Part 46 (1/2)

And then with another glance at the torn music, she leaned against the trunk of a tree, sobbing violently.

”Beth----” he whispered, gently, ”don't----”

”Go away. Oh, go. Go!”

”I can't. I won't. What did you want me to say to you? That I love you?

I do, Beth--I do,” he whispered. It was Peter Nichols, not Peter Nicholaevitch, who was whispering now.

”Was this what your teachin' meant?” she flashed at him bitterly. ”Was this what you meant when you wanted to pay my way in New York? Oh, how you shame me! Go! Go away from me, please.”

”Please don't,” he whispered. ”You don't understand. I never meant that.

I--I love you, Beth. I can't bear to see you cry.”

She made a valiant effort to control her heaving shoulders. And then,

”Oh, you--you've spoiled it all. S-spoiled it all, and it was so beautiful.”

Had he? Her words sobered him. No, that couldn't be. He cursed his momentary madness, struggling for words to comfort her, but he had known that she had seen the look in his eyes, felt the roughness of his embrace. Love? The love that she had sung to him was not of these. He wanted now to touch her again--gently, to lift up her flushed face, wet like a flower with the fresh dew of her tears, and tell her what love was. But he didn't dare--he couldn't, after what he had said to her. And still she wept over her broken toys--the music--the singing--for they had mattered the most. Very childlike she seemed, very tender and pathetic.

”Beth,” he said at last, touching her fingers gently. ”Nothing is changed, Beth. It can't be changed, dear. We've got to go on. It means so much to--to us both.”

But she paid no attention to the touch of his fingers and turned away, leaving the music at her feet, an act in itself significant.

”Let me go home. Please. Alone. I--I've got to think.”

She did not look at him, but Peter obeyed her. There was nothing else to do. There was something in the clear depths of her eyes that had daunted him. And he had meant her harm. Had he? He didn't know. He pa.s.sed his hand slowly across his eyes and then stood watching her until she had disappeared among the trees. When she had gone he picked up the torn music. It was Ma.s.senet's ”Elegie.”

O doux printemps d'autrefois....

Tout est fletrie.

The lines of the torn pieces came together. Spring withered! The joyous songs of birds--silenced! Beth's song? He smiled. No, that couldn't be.

He folded the music up and strode off slowly, muttering to himself.

CHAPTER XIV

TWO LETTERS

Peter pa.s.sed a troublous evening and night--a night of self-revelations.

Never that he could remember had he so deeply felt the sting of conscience. He, the Grand Duke Peter Nicholaevitch, in love with this little rustic? Impossible! It was the real Peter, tired of the sham and make-believe of self-restraint and virtue, who had merely kissed a country girl. He was no anchorite, no saint. Why had he tied himself to such a duty from a motive of silly sentimentalism?

He winced at the word. Was it that? Sentimentalism. He had shown her the best side of him--shown it persistently, rather proud of his capacity for self-control, which had ridden even with his temptations. Why should it matter so much to him what this girl thought of him? What had he said to her? Nothing much that he hadn't said to other women. It was the fact that he had said it to Beth that made the difference. The things one might say to other women meant something different to Beth--the things one might do.... He had been a fool and lost his head, handled her roughly, spoken to her wildly, words only intended for gentle moods, softer purposes. Shrewd little Beth, whose wide, blue eyes had seen right down into the depths of his heart. He had been clumsy, if nothing else, and he had always thought that clumsiness was inexcusable. He had a guilty sense that while Beth was still the little lady to her finger tips, born to a natural n.o.bility, he, the Grand Duke Peter, had been the boor, the vulgar proletarian. The look in her eyes had shamed him as the look in his own eyes had shamed her. She had known what his wooing meant, and it hadn't been what she wanted. The mention of love on lips that kissed as his had done was blasphemy.

Yes. He cared what she thought of him--and he vainly cast about for a way in which to justify himself. To make matters worse Beth still believed that this was the payment he exacted for what he had done for her, what he had proposed to do for her, that he measured her favors in terms of value received. What else could she think but that? Every hour of his devotion to her music defamed her.

The situation was intolerable. In the morning he went seeking her at her home. The house was open. No one in Black Rock village locked doors by day or night. Beth was not there. A neighbor said that she had gone early alone into the woods and Peter understood. If she hadn't cared for him she wouldn't have needed to go to the woods to be alone. Of course she didn't appear at the Cabin the next day, and Peter searched for her--fruitlessly. She weighed on his conscience, like a sin unshrived.

He had to find her to explain the unexplainable, to tell her what her confidence had meant to him, to recant his blasphemy of her idols in gentleness and repentance.

As he failed to find her, he wrote her a note, asking her forgiveness, and stuck it in the mirror of the old hat-rack in the hall. Many women in Europe and elsewhere, ladies of the great world that Beth had only dreamed about, would have given their ears (since ear puffs were in fas.h.i.+on) to receive such a note from Peter. It was a beautiful note besides--manly, gentle, breathing contrition and self-reproach. Beth merely ignored it. Whatever she thought of it and of Peter she wanted to deliberate a longer while.