Part 10 (2/2)
”That will depend upon me, my Paul,” she said. ”The duration of love in a being always depends upon the loved one. I create an emotion in you, as you create one in me. You do not create it in yourself. It is because something in my personality causes an answering glow in yours that you love me. Were you to cease to do so, it would be because I was no longer able to call forth that answer in you. It would not be your fault any more than when you cease to please me it will be mine. That is where people are unjust.”
”But surely,” said Paul, ”it is only the fickle who can change?”
”It is according to one's nature; if one is born a steadfast gentleman, one is more likely to continue than if one is a _farceur_--prince or no--but it depends upon the object of one's love--whether he or she can hold one or not. One would not blame a needle if it fell from a magnet, the attraction of the magnet being in some way removed, either by a stronger at the needle's side, or by some deadening of the drawing quality in the magnet itself--and so it is in love. Do you follow me, Paul?”
”Yes.” said Paul gloomily. ”I must try to please you, or you will throw me away.”
”You see,” she continued, ”the ignorant make vows, and being weaklings--for the most part--vanity and fate easily remove their inclination from the loved one; it may not be his fault any more than a broken leg keeping him from walking would be his fault, beyond the fact that it was _his_ leg; but we have to suffer for our own things--so there it is. We will say the weakling's inclination wants to make him break his vows; so he does, either in the letter or spirit--or both! And then he feels degraded and cheap and low, as all must do who break their sacred word given of their own free will when inclination prompted them to. So how much better to make no vow; then at least when the cord of attraction snaps, we can go free, still defying the lightning in our untarnished pride.”
”Oh! darling, do not speak of it,” cried Paul, ”the cord of attraction between us can never snap. I wors.h.i.+p, I adore you--you are just my life, my darling one, my Queen!”
”Sweet Paul!” she whispered, ”oh! so good, so good is love, keep me loving you, my beautiful one--keep my desire long to be your Queen.”
And after this they melted into one another's arms, and cooed and kissed, and were foolish and incoherent, as lovers always are and have been from the beginning of old time. More concentrated--more absorbed--than the sternest Eastern sage--absorbed in each other.
The spirit of two natures vibrating as One.
CHAPTER X
That evening it was so warm and peaceful they dined at the wide-open balcony windows. They could see far away over the terrace and down to the lake, with the distant lights towards Lucerne. The moon, still slender and fine, was drawing to her setting, and a few cloudlets floated over the sky, obscuring the stars here and there.
The lady was quiet and tender, her eyes melting upon Paul, and something of her ring-dove mood was upon her again. Not once, since they had been on the Burgenstock, had she shown any of the tigerish waywardness that he had had glimpses of at first. It seemed as if her moods, like her chameleon eyes, took colour from her surroundings, and there all was primitive simplicity and nature and peace.
Paul himself was in a state of ecstasy. He hardly knew whether he trod on air or no. No siren of old Greek fable had ever lured mortal more under her spell than this strange foreign woman thing--Queen or Princess or what you will. Nothing else in the world was of any consequence to him--and it was all the more remarkable because subjection was in no way part of his nature. Paul was a masterful youth, and ruled things to his will in his own home.
The lady talked of him--of his tastes--of his pleasures. There was not an incident in his life, or of his family, that she had not fathomed by now.
All about Isabella even--poor Isabella! And she told him how she sympathised with the girl, and how badly he had behaved.
”Another proof, my Paul, of what I said today--no one must make vows about love.”
But Paul, in his heart, believed her not. He would wors.h.i.+p her for ever, he knew.
”Yes,” she said, answering his thoughts. ”You think so, beloved, and it may be so because you do not know from moment to moment how I shall be--if I shall stay here in your arms, or fly far away beyond your reach. You love me because I give you the stimulus of uncertainty, and so keep bright your pa.s.sion, but once you were sure, I should become a duty, as all women become, and then my Paul would yawn and grow to see I was no longer young, and that the expected is always an _ennui_ when it comes!”
”Never, never!” said Paul, with fervour.
Presently their conversation drifted to other things, and Paul told her how he longed to see the world and its people and its ways. She had been almost everywhere, it seemed, and with her talent of word-painting, she took him with her on the magic carpet of her vivid description to east and west and north and south.
Oh! their _entr'actes_ between the incoherence of just lovers' love were not ba.n.a.l or dull. And never she forgot her tender ways of insinuated caresses--small exquisite touches of sentiment and grace. The note ever of One--that they were fused and melted together into one body and soul.
Through all her talk that night Paul caught glimpses of the life of a great lady, surrounded with state and cares, and now and then there was a savage echo which made him think of things barbaric, and wonder more than ever from whence she had come.
It was quite late before the chill of night airs drove them into their salon, and here she made him some Russian tea, and then lay in his arms, and purred love-words to him, and nestled close like a child who wants petting to cure it of some imaginary hurt. Only, in her tenderest caresses he seemed at last to feel something of danger. A slumbering look of pa.s.sion far under the calm exterior, but ready to break forth at any moment from its studied control.
It thrilled and maddened him.
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