--"by G.o.d, I mean to keep you!" As suddenly as before, he caught her to his breast. "You are mine, Loree, and I will hold you against the world. You are something I have been looking for all my life. Your beauty makes me--your eyes--your hair--it is wound round my heart. Ah--you don't know--women don't know--"

He was incoherent in his fierce pa.s.sion, and all the time he tore kisses from her lips, her hair. The fires she had played with and carelessly fed were loosed indeed, and raging to consume. Loraine Loree was getting all the thrills she had asked from life--and more! Powerless in his strong arms, hypnotised by the force of one who had always had his will of life, gone where he listed, taken what he wished, she knew now she could never save herself. There was no answering power in her to resist his. She was a frail branch in a whirlpool of strong currents, and the strength to survive was not in herself. She must be rescued.

But who would rescue her? She was alone, alone--and lost! At last, the white, forlorn stillness of her quieted his fierce heart and he loosed her gently.

"Forgive me, darling! Forgive me! Your loveliness, the sweetness of you drives me beyond myself. When will you come to me?"

"Come to you?" She looked dazed and strange, clinging to the pergola, staring at him.

"Come _with_ me. We will go away from here at once--to Europe--all over the world."