_ CHAPTER XXIII
Over the garden a waning moon silvered the water in the pool and picked out from banked masses of bloom a tall lily here and there.
All the blossom-spangled vines were misty with the hovering wings of night-moths. Through alternate bands of moonlight and dusk the jet from the pool split into a thin shower of palely flashing jewels, sometimes raining back on the water, sometimes drifting with the wind across the grass. And through the dim enchantment moved Athalie, leaning on Clive's arm, like some slim sorceress in a secret maze, silent, absent-eyed, brooding magic.
Already into her garden had come the little fantastic creatures of the night as though drawn thither by a spell to do her bidding. Like a fat sprite a speckled toad hopped and hobbled and scrambled from their path; a tiny snake, green as the grass blades that it stirred, slipped from a pool of moonlight into a lake of shadow. Somewhere a small owl, tremulously melodious, called and called: and from the salt meadows, distantly, the elfin whistle of plover answered.
Like some lost wanderer from the moon itself a great moth with nile-green wings fell flopping on the grass at the girl's feet. And Clive, wondering, lifted it gingerly for her inspection.
Together they examined the twin moons shining on its translucent wings, the furry, snow-white body and the six downy feet of palest rose. Then, at Athalie's request, Clive tossed the angelic creature into the air; and there came a sudden blur of black wings in the moonlight, and a bat took it.
But neither he nor she had seen in allegory the darting thing with devil's wings that dashed the little spirit of the moon into eternal night. And out of the black void above, one by one, flakes from the frail wings came floating.
To and fro they moved. She with both hands clasped and resting on his arm, peering through darkness down at the flowers, as one perfume, mounting, overpowered another--clove-pink, rocket, lily, and petunia, each in its turn dominant, triumphant.
Puffs of fragrance from the distant sea stirred the garden's tranquil air from time to time: somewhere honeyed bunches hung high from locust trees; and the salt meadow's aromatic tang lent savour to the night.
"I must go back to town," he said irresolutely.
He heard her sigh, felt her soft clasp tighten slightly over his arm. But she turned back in silence with him toward the house, passed in the open door before him, her fair head lowered, and stood so, leaning against the newel-post.
"Good night," he said in a low voice, still irresolute.
"Must you go?"
"I ought to."
"There is that other bedroom. And Mrs. Connor has gone home for the night."
"I told her to remain," he said sharply.
"I told her to go."
"Why?"
"Because I wanted you to stay--this first night here--with me--in the home of my youth which you have given to me again."
He came to her and looked into her eyes, framing her face between his hands:
"Dear, it would be unwise for me to remain."
"Because you love me?"
"No." He added with a forced smile: "I have put on armour in our behalf. No, that is not the reason."
"Then--may you not stay?"
"Suppose it became known? What would you do, Athalie?"
"Hold my head high ... guilty or not."
"You don't know what you are saying."
"Not exactly, perhaps.... But I know that I have been changing. This day alone with you is finishing the transformation. I'm not sure just when it began. I realise, now, that it has been in process for a long, long while." She drew away from him, leaned back on the banisters.
"I may not have much time;--I want to be candid--I want to think honestly. I don't desire to deny even to myself that I am now become what I am--a stranger to myself."
He said, still with his forced smile; "What pretty and unknown stranger have you so suddenly discovered in yourself, Athalie?"
She looked up at him, unsmiling: "A stranger to celibacy.... Why do you not take me, Clive?"
"Do you understand what you are saying!"
"Yes. And now I can understand anything _you_ may say or do ... I couldn't, yesterday." She turned her face away from him and folded her hands over the newel-post. And, not looking at him, she said: "Since we have been here alone together I have known a confidence and security I never dreamed of. Nothing now matters, nothing causes apprehension, nothing of fear remains--not even that ignorance of fear which the world calls innocence.
"I am what I am; I am not afraid to be and live what I have become.... I am capable of love. Yesterday I was not. I have been fashioned to love, I think.... But there is only one man who can make me certain.... My trust and confidence are wholly his--as fearlessly as though he had become this day my husband....
"And if he will stay, here under this roof which is not mine unless it is his also--here in this house where, within the law or without it, nevertheless everything is his--then he enters into possession of what is his own. And I at last receive my birthright,--which is to serve where I am served, love where love is mine--with gratitude, and unafraid--"
Her voice trembled, broke; she covered her face with her hands; and when he took her in his arms she leaned her forehead against his breast:
--"Oh, Clive--I can't deny them!--How can I deny them?--The little flower-like faces, pleading to me for life!--And their tender arms--around my neck--there in the garden, Clive!--The winsome lips on mine, warm and heavenly sweet; and the voices calling, calling from the golden woodland, calling from meadow and upland, height and hollow!--And sometimes like far echoes of wind-blown laughter they call me--gay little voices, confident and sweet; and sometimes, winning and shy, they whisper close to my cheek--mother!--mother--"
His arms fell from her and he stepped back, trembling.
She lifted her pale tear-stained face. And, save for the painted Virgins of an ancient day he never before had seen such spiritual passion in any face--features where nothing sensuous had ever left an imprint; where the sensitive, tremulous mouth curved with the loveliness of a desire as innocent as a child's.
And he read there no taint of lesser passion, nothing of less noble emotion; only a fearless and overwhelming acknowledgment of her craving to employ the gifts with which her womanhood endowed her--love and life, and service never ending.
* * * * *
In her mother's room they sat long talking, her hands resting on his, her fresh and delicate face a pale white blur in the dusk.
It was very late before he went to the room allotted him, knowing that he could not hope for sleep. Seated there by his open window he heard the owl's tremolo rise, quaver, and die away in the moonlight; he heard the murmuring plaint of marsh-fowl, and the sea-breeze stirring the reeds.
Now, in this supreme crisis of his life, looking out into darkness he saw a star fall, leaving an incandescent curve against the heavens which faded slowly as he looked.
Into an obscurity as depthless, his soul was peering, now, naked, unarmoured, clasping hands with hers. And every imperious and furious tide that sweeps the souls and bodies of men now mounted overwhelmingly and set toward her. It seemed at moments as though their dragging was actually moving his limbs from where he sat; and he closed his eyes and his strong hand fell on the sill, grasping it as though for anchorage.
Now,--if there were in him anything higher than the mere clay that clotted his bones--now was the moment to show it. And if there were a diviner armour within reach of his unsteady hand, he must don it now and rivet it fast in the name of God.
Darkness is a treacherous councillor; he rose heavily, and turned the switch, flooding the room with light, then flung himself across the bed, his clenched fists over his face.
In his ears he seemed to hear the dull roar of the current which, so far through life, had borne him on its crest, tossing, hurling him whither it had listed.
It should never again have its will of him. This night he must set his course forever.
"Clive!"
But the faint, clear call was no more real, and no less, than the voice which was ringing always in his ears, now,--no softer, no less winning.
"Clive!"
After a moment he raised himself to his elbows and gazed, half-blinded, toward the door. Then he got clumsily to his feet, stumbled across the floor, and opened it.
She stood there in her frail chamber robe of silk and swansdown, smiling, forlornly humorous, and displaying a book as symbol of her own insomnia.
"Can't you sleep?" she asked. "We'll both be dead in the morning. I thought I'd better tell you to go to sleep when I saw your light break out.... So I've come to tell you."
"How could you see that my window was lighted?"
"I was leaning out of my window listening to the little owl, and suddenly I saw the light from yours fall criss-cross across the grass.... Can't you sleep?"
"Yes. I'll turn out the light. Will _you_ promise to go to sleep?"
"If I can. The night is so beautiful--"
With a gay little smile and gesture she turned away; but halfway down the corridor she hesitated and looked back at him.
"If you are sleepless," she called softly, "you may wake me and I'll talk to you."
There was a window at the end of the corridor. He saw her continue on past her door and stand there looking out into the garden. She was still standing there when he closed his door and went back to his chair.
The night seemed interminable; its moonlit fragrance unendurable. With sleepless eyes he gazed into the darkness, appalled at the future--fearing such nights to come--nights like this, alone with her; and the grim battle to be renewed, inexorably renewed until that day should come--if ever it was to come--when he dared take in the name of God what Destiny had already made his own, and was now clamouring for him to take.
After a long while he rose from the window, went to his door again, opened it and looked out. And saw her still leaning against the window at the corridor's dim end.
She looked around, laughing softly as he came up: "All this--the night, the fragrance, and you, have hopelessly bewitched me. I can't sleep; I don't wish to.... But you, poor boy--you haven't even undressed. You look very tired and white, Clive. Why is it you can't sleep?"
He did not answer.
"Shall I get my book and read aloud to you? It's silly stuff--love, and such things. Shall I?"
"No--I'm going back," he answered curtly.
She glanced around at him curiously. For, that day, a new comprehension of men and their various humours had come to enlighten her; she had begun to understand even where she could not feel.
And so, tenderly, gently, in shy sympathy with the powerful currents that swept this man beside her,--but still herself ignorant of their power, she laid her cool cheek against his, drawing his head closer.
"Dearest--dearest--" she murmured vaguely.
His head turned, and hers turned instinctively to meet it; and her arms crept up around his neck.
Then of a sudden she had freed herself, stepped back, one nervous arm outflung as if in self-defence. But her hand fell, caught on the window-sill and clung there for support; and she rested against it breathing rapidly and unevenly.
"Athalie--dear."
"Let me go now--"
Her lips burned for an instant under his; were wrenched away:
"Let me go, Clive--"
"You must not tremble so--"
"I can't help it.... I am afraid. I want to go, now. I--I want to go--"
There was a chair by the window; she sank down on it and dropped her head back against the wall behind.
And, as he stood there beside her, over her shoulder through the open window he saw two men in the garden below, watching them.
Presently she lifted her head. His eyes remained fixed on the men below who never moved.
She said with an effort; "Are you displeased, Clive?"
"No, my darling."
"It was not because I do not love you. Only--I--"
"I know," he whispered, his eyes fixed steadily on the men.
After a silence she said under her breath: "I understand better now why I ought to wait for you--if there is any hope for us,--as long as there is any chance. And after that--if there is no chance for us--then nothing can matter."
"I know."
"To-night, earlier, I did not understand why I should deny myself to myself, to you, to _them_.... I did not understand that what I wished for so treacherously masked a--a lesser impulse--"
He said, quietly: "Nothing is surer than that you and I, one day, shall face our destiny together. I really care nothing for custom, law, or folk-way, or dogma, excepting only for your sake. Outside of that, man's folk-ways, man's notions of God, mean nothing to me: only my own intelligence and belief appeal to me. I must guide myself."
"Guide me, too," she said. "For I have come into a wisdom which dismays me."
He nodded and looked down, calmly, at the two men who had not stirred from the shadow of the foliage.
She rose to her feet, hesitated, slowly stretched out her hand, then, on impulse, pressed it lightly against his lips.
"That demonstration," she said with a troubled laugh, "is to be our limit. Good night. You will try to sleep, won't you?... And if I am now suddenly learning to be a little shy with you--you will not mistake me; will you?... Because it may seem silly at this late date.... But, somehow, everything comes late to me--even love, and its lesser lore and its wisdom and its cunning. So, if I ever seem indifferent--don't doubt me, Clive.... Good night."
* * * * *
When she had entered her room and closed the door he went downstairs, swiftly, let himself out of the house, and moved straight toward the garden.
Neither of the men seemed very greatly surprised; both retreated with docile alacrity across the lawn to the driveway gate.
"Anyway," said the taller man, good-humouredly, "you've got to hand it to us, Mr. Bailey. I guess we pinch the goods on you all right this time. What about it?"
But Clive silently locked the outer gates, then turned and stared at the shadowy house as though it had suddenly crumbled into ruins there under the July moon. _