Part 68 (2/2)
”Lotys!” he said in a half-whisper; ”If you would only love me! If you would be my wife!”
She raised her dark-blue pensive eyes.
”My poor Sergius! With all your triumphs, do you still hanker for a wayside weed? Alas!--the weed has tough roots that cannot be pulled up to please you! I would make you happy if I could, dear friend!--but in the way you ask, I cannot!”
His heart beat thickly.
”Why?”
”Why? Ask why the rain will not melt marble into snow! I love you, Sergius--but not with such love as you demand. And I would not be your wife for all the world!”
He restrained himself with difficulty.
”Again--why?”
She gave a slight movement of impatience.
”In the first place, because we should not agree. In the second place, because I abhor the very idea of marriage. I see, day by day, what marriage means, even among the poor--the wreck of illusions--the death of ideals--the despairing monotony of a mere struggle to live--”
”I shall not be poor now;” said Thord; ”All my work would be to make you happy, Lotys! I would surround you with every grace and luxury--with love, with wors.h.i.+p, with tenderness! With your intelligence and fascination you would be honoured,--famous!”
He broke off, interrupted by her gesture of annoyance.
”Let me hear no more of this, Sergius!” she said. ”You were very good to me when I was a castaway child, and I do not forget it. But you must not urge a claim upon me to which I cannot respond. I have given some of the best years of my life to a.s.sist your work, to win you your followers,--and to advance what I have always recognised as an exalted, though impossible creed--but now, for the rest of the time left to me, I must have my own way!”
He sprang up suddenly and confronted her.
”My G.o.d!” he cried. ”Is it possible you do not understand! All my work--all my plans--all my scheming and plotting has been for you--to make you happy! To give you high place and power! Without you, what do I care for the world? What do I care whether men are rich or poor--whether they starve or die! It is you I want to serve--you! It is for your sake I have desired to win honour and position. Have pity on me, Lotys! Have pity! I have seen you grow up to womanhood--I have loved every inch of your stature--every hair of the gold on your head--every glance of your eyes--every bright flash of your intelligent spirit! Oh, I have loved you, and love you, Lotys, as no man ever loved woman! Everything I have attempted--everything I have done, has been that you might think me worthier of love. For the Country and the People I care nothing--nothing! I only care for you!”
She rose, holding the sleeping child to her like a s.h.i.+eld. Her features seemed to have grown rigid with an inflexible coldness.
”So then,” she said, ”You are no better than the men you have blamed!
You confess yourself as false to the People as the Minister you have displaced! You have served their Cause,--not because you love them, but simply because you love Me!--and you would force me to become your wife, not because you love Me, so much as you love Yourself! Self alone is at the core of your social creed! Why, you are not a whit higher than the vulgarest millionaire that ever stole a people's Trade to further his own ends!”
”Lotys! Lotys!” he cried, stung to the quick; ”You judge me wrongly--by Heaven, you do!”
”I judge you only by your own words;” she answered steadily; ”They condemn you more than I do. I thought you were sincere in your love for the People! I thought your work was all for them,--not for me! I judged that you sought to gain authority in order to remedy their many wrongs;--but if, after all, you have been fighting your way to power merely to make yourself, as you thought, more acceptable to me as a husband, you have deceived me in the honesty of your intentions as grossly as you have deceived the King!”
”The King!” he cried; ”The King!”
She flashed a proud and pa.s.sionate glance upon him--and then--he suddenly found himself alone. She had left the room; and though he knew there was only one wall, one door between them, he dared not follow.
Glancing around him at the simple furniture of the chamber he stood in, which, though only an attic, was bright and fresh and sweet, with bunches of wildflowers set here and there in simple and cheap crystal vases, he sighed heavily. The poor and 'obscure' life was perhaps, after all, the highest, holiest and best! All at once his eyes lighted on one large cl.u.s.ter of flowers that were neither wild nor common, a knot of rare roses and magnificent orchids, tied together with a golden ribbon.
He looked at them jealously, and his soul was a.s.sailed by sudden resentment and suspicion. His face changed, his teeth closed hard on his under lip, and he clenched his hand unconsciously.
”If it is so--if it should be so!” he muttered; ”There may be yet another and more complete Day of Fate!”
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