Part 34 (1/2)
”_Molly!_” she said, beneath her breath.
He nodded. ”Well, Death had gathered the flower.... Accident threw across my path a tinier blossom, a helpless child. Save you then, care for you then, I must, or I had been not man, but monster. Did I care for you tenderly, Audrey? Did I make you love me with all your childish heart? Did I become to you father and mother and sister and fairy prince? Then what were you to me in those old days? A child fanciful and charming, too fine in all her moods not to breed wonder, to give the feeling that Nature had placed in that mountain cabin a changeling of her own. A child that one must regard with fondness and some pity,--what is called a dear child.
Moreover, a child whose life I had saved, and to whom it pleased me to play Providence. I was young, not hard of heart, sedulous to fold back to the uttermost the roseleaves of every delicate and poetic emotion, magnificently generous also, and set to play my life _au grand seigneur_.
To myself a.s.sume a responsibility which with all ease might have been transferred to an Orphan Court, to put my stamp upon your life to come, to watch you kneel and drink of my fountain of generosity, to open my hand and with an indulgent smile shower down upon you the coin of pleasure and advantage,--why, what a tribute was this to my own sovereignty, what subtle flattery of self-love, what delicate taste of power! Well, I kissed you good-by, and unclasped your hands from my neck, chided you, laughed at you, fondled you, promised all manner of pretty things and engaged you never to forget me--and sailed away upon the Golden Rose to meet my crowded years with their wine and roses, upas shadows and apples of Sodom.
How long before I forgot you, Audrey? A year and a day, perhaps. I protest that I cannot remember exactly.”
He slightly changed his position, but came no nearer to her. It was growing quiet in the street beyond the curtained windows. One window was bare, but it gave only upon an unused nook of the garden where were merely the moonlight and some tall leafless bushes.
”I came back to Virginia,” he said, ”and I looked for and found you in the heart of a flowering wood.... All that you imagined me to be, Audrey, that was I not. Knight-errant, paladin, king among men,--what irony, child, in that strange dream and infatuation of thine! I was--I am--of my time and of myself, and he whom that day you thought me had not then nor afterwards form or being. I wish you to be perfect in this lesson, Audrey. Are you so?”
”Yes,” she sighed. Her hands had fallen; she was looking at him with slowly parting lips, and a strange expression in her eyes.
He went on quietly as before, every feature controlled to impa.s.sivity and his arms lightly folded: ”That is well. Between the day when I found you again and a night in the Palace yonder lies a summer,--a summer! To me all the summers that ever I had or will have,--ten thousand summers! Now tell me how I did in this wonderful summer.”
”Ign.o.bly,” she answered.
He bowed his head gravely. ”Ay, Audrey, it is a good word.” With a quick sigh he left his place, and walking to the uncurtained window stood there looking out upon the strip of moonlight and the screen of bushes; but when he turned again to the room his face and bearing were as impressive as before in their fine, still gravity, their repose of determination. ”And that evening by the river when you fled from me to Hugon”--
”I had awaked,” she said, in a low voice. ”You were to me a stranger, and I feared you.”
”And at Westover?”
”A stranger.”
”Here in Williamsburgh, when by dint of much striving I saw you, when I wrote to you, when at last you sent me that letter, that piteous and cruel letter, Audrey?”
For one moment her dark eyes met his, then fell to her clasped hands. ”A stranger,” she said.
”The letter was many weeks ago. I have been alone with my thoughts at Fair View. And to-night, Audrey?”
”A stranger,” she would have answered, but her voice broke. There were shadows under her eyes; her lifted face had in it a strained, intent expectancy as though she saw or heard one coming.
”A stranger,” he acquiesced. ”A foreigner in your world of dreams and shadows. No prince, Audrey, or great white knight and hero. Only a gentleman of these latter days, compact like his fellows of strength and weakness; now very wise and now the mere finger-post of folly; set to travel his own path; able to hear above him in the rarer air the trumpet call, but choosing to loiter on the lower slopes. In addition a man who loves at last, loves greatly, with a pa.s.sion that shall enn.o.ble. A stranger and your lover, Audrey, come to say farewell.”
Her voice came like an echo, plaintive and clear and from far away: ”Farewell.”
”How steadily do I stand here to say farewell!” he said. ”Yet I am eaten of my pa.s.sion. A fire burns me, a voice within me ever cries aloud. I am whirled in a resistless wind.... Ah, my love, the garden at Fair View! The folded rose that will never bloom, the dial where linger the heavy hours, the heavy, heavy, heavy hours!”
”The garden,” she whispered. ”I smell the box.... The path was all in suns.h.i.+ne. So quiet, so hushed.... I went a little farther, and I heard your voice where you sat and read--and read of Elosa.... _Oh, Evelyn, Evelyn!_”
”The last time--the last farewell!” he said. ”When the Golden Rose is far at sea, when the winds blow, when the stars drift below the verge, when the sea speaks, then may I forget you, may the vision of you pa.s.s! Now at Fair View it pa.s.ses not; it dwells. Night and day I behold you, the woman that I love, the woman that I love in vain!”
”The Golden Rose!” she answered. ”The sea.... Alas!”
Her voice had risen into a cry. The walls of the room were gone, the air pressed upon her heavily, the lights wavered, the waters were pa.s.sing over her as they had pa.s.sed that night of the witch's hut. How far away the bank upon which he stood! He spoke to her, and his voice came faintly as from that distant sh.o.r.e or from the deck of a swiftly pa.s.sing s.h.i.+p. ”And so it is good-by, sweetheart; for why should I stay in Virginia? Ah, if you loved me, Audrey! But since it is not so--Good-by, good-by. This time I'll not forget you, but I will not come again. Good-by!”
Her lips moved, but there came no words. A light had dawned upon her face, her hand was lifted as though to stay a sound of music. Suddenly she turned toward him, swayed, and would have fallen but that his arm caught and upheld her. Her head was thrown back; the soft ma.s.ses of her wonderful hair brushed his cheek and shoulder; her eyes looked past him, and a smile, pure and exquisite past expression, just redeemed her face from sadness. ”Good-morrow, Love!” she said clearly and sweetly.