The Witch of Prague Part 12

Unorna for the first time in her life felt that she had not full control of her faculties. She who was always so calm, so thoroughly mistress of her own powers, whose judgment Keyork Arabian could deceive, but whose self-possession he could not move, except to anger, was at the present moment both weak and unbalanced. Ten minutes earlier she had fancied that it would be an easy thing to fix her eyes on his and to cast the veil of a half-sleep over his already half-dreaming senses. She had fancied that it would be enough to say "Come," and that he would follow.

She had formed the bold scheme of attaching him to herself, by visions of the woman whom he loved as she wished to be loved by him. She believed that if he were once in that state she could destroy the old love for ever, or even turn it to hate, at her will. And it had seemed easy. That morning, when he had first come to her, she had fastened her glance upon him more than once, and she had seen him turn a shade paler, had noticed the drooping of his lids and the relaxation of his hands.

She had sought him in the street, guided by something surer than instinct, she had found him, had read his thoughts, and had felt him yielding to her fixed determination. Then, suddenly, her power had left her, and as she walked beside him, she knew that if she looked into his face she would blush and be confused like a shy girl. She almost wished that he would leave her without a word and without an apology.

It was not possible, however, to prolong the silence much longer. A vague fear seized her. Had she really lost all her dominating strength in the first moments of the first sincere pa.s.sion she had ever felt?

Was she reduced to weakness by his presence, and unable so much as to sustain a fragmentary conversation, let alone suggesting to his mind the turn it should take? She was ashamed of her poverty of spirit in the emergency. She felt herself tongue-tied, and the hot blood rose to her face. He was not looking at her, but she could not help fancying that he knew her secret embarra.s.sment. She hung her head and drew her veil down so that it should hide even her mouth.

But her trouble increased with every moment, for each second made it harder to break the silence. She sought madly for something to say, and she knew that her cheeks were on fire. Anything would do, no matter what. The sound of her own voice, uttering the commonest of commonplaces, would restore her equanimity. But that simple, almost meaningless phrase would not be found. She would stammer, if she tried to speak, like a child that has forgotten its lesson and fears the schoolmaster as well as the laughter of its schoolmates. It would be so easy if he would say something instead of walking quietly by her side, suiting his pace to hers, shifting his position so that she might step upon the smoothest parts of the ill-paved street, and shielding her, as it were, from the pa.s.sers-by. There was a courteous forethought for her convenience and safety in every movement of his, a something which a woman always feels when traversing a crowded thoroughfare by the side of a man who is a true gentleman in every detail of life, whether husband, or friend, or chance acquaintance. For the spirit of the man who is really thoughtful for woman, as well as sincerely and genuinely respectful in his intercourse with them, is manifest in his smallest outward action.

While every step she took increased the violence of the pa.s.sion which had suddenly swept away her strength, every instant added to her confusion. She was taken out of the world in which she was accustomed to rule, and was suddenly placed in one where men are men, and women are women, and in which social conventionalities hold sway. She began to be frightened. The walk must end, and at the end of it they must part.

Since she had lost her power over him he might go away, for there would be nothing to bring him to her. She wondered why he would not speak, and her terror increased. She dared not look up, lest she should find him looking at her.

Then they emerged from the street and stood by the river, in a lonely place. The heavy ice was gray with old snow in some places and black in others, where the great blocks had been cut out in long strips. It was lighter here. A lingering ray of sunshine, forgotten by the departing day, gilded the vast walls and turrets of venerable Hradschin, far above them on the opposite bank, and tinted the sharp dark spires of the half-built cathedral which crowns the fortress. The distant ring of fast-moving skates broke the stillness.

"Are you angry with me?" asked Unorna, almost humbly, and hardly knowing what she said. The question had risen to her lips without warning, and was asked almost unconsciously.

"I do not understand. Angry? At what? Why should you think I am angry?"

"You are so silent," she answered, regaining courage from the mere sound of her own words. "We have been walking a long time, and you have said nothing. I thought you were displeased."

"You must forgive me. I am often silent."

"I thought you were displeased," she repeated. "I think that you were, though you hardly knew it. I should be very sorry if you were angry."

"Why would you be sorry?" asked the Wanderer with a civil indifference that hurt Unorna more than any acknowledgment of his displeasure could have done.

"Because I would help you, if you would let me."

He looked at her with sudden keenness. In spite of herself she blushed and turned her head away. He hardly noticed the fact, and, if he had, would a.s.suredly not have put upon it any interpretation approaching to the truth. He supposed that she was flushed with walking.

"No one has ever helped me, least of all in the way you mean," he said.

"The counsels of wise men--of the wisest--have been useless, as well as the dreams of women who fancy they have the gift of mental sight beyond the limit of bodily vision."

"Who fancy they see!" exclaimed Unorna, almost glad to find that she was still strong enough to feel annoyance at the slight.

"I beg your pardon. I do not mean to doubt your powers, of which I have had no experience."

"I did not offer to see for you. I did not offer you a dream."

"Would you show me that which I already see, waking and sleeping? Would you bring to my hearing the sound of a voice which I can hear even now?

I need no help for that."

"I can do more than that--for you."

"And why for me?" he asked with some curiosity.

"Because--because you are Keyork Arabian's friend." She glanced at his face, but he showed no surprise.

"You have seen him this afternoon, of course," he remarked.

And odd smile pa.s.sed over Unorna's face.

"Yes. I have seen him this afternoon. He is a friend of mine, and of yours--do you understand?"

"He is the wisest of men," said the Wanderer. "And also the maddest," he added thoughtfully.

"And you think it was in his madness, rather than in his wisdom, that he advised you to come to me?"

"Possibly. In his belief in you, at least."

"And that may be madness?" She was gaining courage.

"Or wisdom--if I am mad. He believes in you. That is certain."

"He has no beliefs. Have you known him long, and do not know that? With him there is nothing between knowledge and ignorance."

"And he knows, of course, by experience what you can do and what you cannot do?"

"By very long experience, as I know him."

"Neither your gifts nor his knowledge of them can change dreams to facts."

Unorna smiled again.

"You can produce a dream--nothing more," continued the Wanderer, drawn at last into argument. "I, too, know something of these things. The wisdom of the Egyptians is not wholly lost yet. You may possess some of it, as well as the undeveloped power which could put all their magic within your reach if you knew how to use it. Yet a dream is a dream."

"Philosophers have disputed that," answered Unorna. "I am no philosopher, but I can overthrow the results of all their disputations."

"You can do this. If I resign my will into your keeping you can cause me to dream. You can call up vividly before me the remembered and unremembered sights of my life. You can make me see clearly the sights impressed upon your own memory. You might do that, and yet you could be showing me nothing which I do not see now before me--of those things which I care to see."

"But suppose that you were wrong, and that I had no dream to show you, but a reality?"

She spoke the words very earnestly, gazing into his eyes at last without fear. Something in her tone struck him and fixed his attention.

"There is no sleep needed to see realities," he said.

"I did not say that there was. I only asked you to come with me to the place where she is."

The Wanderer started slightly and forgot all the instinct of opposition to her which he had felt so strongly before.

"Do you mean that you know--that you can take me to her----" he could not find words. A strange, overmastering astonishment took possession of him, and with it came wild hope and the wilder longing to reach its realisation instantly.

"What else could I have meant? What else did I say?" Her eyes were beginning to glitter in the gathering dusk.

The Wanderer no longer avoided their look, but he pa.s.sed his hand over his brow, as though dazed.

"I only asked you to come with me," she repeated softly. "There is nothing supernatural about that. When I saw that you did not believe me I did not try to lead you then, though she is waiting for you. She bade me bring you to her."

"You have seen her? You have talked with her? She sent you? Oh, for G.o.d's sake, come quickly!--come, come!"