CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

"Eternal night, oh, lovely night, oh, holy night of love." Rapture succeeded rapture, and the souls of the lovers rose, nearer to the surface of life. In a shudder of silver chords he saw them float away like little clouds towards the low rim of the universe.

But at that moment of escape reality broke in upon the dream. Melot had betrayed them, and Ulick heard King Mark's noble and grave reproaches like a prophecy, "Thou wert my friend and didst deceive me," he sang, and his melancholy motive seemed to echo like a cry along the shore of Ulick's own life. Amid calm and mysteriously exalted melodies, expressive of the terror and pathos of fate fulfilled, Tristan's resolve took shape, and as he fell mortally wounded, the melancholy Mark motive was heard again, and again Ulick asked what meaning it might have for him. He heard the applause, loud in the stalls, growing faint as it rose tier above tier. Baskets of flowers, wreaths and bouquets were thrown from the boxes or handed up from the orchestra, the curtain was rung up again, and her name was called from different parts of the theatre. And when the curtain was down for the last time, he saw her in the middle of the stage talking to Tristan and Brangäne. The garden scene was being carried away, and to escape from it Evelyn took Tristan's hand and ran to the spot where Ulick was standing. She loosed the hand of her stage lover, and dropping a bouquet, held out two small hands to Ulick covered with violet powder. The hallucination of the great love scene was still in her eyes; it still, he could see, surged in her blood. She had nearly thrown herself into his arms, seemed regardless of those around; she seemed to have only eyes for him; he heard her say under her breath," That music maddens me," then with sudden composure, but looking at him intently, she asked him to come upstairs with her.

For the last few days he had been engaged in prediction, and last night he had been visited by dreams, the significance of which he could not doubt. But his reading of her horoscope had been incomplete, or else he had failed to understand the answers. That he was a momentous event in her life seemed clear, yet all the signs were set against their marriage; but what was happening had been revealed—that he should stand with her in a room where the carpet was blue, and they were there; that the furniture should be of last century, and he examined the cabinets in the corners, which were satinwood inlaid with delicate traceries, and on the walls were many mirrors and gold and mahogany frames.

"Merat!" The maid came from the dressing-room. "You have some friends in front. You can go and sit with them. I sha'n't want you till the end." When the door closed, their eyes met, and they trembled and were in dread. "Come and sit by me." She indicated his place by her side on the sofa. "We are all alone. Talk to me. How did I sing to-night?"

"Never did the music ever mean so much as it did to-night," he said, sitting down.

"What did it mean?"

"Everything. All the beauty and the woe of existence were in the music to-night."

Their thoughts wandered from the music, and an effort was required to return to it.

"Do you remember," she said, with a little gasp in her voice, "how the music sinks into the slumber motive, 'Hark, beloved;' then he answers, 'Let me die'?"

"Yes, and with the last note the undulating tune of the harps begins in the orchestra. Brangäne is heard warning them."

They sat looking at each other. In sheer desperation she said—

"And that last phrase of all, when the souls of the lovers seemed to float away."

"Over the low rim of the universe—like little clouds."

"And then?"

He tried to speak of his ideas, but he could not collect his thoughts, and after a few sentences he said, "I cannot talk of these things."

The room seemed to sway and cloud, and her arms to reach out instinctively to him, and she would have fallen into his arms if he had not suddenly asked her what had been decided at Sir Owen Asher's.

"Let me kiss you, Evelyn," he said, "or I shall go mad."

"No, Ulick, this is not nice of you. I shall not be able to ask you to my room again."

He let go her hand, and she said—

"I'm not going to marry Sir Owen, but I must not let you kiss me."

"But you must, Evelyn, you must."

"Why must I?"

"Do you not feel that it is to be?"

"What is to be?"

"I do not know what, but I have been drawn towards you so long a while—long before I saw you, ever since I heard your name, the moment I saw that old photograph in the music-room, I knew."

"What did you know?"

"When I heard your name it called up an image in my mind, and that image has never wholly left me—it comes back often like a ghost."

"When you were thinking of something different?"

"I am your destiny, or one of your destinies."

Her eyes were fixed eagerly upon him; his darkness and the mysteries he represented attracted her, and she even felt she could follow. At the same moment his eyes seemed the most beautiful in the world, and she desired him to make love to her. While enticing, she resisted him, now more feebly, and when he let go her hands she sat looking at him, wondering how she was to get through the evening without kissing him.... She spoke to him about his opera. He asked her if she were going to sing it, and she looked at him with vague, uncertain eyes. He said he knew she never would. She asked him why he thought so, and again a great longing bent him towards her. She withdrew her hands and face from his lips, and they had begun to talk of other things when he perceived her face close to his. Unable to resist he kissed her cheek, fearing that she would order him from the room. But at the instant of the touching of his lips, she threw her arm about his neck, and drew him down as a mermaiden draws her mortal lover into the depths, and in a wondering world of miraculous happiness he surrendered himself.

"Dearest, dearest," he said, raising himself to look at her.

"Ulick, Ulick," she said, "let me kiss you, I've longed such a while."

He thought he had never seen so radiant a face. What disguise had fallen? And looking at her, he strove to discover the woman who had denied him so often. This new woman seemed made all of light and love and transport, the woman of all his divinations, the being the old photograph in the old music-room had warned him of, the being that the voice of his destiny had told him he was to meet. And as they stood by the fireplace looking into each other's eyes, he gradually became aware of his happiness. It broke in his heart with a thrill and shiver like an exquisite dawn, opal and rose; the brilliancy of her eyes, the rapture of her face, the magnetic stirring of the little gold curls along her forehead were so wonderful that he feared her as an enchanter fears the spirit he has raised. Like one who has suddenly chanced on the hilltop, he gazed on the prospect, believing it all to be his. They stood gazing into each other's eyes too eager to speak, and when she called his name he remembered the legended forest, and replied with the song of the bird that leads Siegfried to Brunnhilde. She laughed, and sang the next two bars, and then seemed to forget everything.

"Dearest, of what are you thinking?"

"Only if I ever shall kiss you again, Ulick."

"You will always kiss me!"

She did not answer, and, frightened by her irresponsive eyes, he said—

"But, Evelyn, you must love me, me—only me; you will never see him again?"

She did not answer, and when he spoke, his voice trembled.

"But it is impossible you can ever marry him now."

"I am not going to marry Owen."

"You told him so the other night?"

"Yes, I told him, or very nearly, that I could not marry him."

"You cannot marry him, you love me.... But why don't you answer. What are you thinking of?"

"Only of you, dear.... Let me kiss you again," and in the embrace he forgot for the moment the inquietude her answer had caused him.

"That is my call," she said. "How am I to sing the Liebestod after all this? How does it begin?"

Ulick sang the opening phrase, and she continued the music for some bars.

"I hope I shall get through it all right. Then," she said, "we shall go home together in the brougham."

At that moment a knock was heard, and Merat entered. "Mademoiselle, you have no time to lose."

The call boy's voice was heard on the stairs, and Evelyn hastened away. Ulick followed, and the first thing he heard when he got on the stage was Tristan's death motive. He listened, not so much to the music itself as to its occult significance regarding Evelyn and himself. And as Isolde's grief changed from wild lament for sensual delight to a resigned and noble prayer, the figure of ecstasy broke with a sound as of wings shaking, and Ulick seemed to witness a soul's transfiguration. He watched it rising in several ascensions, like a lark's flight. For an instant it seemed to float in some divine consummation, then, like the bird, to suddenly quench in the radiance of the sky. The harps wept farewell over the bodies of the lovers, then all was done, and he stood at the wings listening to the applause. She came to him at once, as soon as the curtain was down.

"How did I sing it?"

"As well as ever."

"But you seem sad; what is it?"

"It seemed to mean something—something, I cannot tell what, something to do with us."

"No," she said, looking at him. "I was only thinking of the music. Wait for me, dear, I shall not keep you long."

He walked up and down the stage, and in his hand was a wreath that some admirer had kept for the last. For excitement he could hardly bid the singers good-night as they passed him. Now it was Tristan, now Brangäne, now one of the chorus. The question raged within him. Was it fated that she should marry him? So far as he understood the omens she would not; but the readings were obscure, and his will threw itself out in opposition to the influence of Sir Owen. But he was not certain that that was the direction whence the danger was coming. He could only exert, however, his will in that direction. At last he saw her coming down the steep stairs, wrapped in a white opera cloak. They walked in silence—she all rapture, but his happiness already clouded. The brougham was so full of flowers that they, could hardly find place for themselves. She drew him closer, and said—

"What is the matter, dear? Am I not nice to you?"

"Yes, Evelyn, you're an enchantment. Only—"

"Only what, dear?"

"I fear our future. I fear I shall lose you. All has come true so far, the end must happen."

She drew his arm about her waist, and laid his face on her bare shoulder.

"Let there be no foreboding. Live in the present."

"The future is too near us. Say you'll marry me, or else I shall lose you altogether. It is the one influence on our side."

She was born, he said, under two great influences, but each could be modified; one might be widened, the other lessened, and both modifications might finally resolve into her destiny. So far as he could read her future, it centred in him or another. That other, he was sure, was not Sir Owen, nor was it himself, he thought; for when she and he had met in the theatre, she had experienced no dread, but he had dreaded her, recognising her as his destiny. He had even recognised her as Evelyn Innes before she had been pointed out to him.

"But you had seen my photograph?"

"But it was not by your photograph that I knew you."

"And you knew that I should care for you?"

"I knew that something had to happen. But you did not feel that I was your destiny. You said you experienced no dread, but when you met Sir Owen did you experience none?"

"I suppose I did. I was afraid of him. At first I think I hated him."

"Ah, Evelyn, we shall not marry—it is not our fate. You see that you cannot say you will marry me. Another fate is beckoning you."

"Who is it who beckons me? Have I already met him?"

He fell to dreaming again, and Evelyn asked him vainly to describe this other man.

"Why are you singing that melancholy Mark motive?"

"I did not know I was singing it." He returned to his dream again, but starting from it, he seized her hands.

"Evelyn," he said, "we must marry; a reason obliges us. Have you not thought of it?" And then, as if he had not noticed that she had not answered his question, he said, "On your father's account, if he should ever know. Think what my position is. I have betrayed my friend. That is why the Marie motive has been singing in my head. Evelyn, you must say you will marry me. We must marry at once, for your father's sake. I have betrayed him, my best friend.... I have acted worse than that other man."

"Ulick, dear, open the window; the scent of these flowers is overpowering.... That is better. Throw some of those bouquets into the street. We might give them to those poor men, they might be able to sell them.... Tell the coachman to stop."

The chime of destiny sounded clearer than ever in their ears; it seemed as if they could almost catch the tune, and with a convulsive movement Evelyn drew her lover towards her.

"Every hour threatens us," he said. "Can you not hear? Do not go to Park Lane—Park Lane threatens; your friend Lady Duckle threatens. I see nothing but threats and menaces; all are leagued against us."

"Dearest, we cannot spend the night driving about London."

He sighed on his mistress's shoulder. She threw his black hair from his forehead.

"There is no hope. We shall be separated, scattered to different winds."

"Why do you think that? How do you know these things, Ulick?"

"Evelyn, in losing you I lose the principle of my life, but you will lose nothing in losing me. So it is written. But you are not listening; I am wearying you; you're clinging to the present, knowing that you will soon lose it."

She threw herself upon him, and kissed him as if she would annihilate destiny on his lips, and until they reached Park Lane there was no future, only a delirious present for both of them.

"I won't ask you in; I am tired. Good-bye, dearest, good-bye. I'll write."

"Remember that my time is short," and there was a strange accent in his voice which she did not hear till long after. She had locked herself into the sensual present, and, lulled in happy sensations of gratified sense, she allowed Merat to undress her. She thought of the soft luxury of her bed, and lay down, her brain full of floating impressions of flowers, music and of love.