Part 32 (1/2)
”Was it because you like me personally?” Nick pursued as if he hadn't heard her. ”You may think that an odd or positively an odious question; but isn't it natural, my wanting to know?”
”Oh if you don't know!” Julia quite desperately sighed.
”It's a question of being sure.”
”Well then if you're not sure----!”
”Was it done for me as a friend, as a man?”
”You're not a man--you're a child,” his hostess declared with a face that was cold, though she had been smiling the moment before.
”After all I was a good candidate,” Nick went on.
”What do I care for candidates?”
”You're the most delightful woman, Julia,” he said as he sat down beside her, ”and I can't imagine what you mean by my hating you.”
”If you haven't discovered that I like you, you might as well.”
”Might as well discover it?”
She was grave--he had never seen her so pale and never so beautiful. She had stopped rolling her parasol; her hands were folded in her lap and her eyes bent on them. Nick sat looking at them as well--a trifle awkwardly. ”Might as well have hated me,” she said.
”We've got on so beautifully together all these days: why shouldn't we get on as well for ever and ever?” he brought out. She made no answer, and suddenly he said: ”Ah Julia, I don't know what you've done to me, but you've done it. You've done it by strange ways, but it will serve.
Yes, I hate you,” he added in a different tone and with his face all nearer.
”Dear Nick, dear Nick----!” she began. But she stopped, feeling his nearness and its intensity, a nearness now so great that his arm was round her, that he was really in possession of her. She closed her eyes but heard him ask again, ”Why shouldn't it be for ever, for ever?” in a voice that had for her ear a vibration none had ever had.
”You've done it, you've done it,” Nick repeated.
”What do you want of me?” she appealed.
”To stay with me--this way--always.”
”Ah not this way,” she answered softly, but as if in pain and making an effort, with a certain force, to detach herself.
”This way then--or this!” He took such pressing advantage of her that he had kissed her with repet.i.tion. She rose while he insisted, but he held her yet, and as he did so his tenderness turned to beautiful words. ”If you'll marry me, why shouldn't it be so simple, so right and good?” He drew her closer again, too close for her to answer. But her struggle ceased and she rested on him a minute; she buried her face in his breast.
”You're hard, and it's cruel!” she then exclaimed, shaking herself free.
”Hard--cruel?”
”You do it with so little!” And with this, unexpectedly to Nick, Julia burst straight into tears. Before he could stop her she was at the door of the pavilion as if she wished to get immediately away. There, however, he stayed her, bending over her while she sobbed, unspeakably gentle with her.
”So little? It's with everything--with everything I have.”
”I've done it, you say? What do you accuse me of doing?” Her tears were already over.
”Of making me yours; of being so precious, Julia, so exactly what a man wants, as it seems to me. I didn't know you could,” he went on, smiling down at her. ”I didn't--no, I didn't.”