The Duchess of Wrexe Part 44

Although he was not touching her, it was as though she were chained to him. If he moved she felt that she must move with him and every motion that he made seemed to rouse some response in her.

She was aware, of course, as she was always aware with him, of the way that intimacy between them had moved since their last meeting. All her romantic evocation of life as she wanted it to be helped her to this. It was as though she said to herself, "Here at least is my true self free and dominant. I must make the most of it"--and yet, with that, something seemed to warn her that freedom too easily obtained carried at its heart disappointment. The ugly man-servant brought in tea and then disappeared. Breton moved about, waited upon her, then sat down closer to her, leaning forward and looking into her eyes.

It was part of his temperament that he should take her coming to him as an instant acknowledgment of the complete fulfilment of his wishes. He always saw life as the very rosiest of his dreams until it woke him to reality. He was ruled completely by the mood of the moment, and his one emotion now was that Rachel was divinely intended for him alone of all human beings--

But he could not wait.... He knew, by this time, that reflection was always a period of disappointment. He was unhappily made in that he yielded to his impulses of regret as eagerly as to his impulses of antic.i.p.ation--One mood followed so swiftly upon another that collision might seem inevitable.

They were, both of them, young enough to see life as something that would inevitably, in a short time, condemn them both to years of sterile monotony. Rachel indeed felt that she was already caught....

They must, both of them, therefore, make the best of their time.

"I _was_ so afraid," he repeated again, "lest something should have stopped you."

"I would have asked you to come to us, only I'm afraid that my husband still----"

"Oh! I quite understand."

"It's natural--Roddy's like that. If he wants to do a thing he doesn't care for anybody and just does it. But if nothing makes him especially want to do it, then he just takes other people's opinions. Now he might ask you suddenly to come and see us--simply because he took it into his head. Then n.o.body could stop him.... He's very obstinate."

She was rather surprised at herself for talking about Roddy. She had a curious feeling about him as though she were going on a journey and had just said good-bye to him and had a rather desolate choke in her throat because she wouldn't see him again for so long.

"Oh! but I'm glad you've come! If you knew the times and times when I've imagined this meeting--thought about it, pictured----"

She saw that his hand was trembling on the window-ledge--

"I oughtn't to have come, perhaps--But I don't know. I've felt so indignant at the way that grandmother is treating you. I wanted to _show_ you that I was indignant...."

"You don't know," he said, "what a help you've been to me already--You showed me the very first time that we met that you _did_ sympathize...."

His voice was tender, partly because her presence moved him so deeply and partly because the sympathy of anyone about his own affairs made him instantly full of sorrow for himself--When anyone said that they thought that he had been badly treated he always felt with an air of surprised discovery: "By Jove, I _have_ been having a bad time!"

"Yes--Wasn't it strange, that first meeting in Miss Rand's room? We seem to have known one another all our lives."

She looked at him. "That you should hate grandmamma so," she said, "was a great thing to me. I'd been all alone--fighting her--for so long."

Rachel felt, in the glow of the occasion, that, all her days, there had been active constant war-to-the-knife in the Portland Place house.

"She's been the curse of my life," he said bitterly. "Always keeping me down, making me unable to do myself justice. Why should she hate me so?"

"She hates us," cried Rachel, "because we're both determined to be free.

We wouldn't have our lives ruled for us. She wants everyone to be under her in _everything_."

They glowed together, very close to one another now, in a glorious a.s.sertion of rebellious independence. He put his hand upon the back of her chair--

"Now," he said, his voice trembling, "now that we've got to know one another, you won't go back on it, will you? If I couldn't feel that you were behind me, after being so encouraged, it would be terrible for me--worse than anything's ever been for me."

"You needn't be afraid," she said, not looking at him, but tremendously conscious of his hand that now touched her dress. Then there was a long and very difficult silence during which events seemed to move with terrific impetus.

She was overwhelmed by a mult.i.tude of emotions. She was past a.n.a.lysis of regret or antic.i.p.ation. Somewhere, very far away, there was Roddy, and somewhere--also very far away--there was her grandmother, but, for herself, she could only feel that she was very lonely, that n.o.body cared about her except Breton and that n.o.body cared about him except herself--and that she wanted urgently to be comforted and that he himself needed comfort from her.

She knew that if she were not very strong-minded and resolute she would cry; she could feel the tears burning her eyes.

"Perhaps I oughtn't to have come--Oh! it's all so difficult--with grandmother--and everything--I thought I could--could manage things, but I can't--We oughtn't--I wanted to do what was best. I--I didn't know--You----"

Then the tears came--She tried desperately to stop them, then they came rushing; she buried her head in her hands and abandoned herself to weeping that was partly sorrow for herself and partly sorrow for Breton and partly, in the strangest way, sorrow for Roddy.

He was on his knees by her chair, had his arm about her, was crying:

"Oh! Rachel--Rachel--Rachel--I love you. I love you--Don't cry--Don't--Rachel----" He kissed her again and again and she clung to him like a frightened child.

III

After a time her crying ceased, she got up from the chair, moving gently out of his embrace, and then went to the looking-gla.s.s above the fireplace and stood there wiping her eyes.

Then, smiling, she looked back at him--He was standing in front of the window and behind him the reflection, from the departed sun, flooded the town with gold. He seemed a man transformed, gazing upon her with an ecstasy of triumph, exaltation, happiness.

"My dear--my dear--Oh! how glorious you are!"

But she did not move.

He stirred impatiently, and then, looking at her with adoring eyes, he whispered, "Oh! my dear! but I love you!"

"I must go," she said, her eyes, large and frightened, appealingly upon him--

He smiled at her, his eyes laughing.

"Yes, Francis--let me--let me. Now while I can still see what I ought to do."

"There's only one thing that you ought to do. You belong to me now." She plucked nervously with her hands one against the other.

"Francis, let me go--please--please----" He saw then that she was unhappy and the laughter died from his eyes. His voice, fallen from its happiness, was almost harsh, as he replied--

"You know we love one another, have loved one another ever since that day when we met in Miss Rand's rooms? You know it as well as I do. You knew it when you came to these rooms to-day."

"I oughtn't to have come." Her voice had gathered strength. "It's only because I realize now what you are to me that I want to go. I thought I was so strong, that I could be fair to Roddy and to you too ... I didn't know----"

"Then stay--stay--" he whispered urgently. "It's a thing that you've got to face anyhow--We can't stay apart, you and I, now. We can try, but you know--you know as well as I--that we can't do it."

"We must--That's what I meant before. That's why I must go now, because soon I shan't be strong enough. But we've got to part--we've got to."

"Oh, this is absurd," he cried. "We're human beings, not figures to hang a theory on--Now just as we realize what we are to one another----"

"Yes, because of that," she broke in swiftly, urgently. "You know that I love you--I know that you love me. We've got that knowledge that nothing can take away from us--and we've got the love--nothing can touch it. But my duty is with Roddy."

"You knew that," he said, "when you came here to-day."

Her face flamed--"That's not fair of you, Francis."