The Splendid Folly Part 30

"Oh, you are unfair to me--cruelly unfair! You ask me to trust you!

And your very asking implies that you cannot trust _me_!"

There was bitter anger in her voice.

"I know it looks like that," he said wearily. "And I can't explain. I can only ask you to believe in me and trust me. I thought . . .

perhaps . . . you loved me enough to do it." His mouth twitched with a little smile, half sad, half ironical. "My usual presumption, I suppose."

She made no answer, but after a moment asked abruptly:--

"Does this--this secret concern only you?"

"That I cannot tell you. I can't answer any questions. If--if you come to me, it must be in absolute blind trust." He paused, his eyes entreating her. "Is it . . . too much to ask?"

Diana was silent, looking away from him across the water. The sun slipped behind a cloud, and a grey shadow spread like a blight over the summer sea. It lay leaden and dull, tufted with little white crests of foam.

The man and woman stood side by side, motionless, unresponsive. It was as though a sword had suddenly descended, cleaving them asunder.

Presently she heard him mutter in a low tone of anguish:--

"So this--this, too--must be added to the price!"

The pain in his voice pulled at her heart. She stretched out her hands towards him.

"Max! Give me time!"

He wheeled round, and the tense look of misery in his face hurt her almost physically.

"What do you mean?" he asked hoa.r.s.ely.

"I must have time to think. Husband and wife ought to be one.

What--what happiness can there be if . . . if we marry . . . like this?"

He bent his head.

"None--unless you can have faith. There can be no happiness for us without that."

He took a sudden step towards her.

"Oh, my dear, my dear! I love you so!"

Diana began to cry softly--helpless, pathetic, weeping, like a child's.

"And--and I thought we were so happy," she sobbed. "Now it's all spoiled and broken. And you've spoilt it!"

"Don't!" he said unsteadily. "Don't cry like that. I can't stand it."

He made an instinctive movement to take her in his arms, but she slipped aside, turning on him in sudden, pa.s.sionate reproach.

"Why did you try and make me love you when you knew . . . all this? I was quite happy before you came--oh, so happy!"--with a sudden yearning recollection of the days of unawakened girlhood. "If--if you had let me alone, I should have been happy still."

The unthinking selfishness of youth rang in her voice, a.s.serting its infinite demand for the joy and pleasure of life.

"And I?" he said, very low. "Does my unhappiness count for nothing?

I'm paying too. G.o.d knows, I wish we had never met."

Never to have met! Not to have known all that those months of friendship and a single hour of love had held! The words brought a sudden awakening to Diana--a new, wonderful knowledge that, cost what they might in bitterness and future pain, she would rather bear the cost than know her life emptied of those memories.

She had ceased crying. After a few moments she spoke with a gentle, wistful composure.

"I was wrong, Max. You're not to blame--you couldn't help it any more than I could."

"I might have gone away--kept away from you," he said tonelessly.

A faint, wintry little smile curved her lips.

"I'm glad you didn't."

"Diana!" He sprang forward impetuously. "Do you mean that?"

She nodded slowly.

"Yes. Even if--if we can't ever marry, we've had . . . to-day."

A smouldering fire lit itself in the man's blue eyes. He had spoken but the bare truth when he had said that warmer blood ran in his veins than that of the cold northern peoples.

"Yes," he said, his voice tense. "We've had to-day."

Diana trembled a little. The memory of that fierce, wild love-making of his rushed over her once more, and the primitive woman in her longed to yield to its mastery. But the cooler characteristics of her nature bade her pause and weigh the full significance of marrying a man whose life was tinged with mystery, and who frankly acknowledged that he bore a secret which must remain hidden, even from his wife.

It would be taking a leap in the dark, and Diana shrank from it.

"I must have time to think," she repeated. "I can't decide to-day."

"No," he said, "you're right. I've known that all the time, only--only"--his voice shook--"the touch of you, the nearness of you, blinded me." He paused. "Don't keep me waiting for your answer longer than you can help, Diana," he added, with a quiet intensity.

"You'll go away from Crailing?" she asked nervously.

He smiled a little sadly.

"Yes, I'll go away. I'll leave you quite free to make your decision,"

he replied.

She breathed a sigh of relief. She knew that if he were to remain at Crailing, if they were to continue seeing each other almost daily, there could be but one end to the matter--her conviction that no happiness could result from such a marriage would go by the board. It could not stand against the breathless impetuosity of Max's love-making--not when her own heart was eager and aching to respond.

"Thank you, Max," she said simply, extending her hand.

He put it aside, drawing her into his embrace.