V
THE KISS
The quiet of the deserted building incircled the little, glowing room asthe velvet incircles the jewel in its case. Occasionally faint soundscame from the distance--the movements of cleaners at work, a raisedvoice, the slamming of a door.
The man sat at his desk, as he had sat through the busy day, but he hadturned sideways in his seat, the better to regard the other occupant ofthe room.
She was not beautiful--had no need to be. Her call to him had been thesaner call of mind to mind. That he desired, besides, the passingbenediction of her hands, the fragrance of her corn-gold hair, the sightof her slenderness: this she had guessed and gloried in. Till now, hehad touched her physical self neither in word nor deed. To-night, sheknew, the barriers would be down; to-night they would kiss.
Her quiet eyes, held by his during the spell that had bound themspeechless, did not flinch at the breaking of it.
"The Lord made the world and then He made this rotten old office," theman said quietly. "Into it He put you--and me. What, before that day,has gone to the making and marring of me, and the making and perfectingof you, is not to the point. It is enough that we have realised, heart,and soul, and body, that you are mine and I am yours."
"Yes," she said.
He fell silent again, his eyes on her hungrily. She felt them and longedfor his touch. But there came only his voice.
"I want you. The first moment I saw you I wanted you. I thought thenthat, whatever the cost, I would have you. That was in the early days ofour talks here--before you made it so courageously clear to me that itwould never be possible for you to ignore my marriage and come to me.That is still so, isn't it?"
She moved slightly, like a dreamer in pain, as again she faced the creedshe had hated through many a sleepless night.
"It is so," she agreed. "And because it is so, you are going awayto-morrow."
"Yes."
They looked at each other across the foot or two of intervening space.It was a look to bridge death with. But even beneath their suffering,her eyes voiced the tremulous waiting of her lips.
At last he found words.
"You are the most wonderful woman in the world--the pluckiest, the mostcompletely understanding; you have the widest charity. I suppose I oughtto thank you for it all; I can't--that's not my way. I have alwaysdemanded of you, demanded enormously, and received my measure presseddown and running over. Now I am going to ask this last thing of you:will you, of your goodness, go away--upstairs, anywhere--and come backin ten minutes' time? By then I shall have cleared out."
She looked at him almost incredulously, lips parted. Suddenly she seemeda child.
"You--I----" she stammered. Then rising to her feet, with a superbsimplicity: "But, you must kiss me before you go. You must! You--simply_must_."
For the space of a flaming moment it seemed that in one stride he wouldhave crossed to her side, caught and held her.
"For God's sake----!" he muttered, in almost ludicrous fear of himself.Then, with a big effort, he regained his self-control.
"Listen," he said hoarsely. "I want to kiss you so much that I daren'teven get to my feet. Do you understand what that means? Think of it,just for a moment, and then realise that _I am not going to kiss you_.And I have kissed many women in my time, too, and shall kiss more, nodoubt."
"But it's not because of that----?"
"That I'm holding back? No. Neither is it because I funk the torture ofkissing you once and letting you go. It's because I'm afraid--for_you_."
"For me?"
"Listen. You have unfolded your beliefs to me and, though I don't holdthem--don't attempt to live up to your lights--the realisation of themhas given me a reverence for you that you don't dream of. I have put youin a shrine and knelt to you; every time you have sat in that chair andtalked with me, I have worshipped you."
"It would not alter--all that," the girl said faintly, "if you kissedme."
"I don't believe that; neither do you--no, you don't! In your heart ofhearts you admit that a woman like you is not kissed for the first andlast time by a man like me. Suppose I kissed you now? I should awakensomething in you as yet half asleep. You're young and pulsing with life,and there are--thank Heaven!--few layers of that damnable young-girlshyness over you. The world would call you primitive, I suppose."
"But I don't----"
"Oh, Lord, you must see it's all or nothing! You surely understand thatafter I had left you you would not go against your morality, perhaps,but you would adjust it, in spite of yourself, to meet your desires! Icannot--safely--kiss you."
"But you are going away for good!"
"For good! Child, do you think my going will be your safeguard? If youwanted me so much that you came to think it was right and good to wantme, wouldn't you find me, send for me, call for me? And I should come.God! I can see the look in your eyes now, when the want had beensatisfied, and you could not drug your creed any more."
Her breath came in a long sigh. Then she tried to speak; tried again.
"It is so, isn't it?" he asked.
She nodded. Speech was too difficult. With the movement a strand of thecorn-gold hair came tumbling down the side of her face.
"Then, that being the case," said the man, with infinite gentleness, hiseyes on the little, tumbling lock, "I shall not attempt so much as totouch your hand before you leave the room."
At the door she turned.
"Tell me once again," she said. "You _want_ to kiss me?"
He gripped the arms of his chair; from where she stood, she could seethe veins standing out on his hands.
"I want to kiss you," he said fiercely. "I want to kiss you. If therewere any way of cutting off to-morrow--all the to-morrows--with thedanger they hold for us--I would kiss you. I would kiss you, and kissyou, and kiss you!"
II
Where her feet took her during the thousand, thousand years that was hisgoing she could never afterwards say; but she found herself at last atthe top of the great building, at an open window, leaning out, with therain beating into her eyes.
Far below her the lights wavered and later she remembered that echoes ofa far-off tumult had reached her as she sat. But her ears held only thememory of a man's footsteps--the eager tread that had never lingered somuch as a second's space on its way to her; that had often stumbledslightly on the threshold of her presence; that she had heard andwelcomed in her dreams; that would not come again.
The raindrops lay like tears upon her face.
She brushed them aside, and, rising, put up her hands to feel the wetlying heavy on her hair. The coldness of her limbs surprised herfaintly. Downstairs she went again, the echoes mocking every step.
She closed the door of the room behind her and idly cleared a scrap ofpaper from a chair. Mechanically her hands went to the litter on hisdesk and she had straightened it all before she realised that there wasno longer any need. To-morrow would bring a voice she did not know;would usher a stranger into her room to take her measure from behind abarrier of formality. For the rest there would be work, and food, andsleep.
These things would make life--life that had been love.
She put on her hat and coat. The room seemed smaller somehow andshabbier. The shaded lights that had invited, now merely irritated; thewhimsical disorder of books and papers spoke only of an uncompletedtask. Gone was the glamour and the promise and the good comradeship. Hehad taken them all. She faced to-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrowempty-handed--in her heart the memory of words that had seared andhealed in a breath, and the dead dream of a kiss. Her throat ached withthe pain of it.
And then suddenly she heard him coming back!
She stiffened. For one instant, mind and body, she was rigid with thesheer wonder of it. Then, as the atmosphere of the room surged back,tense with vitality, her mind leapt forward in welcome. He was comingback, coming back! The words hammered themselves out to the rhythm ofthe eager tread that never lingered so much as a second's space on itsway to her, that stumbled sl
ightly on the threshold of her presence.
By some queer, reflex twist of memory, her hands brushed imaginaryraindrops from her face and strayed uncertainly to where the wet hadlain on her hair.
The door opened and closed behind him.
"I've come back. I've come back to kiss you. Dear--_dear_!"
Her outflung hand checked him in his stride towards her. Words camestammering to her lips.
"Why--but--this isn't--I don't understand! All you said--it was true,surely? It was cruel of you to make me know it was true and then comeback!"
"Let me kiss you--let me, let me!" He was overwhelming her, ignoring herresistance. "I must kiss you, I must kiss you." He said it again andagain.
"No, no, you shan't--you can't play with me! You said you were afraidfor me, and you made me afraid, too--of my weakness--of the danger--ofmy longing for you----"
"Let me kiss you! Yes, you shall let me; you _shall_ let me." His armsheld her, his face touched hers.
"Aren't you afraid any more? Has a miracle happened--may we kiss inspite of to-morrow?"
Inch by inch she was relaxing. All thought was slipping away into agreat white light that held no to-morrows, nor any fear of them, nor ofherself, nor of anything. The light crept to her feet, rose to herheart, her head. Through the radiance came his words.
"Yes, a miracle. Oh, my dear--my little child! I've come back to kissyou, little child."
"Kiss me, then," she said against his lips.
III
Hazily she was aware that he had released her; that she had raised herhead; that against the rough tweed of his shoulder there lay a long,corn-gold hair.
She laughed shakily and her hand went up to remove it; but he caught herfingers and held them to his face. And with the movement and his lookthere came over her in a wave the shame of her surrender, a shame thatwas yet a glory, a diadem of pride. She turned blindly away.
"Please," she heard herself saying, "let me go now. I want to be alone.I want to--please don't tell me to-night. To-morrow----"
She was at the door, groping for the handle. Behind her she heard hisvoice; it was very tender.
"I shall always kneel to you--in your shrine."
Then she was outside, and the chilly passages were cooling her burningface. She had left him in the room behind her; and she knew he wouldwait there long enough to allow her to leave the building. Almostimmediately, it seemed, she was downstairs in the hall, had reached theentrance.
She confronted a group of white-faced, silent men.
"Why, is anything the matter? What has happened? O'Dell?"
The porter stood forward. He cleared his throat twice, but for all that,his words were barely audible.
"Yes, Miss Carryll. Good-night, miss. You'd best be going on, miss, ifyou'll excuse----"
Behind O'Dell stood a policeman; behind him again, a grave-eyed manstooped to an unusual task. It arrested her attention like the flash ofred danger.
"Why is the door of your room being locked, O'Dell?" She knew hercuriosity was indecent, but some powerful premonition was stirring inher, and she could not pass on. "Has there been an accident? Who is inthere?"
Then, almost under her feet, she saw a dark pool lying sluggishlyagainst the tiles; nearer the door another--on the pavement outsideanother--and yet another. She gasped, drew back, felt horribly sick;and, as she turned, she caught O'Dell's muttered aside to the policeman.
"Young lady's 'is seccereterry--must be the last that seen 'im alive.All told, 'tain't more'n 'arf-an-'our since 'e left. 'Good-night,O'Dell,' sez 'e. 'Miss Carryll's still working--don't lock 'er in,' sez'e. Would 'ave 'is joke. Must 'ave gone round the corner an' slap interthe car. Wish to God the amberlance----"
Her cry cut into his words as she flung herself forward. Her fingerswrenched at the key of the locked door and turned it, in spite of thedetaining hands that seemed light as leaves upon her shoulder, and aseasily shaken off. Unhearing, unheeding, she forced her way into theglare of electric light flooding the little room--beating down on to thetable and its sheeted burden. Before she reached it, knowledge haddropped upon her like a mantle.
Her face was grey as the one from which she drew the merciful coverings,but her eyes went fearlessly to that which she sought.
Against the rough tweed of the shoulder lay a long, corn-gold hair.