Three Weeks

  CHAPTER IX

  Who can tell the joy of their awakening? The transcendent pleasure toPaul to be allowed to play with his lady's hair, all unbound for him to dowith as he willed? The glory to realise she was his--his own--in his arms?And then to be tenderly masterful and give himself lordly airs ofpossession. She was almost silent, only the history of the whole world ofpassion seemed written in her eyes--slumbrous, inscrutable, their heavylashes making shadows on her soft, smooth cheeks.

  The ring-dove was gone, a thing of mystery lay there instead--unresisting,motionless, white. Now and then Paul looked at her half in fear. Was shereal? Was it some dream, and would he wake in his room at Verdayne Placeamong the sporting prints and solid Chippendale furniture to hear Tompsonsaying, "Eight o'clock, sir, and a fine day"?

  Oh, no, no, she was real! He raised himself, and bent down to touch hertenderly with his forefinger. Yes, all this fascination was indeed his,living and breathing and warm, and he was her lover and lord. Ah!

  The same coloured orchid-mauve silk curtains as at Lucerne were drawn overthe open windows, so the sun in high heaven seemed only as dawn in theroom, filtering though the _jalousies_ outside. But what was time? Timecounts as one lives, and Paul was living now.

  It was twelve o'clock before they were ready for their dainty breakfast,laid out under the balcony awning.

  And the lady talked tenderly and occupied herself with the fancies of herlord, as a new bride should.

  But all the time the mystery stayed in her eyes. And the thought came toPaul that were he to live with her for a hundred years, he would never besure of their real meaning.

  "What shall we do with our day, my Paul?" she said presently. "See, youshall choose. Shall we climb to the highest point on this mountain andlook at our kingdom of trees and lake below? Or shall we rest in thelaunch and glide over the blue water, and dream sweet dreams? Or shall wedrive in the carriage far inland to a quaint farmhouse I know, where weshall see people living in simple happiness with their cows and theirsheep? Decide, sweetheart--decide!"

  "Whatever you would wish, my Queen," said Paul.

  Then the lady frowned, and summer lightnings flashed from her eyes.

  "Of course, what I shall wish! But I have told you to choose, feeble Paul!There is nothing so irritates me as these English answers. Should I haveasked you to select our day had I decided myself? I would have commandedDmitry to make the arrangements, that is all. But no! to-day I am thyobedient one. I ask my Love to choose for me. To-morrow I may want my ownwill; to-day I desire only thine, beloved," and she leant forward andlooked into his eyes.

  "The mountain top, then!" said Paul, "because there we can sit, and I cangaze at you, and learn more of life, close to your lips. I might not touchyou in the launch, and you might look at others at the farm--and it seemsas if I could not bear one glance or word turned from myself today!"

  "You have chosen well. _Mylyi moi._"

  The strange words pleased him; he must know their meaning, and learn topronounce them himself. And all this between their dainty dishes tooktime, so it was an hour later before they started for their walk.

  Up, up those winding paths among the firs and larches--up and up to thetop. They dawdled slowly until they reached their goal. There, aloof fromthe beaten track, safe from the prying eyes of some chance stranger, theysat down, their backs against a giant rock, and all the glory of theirlake and tree-tops to gaze at down below.

  Paul had carried her cloak, and now they spread it out, covering theircouch of moss and lichen. A soft languor was over them both. Passion wasasleep for the while. But what exquisite bliss to sit thus, undisturbed intheir eyrie--he and she alone in all the world.

  Her words came back to him: "Love means to be clasped, to be close, to betouching, to be One!" Yes, they were One.

  Then she began to talk softly, to open yet more windows in his soul to joyand sunshine. Her mind seemed so vast, each hour gave him fresh surprisesin the perception of her infinite knowledge, while she charmed his fancyby her delicate modes of expression and un-English perfect pronunciation,no single word slurred over.

  "Paul," she said presently, "how small seem the puny conventions of theworld, do they not, beloved? Small as those little boats floating likescattered flower-leaves on the great lake down there. They were inventedfirst to fill the place of the zest which fighting and holding one's ownby the strength of one's arm originally gave to man. Now, he has only lawsto combat, instead of a fiercer fellow creature--a dull exchange forsooth!Here are you and I--mated and wedded and perfectly happy--and yet by thesefoolish laws we are sinning, and you would be more nobly employed yawningwith some bony English miss for your wife--and I by the side of a mad,drunken husband. All because the law made us swear a vow to keep for everstationary an emotion! Emotion which we can no more control than the treescan which way the wind will blow their branches! To love! Oh! yes, theycall it that at the altar--'joined together by God!' As likely as not twohuman creatures who hate each other, and are standing there swearing thoseimpossibilities for some political purpose and advantage of their family.They desecrate the word love. Love is for us, Paul, who came togetherbecause our beings cried, 'This is my mate!' I should say nothing ofit--oh no! if it had no pretence--marriage. If it were frankly acontract--'Yes, I give you my body and my dowry.' 'Yes, you give me yourname and your state.' It is of the coarse, horrible things one must passthrough in life--but to call the Great Spirit's blessing upon it, as anexaltation! To stand there and talk of love! Ah--that is what must makeGod angry, and I feel for Him."

  Paul noticed that she spoke as if she had no realisation of the lives oflesser persons who might possibly wed because they were "mated" aswell--not for political reasons or ambition of family. Her keen sensesdivined his thought.

  "Yes, beloved, you would say--?"

  "Only that supposing you were not married to any one else, we should beswearing the truth if we swore before God that we loved. I would make anyvows to you from my soul, in perfect honesty, for ever and ever, mydarling Queen."

  His blue eyes, brimming with devotion and conviction of the truth of histhought, gazed up at her. And into her strange orbs there came that samelook of tenderness that once before had made them as a mother's watchingthe gambols of her babe.

  "There, there," she said. "You would swear them and hug your chains ofroses--but because they were chains they would turn heavy as lead. Make novows, sweetheart! Fate will force you to break them if you do, and thenthe gods are angry and misfortune follows. Swear none, and that fickle onewill keep you passionate, in hopes always to lure you into herpitfalls--to vow and to break--pain and regret. Live, live, Paul, andlove, and swear nothing at all."

  Paul was troubled. "But, but," he said, "don't you believe I shall loveyou for ever?"

  The lady leant back against the rock and narrowed her eyes.

  "That will depend upon me, my Paul," she said. "The duration of love in abeing always depends upon the loved one. I create an emotion in you, asyou create one in me. You do not create it in yourself. It is becausesomething in my personality causes an answering glow in yours that youlove me. Were you to cease to do so, it would be because I was no longerable to call forth that answer in you. It would not be your fault any morethan when you cease to please me it will be mine. That is where people areunjust."

  "But surely," said Paul, "it is only the fickle who can change?"

  "It is according to one's nature; if one is born a steadfast gentleman,one is more likely to continue than if one is a _farceur_--prince orno--but it depends upon the object of one's love--whether he or she canhold one or not. One would not blame a needle if it fell from a magnet,the attraction of the magnet being in some way removed, either by astronger at the needle's side, or by some deadening of the drawing qualityin the magnet itself--and so it is in love. Do you follow me, Paul?"

  "Yes." said Paul gloomily. "I must try to please you, or you will throw meaway."

  "You see," she continued, "the ignorant make
vows, and beingweaklings--for the most part--vanity and fate easily remove theirinclination from the loved one; it may not be his fault any more than abroken leg keeping him from walking would be his fault, beyond the factthat it was _his_ leg; but we have to suffer for our own things--so thereit is. We will say the weakling's inclination wants to make him break hisvows; so he does, either in the letter or spirit--or both! And then hefeels degraded and cheap and low, as all must do who break their sacredword given of their own free will when inclination prompted them to. Sohow much better to make no vow; then at least when the cord of attractionsnaps, we can go free, still defying the lightning in our untarnishedpride."

  "Oh! darling, do not speak of it," cried Paul, "the cord of attractionbetween us can never snap. I worship, I adore you--you are just my life,my darling one, my Queen!"

  "Sweet Paul!" she whispered, "oh! so good, so good is love, keep me lovingyou, my beautiful one--keep my desire long to be your Queen."

  And after this they melted into one another's arms, and cooed and kissed,and were foolish and incoherent, as lovers always are and have been fromthe beginning of old time. More concentrated--more absorbed--than thesternest Eastern sage--absorbed in each other.

  The spirit of two natures vibrating as One.