The Moving Finger Part 24

She shivered a little. Her fingers were idly tapping the window-sill.

Her thoughtful eyes were clouded with trouble. He stood over her, absorbed in the charm of her presence, the sensuous charm of watching her slim, exquisite figure, the poise of her head, the delicate coloring of her cheeks, the tremulous human lips, which seemed somehow to humanize the spirituality of her expression. They had talked so much that day of a new science. Saton felt his heart sink as he realized that he was the victim of a greater thing than science could teach. It was madness!--sheer, irredeemable madness! But it was in his blood. It was there to be reckoned with.

"It is all very wonderful," she continued thoughtfully. "And yet, can you understand what I mean when I say that it makes me feel a trifle hysterical? It is as though something had been poured into one which was too great, too much for our capacity. It is all true, I believe, but I don't want it to come."

"Why not?" he asked.

"Oh! It seems somehow," she answered, "as though the whole balance of life would be disturbed. Of course, I know that it is feasible enough.

For thousands of years men and women lived upon the earth, and never dreamed that all around them existed a great force which only needed a little humoring, a little understanding, to do the work of all the world. Oh, it is easy to understand that we too carry with us some psychical force corresponding to this! One feels it so often.

Premonitions come and go. We can't tell why, but they are there, and they are true. One feels that sense at work at strange times.

Experiments have already shown us that it exists. But I wonder what sort of a place the world will be when once it has yielded itself to law."

"There has never been a time," Saton said thoughtfully, "when knowledge has not been for the good of man."

She shook her head.

"I wonder," she said, "whether we realize what is for our good.

Knowledge, development, culture, may reach their zenith and pa.s.s beyond. We may become debauched with the surfeit of these things. The end and aim of life is happiness."

"The end and aim of life," he contradicted her, "is knowledge."

She laughed.

"I am a woman, you see," she said thoughtfully.

"And am I not a man?" he whispered.

She turned her head and looked at him. The trouble in her eyes deepened. She felt the color coming and going in her cheeks. His eyes seemed to stir things in her against which her whole physical self rebelled. She rose abruptly to her feet.

"I must go," she said. "I have a thousand things to do this evening."

"To play at, you mean," he corrected her. "You don't really do very much, do you? The women don't in your world."

"You are polite," she answered lightly. "Please to show me the way out."

"In a moment," he said.

She was inclined to rebel. They had moved a little from the window, and were standing in a darker part of the room. She felt his fingers upon her wrist. She would have given the world to have been able to wrench it away, but she could not. She stood there submissively, her breath coming quickly, her eyes compelled to meet his.

"Stay for a moment longer," he begged. "I want to talk to you for a little while about this."

"There is no time now," she said hurriedly. "It is an inexhaustible subject."

"Inexhaustible indeed," he answered, with an enigmatic laugh.

She read his thoughts. She knew very well what was in his mind, what was almost on his lips, and she struggled to be free of him.

"Mr. Saton," she said, "I am sorry--but you must really let me go."

He did not move.

"It is very hard to let you go," he murmured. "Can't you--don't you realize a little that it is always hard for me to see you go--to see you leave the world where we have at least interests in common, to go back to a life of which I know so little, a life in which I have so small a part, a life which is scarcely worthy of you, Pauline?"

Again she felt a sort of physical impotence. She struggled desperately against the loss of nerve power which kept her there. She would have given anything in the world to have left him, to have run out of the room with a little shriek, out into the streets and squares she knew so well, to breathe the air she had known all her life, to escape from this unknown emotion. She told herself that she hated the man whose will kept her there. She was sure of it. And yet--!

"I do not understand you," she said, "and I must, I really must go.

Can't you see that just now, at any rate, I don't want to understand?"

she added, fighting all the time for her words. "I want to go. Please do not keep me here against my will. Do you understand? Let me go, and I will be grateful to you."

Somehow the strain seemed suddenly lightened. He was only a very ordinary, rather doubtful sort of person--a harmless but necessary part of interesting things. He had moved toward the door, which he was holding open for her to pa.s.s through.

"Thank you so much," she said, with genuine relief in her tone. "I have stayed an unconscionable time, and I found your Master delightful."

"You will come again?" he said softly. "I want to explain a little further what Naudheim was saying. I can take you a little further, even, than he did to-day."

"You must come and see me," she answered lightly. "Remember that after all the world has conventions."

He stepped back on to the doorstep after he had handed her into her carriage. She threw herself back amongst the cushions with something that was like a sob of relief. She had sensations which she could not a.n.a.lyze--a curious feeling of having escaped, and yet coupled with it a sense of something new and strange in her life, something of which she was a little afraid, and yet from which she would not willingly have parted. She told herself that she detested the house which she had left, detested the thought of that darkened room. Nevertheless, she was forced to look back. He was standing in the open doorway, from which the butler had discreetly retired, and meeting her eyes he bowed once more. She tried to smile unconcernedly, but failed. She looked away with scarcely a return of his greeting.

"Home!" she told the man. "Drive quickly."

Almost before her own door she met Rochester. The sight of him was somehow or other an immense relief to her. She fell back again in the world which she knew. She stopped the carriage and called to him.

"Come and drive with me a little way," she begged. "I am stifled. I want some fresh air. I want to talk to you. Oh, come, please!"

Rochester took the vacant seat by her side at once.

"What is it?" he asked gravely. "Tell me. You have had bad news?"

She shook her head.

"No!" she said. "I am afraid--that is all!"

CHAPTER XVIII

ROCHESTER'S ULTIMATUM

The Park into which they turned was almost deserted. Pauline stopped the carriage and got out.

"Come and walk with me a little way," she said to Rochester. "We will go and sit amongst that wilderness of empty chairs. I want to talk. I must talk to someone. We shall be quite alone there."

Rochester walked by her side, puzzled. He had never seen her like this.

"I suppose I am hysterical," she said, clutching at his arm for a moment as they pa.s.sed along the walk. "There, even that does me good.

It's good to feel--oh, I don't know what I'm talking about!" she exclaimed.