Chapter XVI: Reveals the Barrier

Edris sat staring blankly in front of her.

Her breath came and went in short, quick gasps, and he saw that her small, white hands were trembling. She seemed startled, even afraid. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them.

His declaration was so unexpected that she sat dazed.

“Edris,” he exclaimed, as, with sudden impulse, he fell upon one knee and, taking her hand, raised it to his lips. “I--I want to tell you, darling, that ever since that day in Wengen when I was indiscreet enough to tell you of Elaine, and you sympathized with me, I have loved you. Nearly a year has gone since then, but I dared not tell you the truth, because--because I knew that you loved Lionel.”

She said nothing. She seemed to hold her breath, and he felt her hand trembling in his.

“You do not speak,” he went on in a low, soft voice. “Are you annoyed that I should have summoned courage to tell you the truth, Edris? I know that my love for you is forbidden on account of my age. You will love, and--and marry a man younger than myself, and be happy. I know it all!” he cried in desperation. “I ought not to have told you this. I--I regret it,” he urged, his voice broken by emotion. “Forgive me, Edris.”

Slowly she raised her pale face, and, looking shyly into his eyes, said in a whisper:

“There is nothing to forgive, Seton.”

“Ah, but I ought to have still preserved the secret of my love for you. It is more than love! I stifled the fire of my passion all these months because I knew that you belonged to Lionel. I suppose it is the knowledge that you are now free that has loosened my tongue. I don’t expect that you can ever love a man of my age. It isn’t fair to ask you to make such a sacrifice, darling. So I withdraw my words. I----”

“Do you really wish to withdraw?” she interrupted.

“Do I wish!” he cried despairingly. “Certainly not.”

She was silent for some moments.

“Then why do you do so?” she whispered, her head bowed again.

“Because--well, I know too well that you can never love me,” he said in a bitter, broken voice.

She paused, and then she said: “I knew that you liked me, Seton, but I never dreamed that you actually loved me. I confess that, after my experience with Lionel, my faith in men is now shattered.”

“And very naturally, my darling,” he said soothingly. “You have had a cruel and bitter disillusionment, I know. The pangs of jealousy you have suffered must have been the very tortures of hell. I have never experienced them, because, until now, I have never in my life loved a woman. But, darling, believe me, I adore you. I can say no more. I only beg your forgiveness for telling you the truth.”

“You have my forgiveness,” the girl replied, tears welling in her great, gray eyes.

She rose to her feet slowly, and he did the same, still holding her hand and looking into her sweet, pale face. Her bare arms and chest were white as alabaster, and their contour exquisitely perfect.

“I thank you, Edris. I, however, dare not ask that you should love me in return,” he said. “You are my idol, and I worship you--my adored. But I realize only too plainly and bitterly the folly of a love that can never be reciprocated. I love now, for the first time in all my adventurous life. My soul is in your keeping!”

The girl listened to him in silence. Her head was still bent, her eyes fixed upon the carpet, her white brow troubled, her eyes narrowed in thought, and her lips trembling. She who had learnt such a hard lesson in youth’s school of love, and had in secret vowed to have her revenge upon every man she met, was inert and hesitating. She had listened to declarations of love from other men’s lips on two or three occasions when on a trip round the world. In India and on the decks of liners, at dances, she had been courted by men, all of whom she had flouted until Lionel came into her life. He had been her ideal. Her affection for him had been a grand passion, but at what a cost! Her heart was broken. She now hated men with a deep and violent hatred, and had vowed to herself that never in all her life would she believe the word of any man.

She raised her face to Darville’s, and the love-look she saw in his dark eyes softened her. A moment before it had been in her mind to have an interesting flirtation with him, because he was famous and his manner was charming, and then to throw him over with heartless disregard of his feelings. But in his glance she suddenly realized that he was violently in love with her. Moreover, his passion for her had commenced nearly a year ago, and he had resolutely abstained from seeing her since that time because he believed her to be Lionel’s fiancée. His silence was the act of an honorable man, if nothing else.

Such were the thoughts which flashed through her mind at that crucial moment.

He spoke some words, but they fell upon ears that were deaf. Her mind was not made up. His repeated regretful references to his age did not concern her. After her experience of Lionel’s vacillating nature and his unstable character, she had come to prefer elderly men to those of her own age. The young men she so constantly met in society she held in abhorrence. She thought them all silly, inane, and egotistical, inasmuch as they “got on her nerves,” and caused her to prefer the society of men whose years had brought them to discretion. And Seton Darville was one of the latter.

From the first moment of their introduction, she had liked him on account of his unfailing courtesy and his unruffled merriment. She regarded him as a popular figure in society, a man who had not the slightest care in all the world. He had told her one day the romantic story of Rene--how, when she was a little child of twelve, he had adopted her after the sudden death of both her parents, friends of his who had, alas! left her penniless. For fifteen years he had given her a life of luxury, with expensive governesses, and satisfying her every whim, for in his lonely life she was the one bright spot. But now she had married and gone abroad, so that he was again a lonely man. His sympathetic nature and his great heart had led him into many liabilities which he could not afford. One of his secrets was that for twenty years he had supported a poor bedridden woman whom he had found, with her little child, selling matches on the Embankment. And often he had had to send her weekly money when, as a Bohemian, his own finances were tight.

His only reward had been a weekly letter of thanks, and of heartfelt prayers for his future. In the heart of Seton Darville was that old-world spirit of chivalry towards a woman that is, unfortunately, almost extinct nowadays.

Edris Temperley knew nothing of that side of his character, any more than she knew of his Secret Service work. She regarded him as a pet of Society, a man who was received everywhere, and who had so many invitations that he might live the year in and out as a visitor to his friends.

He had told her in all deep earnestness that his soul was in her keeping. His eyes had softened her. She realized the pain and suffering he had gone through ever since that day amid the Alpine snows when he had first grown to love her.

She realized that he was an outstanding man in spite of his years; that he was strong and upright, smart without a suspicion of dandyism, a man whose eyes danced with the joy of living and whose activity in everything was amazing.

His soul was in her keeping! In her dazed condition she could not realize the full meaning of those words of his. Lionel, as his mother’s darling, with his shallowness, his inexperience of the world, his empty chatter, combined with the modern egotism of youth, had been all so different to the strong, upright, popular figure in the world who now stood before her with his soft, tender hand resting upon her shoulder.

Again their eyes met.

“I--I hardly know what to say, Seton,” she faltered, her eyes still dimmed with tears and her voice trembling with emotion.

“Say that I may hope!” he cried, suddenly pressing her to him with his strong arms. “Say that I may dare to love you--to win you--to make you my wife!” he added breathlessly. “I--I love you, Edris! I adore you! I worship you as my idol, as my ideal of all that a woman should be. My life these past months has been all so utterly strange and incomprehensible to me. I am in dreamland--the dreamland you have created for me. But----”

“But what?” she asked very softly, her hand tightening upon his as she turned her great, wide-open eyes upon his own.

“But--yes, it is but--I know that we can never marry,” he said with a suppressed sob. “I am too old. I----”

“Seton! Please don’t say that! You are very dear to me,” she said sympathetically. “Dearer than you realize. You are my greatest friend. I do not admire you just because the world admires a famous man, and because the papers praise your books, publish your photographs, and tell the world of your doings, but because I know that--well, I don’t really know how to express it. I know that your heart beats true. You are my pal--one to whom I could confide any secret of my life. And yet----”

“Well! Tell me, my darling,” he urged, drawing her closer to him.

“If I confided every secret I should arouse your anger--even your jealousy.”

“My jealousy? How ridiculous!”

“No, my dear Seton, not ridiculous,” she declared in a low, serious tone. “If you were jealous you would, alas! know what it means--a living hell!”

“Well, I shan’t be, so we need not discuss it.”

He saw that the girl he adored was gradually softening towards him.

So conscious was he of the difference of their ages that he did not press her for an answer. He simply made confession of his all-absorbing passion, and again expressed regret that he should have told her the truth.

Her tiny hand closed tightly upon his. Her own heart was at that moment bursting with grief, and his unexpected words had brought her comfort. She found that she was no longer alone in the world, for he whom she had looked upon as a very kind friend actually loved her. It seemed hardly credible, but she now saw quite plainly that the reason he had so abruptly left Switzerland for Paris was because Lionel had returned to her, and she had confessed that she was devoted to her young lover. She realized, too, how he must have suffered, sorrowing in silence and nursing his grief in those weeks and months of utter loneliness. Yet for nearly five months Lionel had gone, and she, too, had been just as lonely.

“I never dreamed that you cared for me so much, Seton,” she said, turning her pale face again to his. “All this has come as a complete surprise to me. I believed that the reason you refused to come and see me was because I had in some way or other offended you.”

“It was because I could not bear to meet you, knowing that you belonged to another,” he assured her in a deep, earnest voice. His arm had stolen around her waist, and she stood locked in his embrace.

“You are certain--quite certain--that this is not a mere passing infatuation?” she asked, looking at him very seriously. “I somehow feel that you must love Elaine. What is her name? Do tell me?”

“That I am not permitted to do,” he said with regret, a firmness in his voice that surprised her. “I took an oath some years ago that I would never reveal her name to a soul. One day, perhaps, you will find out. Forgive me, my darling, but I know you would never wish me to break a solemn oath to a woman.”

She sighed. Her natural curiosity caused her to endeavor to discover the identity of the pretty young society woman whom he admitted had played such a prominent part in his later life. His refusal was a rebuff, yet she could not take offense at it. In honor bound he had to respect Elaine’s wishes.

“If I had any affection for Elaine I could never love you, Edris,” he went on after a long pause. “And believe me, darling, you have come into my life against my better judgment, against my will, because I know that this sweet dream of mine is only an empty one, and can never be realized. Love between us is forbidden. That is why I do not ask you to try and reciprocate my affection, and ask you to love me in return. You are young and bright, with all your brilliant life before you. I have lived my life to the full, and have now turned to the path which leads to old age.”

“No, no, I don’t think so!” she said cheerfully. “Why, you have far more energy than half the young men I know. At heart you are still youthful. Have I not remarked that a hundred times?”

Her protest pleased him. It was very sweet of her to hearten him in that manner. Yet she had, no doubt, done so in order not to unduly pain him, he thought.

Holding her close to him as he did, he looked into her glorious eyes, and saw that they met his without wavering. In them was a very earnest expression, such as he had never seen there before. He had one hand around her waist and the other upon her bare shoulder, as he drew her tightly to him. She remained in his embrace without any endeavor to disengage herself. Her white chest heaved and fell, as she drew long breaths. For fully five minutes they stood together, neither of them speaking, so full were they both of their own thoughts.

For many months he had longed to take her in his strong arms and tell her his secret, and that blissful moment had now come. True, she was rather cold, and not very responsive. What, however, could he expect of her in her present grief-stricken state of mind, her illusions shattered by a young man who had deceived her, and her young heart broken? Further, the words he had blurted forth had been wholly unexpected.

He hesitated to ask if she would ever love him in return, for he thought that such a question might sound foolish. She might laugh him to scorn.

As she remained inert in his strong embrace a sweet smile came slowly to her lips, a smile that proved irresistible, for he placed his hand tenderly upon her head and, raising it towards his lips, slowly imprinted a long, passionate caress upon her white brow.

“I love you, my darling!” he whispered in that moment of ecstasy. “I love you! Edris, my darling, can you ever be mine?”