CHAPTER IX

"AH! HOW FAIR MY WEAKNESS FINDS THEE"

Paul found no one in the hall of the house where Adrea lived to take him to her, so after waiting a few minutes for her maid, whom the porter had twice fruitlessly summoned, he ascended the stairs alone, and knocked at the door of her rooms.

At first there was no reply. He tried again a little louder, and this time there was a sound of some one stirring within.

"Come in, Celeste," was the drowsy answer.

He turned the handle and walked in, carefully closing the door behind him. At first the room appeared to be in semi-darkness, for a clear spring day's sunshine was brightening the streets which he had just left, and here the heavy curtains were closely drawn, as though to keep out every vestige of daylight. But gradually his eyes grew accustomed to the shaded twilight and he could make out the familiar objects of the room; for although it was only his second visit, they were familiar already in his thoughts.

Strangely enough it seemed to him, after his first hasty glance around, that the room was empty; but just then a sudden gleam from the bright fire fell upon Adrea's hair, and he saw her. He stood for a moment silent and motionless. She was curled up on a huge divan drawn close to the fireplace, with her limbs doubled under her like a panther's, and her arms, from which the loose sleeves had fallen back, clasped half-bare underneath her head. The peculiar grace of movement and carriage, which had made her dancing so famous, was even more striking in repose, for there was a faint, insidious suggestion of voluptuous movement in those motionless, crouching limbs, and the abandon of the shapely, dusky head, with its crown of dark, wavy hair thrown back amongst the cushions. It was beauty of a strange sort, the beauty almost of some wild animal; but Paul felt a most unwilling admiration steal through his senses as he gazed down upon her. Her tea-gown, a wonderful shade of shimmering green, tumbled and disarranged out of all similitude to its original shape, followed the soft perfections of her outline with such peculiar faithfulness that it seemed to suggest even more than it concealed, leaving the gentle tracery of her figure outlined there like a piece of living Greek statuary. She turned slightly upon the couch, and a slipperless little foot stole out from a sea of lace and white draperies which her uneasy movement had left exposed, and swayed slowly backwards and forwards, trying to reach the ground. Her eyes were still closed, but she was not sleeping, for in a moment or two she spoke in a low, drowsy tone.

"Celeste, I told you not to disturb me for an hour. It isn't five o'clock yet, is it?"

He roused himself, and moved a step further into the room. "It is still a quarter to five, I think," he said. "I have come before my time."

She opened her eyes, and then, seeing him, sprang into a sitting posture. Her hair, which had escaped all bounds, was down to her shoulders, and her gown, still further disarranged by her hasty movement, floated around her in wonderful curves and angles. Had she been a past mistress in the art of picturesque effects she could have conceived nothing more striking. Paul felt all the old fear upon him as he watched the firelight gleaming upon her startled, dusky face, and the faint pink colouring, wonderfully suggestive of a blush, steal into her cheeks. It seemed to him that she was as beautiful as a woman could be, and yet so different from Lady May.

She rose, and, with a shrug of the shoulders and a quick, graceful movement, shook out her skirts, and pushed the hair back from her face. Then she held out her hand, and Paul found himself compelled, against his will, to stand by her side.

"How strange that I should have overslept like this, and have taken you for Celeste!" she said. "Yet perhaps it was natural; for, Monsieur Paul, save Celeste, no one yet has permission to enter my chamber unannounced. How comes it that I find you here to laugh at my deshabille?"

He was silent for a moment, while she looked at him questioningly. Her soft, delicate voice, with its very slight but piquant foreign intonation, had often sounded in his reluctant yet charmed ears since their last meeting; but now that he heard it again he felt how weak were his imaginings, and what sweet music it indeed was.

"I am sorry," he answered; and the constraint which he was placing upon his voice made it sound hard and cold. "The porter rang for your maid twice whilst I waited in the hall; but as she did not come, I thought I had better try and find the way myself."

"And I mistook your knock for Celeste's, and let you discover me comme cela. Well, you were not to blame. See, I will just arrange my hair here, and you need not look at me unless you like."

She stood up in front of a mirror, over which she lighted a shaded candle, and for a moment or two her white hands flashed deftly in and out amongst the dark, silky coils of disordered hair. Paul sat down, and taking up a magazine which he found lying on the divan, tried to concentrate his thoughts upon its contents. But he could not. Every moment he found his eyes and his thoughts straying to that slim, lithe figure, watching the play of her arms and the grace of her backward pose. When she looked suddenly round, on the completion of her task, their eyes met.

"Monsieur Paul, you are like all your sex—curious," she said lightly. "Tell me, then, do you admire my coiffure?"

"Very much," he answered, glancing at the loose Grecian knot into which she had gathered her disordered hair, and confined it with a band of dull gold. "It is quite oriental, and it seems to suit you. Not that I am any judge of such matters," he added quickly.

She moved away with a little, low laugh, and lit two or three more of the shaded candles or fairy lamps which were placed here and there on brackets round the room. Then she rang the bell, and gave some orders to the maid.

"So you think my hair looks oriental," she said, sinking down upon a huge cushion in front of the fire. "That is what the papers call me sometimes—oriental. My early associations asserting themselves, you see. I think I remember more of Constantinople than any place," she went on dreamily, with her eyes fixed on the fire. "I was only a child in those days, but it seemed to me then that nothing could be more beautiful than the City of Mosques and the Golden Horn on a clear summer evening. Why do I think of those days?" she added, shaking her head impatiently. "Such folly! And yet I always think of them when I am lonely."

He was suddenly and deeply moved with altogether a new feeling towards her—one of responsibility. She was alone in the world, and it was his father's hand which had rendered her so. How empty and barren had been his conception of the burden which that deed had laid upon him! Like a flash he seemed to see the whole situation in a new light. If, indeed, she had drifted into ruin, the sin lay at his door. He should have found her a mother; it should have been his care to have watched her continually, and to have assured himself that she was contented and happy. In those few moments the whole situation seemed to change, and he even felt a hot flush of shame at his own coldness towards her. He forgot the dancer, the woman of strange fascinations, the idol of the jeunesse dorée of West London clubdom, and he remembered only the fact that she was a lonely orphan with a most womanly light in her soft, dark eyes, and that he had failed in his duty towards her. Paul was essentially a "manly" man, self-contained, and with all his feelings very much at his control; but at that moment he felt something like a rush of tenderness towards this strange, dark-eyed girl who lay coiled up at his feet. Involuntarily he stretched out his hand and laid it, with an almost caressing gesture, upon her hair.

She started around, as though electrified, and looking up saw the change in his face. It was the first kindly look or speech she had had from him since they had met in London, and it had come so suddenly that it seemed to have a strange effect upon her. A deep flush stole into her face, and her eyes gleamed brilliantly. She drew a long breath, and underneath her loose gown he could see her bosom rising and falling quickly. Yet it all seemed so softened and womanly that the thoughts which he had once had of her seemed like a distant nightmare to him. The ethical and physical horror of her being—of her ever becoming—what he feared, rose up strong within him, and deepened at once his sense of responsibility towards her, and his new-born tenderness. He took her hand gently, and was startled to find how cold it was.

"So you do feel lonely, Adrea, sometimes," he said softly, "although you have so many acquaintances."

The colour burned deeper for a moment in her cheeks. She looked at him half reproachfully, half indignantly.

"Acquaintances! You mean the people who come to see me! I hate them all! Sometimes they amuse me a little, but that is all. They are nothing!"

"And you have no women friends?"

"None! How should I! But I do not care. I do not like English-women!"

"But, Adrea, it is not good for you,—this isolation from your sex."

At the sound of her Christian name, coming from his lips so gently, almost affectionately, she looked up quickly. It seemed to him almost as though some softening change had crept over her. Was it the firelight, he wondered, or was it fancy?

"Good for me!" she said softly. "Have you just thought of that, Monsieur Paul?"

Again he felt that pang of conscience; and yet, was she not a little unjust to him?

"You took your life into your own hands," he reminded her. "You chose for yourself."

"Yes, yes!" she answered, drawing a little nearer to him, till her head almost rested upon his knees. "I do not blame you."

"It would have been so easy before to have found a home for you," he went on, "and now you have made it so difficult."

"There is no need," she interrupted proudly; "I could keep myself now. I do not want anything from you, Monsieur Paul,—save one thing!"

She raised her face to his, and it seemed to him to be all aglow with a wonderful, new light. There was no mistaking the soft entreaty of those strange, dark eyes so close to his, or the tremor in his tones. And then, before he could answer her, before he could summon up resolution enough to draw away, she had stolen softly into his arms, and, with a little murmur of content, had rested her small, dusky head, with its coronet of dark, braided hair, upon his shoulder, and twined her hands around his neck.

"Paul! Monsieur Paul! I am lonely and miserable. Love me just a little, only a little!" she pleaded.

It was the supreme moment for both of them. To her, coveting this love with all the passionate force of her fiery oriental nature, time seemed to stand still while she rested passively in his arms, neither altogether accepted nor altogether repulsed. And to him, as he sat there pale and shaken, fighting fiercely against this great temptation which threatened his self-respect, his liberty of body and soul, life seemed to have turned into a grim farce, full of grotesque lights and shadows, mocking and gibing at all which had seemed to him sweet and pure and strong. Her warm breath fell upon his cheek, and her eyes maddened him. A curiously faint perfume from her clothes floated upon the air, and oppressed him with its peculiar richness. He was a strong man but at that moment he faltered. It seemed as though some unseen hand were weaving a spell upon him, as though his whole environment was being drawn in around him, and he himself were powerless. Yet, even in that moment of intoxication, his reason did not altogether desert him. He knew that if he opened his arms to receive that clinging figure, and drew the delicate, tear-stained face, full of mute invitation, down to his, to be covered with passionate kisses,—he knew that at that moment he would sign the death-warrant to all that had seemed fair and sweet and comely in his life. Forever he must live without self-respect, a dishonoured man in his own eyes, perhaps some day in hers,—for he had no more faith in her love than in his.

He held her hands tightly in his,—he had unwound them gently from his neck,—and stood up face to face with her upon the hearthrug. The soft fire-light threw up strange, ruddy gleams, which glowed around her and shown in her dark eyes, fixed so earnestly and so passionately upon his.

"Adrea," he said, and his low, hoarse tone sounded harsh and unfamiliar to his ears, "you do not know——"

She interrupted him, she threw her arms again around his neck, and her upturned face almost met his.

"I do know! I do know! I understand—everything! Only I—cannot live without you, Paul!"

Her head sank upon his shoulder; he could not thrust her away. Very gently he passed his arms around her, and drew her to him. He knew that he could trust himself. For him the battle was over. Even as she had crept into his arms, there had come to him a flash of memory—a sudden, swift vision. The walls of the dimly lit, dainty little chamber, with all its charm of faint perfume, soft lights, and luxurious drapings, had opened before him, and he looked out upon another world. A bare Northumbrian moor, with its tumbled masses of grey rock, its low-hanging, misty clouds and silent tarns, stretched away before his eyes. A strong, fresh breeze, salt-smelling and bracing, cooled his hot face. The roar of a great ocean thundered in his ears, and an angry sunset burned strange colours into the western sky. And with these actual memories came a healthier tone of feeling—something, indeed, of the old North-country puritanism which was in his blood. The sea spoke to him of the vastness of life, and dared him to cast his away, soiled and tarnished, for the sake of a brief, passionate delight. The breeze, nature's very voice, whispered to him to stand true to himself, and taste once more and for ever the deep joy of pure and perfect communion with her. The voices of his past life spoke to him in one long, sweet chorus, and held up to him those ideals to which he had been ever true. And blended with all were memories, faint but sweet, of a fair womanly face, into whose clear grey eyes he could never dare to look again if he yielded now to this fierce temptation. A new strength came upon him, and brought with it a great tenderness.

"Adrea, my child," he said softly, "you make me almost forget that I am your guardian and you are my ward. Sit down here! I want to talk to you."

He led her, dumb and unresisting, to a chair, and stood by her side.

"Adrea——"

She interrupted him, throwing his arms roughly from her shoulder, and springing to her feet.

"How dare you touch me! How dare you stand there and mock me! Oh! how I hate you! hate you! hate you!"

Her voice and every limb trembled with passion, and her face was as pale as death. Before her anger he bowed his head and was silent. Against the sombre background of dark curtains, her slim form seemed to gain an added strength and dignity.

"You have insulted me, Paul de Vaux! Do I not owe you enough already, without putting this to the score! Dare you think that it was indeed my love I offered you—you who stood by and saw my father murdered that you might be spared from shame and disgrace! Bah! Listen to me and go! You have a brother? Good! I shall ruin him, shall break his heart; and, when the task is over, I shall cast him away like an old glove! Oh, it will be easy, never fear! I shall do it. Arthur is no cold hypocrite, like you. He is my slave. And when I have ruined him, have set my foot upon him, it will be your turn, Monsieur Paul de Vaux. Listen! I will know my father's secret! I will know why he was murdered! I will discover everything! Some day the whole world shall know—from me. Now go! Out of my sight, I say! Go! go! go!"

With bowed head and face as white as death Paul walked out of the room, with her words ringing in his ears like the mocking echoes of some hideous nightmare.