Part 45 (1/2)
”You've tried me too far.”
She had; and she knew it. There was nothing for it but to skurry for the wings of convention. Alas, for Pan! Hermia was a nymph no longer--only a girl of the cities, upon the defensive for the security of her traditions. She drew aside and sank breathless upon a rock.
”Love is not so ruthless--it does not shock or sear, John Markham,” she gasped.
”I've served you patiently--and long,” he muttered.
”A week.”
”It's enough.”
”No.”
”You'll marry me.”
She raised her head and met his eyes fairly.
”No. I refuse you.”
He could not understand.
”You--”
”I refuse to marry you. Is that clear?” she cried.
What had come over her? The warm color had flooded back to her heart and her eyes were cold like dead embers.
”I won't believe you,” he said doggedly.
”You must. It was a mistake--all this--a mistake from the first. I was made to have followed you. You should have denied me--then--back there--”
”I loved you then--I know it now--and you--”
”No--not love, John Markham,” she went on. ”If you had loved me you would have sent me back to Paris--and saved me from--from myself. You loved me then, you say,” she laughed scornfully. ”What kind of love is this that slinks in hiding, preaches of friends.h.i.+p for its own ends and rants of philosophy? What kind of love that scoffs at public opinion and finds itself at last a topic of amus.e.m.e.nt at a fas.h.i.+onable dining table? A selfish love, a nameless love from which all tenderness, all gentleness and beauty--”
”Hermia!” He had caught her by the shoulders and held her gaze with his own.
”Let me go. It's true. And you ask me to marry you. Why should you marry me when you can win my lips without it?”
She laughed up at him, a hard little laugh, like a buffet in his face.
Still he held her--away from him.
”Your lips are mine,” he said gently, ”I could take them now--again and again. But I will not. See, I am all tenderness again. Your words cannot harm me--nor yourself. For love is greater than either of us.
It is the secret you once asked of me, the secret of life. I've told it to you. I tell it to you now--when I let you go.”
Her color came and went and her eyes drooped before him. He dropped his hands, turned his back and walked away.
”That is my reply,” he said softly.
Could he have seen the glory that rode suddenly in her eyes as she looked at him, he would have read the heart of her. But that was not to be. Followed a silence. He would not trust himself again. The embers of their fire still smoked. With his foot he crushed them out.