Part 22 (1/2)

She was silent.

”Will you come with me, Miss Shannon?” ”That is your sole reason for asking this of me?” she insisted, eyeing him steadily.

”That I wish you to believe in me--yes.”

”Why?” she pursued, inexorable.

”Because ... I've already told you.”

”That you want someone's good opinion to cherish.... But why, of all people, me--whom you hardly know, of whom what little you do know is hardly rea.s.suring?”

He coloured, and boggled his answer.... ”I can't tell you,” he confessed in the end.

”Why can't you tell me?”

He stared at her miserably.... ”I've no right....”

”In spite of all I've said, in spite of the faith you so generously promise me, in your eyes I must still figure as a thief, a liar, an impostor--self-confessed. Men aren't made over by mere protestations, nor even by their own efforts, in an hour, or a day, or a week. But give me a year: if I can live a year in honesty, and earn my bread, and so prove my strength--then, perhaps, I might find the courage, the--the effrontery to tell you why I want your good opinion.... Now I've said far more than I meant or had any right to. I hope,” he ventured pleadingly--”you're not offended.”

Only an instant longer could she maintain her direct and unflinching look. Then, his meaning would no more be ignored. Her lashes fell; a tide of crimson flooded her face; and with a quick movement, pus.h.i.+ng her chair a little from the table, she turned aside. But she said nothing.

He remained as he had been, bending eagerly toward her. And in the long minute that elapsed before either spoke again, both became oddly conscious of the silence brooding in that lonely little house, of their isolation from the world, of their common peril and mutual dependence.

”I'm afraid,” Lanyard said, after a time--”I'm afraid I know what you must be thinking. One can't do your intelligence the injustice to imagine that you haven't understood me--read all that was in my mind and”--his voice fell--”in my heart. I own I was wrong to speak so transparently, to suggest my regard for you, at such a time, under such conditions. I am truly sorry, and beg you to consider unsaid all that I should not have said.... After all, what earthly difference can it make to you if one thief more decides suddenly to reform?”

That brought her abruptly to her feet, to show him a face of glowing loveliness and eyes distractingly dimmed and softened.

”No!” she implored him breathlessly--”please--you mustn't spoil it!

You've paid me the finest of compliments, and one I'm glad and grateful for ... and would I might think I deserved! ... You say you need a year to prove yourself? Then--I've no right to say this--and you must please not ask me what I mean--then I grant you that year. A year I shall wait to hear from you from the day we part, here in Paris.... And to-night, I will go with you, too, and gladly, since you wish it!”

And then as he, having risen, stood at loss, thrilled, and incredulous, with a brave and generous gesture she offered him her hand.

”Mr. Lanyard, I promise....”

To every woman, even the least lovely, her hour of beauty: it had not entered Lanyard's mind to think this woman beautiful until that moment.

Of her exotic charm, of the allure of her pensive, plaintive prettiness, he had been well aware; even as he had been unable to deny to himself that he was all for her, that he loved her with all the strength that was his; but not till now had he understood that she was the one woman whose loveliness to him would darken the fairness of all others.

And for a little, holding her tremulous hand upon his finger-tips as though he feared to bruise it with a ruder contact, he could not take his eyes from her.

Then reverently he bowed his head and touched his lips to that hand ...

and felt it s.n.a.t.c.hed swiftly away, and started back, aghast, the idyll roughly dissipated, the castle of his dreams falling in thunders round his ears.

In the studio-skylight overhead a pane of gla.s.s had fallen in with a shattering crash as ominous as the Trump of Doom.

XIV

RIVE DROIT

Falling without presage upon the slumberous hush enveloping the little house marooned in that dead back-water of Paris, the shock of that alarm drove the girl back from the table to the nearest wall, and for a moment held her there, transfixed in panic.