Part 52 (2/2)
”Well, I'm afraid I was too busy or too tired to take it. Now ...
perhaps ... but I'm afraid I don't inspire men with either romance or pa.s.sion. They like me and are grateful--that is, as grateful as an Englishman can be; they take most things for granted.”
”The French are so grateful, poor dears. I loved them all. After all ... Frenchmen....” Her voice grew dreamy.
Again Gora threw her an amused glance. ”You must have met many of them at your friend, Madame de Morsigny's, and under far more attractive conditions than any man can hope for in a sick bed.... I can't imagine any more appropriate destiny for you ... you should be Madame la d.u.c.h.esse at the very least.”
”Not money enough, and besides they've all grown so religious, or think they have, they wouldn't stand for divorce. Anyhow it would be so hard on 'The Family'! ... Still.... But why, Gora dear, do you depreciate yourself? It seems to me that you are just the type that a certain sort of man would appreciate--fall in love with. I've heard even American men who play about in society comment on your looks, different as you are from sport and fluff and come-hitherness; and you only need a few months' rest to look like your old self. I should think that a highly intelligent Englishman would find you irresistible, especially if you had shown your womanly side when he had holes in him. I've always had an idea that Englishmen weren't nearly as afraid of intellectual women as American men are.”
”That's true enough. But I doubt if there are any men more susceptible to beauty, or quite as l.u.s.tful after it, no matter how romantic they may think they are feeling. I've talked to a good many of them in the past four years, and for six months I was in charge of a convalescent hospital in Kent. I think I've pretty thoroughly plumbed the Englishman. They found me sympathetic all right, forgot their racial shyness and inadvertently gave me much valuable material. But I saw no indication that I made any s.e.x appeal to them whatever.”
”Not one? Not ever?”
Gora gave a slight withdrawing movement as if something sacred had been touched. But she answered: ”Oh ... some day I may have something to tell you.... You said much the same thing to me a little while ago.
Tell me now.”
Alexina turned over on her elbow to beat up her pillows. Then she answered lightly but firmly: ”Not unless you promise to do likewise.
Mine is such a little thing anyhow. I know by the expression of your face--just now--that, yours is the real thing. Is he in Paris?”
”I'm ... not sure.... Yes, there is something ... the conditions are very peculiar ... not at all what you think ... there is so much more to it.... No, I don't think I can tell you.”
A fortnight ago Alexina could have lifted her eyes and uttered Gathbroke's name as if groping through a jungle of memories. But she could no more force his name through her lips now than she could have laid bare all that was in her tumultuous soul. It was, in fact, all she could do to keep from screaming. For a moment her excitement was so intense that she jumped from the bed and ran over and opened the window.
”This room gets intolerably stuffy. That is the worst of it--freeze or stifle.”
”Oh, I have been cold so long! Please don't leave it open. That's a darling.”
V
Alexina closed it with an amiable smile. ”What would you do, Gora, if you were really mad about a man? Have him at any cost? Annihilate anything that stood in your way? Anybody, I mean.”
An appalling light came into Gora's pale eyes as she turned them, at first in some surprise, on her sister-in-law: ”Yes, if I thought he cared ... could be made to care if I had the chance ... if another woman tried to get him away ... yes, I don't fancy I'd stop at anything.... Even if I finally were forced to believe that he never could care for me in that way, the only way that counts with men--at first, anyway ... well, I believe I'd fight to the death just the same.
When you've waited for thirty-four years ... well, you know what you want! Better die fighting than live on interminably for nothing ...
less than nothing.... I can't tell you any more. Please don't ask me.”
”Of course not. I'll tell you my little story.” And she gave a rapid vivid account of the remarkable scene at the Emba.s.sy. She concluded abruptly: ”Do you think one could tell that a man's eyes were hazel--the golden-brown hazel--across a pitch dark room above the flame of a briquet?”
”Hazel?” Alexina was standing behind Gora. She saw her body stiffen.
”I could have vowed they were hazel. And that he was English. He also reminded me of some one I must have met somewhere or other ... one meets so many ... possibly it was only a fancy.”
”You didn't see him after the lights went on again?”
”They didn't. Only candles. We were all too anxious to get away, anyhow. I fancy the King was in a hurry to get the amba.s.sador upstairs and tell him what he thought of him--”
”Don't be flippant. You always did have a maddening habit of being flippant at the wrong time. Haven't you seen him again anywhere?”
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