CHAPTER III
THE SHIPS AT ACTIUM
She stretched out one arm, keeping Ten Euyck at the tips of her fingers.He seemed content to stay so, looking at her.
She was dressed in a trailing gown of silken tissue that was now gold,now silver, as the light took it; but the long vaporous slip beneath wasof pale rose; molded to her motion and stirring with her breath, theredwelt in the gauze which covered her a perpetual faint flush. The stuffswere cut as low about the breast as if she had been some social queen,and her fair, pale arms were bare of gloves. Their adorable youngflatness below the gleam of the slim, smooth shoulders, was nowshimmered over and now revealed by short fringes of silver and gold, ofcooler colored amber and crystal, which were their only sleeve; andthese fringes hung about the borders of her gown and trembled into musicas she moved. In the high-piled softness of her hair, diamonds glimmeredlike stars in a fair dusk; diamonds banded her brow in an invertedcrescent; diamonds and topaz dropped in long pendants from her ears;diamonds and pearls clung round her arms; the restored necklace droopeddown her breast, and the peep and shine of jewels glanced from hereverywhere like glow-worms. She seemed to be clothed in fluctuant light,and yet it could not dim one radiance of her beauty. This was more thannewly crowned; the rose was fully open; her loveliness had spread itsfolded wings and come into its own. There was no shyness now in thosewide eyes; her spirit shone there, all in arms, and moved with a new anddeeper strength in her young body. Very faintly, on the pure anddelicate oval of her cheek, burned the soft, hot stain of rouge. Thiswas the reality of the dear ghost, calling in the night with the rainupon its face; this was the pale girl in the gray suit who had once satbeside her mother in the corner of the coroner's office. It may be TenEuyck thought of this; it may be she did.
"Well," she said, "have I made myself fine? Do I please you?"
He broke from his trance, took the lamp out of her hold, set it on themantelshelf, and returned to her without a word.
"Pray speak!" she said; "I am all yours!"
"Christina!" he broke out, and caught and covered her hand with kisses.
"It is quite true. Do I do you credit?
"Look at me here, Look at me there, Criticize me everywhere--"
He leaned toward her and she swayed past him to the piano. Over hershoulder she sang to him--
"From head to feet I am most sweet, And most perfect and complete!"
She struck the chords a crash and whirled round to him with her hands inher lap. "Yes, it is quite true. From my head to my feet--" here shethrust forth through the music of the shaken fringe a slim gold shoewith its buckle winking up at him--"you have paid for every rag I standin." Christina's accent upon the word "rag" suggested that she wasaccustomed to standing in something much better. "It would be hard ifyou were not suited. Would you like to go to your room a moment? It'sall ready."
He must have considered this jabber at somewhat its true worth, for whathe did was to draw up a chair and take and hold her hands. "Christina,"said he, studying her face, "do you hate me so much?"
She remained a moment, silent. Then, "Yes!" she said. "I am a goodhater!" And she smiled at him, a soft, stinging smile, with her eyeslingering on his.
"And yet you come--willingly--to me?"
"Willingly?" she said. "Oh, greedily!"
"Of your own suggestion?"
"Of my own suggestion."
"And on my terms?"
"Ah, no!" she cried. "On mine!"
"Well, then, for simply what you know I have?"
"For that," she said, "and nothing else."
"Great heavens!" he cried. "You're a cool hand!--You, who value yourselfso well, are willing to pay so high for it."
She replied, "To the last breath of my life!"
He leaned down and kissed her wrist and then her arm, and she sat quietin his grasp.
"What are you thinking of?" he asked, looking up.
She replied, "Of other kisses."
He sprang to his feet with a kind of snort, going to one of the windows,and Christina purled at his broad back, "Don't be angry. How can I helpwhat I think? Have I not kept my part of the bargain? Have I not comehere to meet you without another soul? To a house I never saw before?That you tell me you have hired? In a sort of wood, at night, quitealone, not even a servant--although I must say everything seems to havebeen well arranged and left quite handy! Would you like some supper,now? If you ordered it, I am sure it must be good. I am very obedient.All the same, I am rather hungry."
He came back to the table with the little pink line showing about hisnostrils. "I do not mind your not desiring me," he said, "and perhaps,after all, I shall not mind your desiring another man. As you say, it isnot a question of what you desire, but of what I do. Well, Christina, Iam satisfied with your preparations for me; do you approve mine for you?You shall have servants enough, Christina, when I am sure we may not betraced by your sister's gentry! How do you like my trysting-place? Yougave me very little time. If you consider it a cage, is it sufficientlygilded?"
Christina drew a long breath. "It's wonderful. A palace--wonderful!Surely I was born to walk rooms like these! And a far cry from thelittle boarding-house I lived in when you first met me! God knows," saidChristina, in a voice that trembled, "I am glad to be here!"
"You like it then?" he cried eagerly. "It's for sale. It shall be yoursto-morrow!"
"Give me some wine!" she said. "I am tired!"
He looked at her and said, yes, she was right; and she would better havesomething to eat.
The wine brought back her brightness; it was she who lighted the wick,heated the supper, and set the smoking chafing-dish before him. Till itcame to the serving she would not let him stir and he could only leanforward on the table, looking and looking at her. During this she saidlittle enough, except that he must be sure to praise her cooking, forshe had always boasted she could be a good wife to a poor man! But onceshe was seated she poured out a stream of chatter which he sometimesanswered and sometimes not, being intent upon but one thing, and thatwas to drink deeper and deeper of her presence.
Now through much of this Herrick lost sight of them, for he had comeupon an interest of his own. He had discovered in one of the balustersagainst which he lay the jutting head of a nail. Never was an object,not in itself alluring, more dearly welcomed. For he saw that his legswere bound with only the soft cord that had once looped back thecurtains between the inner and the outer balcony; there must have beentwo of these cords, and if his arms were but fastened with the other theedge of the nailhead might make, in the course of time, some impressionupon it. He sat up and found the nail of a good height to saw back andforth upon, and if it did not convincingly appear that any effect wouldbe made upon the cord, at least it provided him with a violent, iffurtive, exercise. This was better than to lie there and let those belowsaw upon his heart instead.
But he must stop at last from pure exhaustion; and at that moment therewas the sound of a chair pushed back. "I thank you for yourhospitality," said Christina's voice. "But, now to business. I haveplayed in too many melodramas to sign a contract without reading it. Theyacht sails at sunrise?"
"Or when you will."
"And takes with her Allegra and Mrs. Pascoe and whatever of their tribethey choose?"
"Safely and secretly to Brazil! They have chosen their own crew. Theymust be aboard of her already."
At such words as these Herrick may well be said to have picked up hisears. He heard Ten Euyck go on:
"She is yours, Christina; and theirs if you choose to make her so!"
"You are very generous!" said Christina dryly. "But there is only oneway I can be sure of the end of all this. You know what is mostimportant to me." Herrick, leaning against the banisters had got his eyeto the opening in the valance again, and he could now see Christina withher hands in her lap facing Ten Euyck. "Have you got that letter?" shesaid.
Ten Euyck gave his breast a smart rap so that Christina, being so near,must have h
eard the paper crackle there.
"Very well," said she; "so much for the District-Attorney's mail!"
He stood up, and his voice croaked with triumph as he talked."Christina," he said, "I have brought you that letter--it's the price ofmy professional, my political honor; it's bought with my disgrace, withmy career! But I have brought it. I'm ridiculous to you, Christina, butwho got it for you? Your friends, the Inghams? your admirer, Wheeler?your poor fool of a Herrick? your cherished jail-bird, Denny?--No, Idid! This letter that I have here Ann Cornish fell ill guarding, for hervengeance. You stole and lost it. Your enterprising family broke into apost-office to get it back. But the despised policeman brings it toyou."
"You got it by accident, you say," commented Christina. "Don't forgetthat!"
"Forget! I shall never forget the triumph of catching that gang,although I renounce it at your bidding. I shall never forget yourmessage when the letter was barely in my hands!--
"'I know now that I am come of a family of criminals. My pride is in thedust, as deep as you could wish it. If you do not help us, if it mustcome out that I am tied to blackmailers whom you will catch and send toprison, I shall die of it!' Christina, can I forget that?"
"No," said Christina, "I never thought you could."
"And you will remember my answer, my dear! That I had the proof, theletter in my hand, to publish or to destroy, as you should choose. Youhaven't forgotten that?"
"No," said Christina again. "But the destroying, that's the thing!You'll burn it?"
"Yes."
"Before my eyes?"
"Of course."
"To-night?"
"To-morrow!"
She seemed, for a moment, to take counsel with herself. "Very well."
An extraordinary limp helplessness, a kind of dejection of acquiescence,seemed to melt her with lassitude at the words. It was enough to sickenthe heart of any lover, and even Ten Euyck cried out, as if to justifyhimself, "Ah, remember--you gave me the slip once before!" And at thememory he seemed to lose all control of himself, falling suddenlyforward, clinging to her knees and hiding his face in her skirts.
She sat for a moment motionless. Then, with fastidious deliberation, asif they were bones which a dog had dropped in her lap, she plucked uphis wrists in the extreme tips of her fingers, and slowly pushed himoff. "Quietly!" she said. "You are one who would always do well to bequiet!"
He sat on his heels, the picture of misery, already ashamed and almostfrightened at himself. And suddenly, "Christina," he whispered, whileanother flash branded itself across his face, "whose kisses were youthinking of?"
She did not, at first, understand; and then, remembering--"I will take apage from your book. I will tell you to-morrow."
"Was it Denny?" he snapped.
"Denny?" said she, abstractedly. "Will? God bless me, no!"
He sighed with a kind of vacancy. "You could easily tell me so!"
"Well, then," said Christina, with considerable temper, "I will tell yousomething else. When I came here to-night, that I might not die of myown contempt I promised myself one thing. I swore to that girl I used tobe, who carried so high a head she could not breathe the same air withyou and never thought to stand you miawling and whimpering here abouther feet, that at least I should tell no lies of love. There shall nevercome one out of my mouth to you and may God hear me. So if I do not tellyou the man I thought of, it is only because I can not bear to speak hisname in this place!--But rest easy! I am very capricious. Things will bedifferent to-morrow. To-morrow, if you still think it interesting, youshall know."
"Know!" he cried. And catching her arm, looked at her with a balefulface. "Yes, there's my trouble! What do I know of you at all! I met youonce four years ago--well, I forget myself, I know it! But did I?--Wereyou even then--? Well, at the inquest, at that reception, in thestation, holding to Denny, the night of your performance, and now,to-night! There's my knowledge of you! You dazzle, you befool, you driveme crazy, and you leave me empty--why should I throw my life away forthat! After all, where were you when all New York was looking for you?Nearly a week! Where were you?"
"Where was I!" Christina cried. "Well, it's rather long. But does notthe favorite slave always tell stories to her master? Listen toScheherezade."
Then, for the first time, Herrick heard the story of Christina's visitto the yellow house; how she had determined that Allegra must tell theauthorities, in Denny's behalf, the story of his provocation againstIngham; how then, hidden in Nancy's, she had found Allegra's hair andguessed everything. "Then it seemed that the first thing was to getNancy away, quietly, without warning, so that there should be no dangerto her. I thought that then I could manage Allegra." She had had Allegracome into town for her performance, and go straight from it to theAmsterdam, up to Christina's apartment in Christina's name; followingher there she had slept on the couch, and slipped off early in themorning. Suspecting the identity of the motor, she had telephoned for itas though to meet them both, and now she went on to tell Ten Euyck ofher attempt to deceive Mrs. Pascoe, as though she had come from Allegra,and of her imprisonment in the closet.
"Ah, that wretched necklace! I said to myself, 'If it comes to a fight,they may find it and take it from me.' And then I should really havebeen in your power! I buried it in the flower-pot, thinking to come backwith reinforcements!" She told of the flight in the rain, and of thefarmers who wouldn't wake up. Both men listened, absorbed, staring. AndChristina said, "I was afraid to go toward Waybrook, in case those menfollowed me. I ran toward Benning's Point. I feared the main road, too,and I thought I could follow the short cut. It is very hilly and brokenand I had never seen it before in the dark; the sheets of rain were likethe heavens falling, and the wind beat out my last strength; I was mudup to my knees and I had on heavy clothes, too large for me, alldragging down with wet. Perhaps it all made me stupid; at any rate, Ilost my way. Oh!" said Christina, "that was hard!" and she put her handover her heart. "I don't know--it must have been hours--I ran andstaggered and stumbled and climbed! You are to remember I had had nofood all day, and little enough the day before. And by and by I fell. Igot up and on again for a little, but I had hurt myself in falling, andI fell again. And this time I lay there."
Ten Euyck lifted the border of her golden dress and put it to his lips.
The moisture of self-pity swam in Christina's eyes. "Nancy!" she said."That was worst to think of!" In her own lip she set her teeth and soonshe went on--"While I was still unconscious, a man came along with amotor. Somehow, he didn't run over me; he found me. And he recognizedme! He wanted the reward. He took me to his sister's; to that Riley's.They gave me all sorts of hot drinks and things; I think they saved mylife. But when I tried to thank them, something very comic hadhappened--I had lost my voice." Christina closed her eyes.
"Well?" said Ten Euyck.
"Well, that woman said I needed sleep, so she sent her brother out ofthe room--but she didn't send her husband. When she found I could notspeak, she pulled down the blinds of her room for fear some one shouldsee in, and said I needn't make a fuss, trying to get away, for she knewas well as any one I was mixed up with murder and trying to clear out.She said she was not going to hold any poor girl that was in trouble,not for the few hundreds he would give her out of that reward. She wasgoing to let me go. 'But first,' said she, 'I'll thank you to hand overthat diamond necklace!'"
Both Ten Euyck and the unseen Herrick started and stared.
"She wouldn't believe me. If I didn't have it, I had hidden it since Igot in the house. 'Very well, if you won't do anything for me, I thinkthere's a gentleman who will. I think the party for me to send for isMr. Ten Euyck.' I wasn't ready for you, then, nor did I mean to behanded over to you, like a thief done up in a bundle! But what was I todo? I was still weak and she was between me and the locked door! I'mgrand at screaming," said Christina, "but I couldn't even speak! Andthen, out of the stones of the courtyard, heaven raised up a miracle forme!"
"It was you, then?"
"The sh
adow? yes. But how could I dream a friend would be going by? Itwas just a desperate game, a wild chance! She had been telling me whatan outcry there was, how I would be recognized anywhere, and about themoving-picture, and how they played the march from Faust, now, at thatfilm--and I thought of the reward and how there must be many looking forit. There was a piano in that room and I went to it, put my foot on theloud pedal and began to play. 'Oh,' I thought, 'will some one glance up?Will some one guess?' And then I threw the shadow on the blind! Beforeshe could do much more than drag me away, my unsuspected friend was inthe room. She didn't dare to try to keep me. He put a hat and cloak onme from her closet--oh, I'm sure he sent them back!--and snatched meoff!"
"And is this your idea of explanation?" said Ten Euyck. "Who was thisfriend?"
"Ah," she said, "you ask too much! Leave something for to-morrow!" Andshe went and sat at the piano, with her elbows on the keyboard and herhead in her hands.
This was the first moment in which Herrick began to be sensible of alittle hope. It seemed to him that the edge of the nail was beginning tomake some impression upon the soft silk cord that bound him. He groundaway, desperately, but always there was the dread of any sound, andquivers of terror that the violence of his pressure might loosen thenail. The blow on his head made him easily dizzy, and as he leaned therequiet to recover himself, it was plain that Ten Euyck with a dozenquestions had endeavored to follow Christina to the piano, and beenchecked where he was.
"No, we are both getting fussed. It is my right, perhaps, but hardly theman's. As for me, I'm all for decorum. Sit back and smoke and when youhave smoked you will not fidget. I will play and sing to you--yes, Ishould love it!" softly laughed Christina, her fingers moving on thekeys and her voice breaking into song--
"I'm only a poor little singing girl That wanders to and fro, Yet many have heard me with hearts awhirl; At least they tell me so! At least--"
she chanted, leaning with gay insolence toward Ten Euyck,
"At least they tell me so!"
"Christina!" he said hoarsely.
"You like personal ditties! You shall have another!
"You dressed me up in scarlet red And used me very kindly-- But still I thought my heart would break For the boy I left behind me!
That's too rowdy a song for a patrician! But I can sing only very simplethings! The one I always think of when I think of you is the simplest ofall!--
"We twa hae run about the braes And pu'd the gowans fine; But we've wandered many a weary foot Sin auld lang syne."
The color rose up in her face and her eyes shone; her bosom rose andfell in long, triumphing breaths, and--"Damn him!" Ten Euyck cried."It's not me you think of when you sing that! It's Denny!"
"For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne--
Is it?" Christina broke out. "Who knows!
"We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet For auld lang syne.
Ah, that stays my heart!--Ten Euyck!"
"My God!" he cried. "I won't bear it!"
He had his two hands on her shoulders and as she continued to play shelifted up toward his at once a laughing and a tragic face. "What does hematter to you?" she said, "to you, the Inspector of Police! Aren't youhere, with me, and isn't he down and done for, and out of every race? Asgood as dead?
"He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone, At his heels a grass-green turf; At his head, a stone!
Come, pluck up spirit!
"Tramp, tramp, across the land they ride! Hark, hark, across the sea! Ah-ha, the dead do ride with speed! Dost fear to ride with me?
--'Dost fear to ride with me?'" she sang, on the deepest note of hervoice, and turning, rose and held Ten Euyck off from her, seeming tostudy and to challenge him, and then, with the excitement and the wildemotion which she had kindled in both of them, dying slowly from herface but not from his.
She released him, and, going to a little table, unclasped her necklace,and slipped the strings of diamonds from her arms. The crescent roundher head came next. "What are you doing?" he almost whispered.
"Unclasp this earring. Thank you!" She lifted one foot and then theother and tore the buckles from her shoes. She did not hesitate abovethat bewildering heap, but pushed closer and closer together thosefallen stars and serpents of bright light. "There!" she cried. "Are theyall there? No--here!" At her breast there was still a quivering point ortwo; she wrenched off the lace that held them and flung it on the pile."There!" she said again, "they are all there! My poor fellow, I havechanged my mind."
She walked away and leaned her forehead on the tall mantelshelf.
Whence she was perhaps prepared to have him turn her round and holdingher by the wrists say to her through stiff lips,--"Explain yourself!" Heshook from head to foot with temper; doubtless, too, with the scandalousoutrage to commonsense.
"There is so little to explain. I thought I could. I can't! It wouldn'tpay!"
"Not pay!"
"Oh," said Christina, indicating, with a scornful glance, the mirrored,golden room and piled-up jewels, "these were only incidents! Try tounderstand. Long ago, when I was a child, I set out to vanquish theworld. Not to belong to it, not to be of it, but to have it under foot!I was so poor, so weak, so unbefriended. I thought it would be a fineday when I could give this great, contemptuous, cold, self-satisfiedworld a little push with my shoe and pass it by. It was a childishambition--well, in some ways I have never grown up! And to me, since ourfirst encounter, _you_ have always typified that world."
He started back, and released her hands.
"All that I really wanted I won for myself last week! And Allegra stolefrom me when I saw her hair! You tell me that you can save it for me insaving her, but it's not true! It was easy to think of you as the world,to feel that you were giving me yourself and it to play with! It's easyto imagine that you would be under my heel.--No, I should be underyours! I shouldn't have vanquished the world, I should be vanquished byit!--No, I thank you!"
"And Allegra?" he asked her, grimly.
Christina shuddered and closed her eyes. But she said, "Has Allegra beenso tender to me that I should lose myself for her? Understand me, itnever was for Allegra that I came here to-night. Ah, Ten Euyck, I havebeen a good sister. It is time I thought of myself."
"Think," he replied, "that she will pass from ten to twenty years injail."
The girl's face trembled as if he had struck it, but--"Well," she said,"you the upholder of the law--you shall judge. She lived off me--that'snothing!--But she lived off and bled others, and drove and hounded them,and made me an ignorant partner in it--that's something, you'll admit!And--Nancy! How about that? She lied to Will about Nancy and JimIngham.--Come, isn't the balance getting heavy? She just as much killedJim as if she had done it with her hand; and if Will--dies," criedChristina, with a breath like a little scream upon the word, "it is mysister kills him! I am stone and ice to her! When I saw Nancy's message,in that moment I knew who and what my sister was, and then and there Ihad done with her! Let me hear you blame me! And yet," said Christinawith a change of voice, "there is one more count!"
Her look had changed and darkened. "When that crew of hers laid handson _him_--O!" she cried out, suddenly. And flinging forth her armsburied her face in them.
The effect on Ten Euyck was electrical. Hitherto drugged and fascinatedby the mobility of her beauty, the lights and emotions varying in it, henow shot forward on his sofa as if, in a mechanical toy, a spring hadbeen touched.
"It isn't possible!" he cried. "That calf! That milk-sop! Christina, youdon't mean--Herrick!"
She let her arms fall, and without raising her head, lifted her eyes forhim to read.
He broke into a loud laugh that jangled, hysterically cold, round thegreat, brilliant room. "And to think," he said, "that all this time Ihave thought of him as my pet diversion, my wittol, my moon-calf! It hasbeen my one jest through all this wretched business to see theimportance of that great baby! To w
atch him industriously acquiringbumps and bruises, and getting more and more scratches on his innocentnose! I waited to see it put out of joint forever when you threw himflat upon it! I thought that we were laughing in our sleeves at him,together! When I had this appointment with you safe, I smiled to see himcareering up and down the country like Lochinvar in a child's reader.--
"'He stayed not for brake and he stopped not for stone, He swam the Eske River--'"
Ten Euyck sprang up and catching Christina by the elbows snatched hersmartly to her feet and shook her till, on her slim neck, her headbobbed back and forth. "What did you tell me for," he cried, "if youhoped to be rid of me! I, at least, am no baby, and I have had enough ofthis! Your dear Lochinvar is doubtless swimming and riding somewhere inthe neighborhood. But not within call! And let me assure you, though hestay not for brake and he stop not for stone--yet ere he alights here atNetherby Gate--"
"Go on!" said Christina, "you know the end of the verse." She flung it,with a gallant backward movement of her head, straight in his teeth--
"'For a laggard in love and a dastard in war--'
Oh, listen, listen, listen! Now you know! Now you know whose name Iwould not speak! Not in this place! Oh, oh!--Will and Nancy; after all,they are only pieces of myself! They are no more to me than--me! But heis all I am not and long for! He is life outside myself, to meet mine!He is my light and my air and my hope and my heart's desire! She knewit--_she knew it_! She had taken my youth and my faith and my kindnesswith the world, and killed them, and then she tried to kill himtoo!--Love him? O God!" cried Christina, "what must he think of me!" Andshe began to shake with weeping.
"That cub!" said Ten Euyck. "You love that cub!" And he took her in hisarms; and covering her throat and hair with kisses, he held her offagain, and tried to see into her face. "Do you?" he cried. "Do you? Doyou?"
"Give me a handkerchief!" Christina snapped.
He was surprised into releasing her; and plucking forth her own scrap oflace, she wiped her nose with some deliberation. "I look hideous. Ishould like those lights out!"
He went about putting out light after light, till she said,
"Leave my lamp!"
She was standing beneath it, pensive and grave and now quite pale, withher back to the mantelshelf, her soft, fair arms stretched out along itslength, and her head hanging. She might have been bound there, beneaththe single lamp, like an olden criminal to a seacoast rock before therising tide. The pale light floated over her as Ten Euyck came up andseemed to illumine her within a magic circle.
"My dear," Ten Euyck began, with a kind of solemn fierceness, "when youmade me accomplice in a crime, when you came here to me like thisto-night, did you really dream that you could change your mind? Did yousuppose you could make me ridiculous again? Do you know where you are?And under what circumstances? There is a slang phrase, Christina--do youreally think you can get away with it?"
"No," Christina replied. She quietly lifted her head. Her eyes restedsoberly on his. "I am here, with you. I am alone. There is no Rebecca'swindow here to dash myself from. You see I have counted up everything.And this is what I will do. If I cannot die now, I can die to-morrow.You can not watch me forever. And in the hour when you leave me, I shallfind a way to die."
His face grayed as he looked at her.
"Do you think I am not acquainted," Christina went on, "with the storyof Lucretia? I could strike a blow like hers! And oh, believe me, likeher I should not die in silence!" She felt him start. "Do you suppose Ishould not tell why I came here? Do you by any chance suppose I shouldnot tell what bait I had from the Inspector of Police? Ah, when we havesomething to lose, we stumble and make terms. But when we have no longeranything, we are the masters of terms.--Is this my last night?"Christina asked.
"By God!" he said, "you know how to defend yourself!" And his armsdropped at his side.
He was a moment silent, his mouth twitching, his eyes drinking her up.Christina had, in argument, that better sort of eloquence that calls upconvincing pictures. Doubtless, he knew she might denounce his theft ofthe letter. Doubtless he saw her, then, clay-cold; lost to him,utterly. On the other hand, to lose her, now, was a thing outsidenature and not to be endured. So that suddenly he broke out in a kind ofhigh, hoarse whisper; "Christina, there's another way! I never meant tomarry--but--Christina, shall it be that?"
"_What!_" she exclaimed. It was a volcanic outcry, not a question. Shestretched out her two arms, with the palms of her hands lifted againsthim, and laughter and amazement seemed to course through her and to waveand shine out of her face, like fire in a wind.
"Christina," he said; "Christina, I will marry you!--Oh, Christina,isn't that the way! There's your ambition! There's your satisfaction!There's the world under your shoe! Christina, will you?"
"Is it possible?" she said. And again--"Is it possible! What! PeterWinthrop Brewster Cuyler Ten Euyck and the girl in the moving-pictureshow? 'Mr. Ten Euyck' and the sister of a jail-bird! Eh, me, my poorsoul, is it as bad as that?" Her laughter died and her brows clouded."It's a far cry, Ten Euyck, since you stole my kiss on the sly! You laidthe first bruise on my soul! You put the first slur and sense of shameinto the shabby little girl in the stock-company who had no one todefend her but a boy as poor as herself. What did it feel like, dearsir, that check? We have come a long way since then, but have youforgotten? And does the pure patrician and the representative of highlife now lay the cloak of his great name down at my feet? To walk on it,yes! But to pick it up? After all, I think it would be stopping! Ah, mygood fellow, I don't jump at it!"
"I know you don't! That's why I want you! I've been jumped at all mylife!" Thus Ten Euyck, holding her fast, his face burning darkly underher little blows of speech, and his pulse rising with the sense ofbattle. "I think I've never known a woman who wouldn't have given hereyes to marry me! I've never taken a step among them without looking outfor traps! Christina, I long to do the trapping and the giving, yes, andthe taking, for myself! You don't want me; well, I want you! Yes, for mywife! I see it now. You dislike me, you despise me. Well, your dislikedoesn't count; believe me, you'd not despise me long! I'd rather see youbearing my name--you, with another man for me to wipe out of your heart,you, as cold as ice and as hard as nails to me,--than any of those soft,waiting women! See, we'll play a great trick on the world! We'll bemarried to-morrow! We'll sail for Europe. From there we'll send backword we've been married all along. People shall think that when you leftme the other night I followed you; that we fooled them from thebeginning, and when next they see you, you shall be on my arm! Come,Christina, will not that be a reentry? Will not the world be vanquished,then?"
"Hush!" she said, with lifted finger. "I thought I heard some one!" Shelifted the lamp from the mantelshelf and going to the window held it farout into the darkness with an anxious face. "No!" she breathed. TenEuyck observed with joy that her manner to him had changed; it hadbecome that of a fellow-conspirator. Up and down the terrace she sentthe light, her apprehensive eyes searching the shadows and the bushes."No!" said she again, "I was wrong."
She came back to him flushed and eager, and setting the light upon thetable, he caught her hands. "Remember!" he said, "otherwise I shall stopyour sister. And where will your name be then?"
Her nostrils widened, her eyes contracted, doubt succeeded to triumph inher face. "If it were not the truth!" she said.
"What do you mean?"
"If there were no such necessity! If you did not have my name in yourpower at all. If you have no such letter!"
"Christina!"
"It is what I have doubted from the beginning! How do I know you haven'tlied to me all along? I ask you if you have that letter, and you thumpyour breast! I ask you to show it to me and you answer, 'To-morrow'!Traps--did you say? Did you think I was to be caught in a trap? When youwere looking for a poor gull, did you cast eyes on Christina Hope? Ifyou had that proof to show me, you wouldn't hesitate! There is no suchletter--I can see it in your face!"
He took
the letter from his coat and held it up.
"Oh, well," Christina said, "I see an envelope. Am I to marry for anenvelope?"
He cast the envelope away, folded the letter to a certain page and heldit for her to read.
She read it and a faintness seized her. She stood there, swaying, withclosed eyes, and he put an arm about her for support. She leaned uponhim, and he put down his mouth to hers. "Christina, look up!" he cried."Don't be afraid! Don't tremble so! My darling, here's your firstwedding-present!" And, alarmed by her half-swoon, transported by thatsurrender in his arms, he held the letter above the lamp and let itsedge catch fire.
Christina opened her sick eyes and they dwelt dully on the paper andthen with pleasure on the little flame. "Let me!" she breathed. "Yes,let me. It's my right."
He put the burning paper in her hands, smiling on her with a tenderplayfulness. "Take care!" he said.
"You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrous fool!Thank God, I've done with you!"]
"I will take care." She held up the paper, intent on the thin edgescrisping in the glowing fire, and then, swift as a deer and wild as alion's mate, she sprang away, clapped her hands hard upon the burningpaper, pressed out the flame upon the bosom of her gown, and thrust theletter in her breast. "You fool!" she cried. "You miserable, monstrousfool! Thank God, I've done with you!"