The Witch of Prague Part 9

Unorna turned, almost fiercely, and came back a step.

"Keyork Arabian, do you think you can play upon me as on an instrument?

Do you suppose that I will come and go at your word like a child--or like a dog? Do you think you can taunt me at one moment, and flatter me the next, and find my humour always at your command?"

The gnome-like little man looked down, made a sort of inclination of his short body, and laid his hand upon his heart.

"I was never presumptuous, my dear lady. I never had the least intention of taunting you, as you express it, and as for your humour--can you suppose that I could expect to command, where it is only mine to obey?"

"It is of no use to talk in that way," said Unorna, haughtily. "I am not prepared to be deceived by your comedy this time."

"Nor I to play one. Since I have offended you, I ask your pardon.

Forgive the expression, for the sake of the meaning; the thoughtless word for the sake of the unworded thought."

"How cleverly you turn and twist both thoughts and words!"

"Do not be so unkind, dear friend."

"Unkind to you? I wish I had the secret of some unkindness that you should feel!"

"The knowledge of what I can feel is mine alone," answered Keyork, with a touch of sadness. "I am not a happy man. The world, for me, holds but one interest and one friendship. Destroy the one, or embitter the other, and Keyork's remnant of life becomes but a foretaste of death."

"And that interest--that friendship--where are they?" asked Unorna in a tone still bitter, but less scornful than before.

"Together, in this room, and both in danger, the one through your young haste and impetuosity, the other through my wretched weakness in being made angry; forgive me, Unorna, as I ask forgiveness----"

"Your repentance is too sudden; it savours of the death-bed."

"Small wonder, when my life is in the balance."

"Your life?" She uttered the question incredulously, but not without curiosity.

"My life--and for your word," he answered, earnestly. He spoke so impressively, and in so solemn a tone, that Unorna's face became grave.

She advanced another step towards him, and laid her hand upon the back of the chair in which she previously had sat.

"We must understand each other--to-day or never," she said. "Either we must part and abandon the great experiment--for, if we part, it must be abandoned--"

"We cannot part, Unorna."

"Then, if we are to be a.s.sociates and companions--"

"Friends," said Keyork in a low voice.

"Friends? Have you laid the foundation for a friendship between us?

You say that your life is in the balance. That is a figure of speech, I suppose. Or has your comedy another act? I can believe well enough that your greatest interest in life lies there, upon that couch, asleep. I know that you can do nothing without me, as you know it yourself. But in your friendship I can never trust--never!--still less can I believe that any words of mine can affect your happiness, unless they be those you need for the experiment itself. Those, at least, I have not refused to p.r.o.nounce."

While she was speaking, Keyork began to walk up and down the room, in evident agitation, twisting his fingers and bending down his head.

"My accursed folly!" he exclaimed, as though speaking to himself. "My d.a.m.nable ingenuity in being odious! It is not to be believed! That a man of my age should think one thing and say another--like a tetchy girl or a spoilt child! The stupidity of the thing! And then, to have the idiotic utterances of the tongue registered and judged as a confession of faith--or rather, of faithlessness! But it is only just--it is only right--Keyork Arabian's self is ruined again by Keyork Arabian's vile speeches, which have no more to do with his self than the clouds on earth have with the sun above them! Ruined, ruined--lost, this time. Cut off from the only living being he respects--the only being whose respect he covets; sent back to die in his loneliness, to perish like a friendless beast, as he is, to the funereal music of his own irrepressible snarling! To growl himself out of the world, like a broken-down old tiger in the jungle, after scaring away all possible peace and happiness and help with his senseless growls! Ugh! It is perfectly just, it is absolutely right and supremely horrible to think of! A fool to the last, Keyork, as you always were--and who would make a friend of such a fool?"

Unorna leaned upon the back of the chair watching him, and wondering whether, after all, he were not in earnest this time. He jerked out his sentences excitedly, striking his hands together and then swinging his arms in strange gestures. His tone, as he gave utterance to his incoherent self-condemnation, was full of sincere conviction and of anger against himself. He seemed not to see Unorna, nor to notice her presence in the room. Suddenly, he stopped, looked at her and came towards her. His manner became very humble.

"You are right, my dear lady," he said. "I have no claim to your forbearance for my outrageous humours. I have offended you, insulted you, spoken to you as no man should speak to any woman. I cannot even ask you to forgive me, and, if I tell you that I am sorry, you will not believe me. Why should you? But you are right. This cannot go on. Rather than run the risk of again showing you my abominable temper, I will go away."

His voice trembled and his bright eyes seemed to grow dull and misty.

"Let this be our parting," he continued, as though mastering his emotion. "I have no right to ask anything, and yet I ask this of you.

When I have left you, when you are safe for ever from my humours and my tempers and myself--then, do not think unkindly of Keyork Arabian. He would have seemed the friend he is, but for his unruly tongue."

Unorna hesitated a moment. Then she put out her hand, convinced of his sincerity in spite of herself.

"Let bygones be bygones, Keyork," she said. "You must not go, for I believe you."

At the words, the light returned to his eyes, and a look of ineffable beat.i.tude overspread the face which could be so immovably expressionless.

"You are as kind as you are good, Unorna, and as good as you are beautiful," he said, and with a gesture which would have been courtly in a man of n.o.bler stature, but which was almost grotesque in such a dwarf, he raised her fingers to his lips.

This time, no peal of laugher followed to destroy the impression he had produced upon Unorna. She let her hand rest in his a few seconds, and then gently withdrew it.

"I must be going," she said.

"So soon?" exclaimed Keyork regretfully. "There were many things I had wished to say to you to-day, but if you have no time----"

"I can spare a few minutes," answered Unorna, pausing. "What is it?"

"One thing is this." His face had again become impenetrable as a mask of old ivory, and he spoke in his ordinary way. "This is the question. I was in the Teyn Kirche before I came here."

"In church!" exclaimed Unorna in some surprise, and with a slight smile.

"I frequently go to church," answered Keyork gravely. "While there, I met an old acquaintance of mine, a strange fellow whom I have not seen for years. The world is very small. He is a great traveller--a wanderer through the world."

Unorna looked up quickly, and a very slight colour appeared in her cheeks.

"Who is he?" she asked, trying to seem indifferent. "What is his name?"

"His name? It is strange, but I cannot recall it. He is very tall, wears a dark beard, has a pale, thoughtful face. But I need not describe him, for he told me that he had been with you this morning. That is not the point."

He spoke carelessly and scarcely glanced at Unorna while speaking.

"What of him?" she inquired, trying to seem as indifferent as her companion.

"He is a little mad, poor man, that is all. It struck me that, if you would, you might save him. I know something of his story, though not much. He once loved a young girl, now doubtless dead, but whom he still believes to be alive, and he spends--or wastes--his life in a useless search for her. You might cure him of the delusion."

"How do you know that the girl is dead?"

"She died in Egypt, four years ago," answered Keyork. "They had taken her there in the hope of saving her, for she was at death's door already, poor child."

"But if you convince him of that."