Part 21 (1/2)
He made an effort to carry off the situation lightly. With a great sense of humour, she had also an infinite capacity for taking things seriously--with an almost sensational gravity. Yet she had always responded to his cheerful raillery when he had declined to be tragical.
He essayed the old way now.
”This is just absurd, old girl;”--she shrank--”you really are mad. Your home is Colney Hatch or thereabouts. Why, I'm just what I always was to you--your constant slave, your everlasting lover, and your friend. I'll talk it all over with you later. It's impossible now. They're ready for you in the ball-room. The accompanist is waiting. Do, do, do be reasonable. I will see you--afterwards--late.”
A determined poignant look came into her eyes. She drew still farther away from him. ”You will not, you shall not, see me 'afterwards--late.'
No, no, no; I will trust my instinct now. I am natural, I am true, I hide nothing. I take my courage in both hands. I do not hide my head in the sands. I have given, because I chose to give, and I made and make no presences to myself. I answer to myself, and I do not play false with the world or with you. Whatever I am the world can know, for I deceive no one, and I have no fears. But you--oh, why, why is it I feel now, suddenly, that you have the strain of the coward in you! Why it comes to me now I do not know; but it is here”--she pressed her hand tremblingly to her heart--”and I will not act as though it wasn't here.
I'm not of this world.”
She waved a hand towards the ball-room. ”I am not of the world that lives in terror of itself. Mine is a world apart, where one acts and lives and sings the pa.s.sion and sorrows and joys of others--all unreal, unreal. The one chance of happiness we artists have is not to act in our own lives, but to be true--real and true. For one's own life as well as one's work to be all grease-paint--no, no, no. I have hid all that has been between us, because of things that have nothing to do with fear or courage, and for your sake; but I haven't acted, or pretended. I have not flaunted my private life, my wretched sin--”
”The sin of an angel--”
She shrank from the blatant insincerity of the words, and still more from the tone. Why had it not all seemed insincere before?
”But I was true in all I did, and I believed you were,” she continued.
”And you don't believe it now?”
”To-night I do not. What I shall feel to-morrow I cannot tell. Maybe I shall go blind again, for women are never two days alike in their minds or bodies.” She threw up her hands with a despairing helplessness. ”But we shall not meet till to-morrow, and then I go back to London. I am going to my room now. You may tell Mrs. Byng that I am not well enough to sing--and indeed I am not well,” she added, huskily. ”I am sick at heart with I don't know what; but I am wretched and angry and dangerous--and bad.”
Her eyes fastened his with a fateful bitterness and gloom. ”Where is Mr. Byng?” she added, sharply. ”Why was he not at dinner?”
He hailed the change of idea gladly. He spoke quickly, eagerly. ”He was kept at the mine. There's trouble--a strike. He was needed. He has great influence with the men, and the masters, too. You heard Mrs. Byng say why he had not returned.”
”No; I was thinking of other things. But I wanted--I want to see him.
When will he be back?”
”At any moment, I should think. But, Al'mah, no matter what you feel about me, you must keep your engagement to sing here. The people in there, a hundred of the best people of the county--”
”The best people of the county--such abject sn.o.bbery!” she retorted, sharply. ”Do you think that would influence me? You ought to know me well enough--but that's just it, you do not know me. I realize it at last. Listen now. I will not sing to-night, and you will go and tell Mrs. Byng so.”
Once again she turned away, but her exit was arrested by another voice, a pleasant voice, which said:
”But just one minute, please. Mr. Fellowes is quite right.... Fellowes, won't you go and say that Madame Al'mah will be there in five minutes?”
It was Ian Stafford. He had come at Jasmine's request to bring Al'mah, and he had overheard her last words. He saw that there had been a scene, and conceived that it was the kind of quarrel which could be better arranged by a third disinterested person.
After a moment's hesitation, with an anxious yet hopeful look, Fellowes disappeared, Al'mah's brown eyes following him with dark inquisition.
Presently she looked at Ian Stafford with a flash of malice. Did this elegant and diplomatic person think that all he had to do was to speak, and she would succ.u.mb to his blandishment? He should see.
He smiled, and courteously motioned her to a chair.
”You said to Mr. Fellowes that I should sing in five minutes,” she remarked maliciously and stubbornly, but she moved forward to the chair, nevertheless.
”Yes, but there is no reason why we should not sit for three out of the five minutes. Energy should be conserved in a tiring world.”
”I have some energy to spare--the overflow,” she returned with a protesting flash of the eyes, as, however, she slowly seated herself.
”We call it power and magnetism in your case,” he answered in that low, soothing voice which had helped to quiet storms in more than one chancellerie of Europe.... ”What are you going to sing to-night?” he added.