Part 10 (2/2)
”May I get you something?” I asked. ”Let me give you some brandy,” and taking the bottle from the tantalus I gave her a liqueur-gla.s.s full of cognac, which she swallowed at one gulp.
”Why have you not called before?” I inquired, when, at length, she grew less agitated. ”I have expected you daily for so long.”
”I've been away in the country,” she answered. ”But do not think that I have not remembered you.”
”Nearly three weeks have gone by since you were last here,” I said. ”It is too cruel of you not to allow me to write to you.”
”No,” she said decisively, ”you must not write. You have already promised me, and I know you will not break any compact you make.”
”But I love you, Aline,” I whispered, bending forward to her.
”Yes, alas! I know that,” she responded, rousing herself. ”Yet, why carry this folly further?”
”Folly you call it?” I exclaimed regretfully. ”Because you cannot love me in return you tell me I am foolish. Since you have been absent I have examined my own heart, and I swear that my love is more than mere admiration. I think of no one in the world besides yourself.”
”No, no,” she said uneasily. ”There is some other woman whom you could love far better, a woman who would make you a true and faithful wife.”
”But I can love no one else.”
”Try,” she answered, looking me straight in the face. ”Before we met you loved one who reciprocated your affection.”
”Who?”
”You wish me to tell you?” she replied in a hard, bitter tone. ”Surely you cannot affect ignorance that you are loved by Muriel Moore?”
”Muriel!” I gasped in amazement. ”How did you know?”
She smiled.
”There is but little that escapes me,” she answered. ”You loved each other before our romantic meeting, and I, the woman who must necessarily bring evil upon you, have come to separate you. Yet you calmly stand by and invite me to wreck your life! Ah! you cannot know who I am, or you would cast me from your thoughts for over.”
”Then who are you?” I blurted forth, in blank amazement.
”I have already told you. You have, of your own free will, united yourself with me by a declaration of love, and the consequences are therefore upon your own head.”
”Cannot you love like other women?” I demanded. ”Have you no heart, no feeling, no soul?”
”No,” she sighed. ”Love is forbidden me. Hatred takes its place; a fierce, deadly hatred, in which vengeance is untempered by justice, and fatality is always inevitable. Now that I confess, will you not cast me aside? I have come here to you to urge you to do this ere it is too late.”
”You speak so strangely that I'm bewildered,” I declared. ”I have told you of my love, and will not relinquish you.”
”But for the sake of the woman who loves you. She will break her heart.”
”Muriel does not love me,” I answered. ”I have spoken no word of affection to her. We were friends--that is all.”
”Reflect! Is it possible for a girl in such a position as Muriel Moore to be your friend without loving you! You are wealthy, she is poor.
You give her dinners with champagne at the gayest restaurants; you take her to stalls at theatres, or to a box at the Alhambra; you invite her to these rooms, where she drinks tea, and plays your piano; and it is all so different from her humdrum life at Madame Gabrielle's. Place yourself for one moment in her position, with a salary of ten s.h.i.+llings a-week and dresses provided by the establishment, leading a life of wearying monotony from nine in the morning till seven at night, trying on bonnets, and persuading ignorant, inartistic women to buy your wares.
Would you not be flattered, nay, dazzled, by all these attentions which you show her? Would you not become convinced that your admirer loved you if he troubled himself so much about you?”
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