CHAPTER XXIX
THE RED LIGHT
It was an evening without stars, but fair, sufficient wind to make herLadyship cling haughtily to his arm as they turned corners. Many ofthe visitors were in the garden, some grouped round a quartet of gailyattired minstrels, but more sitting in little arbours or prowling insearch of an arbour to sit in; the night was so dark that when our twopassed beyond the light of the hotel windows they could scarce see theshrubs they brushed against; cigars without faces behind themsauntered past; several times they thought they had found anunoccupied arbour at last, when they heard the clink of coffee-cups.
"I believe the castle dates from the fifteenth century," Tommy wouldthen say suddenly, though it was not of castles he had been talking.
With a certain satisfaction he noticed that she permitted him, withoutcomment, to bring in the castle thus and to drop it the moment theemergency had passed. But he had little other encouragement. Even whenshe pressed his arm it was only as an intimation that the castle wasneeded.
"I can't even make her angry," he said wrathfully to himself.
"You answer not a word," he said in great dejection to her.
"I am afraid to speak," she admitted. "I don't know who may hear."
"Alice," he said eagerly, "what would you say if you were not afraidto speak?"
They had stopped, and he thought she trembled a little on his arm, buthe could not be sure. He thought--but he was thinking too much again;at least, Lady Pippinworth seemed to come to that conclusion, for witha galling little laugh she moved on. He saw with amazing clearnessthat he had thought sufficiently for one day.
On coming into the garden with her, and for some time afterwards, hehad been studying her so coolly, watching symptoms rather than words,that there is nothing to compare the man to but a doctor who, while heis chatting, has his finger on your pulse. But he was not so calm now.Whether or not he had stirred the woman, he was rapidly firinghimself.
When next he saw her face by the light of a window, she at the sameinstant turned her eyes on him; it was as if each wanted to knowcorrectly how the other had been looking in the darkness, and theeffect was a challenge.
Like one retreating a step, she lowered her eyes. "I am tired," shesaid. "I shall go in."
"Let us stroll round once more."
"No, I am going in."
"If you are afraid----" he said, with a slight smile.
She took his arm again. "Though it is too bad of me to keep you out,"she said, as they went on, "for you are shivering. Is it the night airthat makes you shiver?" she asked mockingly.
But she shivered a little herself, as if with a presentiment that shemight be less defiant if he were less thoughtful. For a month or moreshe had burned to teach him a lesson, but there was a time before thatwhen, had she been sure he was in earnest, she would have preferred tobe the pupil.
Two ladies came out of an arbour where they had been drinking coffee,and sauntered towards the hotel. It was a tiny building, halfconcealed in hops and reached by three steps, and Tommy and hiscompanion took possession. He groped in the darkness for a chair forher, and invited her tenderly to sit down. She said she preferred tostand. She was by the open window, her fingers drumming on the sill.Though he could not see her face, he knew exactly how she was looking.
"Sit down," he said, rather masterfully.
"I prefer to stand," she repeated languidly.
He had a passionate desire to take her by the shoulders, but put hishand on hers instead, and she permitted it, like one disdainful buthelpless. She said something unimportant about the stillness.
"Is it so still?" he said in a low voice. "I seem to hear a greatnoise. I think it must be the beating of my heart."
"I fancy that is what it is," she drawled.
"Do you hear it?"
"No."
"Did you ever hear your own heart beat, Alice?"
"No."
He had both her hands now. "Would you like to hear it?"
She pulled away her hands sharply. "Yes," she replied with defiance.
"But you pulled away your hands first," said he.
He heard her breathe heavily for a moment, but she said nothing."Yes," he said, as if she had spoken, "it is true."
"What is true?"
"What you are saying to yourself just now--that you hate me."
She beat the floor with her foot.
"How you hate me, Alice!"
"Oh, no."
"Yes, indeed you do."
"I wonder why," she said, and she trembled a little.
"I know why." He had come close to her again. "Shall I tell you why?"
She said "No," hurriedly.
"I am so glad you say No." He spoke passionately, and yet there wasbanter in his voice, or so it seemed to her. "It is because you fearto be told; it is because you had hoped that I did not know."
"Tell me why I hate you!" she cried.
"Tell me first that you do."
"Oh, I do, I do indeed!" She said the words in a white heat of hatred.
Before she could prevent him he had raised her hand to his lips.
"Dear Alice!" he said.
"Why is it?" she demanded.
"Listen!" he said. "Listen to your heart, Alice; it is beating now. Itis telling you why. Does it need an interpreter? It is saying you hateme because you think I don't love you."
"Don't you?" she asked fiercely.
"No," Tommy said.
Her hands were tearing each other, and she could not trust herself tospeak. She sat down deadly pale in the chair he had offered her.
"No man ever loved you," he said, leaning over her with his hand onthe back of the chair. "You are smiling at that, I know; but it istrue, Lady Disdain. They may have vowed to blow their brains out, andseldom did it; they may have let you walk over them, and they may havebecome your fetch-and-carry, for you were always able to drive themcrazy; but love does not bring men so low. They tried hard to loveyou, and it was not that they could not love; it was that you wereunlovable. That is a terrible thing to a woman. You think you let themtry to love you, that you might make them your slaves when theysucceeded; but you made them your slaves because they failed. It is apower given to your cold and selfish nature in place of the capacityfor being able to be loved, with which women not a hundredth part asbeautiful as you are dowered, and you have a raging desire, Alice, toexercise it over me as over the others; but you can't."
Had he seen her face then, it might have warned him to take care; buthe heard her words only, and they were not at all in keeping with herface.
"I see I can't," was what she cried, almost in a whisper.
"It is all true, Alice, is it not?"
"I suppose so. I don't know; I don't care." She swung round in herchair and caught his sleeve. Her hands clung to it. "Say you love menow," she said. "I cannot live without your love after this. Whatshall I do to make you love me? Tell me, and I will do it."
He could not stop himself, for he mistrusted her still.
"I will not be your slave," he said, through his teeth. "You shall bemine."
"Yes, yes."
"You shall submit to me in everything. If I say 'come,' you shall cometo wheresoever it may be; and if I say 'stay,' and leave you for ever,you shall stay."
"Very well," she said eagerly. She would have her revenge when he washer slave.
"You can continue to be the haughty Lady Disdain to others, but youshall be only obedient little Alice to me."
"Very well." She drew his arm towards her and pressed her lips uponit. "And for that you will love me a little, won't you? You will loveme at last, won't you?" she entreated.
He was a masterful man up to a certain point only. Her humility nowtapped him in a new place, and before he knew what he was about hebegan to run pity.
"To humiliate you so, Alice! I am a dastard. I am not such a dastardas you think me. I wanted to know that you would be willing to do allthese things, but I would never have let you do them."
/> "I am willing to do them."
"No, no." It was he who had her hands now. "It was brutal, but I didit for you, Alice--for you. Don't you see I was doing it only to makea woman of you? You were always adorable, but in a coat of mail thatwould let love neither in nor out. I have been hammering at it tobreak it only and free my glorious Alice. We had to fight, and one ofus had to give in. You would have flung me away if I had yielded--Ihad to win to save you."
"Now I am lost indeed," he was saying to himself, even as it camerushing out of him, and what appalled him most was that worse hadprobably still to come. He was astride two horses, and both were atthe gallop. He flung out his arms as if seeking for something to checkhim.
As he did so she had started to her feet, listening. It seemed to herthat there was someone near them.
He flung out his arms for help, and they fell upon Lady Pippinworthand went round her. He drew her to him. She could hear no breathingnow but his.
"Alice, I love you, for you are love itself; it is you I have beenchasing since first love rose like a bird at my feet; I never had apassing fancy for any other woman; I always knew that somewhere in theworld there must be you, and sometime this starless night and you forme. You were hidden behind walls of ice; no man had passed them; Ibroke them down and love leaped to love, and you lie here, mybeautiful, love in the arms of its lover."
He was in a frenzy of passion now; he meant every word of it; and herintention was to turn upon him presently and mock him, this man withwhom she had been playing. Oh, the jeering things she had to say! Butshe could not say them yet; she would give her fool another moment--soshe thought, but she was giving it to herself; and as she delayed shewas in danger of melting in his arms.
"What does the world look like to you, my darling? You are in it forthe first time. You were born but a moment ago. It is dark, that youmay not be blinded before you have used your eyes. These are youreyes, dear eyes that do not yet know their purpose; they are forlooking at me, little Alice, and mine are for looking into yours. Icannot see you; I have never seen the face of my love--oh, my love,come into the light that I may see your face."
They did not move. Her head had fallen on his shoulder. She was togive it but a moment, and then----But the moment had passed and stillher hair pressed his cheek. Her eyes were closed. He seemed to havefound the way to woo her. Neither of them spoke. Suddenly they jumpedapart. Lady Pippinworth stole to the door. They held their breath andlistened.
It was not so loud now, but it was distinctly heard. It had been heavybreathing, and now she was trying to check it and half succeeding--butat the cost of little cries. They both knew it was a woman, and thatshe was in the arbour, on the other side of the little table. She musthave been there when they came in.
"Who is that?"
There was no answer to him save the checked breathing and anotherbroken cry. She moved, and it helped him to see vaguely the outlinesof a girl who seemed to be drawing back from him in terror. He thoughtshe was crouching now in the farthest corner.
"Come away," he said. But Lady Pippinworth would not let him go. Theymust know who this woman was. He remembered that a match-stand usuallylay on the tables of those arbours, and groped until he found one.
"Who are you?"
He struck a match. They were those French matches that play aninfernal interlude before beginning to burn. While he waited he knewthat she was begging him, with her hands and with cries that were toolittle to be words, not to turn its light on her. But he did.
Then she ceased to cower. The girlish dignity that had been hers solong came running back to her. As she faced him there was even acrooked smile upon her face.
"I woke up," she said.]
"I woke up," she said, as if the words had no meaning to herself, butmight have some to him.
The match burned out before he spoke, but his face was terrible."Grizel!" he said, appalled; and then, as if the discovery was asawful to her as to him, she uttered a cry of horror and sped out intothe night. He called her name again, and sprang after her; but thehand of another woman detained him.
"Who is this girl?" Lady Pippinworth demanded fiercely; but he did notanswer. He recoiled from her with a shudder that she was not likely toforget, and hurried on. All that night he searched for Grizel in vain.