Part 10 (1/2)
She felt in a very serious mood as she made her cup of coffee and cooked herself a plate of bacon, and then sat down in the red glow of her well-tended hearth to her solitary meal.
”Birds of a feather!” that hateful sentence echoed round her, until the silent walls themselves seemed taunting her. Was she not, after all, really akin to that old woman, and might she not some day end like her?
What was all her own drinking and card-playing and knocking about in the saloons to end in? She s.h.i.+vered, and threw a frightened glance round her. This girl, who would have laughed all sermons, advice, and admonitions scornfully aside, was almost startled now into a sudden reformation by the chance object-lesson of this afternoon. She could not forget it, and in the silence the whole scene rose up vividly before her. She began to long for Stephen to come and break the silence, and glanced impatiently at the clock many times. He was coming in to town that night, she knew. It was a relief such as she had never experienced when at last he arrived, and she had not her own company only any longer.
She was unusually silent all the evening. Stephen did not try to force her into conversation; he was content to sit on the opposite side of the hearth and let his eyes rest upon her in silence. She was paler, he thought, as he watched the orange light from the flames play over the oval face and throw up its regular lines. She was sitting sideways to him, gazing absently into the heart of the glowing coals, and her shadow, formed by the lamp between her and Stephen, fell strongly and clearly outlined upon the opposite wall. Stephen sat in his corner and gazed at it through half-closed eyes. He had been working hard all day, and in the keen, biting air; the warmth and the rest were grateful to him. The silence in the room had lasted so long that he began to feel drowsy under the influence of this quiet warmth. He watched the shadow sleepily, and dreamy fancies floated across his brain. The clean-cut, delicate profile was magnified to colossal proportions on the blank wall. So it seemed to Stephen that beautiful presence would dominate his life, fill in completely the blank of his colourless existence, as the large shadow filled the wall. Then, as his gaze followed its outlines, he saw what his eyes had not found before: a huge upright line of shade, formed by her chair back, ran up beside and mingling with the other lines. It seemed to curve over towards her shoulder, and then a few seconds more, and to Stephen's drowsy gaze, the harsh line expanded into a hideous grotesque figure. Out of those few shades upon the wall there leaped a picture to his eyes: the girl, and at her side, bending over her, a hideous devil, a strange vampire, hovering nearer or farther, in blacker or lighter shades, as the flames in the fire rose and fell.
Stephen watched in a fascinated stupor, and then suddenly, as the light died down in the grate and the shade leaped out nearer and blacker, he started to his feet with a sudden exclamation.
The girl started too, and looked up. ”What is it?” she asked.
Stephen pointed to the wall. Katrine turned, the blaze sprang up on the hearth, the shadows were gone, the illusion vanished.
”What is it?” she said again, wonderingly.
”Oh, nothing--a hideous shape on the wall,” stammered Stephen. ”I was watching your shadow, and another seemed to come up and threaten it.
Imagination, I suppose--perhaps I had fallen into a dream,” he added hurriedly, fearing she would laugh at him.
But Katrine did not laugh: she looked at him gravely and in silence. In her mind she was pondering a question, hesitating, half fearing to speak to him, half impelled to, and half held back, and the equal opposite forces acting on her mind kept her silent.
Stephen, unused to her present mood, felt perhaps she was annoyed or wearied, and drew out his watch. It was past ten.
”I will say good-night,” he said, rising.
Katrine got up too. Her face paled yet more, her bosom rose and fell quickly. ”Take me away from here,” she said abruptly and suddenly.
She had been thinking all the evening how she would approach the subject with him, and then at last his leave-taking had startled away all her circuitous phrases and left her only the crudest words at her command to express her meaning.
Stephen was startled and confused, but his voice was very tender as he took her hand in his and said, ”I don't understand, dear; what do you mean?”
He felt her hand tremble in his. She looked up at him appealingly. Her eyes seemed frightened and uncertain. She was more womanly at this moment than she had ever been. To Stephen she was infinitely more fascinating than she had ever been. Accustomed to her bright, fearless independence, admire that as he might, in this weakness, whatever its cause, she was irresistible.
”Well, I mean,” she said, speaking nervously, but with an effort to control her excitement, ”the other day you spoke of our being married, and I said I couldn't stand a quiet life. Stephen, I will marry you now, and go anywhere with you. I will be content with any life, any monotony--only take me from here at once! I loathe this place, this life.” She stopped suddenly, and a wave of crimson blood swept over the white face. ”I want to be taken away,” she repeated.
Stephen looked at her a moment in silence, with a sense of apprehension and alarm. He could not do as she asked; he was not free--his claim held him.
”I don't know quite what you mean,” he said, a little stiffly, though he felt he did know. ”It would be quite impossible for me to go away now; my whole heart's in the work, and I've sunk all I had in it.”
”Yes; and your soul too,” said Katrine suddenly, looking at him with s.h.i.+ning eyes and a calm face. ”You're a slave now to your gold, the same as we all are here--a community of slaves,” and she laughed.
Stephen grew red, and looked confused, alarmed, and angry, all at the same time.
”n.o.body would go now,” he said, remonstratingly, ”and leave ground like that. It would be insanity. Ask Talbot, ask anybody if they would.”
”Talbot!” repeated Katrine, scornfully; ”he's the worst slave of all; but then he never preached about his soul, and wanting to reform people.”
”No one can reform you if you won't reform yourself,” replied Stephen, coldly; and there he spoke the truth.
”Who was it who has put in our prayer, 'Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil'? Here I live in temptation: I am always thrown into evil. If I were not--” Her voice was very quiet, and had a strange pathetic note in it. It ceased, and then there was silence.
Stephen felt as if a hand were laid on his lips and crushed down the voice that kept struggling from his heart. A second more, and then the girl laughed suddenly.
”Oh, I was stupid! I did not know what I was saying, did not mean it anyway. It's quite right for you to stick to your claim and the idea you started with, and so on. You will make a great success if you do, and that is all you want!”