Part 48 (1/2)
”I was silent. She turned and mounted two steps of the stairway, then faced me again.
”'Do you think it was for my own pleasure that I permitted myself to be left alone with you? Do you imagine that I am flattered by your attention?--do you venture to think I ever could be? How dared you think what you did think there on the sea-wall?'
”'I cannot help my thoughts!' I replied.
”'You turned on me like a tiger when you awoke from your trance. Do you really suppose that you mewed? Are you not aware that my father hypnotized you?'
”'No--I did not know it,' I said. The hot blood tingled in my finger-tips, and I looked angrily at her.
”'Why do you imagine that I waste my time on you?' she said. 'Your vanity has answered that question--now let your intelligence answer it. I am a Pythagorean; I have been chosen to bring in a convert, and you were the convert selected for me by the Mahatmas of the Consolidated Trust Company. I have followed you from New York to Antwerp, as I was bidden, but now my courage fails, and I shrink from fulfilling my mission, knowing you to be the type of man you are. If I could give it up--if I could only go away--never, never again to see you! Ah, I fear they will not permit it!--until my mission is accomplished. Why was I chosen--I, with a woman's heart and a woman's pride. I--I hate you!'
”'I love you,' I said, slowly.
”She paled and looked away.
”'Answer me,' I said.
”Her wide, blue eyes turned back again, and I held them with mine. At last she slowly drew a long-stemmed rose from the bunch at her belt, turned, and mounted the shadowy staircase. For a moment I thought I saw her pause on the landing above, but the moonlight was uncertain.
After waiting for a long time in vain, I moved away, and in going raised my hand to my face, but I stopped short, and my heart stopped too, for a moment. In my hand I held a long-stemmed rose.
”With my brain in a whirl I crept across the court and mounted the stairs to my room. Hour after hour I walked the floor, slowly at first, then more rapidly, but it brought no calm to the fierce tumult of my thoughts, and at last I dropped into a chair before the empty fireplace, burying my head in my hands.
”Uncertain, shocked, and deadly weary, I tried to think--I strove to bring order out of the chaos in my brain, but I only sat staring at the long-stemmed rose. Slowly I began to take a vague pleasure in its heavy perfume, and once I crushed a leaf between my palms, and, bending over, drank in the fragrance.
”Twice my lamp flickered and went out, and twice, treading softly, I crossed the room to relight it. Twice I threw open the door, thinking that I heard some sound without. How close the air was!--how heavy and hot! And what was that strange, subtle odor which had insensibly filled the room? It grew stronger and more penetrating, and I began to dislike it, and to escape it I buried my nose in the half-opened rose. Horror! The odor came from the rose--and the rose itself was no longer a rose--not even a flower now--it was only a bunch of catnip; and I dashed it to the floor and ground it under my heel.
”'Mountebank!' I cried, in a rage. My anger grew cold--and I s.h.i.+vered, drawn perforce to the curtained window. Something was there, outside.
I could not hear it, for it made no sound, but I knew it was there, watching me. What was it? The damp hair stirred on my head. I touched the heavy curtains. Whatever was outside them sprang up, tore at the window, and then rushed away.
”Feeling very shaky, I crept to the window, opened it, and leaned out.
The night was calm. I heard the fountain splas.h.i.+ng in the moonlight and the sea-winds soughing through the palms. Then I closed the window and turned back into the room; and as I stood there a sudden breeze, which could not have come from without, blew sharply in my face, extinguis.h.i.+ng the candle and sending the long curtains bellying out into the room. The lamp on the table flashed and smoked and sputtered; the room was littered with flying papers and catnip leaves. Then the strange wind died away, and somewhere in the night a cat snarled.
”I turned desperately to my trunk and flung it open. Into it I threw everything I owned, pell-mell, closed the lid, locked it, and, seizing my mackintosh and travelling-bag, ran down the stairs, crossed the court, and entered the night-office of the hotel. There I called up the sleepy clerk, settled my reckoning, and sent a porter for a cab.
”'Now,' I said, 'what time does the next train leave?'
”'The next train for where?'
”'Anywhere!'
”The clerk locked the safe, and, carefully keeping the desk between himself and me, motioned the office-boy to look at the time-tables.
”'Next train, 2.10. Brussels--Paris,' read the boy.
”At that moment the cab rattled up by the curbstone, and I sprang in while the porter tossed my traps on top. Away we b.u.mped over the stony pavement, past street after street lighted dimly by tall gas-lamps, and alley after alley brilliant with the glare of villanous all-night cafe-concerts, and then, turning, we rumbled past the Circus and the Eldorado, and at last stopped with a jolt before the Brussels station.
”I had not a moment to lose. 'Paris!' I cried--'first-cla.s.s!' and, pocketing the book of coupons, hurried across the platform to where the Brussels train lay. A guard came running up, flung open the door of a first-cla.s.s carriage, slammed and locked it after I had jumped in, and the long train glided from the arched station out into the starlit morning.
”I was all alone in the compartment. The wretched lamp in the roof flickered dimly, scarcely lighting the stuffy box. I could not see to read my time-table, so I wrapped my legs in the travelling-rug and lay back, staring out into the misty morning. Trees, walls, telegraph-poles flashed past, and the cinders drove in showers against the rattling windows. I slept at times, fitfully, and once, springing up, peered sharply at the opposite seat, possessed with the idea that somebody was there.
”When the train reached Brussels I was sound asleep, and the guard awoke me with difficulty.