Part 22 (1/2)
”So it seems,” he muttered between his teeth, stooping to pick up the dropped candlestick. It was lying at my feet. I could have taken him at a disadvantage, then; I could have felled him with one blow, thrown myself upon his back. Thus may an athletic prisoner set upon a jailer coming into his cell, if there were not the prison, the locks, the bars, the heavy gates! the walls, all the apparatus of captivity, and the superior weight of the idea chaining down the will, if not the courage.
It might have been his knowledge of this, or his absolute disdain of me. The unconcerned manner in which he busied himself--his head within striking distance of my fist--in lighting the extinguished candle from the trembling Chica's humiliated me beyond expression. He had some difficulty with that, till he said to her just audibly, ”Calm thyself, nina,” and she became rigid in her appearance of excessive terror.
He turned then towards Seraphina, candlestick in hand, courteously saying in Spanish:
”May I be allowed to help light you to your door, since that silly Juanita--I think it was Juanita--has taken leave of her senses? She is not fit to remain in your service--any more than this one here.”
With a gasp of desolation, La Chica began to sob limply against the wall. I made one step forward; and, holding the candle well up, as though for the purpose of examining my face carefully, he never looked my way, while he and Seraphina were exchanging a few phrases in French which I did not understand well enough to fellow.
He was politely interrogatory, it seemed to me. The natural, good-humoured expression never left his face, as though he had a fund of inexhaustible patience for dealing with the unaccountable trifles of a woman's conduct. Seraphina's shawl had slipped off her head. La Chica sidled towards her, sobbing a deep sob now and then, without any sign of tears; and with their scattered hair, their bare arms, the disorder of their attire, they looked like two women discovered in a secret flight for life. Only the mistress stood her ground firmly; her voice was decided; there was resolution in the way one little white hand clutched the black lace on her bosom. Only once she seemed to hesitate in her replies. Then, after a pause he gave her for reflection, he appeared to repeat his question. She glanced at me apprehensively, as I thought, before she confirmed the previous answer by a slow inclination of her head.
Had he allowed himself to make a provoking movement, a dubious gesture of any sort, I would have flung myself upon him at once; but the nonchalant manner in which he looked away, while he extended to me his hand with the candlestick, amazed me. I simply took it from him. He stepped back, with a ceremonious bow for Seraphina. La Chica ran up close to her elbow. I heard her voice saying sadly, ”You need fear nothing for yourself, child”; and they moved away slowly. I remained facing O'Brien, with a vague notion of protecting their retreat.
This time it was I who was holding the light before his face. It was calm and colourless; his eyes were fixed on the ground reflectively, with the appearance of profound and quiet absorption. But suddenly I perceived the convulsive clutch of his hand on the skirt of his coat. It was as if accidentally I had looked inside the man--upon the strength of his illusions, on his desire, on his pa.s.sion. Now he will fly at me, I thought, with a tremendously convincing cert.i.tude. Now------All my muscles, stiffening, answered the appeal of that thought of battle.
He said, ”Won't you give me that light?”
And I understood he demanded a surrender.
”I would see you die first where you stand,” was my answer.
This object in my hand had become endowed with moral meaning--significant, like a symbol--only to be torn from me with my life.
He lifted his head; the light twinkled in his eyes. ”Oh, _I_ won't die,”
he said, with that bizarre suggestion of humour in his face, in his subdued voice. ”But it is a small thing; and you are young; it may be yet worth your while to try and please me--this time.”
Before I could answer, Seraphina, from some little distance, called out hurriedly:
”Don Juan, your arm.”
Her voice, sounding a little unsteady, made me forget O'Brien, and, turning my back on him, I ran up to her. She needed my support; and before us La Chica tottered and stumbled along with the lights, moaning:
”_Madre de Dios!_ What will become of us now! Oh, what will become of us now!”
”You know what he had asked me to let him do,” Seraphina talked rapidly.
”I made answer, 'No; give the light to my cousin.' Then he said, 'Do you really wish it, Senorita? I am the older friend.' I repeated, 'Give the light to my cousin, Senor.' He, then, cruelly, 'For the young man's own sake, reflect, Senorita.' And he waited before he asked me again, 'Shall I surrender it to him?' I felt death upon my heart, and all my fear for you--there.” She touched her beautiful throat with a swift movement of a hand that disappeared at once under the lace. ”And because I could not speak, I------Don Juan, you have just offered me your life--I------ _Misericordia!_ What else was possible? I made with my head the sign 'Yes.'”
In the stress, hurry, and rapture encompa.s.sing my immense grat.i.tude, I pressed her hand to my side familiarly, as if we had been two lovers walking in a lane on a serene evening.
”If you had not made that sign, it would have been worse than death--in my heart,” I said. ”He had allied me, too, to renounce my trust, my light.”
We walked on slowly, accompanied in our sudden silence by the plash of the fountain at the bottom of the great square of darkness on our left, and by the piteous moans of La Chica.
”That is what he meant,” said the enchanting voice by my side. ”And you refused. That is your valour.”
”From no selfish motives,” I said, troubled, as if all the great incert.i.tude of my mind had been awakened by the sound that brought so much delight to my heart. ”My valour is nothing.”
”It has given me a new courage,” she said.