“I — cannot do that — —”
“Yes, you can. You must.”
“Now? — Duane.”
“Yes, now — now! I tell you our time is now if it ever is to be at all. Don’t waste words.”
“What do you want to say to me that cannot be said here?” she asked in consternation.
He made no answer, but she found herself on her feet and moving slowly along beside him, his hand just touching her arm as guide.
“What is it, Duane?” she asked fearfully, as she laid her hand on the knob and turned to look at his altered face.
He made no answer. She hesitated, shivered, opened the door, hesitated again, slowly crossed the threshold, turned and admitted him.
The western sun flooded the silent chamber of rose and gray; a breeze moved the curtains, noiselessly; the scent of flowers freshened the silence.
There was a divan piled with silken cushions; he placed several for her; she stood irresolute for a moment, then, with a swift, unquiet side glance at him, seated herself.
“What is it?” she asked, looking up, her face beginning to reflect the grave concern in his.
“I want you to marry me, Geraldine.”
“Is — is that what — —”
“Partly. I want you to love me, too. But I’ll attend to that if you’ll marry me — I’ll guarantee that. I — I will guarantee — more than that.”
She was still looking up, searching his sombre face. She saw the muscles tighten along the jaw; saw the grave lines deepening. A sort of bewildered fear possessed her.
“I — am not in love with you, Duane.” She added hastily, “I don’t trust you either. How could I — —”
“Yes, you do trust me.”
“After what you have done to Rosalie — —”
“You know that all is square there. Say so!”
She gazed at the floor, convinced, but not answering.
“Do you believe I love you?”
She shook her head, eyes still on the floor.
“Tell me the truth! Look at me!”
She said with an effort: “You think you care for me.... You believe you do, I suppose — —”
“And you believe it, too! Give me my chance — take your own!”
“My chance?” — with a flash of anger.
“Yes; take it, and give me mine. I tell you, Geraldine, we are going to need each other desperately some day. I need you now — to-morrow you’ll need me more; and the day after, and after that in perilous days to follow our need will be the greater for these hours wasted — can’t you understand by this time that we’ve nothing to hold us steady through the sort of life we’re born to except — each other — —”
His voice suddenly broke; he dropped down on the couch beside her, imprisoning her clasped hands on her knees. His emotion, the break in his voice, excited them both.
“Are you trying to frighten me and take me by storm?” she demanded, forcing a smile. “What is the matter, Duane? What do you mean by peril?... You are scaring me — —”
“Little Geraldine — my little comrade! Can’t you understand? It isn’t only my selfish desire for you — it isn’t all for myself! — I care more for you than that. I love you more deeply than a mere lover! Must I say more to you? Must I even hurt you? Must I tell you what I know — of you?”
“W-what?” she asked, startled.
He looked at her miserably. In his eyes she read a meaning that terrified her.
“Duane — I don’t — understand,” she faltered.
“Yes you do. Let’s face it now!”
“F-face what?” Her voice was only a whisper.
“I can tell you if you’ll love me. Will you?”
“I don’t understand,” she repeated in white-lipped distress. “Why do you look at me so strangely? And you tell me that I — know.... What is it that I know? Couldn’t you tell me? I am—” Her voice failed.
“Dear — do you remember — once — last April that you were — ill?... And awoke to find yourself on your own bed?”
“Duane!” It was a cry of terror.
“Dearest! Dearest! Do you think I have not known — since then — what has troubled you — here — —”
She stared at him in crimsoned horror for an instant, then with a dry sob, bowed her head and covered her face with desperate hands. For a moment her whole body quivered, then she collapsed. On his knees beside her he bent and touched with trembling lips her arms, her knees, the slim ankles desperately interlocked, the tips of her white shoes.
“Dearest,” he whispered brokenly, “I know — I know — believe me. I have fought through worse, and won out. You said once that something had died out in me — while I was abroad. It did not die of itself, dear. But it left its mark.... You say self-control is only depravity afraid.... That is true; but I have made my depravity fear me. I can do what I please with it now; I can tempt it, laugh at it, silence it. But it cost me something to make a slave of it — what you saw in my face is the claw-mark it left fighting me to the death.”
Very straight on his knees beside her he bent again, pressing her rigid knees with his lips.
“I need you, Geraldine — I need all that is best in you; you must love me — take me as an ally, dear, against all that is worst in you. I’ll love you so confidently that we’ll kill it — you and I together — my strength and yours, my bitter and deep understanding and your own sweet contempt for weakness wherever it may be, even in yourself.”
He touched her; and she shuddered under the light caress, still bent almost double, and covering her face with both hands. He bent over her, one knee on the divan.
“Let’s pull ourselves together and talk sense, Geraldine,” he said with an effort at lightness.
“Don’t you remember that bully little girl who swung her fists in single combat and uppercut her brother and me whenever her sense of fairness was outraged? The time has come when you, who were so fair to others, are going to be fair to yourself by marrying me — —”
She dropped both hands and stared at him out of wide, tear-wet eyes.
“Fair to myself — at your expense, Duane?”
“What do you mean? I love you.”
“Am I to let you — you marry me — knowing — what you know? Is that what you call my sense of fairness?” And, as he attempted to speak:
“Oh, I have thought about it already! — I must have been conscious that this would happen some day — that — that I was capable of caring for you — and it alarmed me — —”
“Are you capable of loving me?”
“Duane, you must not ask me that!”
“Tell me!”
But she pushed him back, and they faced each other, her hands remaining on his shoulders. She strove piteously to endure his gaze, flinched, strove to push him from her again — but the slender hands lay limply against him. So they remained, her hands at intervals nervously tightening and relaxing on his shoulders, her tearful breath coming faster, the dark eyes closing, opening, turning from him, toward him, searching, now in his soul, now in her own, her self-command slipping from her.
“It is cowardly in me — if I do it,” she said in the ghost of a voice.
“Do what?”
“Let you risk — what I m-might become.”
“You little saint!”
“Some saints were depraved at first — weren’t they?” she said without a smile. “Oh, Duane, Duane, to think I could ever be here speaking to you about — about the horror that has happened to me — looking into your face and giving up my dreadful secret to you — laying my very soul naked before you! How can I look at you — —”
“Because I love you. Now give me the right to your lips and heart!”
There was a long silence. Then she tried to smile.
“My — my lips? I — thought you took such things — lightly — —”
She hesitated, glanced up at him, then began to tremble.
“Duane — if you are in earnest about our — a
bout an engagement — promise me that I may be released if I — think best — —”
“Why?”
“I — I might fail — —”
“The more need of me. But you can’t fail — —”
“Yes, but if I should, dear. Will you release me? I cannot — I will not engage myself to you — unless you promise to let me go if I think it best. You know what my word means. Give it back to me if matters go wrong with me. Will you?”
“But I am going to marry you now!” he said with a short, excited laugh.
“Now!” she repeated, appalled.
“Certainly, to make sure of you. We don’t need a license in this State. There’s a parson at West Gate Village.... I intend to make sure of you now. You can keep it a secret if you like. When you return to town we can have everything en règle — engagement announced, cards, church wedding, and all that. Meanwhile I’m going to be sure of you.”
“W-when?”
“This afternoon.”
His excitement thrilled her; a vivid colour surged over neck and brow.
“Duane, I did not dream that you cared so much, so truly — Oh, I — I do love you then! — I love you, Duane! I love you!”
He drew her suddenly into his arms, close, closer; she lifted her face; he kissed her; and she gave him her heart with a sob.
“You will wait for m-me, won’t you?” she stammered, striving to keep her reason through the delicious tumult that swept her senses. “Before I m-marry you I must be quite certain that you take no risk — —”
She looked up into his steady eyes; a passion of tenderness overwhelmed her, and her locked arms tightened around his neck.
“Oh,” she whispered, “you are the boy I loved so long, so long ago — my comrade Duane — my own little boy! How was I to know I loved you this way, too? How could I understand!”
Already the glamour of the past was transfiguring the man for her, changing him back into the lad she had ruled so long ago, glorifying him — drawing them together into that golden age where her ears already caught the far cries and laughter of the past.
Now, her arms around him, she looked at him and looked at him as though she had not set eyes on him since then.
“Of course, I love you,” she said impatiently, as though surprised and hurt that he or she had ever doubted it. “You always were mine; you are mine! Nobody else could ever have had you — no matter what you did — or what I did.... And nobody except you could ever, ever have had me. That is perfectly plain now.... Oh, you — you darling” — she murmured, drawing his face against hers. Tears sprang to her brown eyes; her mouth quivered.
“You will love me, won’t you? Because I’m going quite mad about you, Duane.... I don’t think I know just what I’m saying — or what I’m doing.”
She drew him closer; he caught her, crushing her in his arms, and she yielded, clung to him for a moment, drew back in flushed resistance, still bewildered by her own passion. Then, into her eyes came that divine beauty which comes but once on earth — innocence awakened; and the white lids drooped a little, and the mouth quivered, surrendering with a sigh.
“You never have, never could love any other man? Say it. I know it, but — say it, sweetheart!”
“Only you, Duane.”
“Are you happy?”
“I am in heaven.”
She closed her eyes — opening them almost immediately and passing one hand across his face as though afraid he might have vanished.
“You are there yet,” she murmured with a faint smile.
“So are you,” he whispered, laughing— “my little dream girl — my little brown-eyed, brown-haired, long-legged, swift-running, hard-hitting — —”
“Oh, do you remember that dreadful blow I gave you when we were sparring in the library? Did it hurt you, my darling — I was sure it did, but you never would admit it. Tell me now,” she coaxed, adorable in her penitence.
“Well — yes, it did.” He laughed under his breath— “I don’t mind telling you now that it fractured the bridge of my nose.”
“What!” — in horror. “That perfectly delicious straight nose of yours!”
“Oh, I had it fixed,” he said, laughing. “If you deal me no more vital blows than that I’ll never mind — —”
“I — deal you a — a blow, Duane! I!”
“For instance, by not marrying me right away — —”
“Dear — I can’t.”
The smile had died out in her eyes and on her lips.
“You know I can’t, don’t you?” she said tenderly. “You know I’ve got to be fair to you.” Her face grew graver. “Dear — when I stop and try to think — it dismays me to understand how much in love with you I am.... Because it is too soon.... It would be safer to wait before I start to love you — this way. There is a cowardly streak in me — a weak streak — —”
“What blessed nonsense you do talk, don’t you?”
“No, dear.”
She moved slightly toward him, settling close, as though within the circle of his arms lay some occult protection.
For a while she lay very close to him, her pale face pressed against his shoulder, brown eyes remote. Neither spoke. After a long time she laid her hands on his arms, gently disengaging them, and, freeing herself, sprang to her feet. A new, lithe and lovely dignity seemed to possess her — an exquisite, graceful, indefinable something which lent a hint of splendour to her as she turned and looked down at him.
Then, mischievously tender, she stooped and touched her childish mouth to his — her cheek, her throat, her hair, her lids, her hands, in turn all brushed his lips with fragrance — the very ghost of contact, the exquisite mockery of caress.
“If you don’t go at once,” she murmured, “I’ll never let you go at all. Wait — let me see if anybody is in the corridor — —”
She opened the door and looked out.
“Not a soul,” she whispered, “our reputations are still intact. Good-bye — I’ll put on a fresh gown and meet you in ten minutes!... Where? Oh, anywhere — anywhere, Duane. The Lake. Oh, that is too far away! Wait here on the stairs for me — that isn’t so far away — just sit on the stairs until I come. Do you promise? Truly? Oh, you angel boy!... Yes — but only one more, then — to be quite sure that you won’t forget to wait on the stairs for me....”
CHAPTER VIII. AN AFTERGLOW
Deliciously weary, every fibre in her throbbing with physical fatigue, she had nevertheless found it impossible to sleep.
The vivid memory of Duane holding her in his arms, while she gave her heart to him with her lips, left her tremulous and confused by emotions of which she yet knew little.
Toward dawn a fever of unrest drove her from her hot, crushed pillows to the cool of the open casements. The morning was dark and very still; no breeze stirred; a few big, widely scattered stars watched her. For a long while she stood there trying to quiet the rapid pulse and fast breathing; and at length, with an excited little laugh, she sank down among the cushions on the window-seat and lay back very still, her head, with its glossy, disordered hair, cradled in her arms.
“Is this love?” she said to herself. “Is this what it is doing to me? Am I never again going to sleep?”
But she could not lie still; her restless hands began groping about in the darkness, and presently the fire from a cigarette glimmered red.
She remained quiet for a few moments, elbow among the pillows, cheek on hand, watching the misty spirals float through the open window. After a while she sat up nervously and tossed the cigarette from her. Like a falling star the spark whirled earthward in a wide curve, glowed for a few seconds on the lawn below, and slowly died out.
Then an inexplicable thing occurred. Unthinkingly she had turned over and extended her arm, searching in the darkness behind her. There came a tinkle, a vague violet perfume, and the starlight fell on her clustering hair and throat as she lifted and drained the brimming glass.
Suddenly she stood up; the frail,
crystal glass fell from her fingers, splintering on the stone sill; and with a quick, frightened intake of breath, lips still wet and scented, and the fire of it already stealing through her veins, she awoke to stunned comprehension of what she had done.
For a moment only startled astonishment dominated her. That she could have done this thing so instinctively and without forethought or intent, seemed impossible. She bowed her head in her hands, striving desperately to recollect the circumstances; she sprang to her feet and paced the darkened room, trying to understand. A terrified and childish surprise possessed her, which changed slowly to anger and impatience as she began to realise the subtle treachery that habit had practised on her — so stealthy is habit, betraying the body unawares.
Overwhelmed with consternation, she seated herself to consider the circumstances; little flashes of alarm assisted her. Then a sort of delicate madness took possession of her, deafening her ears to the voice of fear. She refused to be afraid.
As she sat there, both hands unconsciously indenting her breast, the clamour and tumult of her senses drowned the voice within.
No, she would not be afraid! — though the burning perfume was mounting to her head with every breath and the glow grew steadily in her body, creeping from vein to vein. No, she would not be afraid. It could never happen again. She would be on her guard after this.... Besides, the forgetfulness had been so momentary, the imprudence so very slight ... and it had helped her, too — it was already making her sleepy ... and she had needed something to quiet her — needed sleep....
After a long while she turned languidly and picked up the little crystal flask from the dresser — an antique bit of glass which Rosalie had given her.
Dawn whitened the edges of the sky; the birds were becoming very noisy. She lifted the curiously cut relic; an imprisoned fluid glimmered with pale-violet light — some scented French distillation which Rosalie affected because nobody else had ever heard of it — an aromatic, fiery essence, faintly perfumed.
For a moment the girl gazed at it curiously. Then, on deliberate impulse, she filled another glass.
“One thing is certain,” she said to herself; “if I am capable of controlling myself at all, I must begin now. If I should touch this it would be excess.... I would like to, but” — she flung the contents from the window— “I won’t. And that is the way I am able to control myself.”
Works of Robert W Chambers Page 437