Part 25 (2/2)
Leonora found herself in Batis...o...b..'s sitting-room. For Batis...o...b.. was a luxurious man, excepting when he was roughing it in earnest, and he had made up his mind of late years that a human being could not exist in less than two rooms, if he lived in rooms at all.
Leonora had not thought at all, from the moment when she had taken her resolution in her own drawing-room until she found herself standing before Julius Batis...o...b.. in the hotel. At such times, women act first and think afterwards, lest perchance the thinking should interfere with the doing. But now that the thing was done, she realised at once the whole importance of the step, and at the same time she understood with what ease it had been accomplished. She saw how, with one bound, she was out of her prison, and with the man she loved, and though she was frightened at the magnitude of the deed, she knew that with him she should find strength and comfort and happiness. What mattered the past?
She had not seen Julius for a fortnight, and though in that time she knew that her love had increased tenfold, yet the outline of him had lost distinctness, and she found him more than ever the man she had dreamed of, and discovered, and loved. He was one of those men whose magnificent vitality casts a sort of magnetic influence on their surroundings, just as Leonora herself sometimes did. When Batis...o...b.. was away, his faults might be detected and criticised,--his selfishness, his combativeness, his vanities. But when he was talking to people, and chose to be agreeable, it was hard not to fall under the spell. He was so eminently a man of action as well as of thought, that even those who disliked him most were obliged to confess that he had certain large qualities,--comforting themselves by describing them as ”dangerous,” as perhaps they were, to himself and others.
And now Leonora looked upon him and knew how wholly and truly she loved him, and how ready she was to sacrifice anything and anybody to her love, even to herself and her own reputation and honour. With heroic people that consideration of self might first be thrown to the winds; but Leonora was not heroic. She was very pa.s.sionate and sometimes very foolish, but with all her ”higher standard” she believed in the social regulations and distinctions of life. It was the English part of her nature, fighting for a show of Philistinism amidst so much that was the very reverse. It was a strong pa.s.sion indeed that could make her throw it all away, or even think such a step possible.
It was not that she had yielded weakly to a first impression of weariness after her marriage, and had at once begun to amuse herself with the first man who crossed her path. Weariness alone, the mere commonplace sensation of being bored, could never have led her to such a length. A great variety of circ.u.mstances had combined to bring about her destruction. The wild ideas of her girlhood, investing Marcantonio with just enough romance to make him barely come within the line of her ”standard,” but nerved and encouraged by the faculty she possessed for deceiving herself, had led her into a rash marriage, in which she had been helped and applauded by all those sensible people who think that when money and position are combined on both sides, marriage must necessarily be a good thing. Then followed the bitter disappointment and collapse of all her theories and hopes, leaving a desperate void and a certainty of misery, which gathered strength even from the command of language she had acquired in the study of the imaginary nothingness of everything. And at the very moment when there seemed nothing before her but a dreary waste of years, an individual had appeared who realised the dream she had lost.
And it is indeed a n.o.ble quality so long as it is locked close within the treasury of the soul, and so long as one good woman, and one only, holds the key. But of all the unutterable baseness in this world, there is none more despicable than that of the man who makes one woman after another believe that he loves her to distraction, as he never loved any one else, well knowing, the while, that if the furies spare him to an unhonoured old age, it is out of sheer contempt for the blear-eyed Adonis, shambling weak-kneed to his grave with a flower in his b.u.t.ton-hole and a ghastly leer at the last woman he meets before death overtakes him.
Leonora was a woman who was probably incapable of a second pa.s.sion, and the wholeness of the first might lend it some dignity, some simple loftiness of disregard for lesser things, making it seem n.o.bler for being a single sin, sinned bravely for true love's sake. There were such loves in the world long before Launcelot loved Guinevere, or Heloise was laid in the grave with Abelard. But the world has no lack of men like Julius Batis...o...b.., men in no way worthy of the women who love them, nor ever able to be worthy.
Leonora had chosen, and she would not have given him up for all the joys of paradise, any more than she would have believed a word against his faithfulness and loyalty to herself. He had sworn--how could he deceive her?
CHAPTER XVII.
When Leonora met her husband at dinner an hour later, her face was set, for her mind was made up, and every moment hardened her determination.
Julius had said to her ”come,” and she would go to the very end of the world if need be. He had stated the case with a show of fairness. She must fully understand the step, he said, and that there was no return possible from such an exile as they undertook together. She must abandon everything, and not only her husband, but her mother, her father, her position before the world, her whole luxurious, aristocratic existence.
She must rely on his arm alone to support her, and on his love to be her only comfort and compensation. They must live an isolated life, whether wandering, or resting in some quiet place where society never came. She must also take the chance of his being killed by Marcantonio, who would certainly make an effort to destroy him, and the chance was not small, considering the provocation. If it happened that he fell, she would certainly be left alone in the world. This was probably the strongest argument with her against flight, but it had not weight enough to hold her back, for she had the pride of a woman who had found a man ready to fight for her, in these latter days when fighting is so terribly out of fas.h.i.+on; and she felt in her heart that she should always be able to prevent an encounter.
The resolution she had made had killed any doubt that might still have remained as to the ultimate result of her love for Julius. Henceforth it was her duty to kill doubts in order to be happy; and, indeed, there were few left, for her love was very sincere and real. But if any should arise she meant to smother them instantly. And now she remembered every word her lover had spoken in that brief stolen interview, and she felt no fear. Her face was set, and she looked defiantly at her husband. A few hours more, she thought, and she should be free from him, from the world, from everything--forever.
They would have gone at once, that very minute, but Batis...o...b.. pointed out that the time was ill chosen. She had been seen to come to the hotel,--the servant who had shown her up-stairs had noticed her, perhaps recognised her; in half an hour after the dinner hour she would be missed at the villa, and they would surely be overtaken on land, especially as there was no train at that time. Julius said his boat was moored at the foot of the cliff below the hotel, but it would be impossible to reach it without being observed by many people, some of whom might recognise her. There was also no wind, the sea was oily with a deadly calm, and the full moon, just rising, would make pursuit easy, for though his boat could beat anything on the coast under canvas, she was over heavy in the water for his six men to row at any speed.
But at midnight, when the easterly breeze was blowing from the land, he would be down at the landing of her villa, ready. Marcantonio was always asleep at that hour, for he rose betimes in the morning and went to bed early. The dogs? Julius had thought of that, and sending his sailor servant to the kitchen of the hotel, he obtained in a few minutes a couple of solid lumps of meat, which he caused to be wrapped in paper and then tied up in a silk handkerchief for her to carry. She might find it hard, he said, to get anything of the kind in her own house. She was fond of animals, and was sure she could manage to quiet the terriers in a moment if she had something to give them. Besides, they knew her, and would only bark a very little at first. The moon was full, to be sure, but that could not be helped. Once on the water, nothing short of steam could catch them, and that was not available at such short notice. She should not hamper her flight with unnecessary things, he said, for if any one were roused she might have to run for her life as far as the beginning of the descent where he would be in waiting for her. These and a hundred other little directions he had given her, with the quiet forethought for details that was part of his remarkable intellect.
And now she sat opposite her husband at their small dinner-table, looking hard and determined, but listening with more than usual complacency to his talk, and striving to eat something, as Julius had instructed her. She made such a good pretence that Marcantonio noticed it approvingly.
”I am glad to see, my angel,” he said, ”that you are finding your appet.i.te again. It is most encouraging.”
It was just like his want of tact, thought Leonora. It was just like him to suppose that she would eat the more because he wanted her to do so, and watched her! Dieu! What a nuisance to be always watched. It would soon be over now, however, and she could afford to be indifferent.
”Oddly enough,” said she, ”I am hungry--I do not know why.”
”Does any one know why they are hungry?” said Marcantonio, with a little laugh. ”It happens to me to take much exercise. I rise with the sun, I walk, I ride, I dispatch my correspondence, I work like a dog--et puis, at breakfast I eat nothing. No appet.i.te. Good! Another day, I lie in bed till ten o'clock, rise with a cigarette, read a novel, and--voyez donc, how droll--I eat, perhaps, for four people. But I have often observed that, if I eat a mayonnaise at dinner, I have no appet.i.te the next day at breakfast. It is extremely singular, for the cook makes the mayonnaise of great delicacy.”
What could it possibly matter whether Marcantonio were hungry or not, or what he ate for dinner? But Leonora was glad to have him say anything, so that she might be spared the effort of talking.
”It is true,” she said, absently, ”his mayonnaise is not bad.”
She hoped he would go on; it was an easy, neutral subject--of many ingredients, concerning each of which it would be possible to differ and to raise a fresh discussion.
”Apropos,” said Marcantonio, ”the gardener's boy cut his finger very badly this afternoon”--
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