Part 46 (1/2)

”I must do myself the justice to say that the wrong of which I was guilty had its origin, at the first, in a sort of inadvertence. I had no intention of doing any one irreparable harm. I was taking part in a game, but I meant to play it fairly. The lady of whom I speak would bear me out when I say that the people among whom she and I were born--in France--in Paris--engage in this game as a sort of sport, and we call it--love. It isn't love in any of the senses in which you understand it here. We give it a meaning of our own. It's a game that requires the combination of many kinds of skill, and, if it doesn't call for a conspicuous display of virtues, it lays all the greater emphasis on its own few, stringent rules. Like all other sports, it demands a certain kind of integrity, in which the moralist could easily pick holes, but which nevertheless const.i.tutes its saving grace. Well, in this game of love I--cheated. I said, one day, that I had won, when I hadn't won. I said it to people who welcomed my victory, not through friends.h.i.+p for me, but from envy of--her.” The perspiration began to stand in beads upon Bienville's forehead, but he held himself erect and went on with the same outward tranquillity. His eyes were fixed on Pruyn's, and Pruyn's on his, in a gaze from which even the nearest objects were excluded. ”In the little group in which we lived her position was peculiar. She was both within our gates and without them. While she was one of us by birth, she was a stranger by education and by marriage. She was admitted with a welcome, and at the same time with a question. She was a mark for enmity from the very first. There was something about her that challenged our inst.i.tutions. In among our worn-out pa.s.sions and moribund ideals she brought a freshness we resented. She made our prejudices seem absurd from contrast with her own sanity, and showed our moral standards to be rotten by the light of the something clear and virginal in her character. I can't tell you how this effect was brought about, but there were few of us who weren't aware of it, as there were few of us who didn't hate it. There was but one impulse among us--to catch her in a fault, to make her no better than ourselves. The daring of her innocence afforded us many opportunities; and we made use of them. One man after another confessed himself defeated. Then came my turn. I wasn't merely defeated; I was put to utter rout, with ridicule and scorn. That was too much for me. I couldn't stand it; and--and--I lied.”

”Oh, Bienville, that will do!” Diane cried out, in a pleading wail.

”Don't say any more!”

”I'm not sure that there's any more I need to say. The rest can be easily understood. Every one knows how a man who lies once is obliged to lie again, and again, and yet again, unless he frees himself as I do.

When I began I thought I had it in me to go on heroically--but I hadn't.

I can't keep it up. I'm not one of the master villains, who command respect from force of prowess. I'm a weakling in evil, as in good, fit neither for G.o.d nor for the devil. But that's my affair. I needn't trouble any one here with what only concerns myself. It's too late for me to make everything right now; but I'll do what I can before--before--I mean,” he stammered on, ”I'll write. I'll write to the people--there were only a few of them--to whom I actually used the words I did. I'll ask them to correct the impression I have given. I know they'll do it, when they know--”

He stopped helplessly. The l.u.s.tre died out of his eyes, and his pallor became sallowness.

”But I've said enough,” he began again, making a tremendous effort to regain his self-mastery. ”You can have no doubt as to my meaning; and you will be able to fill in anything I may have left unspoken. Now,” he added, sweeping the room with a look--”now--I'd better--go.”

”No, by G.o.d! you infernal scoundrel,” shouted Derek Pruyn, ”you shall not go.”

All the suffering of months shot out in the red gleam of his eyes, while the muscular tension of his neck was like that of an infuriated mastiff.

In three strides he was across the room, with clinched fist uplifted.

Bienville had barely time in which to fold his arms and stand with feet together and head erect, awaiting the blow.

”Go on,” he said, as Derek stood with hand poised above him. ”Go on.”

There was a second of breathless stillness. Then slowly the clinched fingers began to relax and the open hand descended, softly, gently, on Bienville's shoulder. Between the two men there pa.s.sed a look of things unspeakable, till, with bent head and drooping figure, Derek wheeled away.

”I'll say good-by--now.”

Bienville's voice was husky, but he bowed with dignity to each member of the company in turn and to Marion Grimston last. ”Raoul!” The name arrested him as he was about to go. He looked at her inquiringly.

”Raoul,” she said again, without rising from her place, ”I promised that if you ever did what you've done to-day I would be your wife.”

”You did,” he answered, ”but I've already given you to understand that I claim no such reward.”

”It isn't you who would be claiming the reward; it's I. I've suffered much. I've earned it.”

”The very fact that you've suffered much would be my motive in not allowing you to suffer more.”

”Raoul, no man knows the sources of a woman's joy and pain. How can you tell from what to save me?”

”There's one thing from which I _must_ save you: from uniting your destiny with that of a man who has no future--from pouring the riches of your heart into a bottomless pit, where they could do no one any good. I thank you, Mademoiselle, with all my soul. I've asked you many times for your love; and of the hard things I've had to do to-day, the hardest is to give it back to you, now, when at last you offer it. Don't add to my bitterness by urging it on me.”

”But, Raoul,” she cried, raising herself up, ”you don't understand. We regard these things differently here from the way in which you do in France. It may be true, as you say, that in losing your honor you've lost all--in French eyes; but we don't feel like that. We never look on any one as beyond redemption. We should consider that a man who has been brave enough to do what you've done to-day has gone far to establish his moral regeneration. We can honor him, in certain ways--in _certain_ ways, Raoul--almost more than if he had never done wrong at all.

None of us would condemn him, or cast a stone at him--should we, Lucilla?--should we, Mr. Pruyn?”

”No, no,” Miss Lucilla sobbed. ”We'd pity him; we'd take him to our hearts.”

”She's right, Bienville,” Derek muttered, nodding toward Marion. ”Better do just as she says.”

”I'm a Frenchman. I'm a Bienville. I can't accept mercy.”