The Hillman Part 17

She looked at him curiously and then down at her rose-stained fingers.

"That does not sound quite like you," she said. "And yet I ought to know that sometimes you do feel things, even though you show it so little. I am sorry, Eugene."

"Why are you sorry?"

"Because I feel that I cannot take that journey."

"You mean that you cannot now, or that you cannot at any time?"

"I do not know," she answered. "You ask me more than I can tell you.

Sometimes life seems so stable, a thing one can make a little chart of and hang up on the wall, and put one's finger here and there--'To-day I will do this, to-morrow I will feel that'--and the next morning comes and the chart is in the fire. I wish I understood myself a little better, Eugene!"

"Self-understanding is the rarest of all gifts," the prince remarked.

"It is left for those who love us to understand us."

"And you?"

"I believe that I understand you better, far better, than you understand yourself," he declared. "That is why I also believe that I am necessary to you. I can prevent your making mistakes."

"Then prevent me," she begged. "Something has happened, and the chart is in the fire to-day."

"You have only," he said, "to give your maid her orders, to give me this little hand, and I will draw out a fresh one which shall direct to the place in life which is best for you. It is not too late."

She rose from beside him and walked toward the fireplace, as if to touch the bell. He watched her with steady eyes but expressionless face. There was something curious about her walk. The spring had gone from her feet, her shoulders were a little hunched. It was the walk of a woman who goes toward the things she fears.

"Stop!" he bade her.

She turned and faced him, quickly, almost eagerly. There was a look in her face of the prisoner who finds respite.

"Leave the bell alone," he directed. "My own plans are changed. I do not wish to leave London this week."

Her face was suddenly brilliant, her eyes shone. Something electric seemed to quiver through her frame. She almost danced back to her place by his side.

"How foolish!" she murmured. "Why didn't you say so at once?"

"Because," he replied, "they have only been changed during the last few seconds. I wanted to discover something which I have discovered."

"To discover something?"

"That my time has not yet come."

She turned away from him. She was oppressed with a sense almost of fear, a feeling that he was able to read the very thoughts forming in her brain; to understand, as no one else in the world could understand, the things that lived in her heart.

"I must not keep you," he remarked, glancing at the clock. "It was very late for me to call, and you will be wanting to join your friends."

"They are coming here for me," she explained. "There is really no hurry at all. We are not changing anything. It is to be quite a simple evening. Sometimes I wish that you cared about things of that sort, Eugene."

He blew through his lips a little cloud of smoke from the cigarette which he had just lit.

"I do not fancy," he replied, "that I should be much of a success as a fourth in your little expedition."

"But it is silly of you not to visit Bohemia occasionally," she declared, ignoring the meaning that lay beneath his words. "It is refreshing to rub shoulders with people who feel, and who show freely what they feel; to eat their food, drink their wine, even join in their pleasures."

The prince shook his head.

"I am not of the people," he said, "and I have no sympathy with them. I detest the _bourgeoisie_ of every country in the world--my own more particularly."

"If you only knew how strangely that sounds!" she murmured.

"Does it?" he answered. "You should read my family history, read of the men and women of my race who were butchered at the hands of that drunken, l.u.s.tful mob whom lying historians have glorified. I am one of those who do not forget injuries. My estates are administered more severely than any others in France. No penny of my money has ever been spent in charity. I neither forget nor forgive."

She laughed a little nervously.

"What an unsympathetic person you can be, Eugene!"

"And for that very reason," he replied, "I can be sympathetic. Because I hate some people, I have the power of loving others. Because it pleases me to deal severely with my enemies, it gives me joy to deal generously with my friends. That is my conception of life. May I wish you a pleasant evening?"

"You are going now?" she asked, a little surprised.

He smiled faintly as he raised her fingers to his lips. She had made a little movement toward him, but he took no advantage of it.

"I am going now."

"When shall I see you again?" she inquired, as she came back from ringing the bell.

"A telephone-message from your maid, a line written with your own fingers," he said, "will bring me to you within a few minutes. If I hear nothing, I may come uninvited, but it will be when the fancy takes me.

Once more, Louise, a pleasant evening!"

He pa.s.sed out of the door, which the parlor maid was holding open for him. Crossing to the window, Louise watched him leave the house and enter his waiting automobile. He gave no sign of haste or disappointment. He lit another cigarette deliberately upon the pavement and gave his orders to the chauffeur with some care.

As the car drove off without his having once glanced up at the window, she shivered a little. There was a silence which, it seemed to her, could be more minatory even than accusation.

XI

The little room was gaudily decorated and redolent with the lingering odors of many dinners. Yet Louise, who had dined on the preceding evening at the Ritz and been bored, whose taste in food and environment was almost hypercritical, was perfectly happy. She found the cuisine and the Chianti excellent.

"We are outstaying every one else," she declared; "and I don't even mind their awful legacy of tobacco-smoke. Do you see that the waiter has brought you the bill, Mr. Strangewey? Prepare for a shock. It is fortunate that you are a millionaire!"

John laughed as he paid the bill and ludicrously overtipped the waiter.

"London must be a paradise to the poor man!" he exclaimed. "I have never dined better."

"Don't overdo it," Sophy begged.