Part 16 (1/2)

He went up to her in the dusk, put his hands gently on her shoulders.

The quivering frame became still suddenly, with a greater nervousness.

She was like a deer ready to bound away....

”I don't see what I could have done, Claire-Anne. But--can I do anything now?”

She turned toward him suddenly. Her face was a mask of pain--and surprise.

”Then you haven't grown cold to me, unmerciful, ... or gross?”

”Why, no, Claire-Anne!”

”And you know.”

”I--know, but I don't understand....”

She gave a queer, little shuddering cry, half laugh, half sob. She moved over to the seat by the whispering mulberry-tree, and dropped in it, her hands covering her face.

”All the wrong,” she said, ”that people call wrong I've done I didn't mind. But the one decent thing--of loving you--that's kept me awake all the time you were away. It's been like a sin, letting you love me. The rest was destiny, but this one thing was--I.”

She suddenly raised her face, her eyes s.h.i.+ning through the humid mask of it.

”Would you--could you--understand?”

”Tell me, Claire-Anne, what you want to.”

She drew a short gasping breath, turned her head away, looked up, turned it away again, paused for breath, gripped his hand by the wrist....

”I ... I ... I was the child of actors, and they died, and there was enough money to bring me up and educate me, and give me my chance on the stage.... And I wasn't good enough.... I was too much myself. Couldn't quite be other characters. I don't know if you understand.... But ...

then a man got infatuated with me and married me.... And later he wished he'd married a--comfortable woman with a fortune.... And then he died and left me ... not very much.... But that was not the reason.... I was left, how do you say?... stranded. I had no career, no husband, no child, no business. France, it is not easy ... not easy anywhere....

Friends? People are too busy.... And I was ... just there.... And all around me life bubbled and flowed, and I was ... not dead, not alive ...

and alone ... I might have been a leper, but even lepers have colonies, and some one to be kind to them ... not dead, not alive ... and alone. I was so young.... It was unfair. Life was everywhere like a sparkling wine ... but where I was, was flat....

”And then--then I met a man ... it was pleasant for a while--to have some one to talk to, to go around with. It's so pleasant to laugh. You don't know how pleasant until you haven't laughed for a long time.... He didn't want to marry ... and in the end it was a choice of--oh, well ...

or going back to being not dead, not alive ... and I couldn't go, just couldn't. And he gave me presents of money.... And then he got married.

I don't blame him ... a comfortable woman with a fortune ... but I wasn't left for long.... Where one goes, others always follow....

There's a sort of ... _sentier intuitif_, a psychic path....

”And I wasn't so ashamed ... I was a little glad I had a place in the world ... a work even.... And every one might despise me.... I had a place.... I was no longer not dead, not alive.... I was even thankful for that.... Until I met you with your--terrible courtesy, with your understanding.... My head and my heart melted, and my body, too, and all had been so firm, so decided.... And I dreamed that I could s.n.a.t.c.h a while from destiny.... But--you see.... What the consul said was true, so ... dearest--but I mustn't ever call you dearest again.”

”Claire-Anne!”

”Well, then--dearest, you see why I couldn't marry you when you asked.”

She laughed bitterly. ”If you had only known....”

He took a terrible grip on himself, faced her, looked at her.

”Claire-Anne, will you marry me now?”