The Point of View Part 11

But Stella was still pouting--and got up restlessly and went to the window.

"What can they do when they get to the Emba.s.sy?" she asked. "Could they really take me back if they found me by telephoning round?"

"I do not think so--if you are past twenty-one."

"I was twenty-one in April. I am not a bit afraid of them, but I do not want to have any row."

"When my sister has arrived you must write to your aunt, and tell where you are and what are your intentions, then all will be finished."

"Oh, I wish she would come, don't you?" Stella said.

"More than I can say, darling," he answered, fervently. "You will not, I hope, find me so incomprehensible then."

He walked about the room once or twice, and at last paused in front of her.

"Stella," he whispered, while his eyes blazed again, "I cannot bear it, little sweetheart, to stay all alone with you here. Will you forgive me, if I leave you until Anastasia has arrived? Go and rest in your room, darling, and I will go to the station to meet her. Ivan will remain outside your door and you will be quite safe."

But Stella put out her hands like a frightened baby.

"Oh. must you leave me?" she cried, pettishly. "You are very cruel! You make me almost wish I had not come."

From having swum with love and pa.s.sion his eyes suddenly gave forth a flash of steel, and his voice was like ice as he answered:

"If that is so, mademoiselle, it is not too late. I would not exact any unwilling sacrifice. Shall I take you back again?"

And then Stella's childishness melted and fell from her, and she became a real woman as she looked into his stern face.

"No--" she said, "I will not go back. I am sorry I was so uncontrolled, but I am nervous--and I do not know exactly what I am--Sasha, please take care of me," and she held out her hands with a piteous gesture of asking for his protection, and moved beyond all power of further control he folded her in his arms.

"My darling, my darling!" he murmured, frantically kissing her hair.

But his iron will rea.s.serted itself in a few seconds, and while he still held her he said with more calm:

"Little star, you must never speak to me like that again, as you did just now, I mean. It was unreasonable and not kind, if you but knew!

And I have a very arrogant temper, I fear, although I am nearly master of it, and shall be quite in time, I hope. We might have parted then and spoilt both our lives. Won't you believe me that I love--I adore you!" he went on tenderly. "I am madly longing to be for you the most pa.s.sionate lover a woman ever had. It is only for your sake and for honor and our future happiness that I restrain myself now. You see I am not an Englishman who can accept half-measures. Do not make it impossible for me, sweet love!"

His voice was almost a sob in its deep notes of pleading, and Stella was touched.

"Oh! you are so dear and great," she answered fondly. "I am perhaps very wicked to have tempted you. If it would be wrong for you to kiss me, which I cannot understand, it is--oh, it is because I love you like that, too!"

At this ingenuous admission, pa.s.sion nearly overcame him again, and he held her so tightly it seemed as if he must crush out her very breath.

Then he put her from him and walked toward the door.

"I dare not stay another second," he said, in a strangled voice. "Ivan will guard your room, and my sister will come to you soon. Do as I tell you, beloved one, and then all will be well."

With which he opened the door, and left her standing by the sofa quivering with a strange joy and perplexity--and some other wild emotion of which she had not dreamed.

CHAPTER VIII

It seemed an endless time the hour that she waited in her room, and then a knock came to the door, and Ivan's voice saying his master desired her presence in the sitting-room at once, and she hurriedly went there to find Count Roumovski standing by the mantelpiece looking very grave.

"Stella," he said, "there has been an accident to the train my sister was to have arrived by--it is not serious, but she cannot be here now until the early morning perhaps--unless I send the automobile to Viterbo for her. The line is blocked by a broken-down goods train which caused the disaster," he paused a moment, and Stella said, "Well?"

rather anxiously.

"It will be impossible for us to remain here," he continued, "because it may be that your relations, aided by the Emba.s.sy, will have traced us before then, and if they should come upon us alone together, nothing that I could say or prove could keep the situation from looking compromising,"--he now spoke with his old calm, and Stella felt her confidence reviving. He would certainly arrange what was best for them, she could rely upon that.

"What must we do then?" she asked gently, while she put her head on the sleeve of his coat.

"I will wrap you up in the fur cloak, darling," he said, "and you must come in the automobile with me to meet Anastasia. Your family must not find you again until your are in my sister's company. We ought to start at once."

It spoke eloquently for the impression which he had been able to create in Stella's imagination of his integrity and reliability, for the thought never entered her brain that it was a most unusual and even hazardous undertaking to start out into the night in a foreign land with a stranger she had not yet known for a week. But that was the remarkable thing about his personality; it conveyed always an atmosphere of trust and confidence.

It was not long before Miss Rawson was ready, wrapped in the long gray cloak she had worn before, and with the veil tied over her hat, and was descending in the lift alone with Ivan--her lover having gone on by the stairs.

Their departure was managed with intelligence. Stella and the servant simply walking out of the hotel and down the street to where the car waited, and then presently Count Roumovski joined them, and they started.

"Ivan will remain behind to answer any questions if the reverend clergyman and your aunt do come," he said, when they were seated in the car in the settling sunlight. "And now, sweetheart, we can enjoy our drive."

Stella felt deliciously excited, all the exultation of adventure thrilling her, and the joy of her lover's presence. She cared not where they were going, it was all heaven.

"We shall stop at a little restaurant for some dinner," he said, "it will be rather bad, but we must not mind, it would not have been wise to risk any well-known place," and soon they drew up at a small cafe on the outskirts of Rome, where there were a few people already seated at little tables under the trees. They were all Italians, and took no notice of the Russian and his lady.

It was the greatest amus.e.m.e.nt to them both, this primitive place, and to be all alone ordering their first meal together, and Sasha Roumovski exerted himself to charm and please her. He had recovered complete mastery of himself, it would seem, and his manner, while tenderly devoted, had an air of proprietorship which affected Stella exceedingly.

They spent an enchanting half hour, as gay as two children, with all the exquisite under-current of love in their talk; and then they got into the motor again.

"Let us have it open," Count Roumovski said. "The evening drive will be divine."

And Stella agreed.

The road to Viterbo is far from good, one of those splendid routes which lead from Rome which ought to be so perfect and in reality are a ma.s.s of ruts and pitfalls for the unwary. The jolting of the car constantly threw Stella almost into her lover's arms, who was sitting as aloof as possible. He had gradually become nearly silent, and sat there holding her hand under the rug, using the whole of his strong will to suppress his rising emotion.

The beautiful colors of the lights of evening over the Campagna; the sense of the spring time and the knowledge that she belonged to him heart and body and soul were madly intoxicating as they rushed through the air. He dared not let himself caress her gently, which he might have permitted himself to do, and he held her little hand so tightly it was almost pain to her.

As for Stella, she was profoundly in love. Her whole nature seemed to be awaking and blooming with a new grace and meaning. Her soft eyes, which glanced at him in the glowing dusk, swam with tenderness and unconscious pa.s.sion, and once she let her head rest upon his shoulder, when a violent jerk threw her toward him, and at last he encircled her with his arm and there they sat trembling together, she with she knew not what, and he very well knowing, and fighting with temptation.

Thus they spent an hour in a bliss that was growing to agony for him, and then it grew perfectly dark, and the stars came out in myriads in the deep blue sky, and on in front of them the headlights of the motor made a flaming path in the night.

And all this while he had resisted his strong desires, and never even kissed her.

At last human endurance came to an end, and he said to her almost fiercely:

"Stella, my beloved one, I cannot bear this, I can no longer answer for myself. I shall settle you comfortably among the furs where you must try to sleep, and I shall go outside with the chauffeur. If I were to stay--"

And something in the tone of his voice and in his eyes made her at last have some dim, incomprehensible fear, and yet exaltation, and so she did not try to dissuade him, and soon was alone endeavoring to collect her thoughts and understand the situation.