Part 19 (1/2)

”Ah, Simon, you too have a tongue! Can you also lure women? I think you could. But keep it, Simon, keep it for your wife. There's many a maid would gladly take the t.i.tle, for you're a fine figure, and I think that you know the way to a woman's heart.”

Standing above me (for I had sunk back in my chair) she caressed my cheek gently with her hand. I was checked, but not beaten. My madness, as she called it (as must not I also call it?), was still in me, hot and surging. Hope was yet alive, for she had shown me tenderness, and once it had seemed as though a pa.s.sing shadow of remorse had shot across her brightness. Putting out my hands, I took both of hers again, and so looked up in her face, dumbly beseeching her; a smile quivered on her lips as she shook her head at me.

”Heaven keeps you for better things,” she said.

”I'd be the judge of them myself,” I cried, and I sought to carry her hands to my lips.

”Let me go,” she said; ”Simon, you must let me go. Nay, you must. So!

Sit there, and I'll sit opposite to you.”

She did as she said, seating herself over against me, although quite close. She looked me in the face. Presently she gave a little sigh.

”Won't you leave me now?” she asked with a plaintive smile.

I shook my head, but made no other answer.

”I'm sorry,” she went on softly, ”that I came to Hatchstead; I'm sorry that I brought you to London, that I met you in the Lane, that I brought you here to-day. I didn't guess your folly. I've lived with players, and with courtiers, and with--with one other; so I didn't dream of such folly as yours. Yes, I'm sorry.”

”You can give me joy infinitely greater than any sorrow I've had by you,” said I in a low voice.

On this she sat silent for a full minute, seeming to study my face. Then she looked to right and left, as though she would fain have escaped. She laughed a little, but grew grave again, saying, ”I don't know why I laughed,” and sighing heavily. I watched every motion and change in her, waiting for her to speak again. At last she spoke.

”You won't be angry with me, Simon?” she asked coaxingly.

”Why, no,” I answered, wondering.

”Nor run quite mad, nor talk of death, nor any horrors?”

”I'll hear all you say calmly,” I answered.

She sat looking at me in a whimsical distress, seeming to deprecate wrath and to pray my pardon yet still to hint amus.e.m.e.nt deep-hidden in her mind. Then she drew herself up, and a strange and most pitiful pride appeared on her face. I did not know the meaning of it. She leant forward towards me, blus.h.i.+ng a little, and whispered my name.

”I'm waiting to hear you,” said I; my voice came hard, stern, and cold.

”You'll be cruel to me, I know you will,” she cried petulantly.

”On my life, no,” said I. ”What is it you want to say?”

She was like a child who shows you some loved forbidden toy that she should not have, but prizes above all her trifles; there was that sly joy, that ashamed exultation in her face.

”I have promises,” she whispered, clasping her hands and nodding her head at me. ”Ah, they make songs on me, and laugh at me, and Castlemaine looks at me as though I were the street-dirt under her feet. But they shall see! Ay, they shall see that I can match them!” She sprang to her feet in reckless merriment, crying, ”Shall I make a pretty countess, Simon?” She came near to me and whispered with a mysterious air, ”Simon, Simon!”

I looked up at her sparkling eyes.

”Simon, what's he whom you serve, whom you're proud to serve? Who is he, I say?” She broke into a laugh of triumph.

But I, hearing her laugh, and finding my heart filled with a sudden terror, spread my hands over my eyes and fell back heavily in my chair, like a sick man or a drunken. For now, indeed, I saw that my gem was but a pebble. And the echo of her laugh rang in my ears.

”So I can't come, Simon,” I heard her say. ”You see that I can't come.

No, no, I can't come”; and again she laughed.