Chapter VII: Book II: I (5)

"I will come whenever you ask me," he said, quite simply.

"No. You know I would never ask you again, if I could help it. Oh, you were so kind, but it--" I stopped. I did not know how to say what I meant. I had better not have said so much.

"I don't want you to have that feeling. It amuses me to come, Comtesse, only you feed one too well. Do you remember how I drank everything I could get hold of, to please you?"

"You were ridiculous!" And I laughed.

"I thought I was heroic." Then, in another voice: "I think you must have that boudoir altered a little, you know, before long. I can't say I found your sofa comfortable."

"Not like this." And I lay back luxuriously.

"I generally choose things with a reason, if I can."

"That sounds like one of grandmamma's speeches." Then I stupidly blushed, remembering, apropos of what she had said, almost the same thing. It was when she accepted Mrs. Gurrage's invitation to the ball, where she calculated I should meet Antony. That was before she had the fainting-fit. I stared into the fire. What would have happened by now, if she could have carried out that plan--the "suitable and happy" arrangement of my future!

"Comtesse, why do you stop suddenly and blush, and then stare into the fire? Your grandmother was not, I am sure, in the habit of saying such startling things as to cause you such emotions."

I looked up at him. I suppose my eyes were troubled, for he said, so gently:

"Dear little girl, I won't tease you. Tell me, have you read any more books on philosophy lately?"

I drank the last sip of my tea, and held out my cup. It was nice tea.

"No, I have not had time to read anything. There, you can take my cup. You have such pretty things here. Everything is suitable, and it gives me pleasure. I don't feel philosophical; I feel genuine human enjoyment."

"That is good to know. Well, we won't be philosophical, then, we will be humanly happy," and he sat down beside me.

I took up, idly, a little book that was lying on a table near, because my silly heart had begun to beat again, like Lydia Languish or any vaporish young lady in an early romance. I looked at the title and Antony looked at me. I read it over without taking in the sense, and then the name arrested my attention.

"_A Digit of the Moon_," I said, "What a queer title!"

"What long eyelashes you have, Comtesse!" said Antony, apropos of nothing. "They make a great shadow on your cheek, and they have no business to be so dark, with your light, mud-colored hair."

"How rude, to call my hair mud-colored!" I said, indignantly, "I always thought it _blond cendré_."

"So it is, and it shines like burnished metal. But you are a vain little thing, I expect, and I did not wish to encourage you."

His voice was full of a caress. I did not dare to look into his queer cat's eyes.

"You have black eyelashes yourself, and as I am of the family, why may I not have them too?" I said, pouting.

"Of course you can have them or anything else you wish, to oblige you. But I should rather like to know how long your hair is when you let it down. You look as if you had a great quantity there, but probably it is not all your own." And he smiled provokingly.

"If I was not afraid of the servants coming in I would undo it to show you," I replied, with great indignation and a sadden feeling that I, too, could tease. "I never heard anything so insulting!"

"My servants are well trained. It is not six o'clock yet. They won't come in until half-past six, unless I ring. You have plenty of time."

A spirit of _coquetterie_ came over me for the first time in my life. I took out the two great tortoise-shell pins that held it up, and let my hair tumble down around me. It falls in heavy waves nearly to my knees.

"That is perfectly beautiful!" said Antony, almost reverently. "I apologize. It is your own."

I got up and shook it out and stood before him. It hung all round me like a cloak. Oh, I was in a wicked mood, and I do not defend my conduct.

"Comtesse," he said, and his eyes swam, "fiendish little temptress, put up that hair. And come, I will tell you about _A Digit of the Moon_."

I pretended to feel greatly snubbed, and in a minute had twisted it to my head again.

"It is a queer title," I said.

Antony talked a little faster than usual. It seemed as if he was breathing rather quickly.

"I shall give you this book. It only came out last year. I think it is one of the most delightful things that ever was written. You must read it carefully." And he put it into my hand. "The description, in the beginning, of the ingredients which God used to create woman is quite exquisite. Listen, I will read it to you." And he took the book again.

His voice is the most refined and the tones are deep. One cannot say what quality there is in some voices and pronunciation that makes them so attractive. If Antony were an ugly man he still would be alluring with such a voice as his. I listened intently until the last word.

"It is, indeed, a beautiful description," I said.

"You probably are all those things, Comtesse, except, perhaps, the 'chattering of the monkeys.' You don't speak much."

"And do you feel like 'man'?"

"That I cannot do with you, or without you? Yes, especially the latter part of the sentence."

I got up from the sofa and looked about the room. It seemed as if we were getting on dangerous ground.

"How comfortable men make their habitations! And I like the smell," I said, sniffing. "The pine-logs, I suppose."

"And the cedar panelling, perhaps, scents the place a little when it gets hot."

"You have thousands of books here." And I looked round at the high shelves between the long windows. "And what a nice piano! How happy you must be!"

"I should have been--and am sometimes, still," he said. "The Duke had a good room, too, at Myrlton."

I sat down on the sofa again. Antony had risen and leaned against the mantel-piece. He was idly pulling the ears of Bedevere, who, sitting there, reached up into his hand. I never could have imagined dogs so big as are these three.

"Of course you went to Myrlton. I had forgotten. The Duke made love to you, I suppose?"

"Why should you suppose?"

"Because I saw signs of it at Harley. Don't you remember how I carried you off to the woods while he fetched your umbrella?"

I laughed.

"Well, did he make love to you?"

"Why should you think any man would make love to me? It is ridiculous. You seem to forget I have only been married five months. Even in a well-bred world, where they have gone back to nature, they don't begin as soon as that, do they?"

"You are prevaricating. He did make love to you, then?"

"Lady Grenellen had brought an heiress there for him, and he was busy with her."

"And you made it as difficult for him as possible to do his duty. How heartless of you, Comtesse! I would not have believed it of you."

His voice was more mocking than I had ever heard it.

"I did nothing of the kind."

"He is an agreeable fellow, Berty."

"Full of information."

"Superficial."

"Possibly."

Then our eyes met.

"Comtesse, we are not here to talk about the Duke of Myrlshire in these our few minutes of grace. The 6.42 train will soon be in." And he sat down again beside me.

"What shall we talk about, then?" I asked, trying to keep my head. A maddening sensation of excitement made my voice sound strained. "First, I want to tell you how beautiful I find my room. If you had known my taste, and had it done to please me, you could not have found anything I should like so much."

"I did know your taste, and I had it done to please you. It is for you. No one else shall ever sleep there," he said, simply, and looked deep into my eyes.

I had nothing to say.

"I like to know there is a room for you in my house. I want everything in it to be exactly as you desire. When you have time to look, I think you will find some agreeable books, and your old friends La Rochefoucauld, etc. But if there is a thing you want changed, it would give me pleasure to change it."

I was stupefied. I could not speak.

"Over the mantel-piece is the little pastel by La Tour I told you I bought last year."

"Oh! it is good of you!" I managed to say.

"I have at least the satisfaction of knowing that I please myself too if it gives you pleasure. I want you to feel there is one corner in the world where you are really at home with the things that are sympathetic to you, so that whenever you will come over like this it will give you a feeling of repose."

"Oh! it is dear of you!"

"You said the other day," he continued, "that I, at all events, was never serious, and I told you I would tell you that when you came here to Dane Mount. Well, I tell you now--I am serious in this--that if there is anything in the world I can do to make you happy I will do it."

"It makes me happy to know you understand--that there is some one of my kin. Oh! I have been very lonely since grandmamma died!"

He looked at me long, and we neither of us spoke.

"It was a very cruel turn of fate that we did not meet this time last year," he said at last.

"Yes."

"Comtesse, I want to make your life happier. I want to introduce you to several nice women I know. I shall have a big party next month. Will you come and stay again? Then you will gradually get a pleasant society round you, and you need not trouble about the Dodds and the Springers--no, Springle was their name, wasn't it?"

"Yes. It is so kind of you, all this thought for me. Oh, Sir Antony, I have nothing to say!" I faltered.

He frowned.

"Do not call me _Sir_ Antony, child. It hurts me. You must not forget we are cousins. You are Ambrosine to me, or my dearest little Comtesse."

The clock struck half-past six. The servants entered the room to take the tea-things away, and while they were there a footman brought in three telegrams, one for me and two for my host.

Mine was from Augustus, and ran:

"Hope you have arrived safely. Hear fog bad in country too.
Impossible to get to Liverpool Street yet. Awfully worried
at your being alone there. Shall come by last train."

Antony handed the two others to me. One was from Lady Grenellen, the other from Augustus, both expressing their annoyance and regret. The telegrams were all sent off at the same hour from Piccadilly, so apparently they were together, my husband and his friend.

"It is comic," I said, "this situation! Augustus and Lady Grenellen fog-bound in London, and you and I here, it is the fault of none of us."

"I like a fog," said Antony, with his old, whimsical smile, all trace of seriousness departed. "A good, useful thing, a fog. Hope it won't lift in a hurry."

"Now come and show me the ancestors," I said.

He led the way to the drawing-room--a great room, all painted white, too, and in each faded green-brocade panel hangs a picture. The electric lights are so arranged that each was perfectly illuminated.

They were all interesting to me, especially the portraits of our common ancestors.

"That must be your grandfather's father," said Antony, pointing to a portly gentleman, with lightly powdered hair and a blue riding-coat, painted at the end of the eighteenth century. "It was his eldest son, who had no sons, and left the place to his daughter, who married Sir Geoffrey Thornhirst."

"But where is your great-great-grandmother that you told me about, and rather insinuated she was as nice as my Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt?"

"There she is, in the place of honor. She was painted by Gainsborough, after she married. What do you think of her?"

"Oh! she is lovely," I said, "and she has your cat's eyes."

"'She is your ancestress, too, but she is not like you. Do you see the dog in the picture?"

"Yes. Why, it is just the portrait of one of your three knights!"

"Have you never heard the tradition, then?"

"No."

"As long as Dane Mount possesses that breed of dogs fortune is to favor the owner; but if they die out I can't tell you what calamities are not to overtake him. It has been going for hundreds of years."

"Then Ulfus, Belfus, and Bedevere are the descendants of that dog in the picture?"

"Yes."

"No wonder they give themselves such airs."

"Do you hear that, boys?" said Antony, turning to the three, who had again followed us. "My Comtesse says you give yourselves airs. Come and die for her to show her your real sentiments."

The three great fellows advanced in their dignified way, casting adoring glances at their master.

"Now die, all of you!"

They sneezed and curled up their lips, and made the usual grimaces of dogs when they are moved and self-conscious, but they all three lay flat down at my feet.

"I _am_ flattered," I said, "and I have not even a biscuit to give you."

"We are not so sordid as that at Dane Mount. We do not die for biscuits, but because we love the lady," said Antony.

I bent down and kissed Ulfus, who was nearest to me.

"Now I am going to show you some Thornhirst pictures and some older Athelstans that are in the hall and the dining-room, and a portrait of my mother that I have in my own smoking-room."

Antony made the most interesting guide. There was something amusing and to the point about all his comments. I soon knew the different characteristics of each member of the family. One or two, especially of the Thornhirsts, are wonderfully like him--the same level, dark eyebrows and firm mouths.

"This is my sanctum," he said, at last, opening a door down a corridor, and we went into a large room with a lower ceiling than the rest of the apartments I had been into. It is panelled with cedar-wood also and sparely hung with old prints. A delicious smell of burning pine-logs again greeted me. The thick, silk curtains were drawn. The lamps were softly shaded. An old dog of the same family as the three knights basked before the fire. It was all cosey and homelike.

"Oh! this is a nice room, too!" I exclaimed.

"I spend a good deal of time here. One grows to like one's rooms."

His mother's portrait hangs over the fireplace, a charming face, whose beauty is not even disguised by the hideous fashions of 1870, when it was painted.

"She died when I was in Russia," said Antony.

My eyes fell on the mantel-piece. The narrow ledge held three photographs, one of a man, one of Lady Tilchester, and the centre one--an amateur production, evidently--of a little girl with bare feet, putting one fat toe into a stream, her hat hanging down her back, and her face bent down looking at the water.

"What a dear little picture," I said. "Who is that?"

"Oh, that is the Tilchester child, Muriel Harley," he said, carelessly. "We snap-shotted her paddling in the burn in Scotland a year or two ago. Come, it is dressing-time. I must send you up-stairs." And then, as we left the room, "You look so comfortable in that tea-gown! Don't bother to change," he said.

"Why deprive me of displaying to you the splendors I brought over on purpose?" I said, gayly, as I ran up the broad steps.

XIV

I do not think there can be a more agreeable form of entertainment than a _tête-à-tête_ dinner, provided your companion is sympathetic. Anyway, to me this will always be one of the golden hours in my life to look back upon.

Never had Antony been so attractive. Every sentence was well expressed, and only when one came to think of them afterwards, did one discover their subtle flattery.

By the time the servants had finally left the room I felt like a purring cat whose fur has been all stroked the right way--at peace with the world.

The dinner had been exquisite, but I was too excited to feel hungry.

"Comtesse," said Antony, looking at the clock, "there is one good hour before the arrivals by the last train can possibly get here. Shall we spend it in the library or the drawing-room?" He did not suggest his own sitting-room.

"The library. It is more cosey."

As he held the door open for me, there was an expression in his face which again caused me the ridiculous sensation I have spoken of so often. I suddenly realized that life at some moments is worth living. Perhaps grandmamma and the Marquis were right after all, and these glimpses of paradise are the compensations.

"Will you play to me, Comtesse?" Antony said when we got to the library and he opened the piano. "I shall be selfish and sit in a comfortable chair and listen to you."

I am not a great musician, but grandmamma always said my playing gave her pleasure. The music makes me feel--so, perhaps, that is why it makes others feel, too.

I played on, it seemed to me, a long time. Then, after some tender bits of Greig, running from one to another, I suddenly stopped. The music had been talking too much to me. It said, over and over again: "Ambrosine, you love this man. He is beginning to absorb the whole of your life." And, again: "Life is short. This happiness will be over in a few moments. Live while you may."

"Why do you stop, Comtesse?" asked Antony, in a moved voice.

"I--do not know."

He rose and came and leaned on the piano, I felt--oh! I had never been so agitated in my life. At all costs he must not say anything to me, nothing that I should have to stop, nothing to break this beautiful dream--

"Oh! do you not hear the sound of carriage-wheels?" I exclaimed, in a half voice.

It broke the spell.

Antony walked to the window. He pulled the curtains aside and opened a shutter to look upon the night.

"It is the thickest fog I ever remember," he said. "I doubt if the brougham, which put up at the station, could get back here, even if they have come by the last train."

"Oh! of course they have come!" I said, unsteadily.

He did not answer, but carefully closed the shutter again and drew the curtains. I went to the fireplace and began caressing one of the dogs. My hands were cold as ice. Antony lost a little of his _sang-froid_. He picked up a paper-knife and put it down again.

It seemed to me my heart was thumping so loudly that he must hear it where he stood.

We both listened intently. Neither of us spoke. Eleven o'clock struck. The butler entered the room.

"Bilsworth has managed to get here on one of the horses, Sir Antony, and he says the last train is in, and no one arrived by it."

"Very well," said Antony, calmly. "You can shut up for the night."

And the butler went out, softly closing the door behind him.

XV

Before I opened my eyes next morning in my beautiful room a telegram came from Augustus--a long telegram written the night before, telling me that it was impossible to penetrate the fog that night, and I was to come up and join him at once in London, as he had just decided to go to the war with his Yeomanry. He could not keep out of it longer, as all his brother officers had volunteered, so he had felt obliged to do so, too. They were to start in less than three weeks.

"I shall go by the ten-o'clock train," I told McGreggor, as I scribbled my reply. "I must get up at once. Ask for my breakfast to be brought up here."

I was dressed by nine o'clock and sipping my chocolate.

The daintiness of the old Dresden china equipage pleased me, forced itself upon my notice in spite of the deep preoccupation of my mind.

An exquisite bunch of fresh roses lay on the tray, and a note from Antony--only a few words--hoping I had slept well and saying the brougham would be ready for me at half-past nine, and that he also was going to London.

McGreggor had left the room. Oh! am I very wicked? I kissed the writing before I threw the paper in the fire!

And so Augustus is going to the war, after all. It must have been some very strong influence which persuaded him to volunteer, he who hated the very thought.

I felt bitterly annoyed with myself that this news did not cause me any grief. I have been this man's wife for five months, and his going into danger in a far country leaves me cold. But I did, indeed, grieve for his mother. Her many good qualities came back to me. This will be a terrible blow to her.

I looked up at the little pastel by La Tour. The sprightly French Marquise smiled back at me.

"Good-bye," I said. "You, pretty Marquise, would call me a fool because to-day Antony is not my lover. But I--oh, I am glad!"

He did not even kiss my finger-tips last night. We parted sadly after a storm of words neither he nor I had ever meant to speak.

"_Il s'en faut bien que nous commissions tout ce que nos passions nous font faire!_"

Once more La Rochefoucauld has spoken truth.

Why the situation is as it is I cannot tell. In my bringing up, the idea of taking a lover after marriage seemed a more or less natural thing, and not altogether a deadly sin, provided the affair was conducted _sans fanfaronnade_, without scandal. It was not that grandmamma and the Marquis actually discussed such matters in my hearing, but the general tone of their conversation gave that impression.

Marriage, as the Marquis said to me, was not a pleasure--it is a means to an end, a tax of society. The _agréments_ of life came afterwards. I had always understood he had been grandmamma's lover.

Once I heard him express this sentiment when I was supposed to be reading my book: The marriage vows, he said, were the only ones a gentleman might break without great blemish to his honor. This was the atmosphere I had always lived in, and since my wedding the people of my own class that I have met do not seem to hold different views. Lord Tilchester is Babykins's lover. The Duke has passed on from several women, and, to come nearer home, there are my husband and Lady Grenellen. Only Lady Tilchester seems noble and above all these earthly things.

Why did I hesitate? I do not know. There is a something in my spirit which cried out against the meanness of it, the degradation, the sacrilege. I could not break my word to Augustus. Oh! I could not stoop to desecrate myself, and to act for all the future--hours of deceit.

And now after to-day I will never see Antony alone again. That we shall casually meet I cannot guard against. But never again shall I stay in his house. Never again awake in this beautiful room. Never again--

"The brougham is at the door, ma'am," said McGreggor, interrupting my thoughts, and I descended the stairs. The fog was still gray and raw, but had considerably lifted.

In the uncompromising daylight Antony's face looked haggard and drawn.

"Comtesse," he said, as we drove along, "I cannot forgive myself for causing you pain last night. Nothing was further from my thoughts than to harass and disturb you--here, in my own house--that I wanted you to look upon as your haven of rest. But I am not made of stone. The situation was exceptional--and I love you."

In spite of our imminent parting, joy rushed through me at his words. Oh! could I ever get tired of hearing Antony say "I love you"?

"You did not cause me pain," I said. "We had drifted, neither knowing where. It was fate."

"Darling, do you remember our talk in your sitting-room, and of the _coup de foudre_? Well, it has struck us both. Oh! I could curse myself! Your dear little white face looks up at me pathetically without a reproach, and I have been a selfish brute to even tell you I love you. I meant to be your friend and comrade that you might feel you had at least some one that would stand by you forever. I wanted to make your life pleasanter, and now my mad folly has spoiled it all, and you decree that we must part. Oh! my little Comtesse, my loving you has only been to hurt you!"

"Oh no. It makes me glad to know it--only--only I cannot see you any more."

"I would promise never to say another word that could disturb you. Oh! Why must we say good-bye?"

"Because I could not promise not to wish you to say things. You must surely know if we went on meeting it could only have one end."

"Well, I will do as you wish, my darling white rose. In my eyes you are above the angels."

Antony's voice when it is moved could wile a bird from off a tree.

Then I told him of my telegram, and I know he, too, felt glad that last night we had parted as we had.

"Ambrosine, listen to me," he said, "I will not try to see you, but if you want anything in the world done for you, promise to let me do it."

I promised.

"There is just one thing I want to know," I said. "That day before my wedding, when you sent me the knife and the note saying it was not too late to cut the Gordian knot, what did you mean? Did you care for me, then?"

"I do not know exactly what I meant. I was greatly attracted by you. That day we came over I very nearly said to you then, 'Come along away with me,' and then we never met again until your wedding. When I sent the knife I half wondered what you would say. I wrote the note half in joke, half in earnest. My principal feeling was that I could not bear you to marry Augustus. If we had chanced to meet then, really, I should have taken you off to Gretna Green."

"Alas!" I said.

The footman opened the door. We had arrived at the station.

We did not travel in the same carriage going to London. We had agreed it would be better not. And I do not think any one, seeing Antony calmly handing me into the hired brougham Augustus had sent to me, would have guessed that we were parting forever, and that, to me at least, all joy in the world had fled.

It is stupid to go on talking about one's feelings. Having cut off one's hand, I am sure grandmamma would say it would be drivelling and mawkish to meditate over each drop of blood.

I tried hard to think of other things. I counted the stupid pattern on the braid that ornamented the inside of the brougham. I counted the lamp-posts, with their murky lights, showing through the fog. I looked at McGreggor sitting stolidly opposite me. Could any emotions happen to that wooden mask? "Have you a lover that you have said good-bye to forever, I wonder? And is that why your face is carved out of stone?" I said to myself.

In spite of all grandmamma's stoical bringing-up, it was physical pain I was suffering.

In Queen Victoria Street a hansom passed us and I caught a misty glimpse of Antony. He smiled mechanically as he raised his hat.

And so this is the end.

The fog is falling thickly again. Everything is damp and cold and black as night.

And I--Oh! I wish--

"Hallo, little woman! Glad to see you!" said Augustus, in a thick and tipsy voice, as I got out of the carriage. And he kissed me in front of all the people at the hotel door.