Part 33 (1/2)

I a.s.sented, and we pa.s.sed out of the dining-room into the hall and up the shallow flight of stairs. I put my right hand on the banister and my left arm round her waist, and the whole sweet figure beside me, and the white neck and ear so near me, drove out the thoughts of a minute back, and I only laughed as I felt her waist contract convulsively as I touched it.

”Would you like to take my arm better?” I said, mockingly, and drew her round to me so that the soft face was just beneath my own. In the subdued light of the staircase she lifted her lids, and I saw her eyes, gleaming and sparkling, br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with gaiety and pleasure, and the arm next me she raised and twisted close round my neck.

”No, Victor; here is the place for my arm now! You won't push it away as you did in Paris, will you?”

The words hurt cruelly. Could I never obliterate that wretched memory?

It was vivid with her; it clung to me. It seemed a shadow d.o.g.g.i.ng my present pleasure. I stopped suddenly on the staircase and took her wholly into my arms. All the supple form yielded at my touch, till it leaned hard against my own; the face, pallid with excitement, was raised to mine; the glitter of her eyes swam before my vision as I caught it from beneath the half-drooped lids; the lips, parted in a faint breath, then closed as mine joined them. As they touched, no consciousness was left except that both our lives seemed mingling, panting, fainting on our lips.

The pain that is pleasure, and the pleasure that is pain, thrilled and pierced every nerve as I held her and felt those lips under mine, her heart beat under my heart, her weak arms twisted round my throat. When at last my lips set hers free, on fire with the pa.s.sion of my own, they moved in a half-delirious murmur,--

”Victor, you don't know how I love you!”

I have no distinct recollection of pa.s.sing up the remaining stairs, but we did reach the landing, and a second or two later were standing in the drawing-room. I think she said it was pretty, and so on, but I hardly heard, my head was reeling, and all my senses dull, her figure leant a little against me, and the pressure of her arm was upon mine.

After the drawing-room, the reading-room, and a breakfast-room, all opening from the same corridor, had been pa.s.sed through, there were still two rooms unexplored on that floor. I turned the handle of the nearer door, and then pushed it open.

Lucia stepped on to the threshold, and then I felt her arm start violently in mine, and she drew back with a sharp, instinctive movement.

I looked down upon her and murmured,--

”Our room, dearest.”

The colour blazed all over the fair skin, till it seemed scorching it, and tears startled into the dismayed eyes, which she turned from me confusedly, as she shrank back into the pa.s.sage.

I was startled, and a chill seemed to fall upon me, and penetrate deeper as a grey pallor succeeded to the burning flush, and she had to lay one trembling hand on my arm again for actual support.

”Victor, it is nothing!” she said, hurriedly, forcing a smile to her lips.

”It--it--startled me.”

She made a nervous step forward, as if she would have forced herself to enter the room with me, but I collected myself with a great effort, and gently drew the door shut.

”There is another sitting-room a little farther on; come and look at it,” I said, quietly, in a light, indifferent tone, as if we were meeting in society for the first time.

I drew her on past the door, feeling her hand fluttering on my arm, and her feet uncertain beside my own. Inwardly I was alarmed--dismayed. Her extreme nervousness, and the physical effect upon her, frightened me.

With crus.h.i.+ng force and clearness came back to me the remembrance of the fearless, eager, unrestrained abandonment of body and mind, the gay exuberance of careless pa.s.sion, with all the vigour of youth and health in it, that had leapt up to meet my caress a year ago,--and been refused. We pa.s.sed on to a door on the other side of the corridor, which opened to another sitting-room. A lovely evening had given way to a lovelier night. Beyond the long window panes, set open to the still air, we caught sight of the sinking golden crescent of the moon towards the south; above and all round, to the low horizon, the sky was crowded, sparkling, and brilliant with stars. I moved two chairs close up to the open window, but she stood by the sill and leaned forward to the night air.

”You think me very silly?” she said, with her head turned away from me.

”I think you are not well, dearest,” I said, gently.

There was silence. Words seemed frozen on my lips. A sort of terror filled me of exciting or embarra.s.sing her. I stood beside the window frame watching her. After a minute or two she dropped back into a chair and looked up at me with a laugh.

”I think I am all right, only you startled me! By the way, Victor, if anything ever does happen to me, you will remember you have your work and your talent to turn to, won't you? I mean you would not do anything desperate. I want you to promise me that.”

She lay back in the easy chair, burying her light head and polished white shoulder in the velvet cus.h.i.+on, and swinging one little foot idly as she looked up smiling for her answer. The bright light in the room fell full upon her, and I looked down upon this brilliant piece of life, full of glowing tints and warm pulses and subtle powers, and my brain flamed with the pleasure of the senses. I hardly noted her words.

”Dear little girl!” I said, smiling back into her eyes. ”I refuse to think of such things at all!”

”Oh, well, it doesn't matter! I don't expect you would,” she said, laughing, the colour leaping up in her cheeks, and the vivid blue deepening behind her lashes. ”Come and make much of me now while you have got me.”