_ CHAPTER XXXIII. A MISUNDERSTANDING
The cigarette dropped from her fingers; she sat up. Then he saw that she too was agitated. There was an unusual spot of colour in her cheeks, her breathing was certainly less regular. The variance from her habitual placidity encouraged him. He scarcely hesitated for a moment.
"You'll think I'm insane," he began. "I don't care. There's Drexley, heartbroken, that other poor wretch mad, and others that they have told me of. Do you know that these men are your victims, Emily de Reuss?"
"My--victims?"
"Ay. Now listen. I will absolve you from blame. I will say that the fault was theirs, that your kindness was meant for kindness and nothing else, a proof, if you will, of a generous nature. What does it matter? These men have poured out their lives upon the altar of your vanity. They have given you their love, and you have given them--nothing. I honestly believe nothing. I will believe that theirs was the fault, that you are not heartless nor vain nor indifferent. Only I am not going to be as these men, Emily. I love you--no one but you, you always, and you shall be mine, or I will leave your doors for ever, and crush down every thought of you. A curse upon friendship and such rubbish. You are a beautiful woman, far above me--but at least I am a man--and I love you--and I will have you for my own or no other woman."
He bent down, snatched hold of her hands and drew her face towards his. His heart leaped in quick, fierce beats. At least she was not indifferent. Her cheeks were flushed and her eyes marvellously soft. She did not repulse him, nor did she yield herself at once to his embrace. She looked up at him with wet eyes and a curious smile.
"My friend," she said, "do you wish to take me by storm. What is all this you are saying--and why do you look so fierce?"
"Because I am desperate, dear," he answered. "Because I am alone with you, the woman I love, and because a single word from you can open the gates of Heaven for me. Don't think I am too rough. I will not hold you for a moment if you bid me let you go. See, you are free. Now you shall answer me or I will read your silence as I choose--and--"
His arms were around her waist. Her face was turned away, but he saw the glitter of a tear in her eyes, and he was very bold. He kissed it away.
"Emily," he cried, "you care for me--a little. You are not heartless. Dear, I will wait for you as long as you like."
She unclasped his hands and drew a little away from him. But he did not lose heart, for though her smile was a wistful one, her eyes were soft with unshed tears, and her face was the face of a woman.
"Douglas," she said, "will you listen to me for a moment? You spoke of those other men, you charged me with heartlessness. Perhaps you were right. What then?"
The brutal selfishness of love and of youth swept from his memory Strong's broken life and Drexley's despair.
"Nothing," he cried, "so long as you will care for me. I am not your judge. I want you--you, Emily, and your love. To-night I care for nothing else."
She laid her soft fingers upon his eager face, half caressingly, half in repulse.
"I never wished them harm," she said. "I was interested in their work, and to me they were merely units. So they called me heartless. I was only selfish. I let them come to me because I like clever people about me, and society requires just such an antidote. When they made love to me I sent them away or bade them remain as friends. But that does not necessarily mean that I am without a heart."
"I never want to think of them again," he murmured. "All that I want in this world is that you tell me that you care for me."
She looked into his face, eager, passionate, almost beautiful in its intensity, and smiled. Only the smile covered a sigh.
"If I tell you that, Douglas," she said, "will it be kindness, I wonder? I wonder!"
"Say it, and I will forget everything else in the world," he begged.
"Then I think that I do--care for you, Douglas, if--"
He stopped her words--she gave herself up for a moment to that long, passionate kiss. Then she withdrew herself. But for him the whole world was lit with happiness. He had heard the words which more than anything else he desired to hear. She could never take them back. Her melancholy was a miasma. He would laugh it away with her.
"Douglas," she said, "it was because I fancied that you were beginning to care for me and because I knew that I cared for you that I went away--not because I was afraid."
He looked puzzled. Then he spoke slowly.
"Emily, is it because I am poor and unknown? I am no fit husband for you, I know. Yet I love you, and, if you care, I will make you happy."
"It is not that," she answered.
He rose to his feet. A darker shade was upon his face and his eyes were lit with fire. A new look of resolution was in his face. His lower jaws were knit together with a sullen strength.
"Emily," he said, "there is nothing in this world which I will suffer to come between you and me. I have been lonely all my days--fatherless, motherless, friendless. Now I have found you, and I know how bitterly I must have suffered. If there are battles to fight I will fight them, if you would have me famous first, I will make myself famous, but no power in this world or any other shall take you away from me again. Tell me what it is you fear. Why do you hesitate? I am a man, and your lover, and I can bear to hear anything. But you belong to me. Remember that. I won't part with you. I won't be denied . . . and I love you so much, Emily."
She rose, too, and her arms went round his neck. She drew his lips to hers and kissed him.
"There," she murmured. "You talk as I love to hear a man talk . . . and--I too have been very lonely sometimes, Douglas."
"You have had so many friends, such a beautiful life," he answered.
She smiled at him.
"Dear," she said, "do you think any of these things are worth a moment's consideration to a woman against the love of the man she cares for? We are all the same, though some of us do not wear our hearts upon our sleeves. The longing for love is always there, and the women who go hungry for it through life are the women to be pitied. Douglas, I would change places with that simple, dark-eyed little girl you were with this evening if--if I could marry you to-morrow. Is that too bold?"
He started away. A sudden fear wrenched at his heartstrings. He looked at her wildly.
"Do you mean that you will not be my wife--that you care for me, but not enough to marry me?" he cried. She shook her head slowly.
"No, dear," she said, "for if I were a princess and you were a shopkeeper I would marry you, and be proud of my husband. Don't think so meanly of me as that. There is another--a more powerful reason."
"Tell it me," he begged; "don't keep me in suspense."
She thrust her arm through his and led him gently to the sofa.
"Douglas, won't you trust me? I want to keep my secret for a little while. Listen. It shall not keep us apart, but I cannot be your wife yet, dearly though I would love to be."
The old mistrust blazed up in the man. Drexley's cynicism, Strong's ravings came back to him. He, too, was to be fooled. Her love was a pretence. He was simply a puppet, to yield her amusement and to be thrown aside.
"The truth!" he cried, roughly. "Emily, remember that I have seen men made mad for love of you, have heard them curse your deceit and heartlessness. I'll forget it all, but you must trust me. Prove to me that you cannot marry me, and I'll wait, I'll be your slave, my life shall be yours to do what you will with. But I'll have the truth. I'll have no lonely nights when doubts of you creep like hideous phantoms about the room, and Drexley and Strong come mocking me. Oh, forgive me, but you don't know what solitude is. Be merciful, Emily. Trust me."
She had turned white. The hands she held out to him trembled.
"Douglas," she cried, "if you have any love for me at all you must have faith in me too. It shall not be for long. In less than a year you shall know everything, and until then you shall see me when you will, you shall be the dearest person in the world to me."
"I want the truth," he pleaded. "Emily, if you send me away you'll send me into hell. I daren't have any doubts. They'd drive me mad. Be merciful, tell me everything."
She was very white, very cold, yet her voice shook with passion.
"Douglas, you have called me heartless. You were nearer the truth than you thought, perhaps. You are the first man whom I have ever cared for, it is all new to me. Don't make me crush it. Don't destroy what seems like a beautiful dream. You can be patient for a little while, can you not? You shall be my dearest friend, my life shall be moulded as you will--listen, I will swear that no one in this world shall ever have a single word of love from me save you. Don't wreck our lives, dear, just from an impulse. Do you know you have saved me from a nightmare? I am older than you, Douglas, and I was beginning to wonder, to fear, whether I might not be one of those poor, unfortunate creatures to whom God has never given the power to love anything--and life sometimes was so cold and lonely. You could light it all for me, dear, with your love. You have shown me how different it could be. Don't go away.
"It is an easy thing I ask," he cried, hoarsely. "I have given you my whole love--my whole life. I want yours."
"You are the only man, dear," she answered, "whom I have ever loved, and I do love you."
"Your life too, every corner of it. I want it swept clear of shadows. You need have no fear. If you were a murderess, or if every day of it was black with sin, my love could never alter," he cried.
"Dearest," she whispered, "haven't I told you that you shall take my life into your keeping and do with it what you will?"
He unwound her arms.
"And the past?"
"Everything you shall know--there's nothing terrifying--save that one thing--and that before long."
"Is it like this," he cried, "that you have kept men in chains before--watched them go mad for sport? I'll not be your slave, Emily--shut out from your confidence--waiting day by day for God knows what."
She drew herself up. A storm of passion blazed in her face. The new tenderness which had so transfigured it, had passed away.
"Then go!" she ordered, pointing to the door. "You make a mockery of what you call love. I never wish to see you again, Douglas Jesson."
He stood facing her for a moment without movement. Then he turned and walked slowly out of the house. _