Part 13 (1/2)

”Cold!” Mrs Jefferson stared. ”I guess it's as well I came here first,” she said, ”for certainly I can't stand it 50 degrees hotter than it is at present. I'll go into the second room. You see I'm reversing the usual order this morning. Three, two, one, instead of one, two, three. I'll sit just here by the door, so that we can still talk if you wish. I look like a boiled lobster, I'm sure.”

Princess Zairoff said nothing. But when the American had withdrawn, she threw herself down on a couch near the wall. By choosing it she was out of sight of anyone in the adjoining room, though able to converse if she wished.

That she did not wish was very evident. No sooner was she alone than an expression of intense anguish came over her face. Her hands locked themselves together, an agony far beyond the weakness of tears was in her beautiful eyes.

”I have lost him,” she cried, in a stifled whisper. ”Lost him for ever... and it was for this we were brought together... For this I was commanded to learn the secret of my failure. Yes, I, who thought myself so wise, have failed... Failed at the crucial test, because my pa.s.sions governed me... because my heart was weak, for sake of love... Oh, my lost strength--my lost self-restraint... Must I again tread the weary road... and only overcome to fail again?”

She turned aside and hid her face in her hands, while all that dusky veil of rippling hair fell over her like a cloud.

”I am so human still,” she moaned--”so human that, woman-like, I deceived myself, and dreamt of love perfected here, when I might have known--I might have known... But, oh, to lose him thus! To stand before his eyes shamed, sin-stricken, criminal--I cannot bear that--it is beyond my strength...”

A new fierce pa.s.sion seemed suddenly to take possession of her soul.

She raised herself once more, and the old lovely light and splendour glowed in her eyes.

”There is but one way to win his forgiveness,” she cried breathlessly.

”He will pity me then... his heart will soften... he will remember what I said on that strange happy night when once again we met... I am but a woman who loves. Earth holds no weaker thing... and I loved you, Julian... you only--you alone! always--always--always. Men live for love--a woman can but die. For the life I took I give my own--it is just... Yet if but once, oh, beloved, I could see your pitying eyes, and hear your tender voice... and know that you--forgave...”

The light faded from her face once more. Only a hunted, despairing creature leaned back on that solitary couch.

A voice came shrilly from the outer room: ”Are you all right, Princess?

Can you really bear that heat?”