Sally Bishop Part 58

This is the true nature of the sensualist. Woman or man, whatever s.e.x, you may know them by their feline delight in the procrastination of the moment. It is an evolution of the intellect. The raw, unbridled forces of nature have no dealings with such as these. They are people of pleasure. They have taken the gifts that Nature has offered and, with the subtle cunning of their minds, have torn the inviolable parchment of her laws to shreds before her face. With no inheritance of the intellect, Devenish possessed all the other qualities.

Sensualist as he was, with that strain of refinement induced by the easy circ.u.mstances of life, the paid women disgusted him. Of mere animalism, he had none. Here in this widest essential, his nature marked its contrast with Traill. To admit the beast in every man would have been beyond him; simply because the admission of a generalization such as that, would most directly have implied himself. In Traill's concession of it, such an admission may easily be read. And this is the type of man, such as Devenish, most dangerous to society.

If the threadbare hypocrisy of this country of England could but bring itself to don the acknowledgment that the hired woman has her place in the scheme of things, such men as Devenish would find the virtuous woman more closely guarded from their strategies than she is.

When her first song was finished, Sally turned in her chair, laughing frankly to his eyes.

"You needn't suffer on account of your pa.s.sion for music by having to criticize," she said. "I know it was awful."

He crossed the room to her side. "As you like," he said, bringing his eyes full to hers. "You can call it anything you please--but I want some more." He picked up the pieces of music that lay on the top of the piano. "Do you sing that song out of the Persian Garden--Beside the Shalimar? I forget the words of it?"

Her fingers ran through the pile of music. "'Pale Hands I Loved.'

Is that it?" She lifted her face and looked up at him.

"Yes--yes--sing that!"

"I'm afraid I haven't got the music--can't play without the music."

He drew a deep breath. "That's a pity," he said.

"Well--listen--I'll sing this."

She placed the music before her on the rest, and with one hand on the back of her chair, the other resting on the piano, he bent over her, eyes wandering from the gold of her hair to the parting of her lips as she sang. It was just such a song as he had asked for; filled with the abandoned sentimentalism of decadent pa.s.sion--

"Lord of my life, than whom none other shareth The deep, red, silent wine that fills my soul-- Take thou and drain, till not one drop remaineth To wet thy lips--then turn thou down the bowl.

"Lord of my heart--this boon I crave--this only, That all my worth may be possessed by thee; Make thou my life a chalice, drained, that lonely Stands on the altar of Eternity."

She looked up at him as her fingers wandered to the final chord. His lips were set in a thin line, and he was breathing quickly.

"Why did you sing that?" he asked.

She blindly shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know--why shouldn't I?

The music's a good deal nicer than the words, I think. Don't you find the words are rather silly? They are of most songs, I think."

"And you call that silly," he said. "I suppose it's a woman's song--but, my G.o.d! do you know I could sing that to you?"

His arm was round her then, dragging her towards him in a lithe grip, the fierce strength of which she too well understood. She struggled, breathing heavily, for her freedom; but he caught her face in his hand, dragged it to his lips and covered her with kisses.

Then she broke free, rising to her feet, overturning the chair behind her, pushing back the disordered hair from her forehead.

"How dare you!" she breathed.

Countless women have said it, in countless moments similar to this.

And with it, often, seeing all the circ.u.mstances that have led up to it in their different light, comes the knowledge--as it came also to Sally--the understanding of how the man has dared. Recklessness had led her. In her heart, she blamed herself. She might have known men now; known them from her knowledge at least of one man.

Undoubtedly she was to blame, taking everything into account--the defencelessness of her position, the fact that he had known of her relationship with Traill and its termination; yet her eyes flamed with contempt as they met his.

"Your hat is over on that chair." she said presently in a strident voice. "Will you go?"

He crossed the room quietly--no want of composure--and picked it up.

"Would you rather I didn't come and see you again?" he asked, brushing the hat casually with his sleeve.

"I never want to see you again!" she exclaimed.

He smiled amiably. "Don't you think you're rather foolish?"

"Foolish!"

"Yes--the unmarried man who keeps a woman is bound to leave her some time or other--that's not half as likely to be the case with--"

"What do you mean?" She was white to the lips.

He looked puzzled. "I'm afraid I can't understand you," he said.

She tried to answer him, but the words mingled in a stammering of confusion before she could utter them.

"You don't think there's a chance of Traill coming back to you, do you?" he went on. "I shouldn't be here, I a.s.sure you, if there were."

Sally's knees trembled with weakness. An overwhelming nausea shook her till she shuddered.

"Did he tell you to come here?" she whispered.

"Heavens, no! I don't suppose he'd do that. He wouldn't do a thing like that. But I'm pretty sure he's in love with that Miss Standish-Roe--the beautiful Coralie. He knows it. He won't admit it; but I'm certain he is, and I rather think I'd better open his eyes a little."

That last remark did not fall within her understanding. She took no notice of it.

"And so you came here of your own accord?"

"Yes--why not? I had an apparently erroneous idea that you liked me.

When you let me come back here after dinner, I was sure of it. I saw no reason why we shouldn't get along together just as well as you and Traill did."

"Oh!" she exclaimed, and she hid her face in her hand.

"Oh yes--I see my mistake by this time," he said easily. All pa.s.sion was cooled in him now. "I'm sorry. There was no intention of insulting you in my mind." He moved to the door. "I--I thought you understood it."

Sally dropped into a chair, her face still covered; shame--the deepest sense of it--beating through all her pulses.

"Well--I must only hope you'll excuse my--my ignorance of women, though I must admit you're a bit different to the rest. Well--I suppose I'd better say good night, then."

She heard him take the step forward. She could see in her mind the hand held out, but she did not look up. He turned again to the door.

She heard it open. She heard it close. She heard his footsteps slowly descending the stairs. And still she sat there with her face close-buried in her hands.

CHAPTER IV