Part 36 (1/2)
Peignton bowed his head.
”Yes. Both. There was no disguise. There was only one thing in the world for me at that moment, and that was you. Heaven knows what I said, but it was enough. Fate has been against us all the way. If it had not been for that accident, no one need have known.--I could have kept it to myself.”
”Oh, Dane, would that have been better? Do you think that would have helped me?” Ca.s.sandra asked pitifully. ”There is only one thing that makes life endurable at this moment, and that is that I _do_ know. It's wicked; it's selfish; but it's true! I was starving with loneliness.
All those dreadful days at the sea when she was there, and I saw you together, I was longing to die. It seemed as if I could not endure to go on with life, but when death really came near, I was frightened.
It's terrible to feel your breath go. I think for a few moments I must have lost consciousness, for I remember nothing after you seized hold of me, until I was lying--like this--with my head on your shoulder, and you were saying--saying...”
Peignton's breath came in a groan.
”Did I say it? I mean, am I more responsible than for the breath I drew? What I said to you then, Ca.s.sandra, _said itself_. If I had been in my sane senses, I would have killed myself rather than have said them then--before her!”
Ca.s.sandra lifted her fringed eyelids in a questioning gaze.
”For my own sake I am glad; but it was hard for her. Poor Teresa! Was she--did she... What has happened between you, Dane?”
”Nothing has happened. We had it out, of course. The next day. Before we came home I wanted to set her free, but she refused.”
”Refused! But how could she? When she _knew! Why_ did she refuse?”
Dane flushed in miserable discomfort.
”If you had been free, she would have broken the engagement herself, but she believes that it would make things harder for--for us both, if she stood aside. She thinks we might be tempted to--to--”
”What _are_ we going to do, Dane?” Ca.s.sandra asked simply. ”Isn't it strange how one comes up against problems in life, and how different they are in reality from what one has imagined? I've heard of married women falling in love with other men, and meeting them, as we have met now. It seemed so despicable and mean. I felt nothing but contempt, but we are not contemptible; we have done no wrong. We needed each other, and all the barriers in the world couldn't keep us apart. We are sitting--like this!--but I don't feel that I am doing wrong. It helps me. If I could meet you here--not often--just now and then for half an hour, a quarter of an hour, and could put my head on your shoulder, and feel your arms holding me tight--I could go on... I could be better--”
Peignton shook his head, and a dreary travesty of a smile pa.s.sed over his face. He was marvelling for the hundredth time at the extraordinary difference between a woman's sense of honour, and that of a man. He could have set his teeth and stolen his friend's wife, carrying her off boldly in the face of the world, prepared to pay the price, but it would have been impossible for him to continue a series of clandestine meetings, however innocent, and still hold out the hand of friends.h.i.+p.
Ca.s.sandra was not the type of woman to desert her home and child. She had made a vow, and she would keep it, yet she could declare that she would be the stronger for such meetings. Poor darling! she meant it in all sincerity. He would never allow her the misery of discovering her mistake.
”No,” he said firmly. ”Never that, Ca.s.sandra. It has to be all or nothing. There's no midway course possible for you and me. I love you; there's nothing in the wide world that counts with me, beside you. If you could trust yourself to me, I would swear to serve you until my death, and it would be joy, the truest joy I could know. It is for you to order, Ca.s.sandra, and I shall obey...”
He felt her shrink in his arms; her voice trembled, but she forced herself to speak.
”What do you mean? Say it plainly, Dane, please, quite plainly. Let me understand!”
”If you will come with me, Ca.s.sandra, we'll go abroad. I'll take a villa in some quiet spot, out of the tourist beat. We could stay there, together, until... He would divorce you; he is not the kind of man to s.h.i.+rk that. The case would be undefended, so you would not have to appear... In less than a year we could be legally married.”
”But--but--_my boy_!” cried Ca.s.sandra, trembling. She pa.s.sed her right hand against Peignton's shoulder, the hand with the emerald ring, and raised herself from his embrace. There was a look in her eyes which he had not seen before, the mother-look on guard for her young. It was not of the stolid, freckled-faced schoolboy that Ca.s.sandra was thinking at that moment, but of the small, soft-breathing thing which had been the reward of her anguish, which she had greeted with such a pa.s.sion of joy.
”Dane! have you forgotten my boy?”
”No. I have forgotten nothing. Is the boy more to you than I am, Ca.s.sandra?”
”No. No,” she turned to him with eager penitence. ”Not so much; not so much; but he is mine; I am responsible. And he is growing so big--in a few years he would understand. ... Even now the other boys--I have done very little for him in his life. I have been allowed to do so little, and he isn't affectionate. It isn't me personally that he would miss...
a new gun, or a pony would more than make up _now_! But he _would_ care!... The time would come when he would be ashamed.--I couldn't bear my own little son to be ashamed of me, Dane!”
There was no answer to be made to that protest. Dane stared at the ground, miserably conscious of the hopelessness of the situation. He was determined to keep to his resolution that it should be all or nothing between Ca.s.sandra and himself, yet the prospect of parting was intolerable.
”Are you thinking entirely of the boy?” he asked slowly, after a pause.
”Your husband? Doesn't he enter into your calculations?”