Part 15 (2/2)
”Maria!” he exclaimed.
”Hus.h.!.+” said she, with a woful smile. ”To-morrow you shall love her; to-morrow I will not ask your eyes to dwell on mine or your hand to quiver as it touches mine. But to-night love no one but me.”
For answer he kissed her on the lips. She took his head between her hands and gave the kiss back, gently as though her lips feared to bruise his, slowly as though this one moment must content her for all her life. Then she looked at him for a little, and with a childish movement that was infinitely sad she laid his face side by side with hers so that his cheek touched hers.
”Shall I tell you my thought?” she asked. ”Shall I dare to tell you it?”
”Tell it me!”
”G.o.d has died to-night. Hus.h.!.+ Do not move! Do not speak! Perhaps the world will slip and crumble if we but stay still.” And they remained thus cheek to cheek silent in the room, staring forward with eyes wide open and hopeful. The very air seemed to them a-quiver with expectation. They, too, had an expectant smile upon their lips. But there was no crack of thunder overhead, no roar of a slipping world.
”CHEEK TO CHEEK, SILENT IN THE ROOM, STARING FORWARD WITH EYES WIDE OPEN AND HOPEFUL.”-Page 136.
The Chevalier was the first to move.
”But we are children,” he cried, starting up. ”Is it not strange the very pain which tortures us because we are man and woman should sink us into children? We sit hoping that a miracle will split the world in pieces! This is the Caprara Palace; Whittington drowses outside over his lantern; and to-morrow Gaydon rides with his pa.s.sport northwards to Charles Wogan.”
The name hurt Maria Vittoria like a physical torture. She beat her hands together with a cry, ”I hate him! I hate him!”
”Yet I have no better servant!”
”Speak no good word of him in my ears! He robs me of you.”
”He risks his life for me.”
”I will pray that he may lose it.”
”Maria!”
The Chevalier started, thrilled and almost appalled by the violence of her pa.s.sion.
”I do pray,” she cried. ”Every fibre in me tingles with the prayer. Oh, I hate him! Why did you give him leave to rescue her?”
”Could I refuse? I did delay him; I did hesitate. Only to-day Gaydon receives the pa.s.sport, and even so I have delayed too long. Indeed, Maria, I dare not think of the shame, the danger, her Highness has endured for me, lest my presence here, even for this farewell, should too bitterly reproach me.”
At that all Maria Vittoria's vehemence left her. She fell to beseechings and entreaties. With her vehemence went also her dignity. She dropped upon her knees and dragged herself across the room to him. To James her humility was more terrible than her pa.s.sion, for pa.s.sion had always distinguished her, and he was familiar with it; but pride had always gone hand in hand with it. He stepped forward and would have raised her from the ground, but Maria would have none of his help; she crouched at his feet pleading.
”You told me business would call you to Spain. Go there! Stay there! For a little-oh, not for long! But for a month, say, after your Princess comes triumphing into Bologna. Promise me that! I could not bear that you should meet her as she comes. There would be shouts; I can hear them. No, I will not have it! I can see her proud cursed face a-flush. No! You think too much of what she has suffered. If I could have suffered too! But suffering, shame, humiliation, these fall to women, always have fallen. We have learnt to bear them so that we feel them less than you. My dear lord, believe me! Her suffering is no great thing. If we love we welcome it! Each throb of pain endured for love becomes a thrill of joy. If I could have suffered too!”
It was strange to hear this girl with the streaming eyes and tormented face bewail her fate in that she had not won that great privilege of suffering. She knelt on the ground a splendid image of pain, and longed for pain that she might prove thereby how little a thing she made of it. The Chevalier drew a stool to her side and seating himself upon it clasped her about the waist. She laid her cheek upon his knee just as a dog will do.
”Sweetheart,” said he, ”I would have no woman suffer a pang for me had I my will of the world. But since that may not be, I do not believe that any woman could be deeper hurt than you are now.”
”Not Clementina?”
”No.”
<script>