The Man and the Moment Part 11

Sabine did not contradict him; she never was conventional, denying truths for the sake of diffidence or politeness. Moravia was beautiful and charming, but it was true she had not 'it.'

"I think it applies more to men than to women," was all she said.

"You were thinking of a man, then, when you spoke?"

"Yes--I was thinking of a man--but it is not an interesting subject."

Lord Fordyce decided that it was, but he did not continue it.

"I want you to tell me all about Heronac," he requested, "and what charmed you in it enough to make you buy it suddenly like that. How did you come upon it?"

"I had just arrived from America, at the end of July of 1908--four years ago--and I found, when I got to Cherbourg, that I could not join my friend, the Princess, as I had intended, because her husband had taken her off to his country place near Naples. So I hired a motor and wandered down into Brittany alone. I wanted to be alone. I was motoring along, when a violent storm came on, furious rain and wind, and just at the worst and weirdest moment, I pa.s.sed Heronac, which is a few hundred yards from the edge of the present village. It stands out in the sea on a great spur of rock, entirely separated from the main land by a deep chasm about thirty feet wide, over which there was then a broken bridge which had once been a drawbridge. It was a huge, grim ruin with only a few roofed rooms, built in about the thirteenth century originally, and of course added to and modernized. The house actually standing within the great towers is of the date of Louis XIV. It stood there, a dark ma.s.s, defying the storm, although the huge waves splashed right up to the windows."

"It sounds repellent."

"It was--fierce and grim and repellent, and it suited my mood--so I stopped at the Inn, my old maid Simone and I, and I got permission to go and see it. The landlord of the Inn had the keys. The last of the Heronacs drank himself to death with absinthe in Paris, so the place was closed, and was no doubt for sale. '_Mais oui!_' he told us. Simone was terrified to cross the wretched bridge, with the water swirling beneath, and we left her to go back to the Inn, while the landlord's son came with me. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon, and was a most extraordinary day, for now it began to thunder and lighten."

"I wonder you were not afraid."

"I am never afraid--I tell you, it suited me. There was still some furniture in the roofed part of the inner court, and in the two great towers which flank the main building--but in that the roof was off, but the view from the windows when we crept along to them across the broken floor was too superb, straight out to the ocean, the waves thundering at the base. I made up my mind that night I would buy it if I could--and, as I told you before, I did so in the following week."

"How quaint of you!"

"It has been the greatest delight to me, and, as you will see, I have done something with it. I restored the center, and have made its arrangements modern and comfortable, but have left that one huge room on the first floor as it was, only with the roof mended. I spend hours and hours in the deep window embrasures looking right over the sea. It has taught me more of the meaning of things than all my books."

"You speak as though you were an old woman," Lord Fordyce exclaimed, "and you look only a mere child now--then, when you bought this brigand's stronghold, you must have been in the nursery!"

"I was over eighteen!"

"A colossal age! it was simply ridiculous for you to be wanting dark castles and solitude. What--?" and then he paused; he did not continue his question.

"I was really very old--I had been old for almost a year."

"And do you mean to remain old always, or will you ever let anyone teach you to be young?"

Sabine looked away into the somber fir trees. They had got to a part of the path where the woods on either side are black as night in their depths.

"I--don't--know," she said, very low.

Lord Fordyce moved nearer to her.

"I wish you would let me try to take away all those somber thoughts I see sometimes in those sweet eyes."

"How would you begin?"

"By loving you very much--and then by trying to make you love me."

"Does love take away dark thoughts, then--or does it bring them?"

"That depends upon the love," he told her, eagerly. "When it is great enough to be unselfish, it must bring peace and happiness, surely----"

"They are good things--they are harmony--but----"

"Yes--what are the buts?" his voice trembled a little.

"Love seems to me to be a wild thing, a raging, tearing pa.s.sion--Can it ever be just tender and kind?"

"I wish you would let me prove to you that it can."

She looked into his face gravely, and there was nothing but honest question in her violet eyes.

"To what end?" she asked.

"I would like you to marry me." He had said it now when he had not intended to yet, and he was pale as death.

She shrank from him a little.

"But surely you know that I am not free!"

"I hoped I--believed that you can make yourself so--if you knew how I love you! I have never really loved any woman before in my life. I always thought they should be only recreations--but the moment I saw you, my whole opinions changed."

She grew troubled.

"I wish you had not said this to me," she faltered. "I--do not know that I wish to change my life. I could, of course, be free, I suppose--if I wanted to be--but--I am not sure. What would it mean if I listened to you? Tell me! I am sometimes very lonely--and I like you so much."

"I want to make you feel more than that, but I will be content with whatever you will give me. I do not care one atom what dark page is in your past, I know it can have been nothing of your own fault, and if it were, I should not care--I only care for you--Sabine--will you not tell me that you will try to let me make you happy. It would mean that, that I should devote my whole life to making you happy."

"A woman should be contented with that, surely," she said. And if Henry Fordyce had had his usual critical wits about him unclouded by love, he would have smiled his cynical smile and have said to himself:

"The spark is not lit, my friend; her voice lacks enthusiasm and her brows are calm," but he was like all lovers--blind--and only saw and heard what could comfort his heart, and so caught at the straw with delight.

"Whatever you asked I would give you. Only say that you will let me set about helping you to be free at once."

Mrs. Howard, however, had not gone this far in her imaginings--the idea had started in her brain, no doubt, but it had not matured yet, and all was hesitancy.

"I cannot promise anything. You must give me time to think, Lord Fordyce."

"Dearest, of course I will--but you will take steps to make yourself free--will you not? I have not asked, and I will not ask you a single question, only that you will tell me when I really may hope."

His voice was deep with feeling, and his distinguished, clever face was eager and full of devotion, as they turned an abrupt corner, and there came face to face with two of their American acquaintances in the hotel.

"Isn't this a charming walk, Mrs. Howard," and "Yes, isn't it!" and bows and pa.s.sings on; but it broke the current, destroyed the spell, and released some spirit of mischief in Sabine's heart, for she would not be grave for another second. She made Henry promise he would just amuse her and not refer again to those serious topics unless she gave him leave. And he, accustomed to go his own way unhampered by the caprices of the gentle s.e.x, agreed!--so under the dominion of love had he become!

for a woman, too, who in herself combined three things he had always disliked. She was an American, she was very young, and she had an equivocal position. But the little G.o.d does not consult the individual before he shoots his darts, and punishes the most severely those who have denied his power.

By the time they had reached the Savoy, Sabine, with that apt.i.tude, though it was perfectly unconscious in her, which is the characteristic of all her countrywomen, had reduced Lord Fordyce to complete subjection, so that he was ready to do any mortal thing in the world for her, and willing to grasp suggestions of hope upon any terms.

She gave him a friendly smile, and disappeared up the stairs to their sitting-room--there to find Moravia indulging in nerves.

"I just want to scream, darling!" that lady said, and Sabine patted her hands.