The Price of Things Part 27

"He is numb."

"What will you do if you catch her red-handed?"

"I shall have her shot without a moment's compunction. It would be a fitting end."

"I don't know that I should have the nerve to shoot a woman--even a spy."

Verisschenzko laughed, and a savage light grew in his Calmuck eyes.

"My want of civilisation will serve me--if ever that moment comes."

Then their talk turned to fighting, and women were forgotten for the time.

CHAPTER XIV

Amaryllis came up to London the following week to say good-bye to John, so Verisschenzko did not go down to Ardayre to see her.

John's leave-taking was characteristic. He could not break through the iron band of his reserve, he longed to say something loving to her, but the more deeply he felt things the greater was his difficulty in self-expression. And the knowledge of the secret he hid in his heart made him still more ill at ease with Amaryllis. She too was changed--he felt it at once. Her grey eyes were mysterious--they had grown from a girl's into a woman's. She did not mention the coming child until he did--and then it was she who showed desire to change the conversation. All this pained John, while he felt that he himself was the cause--he knew that he had frozen her. He thought over his marriage from the beginning. He thought of the night when he had sat on the bench outside her window until dawn, of the agony he suffered, realising at last that the axe had indeed fallen, and that some day she must know the truth. And would she reproach him and say that he should have warned her that this possibility might occur? He remembered his talk with Lemon Bridges. He had been going to give him a definite answer that morning, but John had missed the appointment, so they spoke at the ball.

Would it have been better if he had let himself go and fondly kissed and netted Amaryllis? Or would that have been misleading and still more unkind? It was too late now, in any case. He must learn to take the only satisfaction which was left to him, the knowledge that there was the hope of a true Ardayre to carry on.

He talked long to his wife of his desires for the child's education, should it prove a boy, and he should not return, and Amaryllis listened dutifully.

Her mind was filled with wonder all the time. She had been through much emotion since the pa.s.sionate outburst after Denzil had gone, but was quite calm now. She had cla.s.sified things in her mind. She felt no resentment against John. He ought not to have married her perhaps, but it might be that at the time he did not know. Only she wondered when she looked at him sitting opposite her, talking gravely about the baby, in the library of Brook Street, how he could possibly be feeling. What an immense influence the thought of the family must have in his life. She understood it in a great measure herself. She remembered Verisschenzko's words upon the occasions when he had spoken to her about it, and of her duties towards it, and how she must uphold it. She particularly remembered that which he had said when they walked by the lake, and he had seemed to be transmitting some message to her, which she had not understood at the time. Did Verisschenzko know then that John must always be heirless and had he been suggesting to her that the line should go on through her? Some of the pride in it all had come to her before she had left the dark church after parting with Denzil. Perhaps she was fulfilling destiny. She must not be angry with John. She did not try to cease from loving Denzil. She had not knowingly been unfaithful to John--and now, she would be faithful to Denzil, he was her love and her mate. Indeed, even in the fortnight which elapsed between her farewell to him, and now when she was going to say farewell to John, she had many months of tender consolation in the thought of the baby--Denzil's son.

She could revive and revel in that exquisite exaltation which she had experienced at first and which John had withered. Denzil far surpa.s.sed even the imagined lover into which she had turned John. So now Denzil had become the reality, and John the dream.

She felt sorry for her husband too. She was fine enough to understand and divine his difficulties.

She found that she felt just nothing for him but a kindly affection. He might have been Archie de la Paule--or any of her other cousins. She knew that her whole being was given to Denzil--who represented her dream.

She tried to be very kind to John, and when he kissed her before starting, the tears came to her eyes.

Poor good, cold John!

And when he had departed--all the de la Paule family had been there at Brook Street also--Lady de la Paule wondered at her niece's set face. But what a mercy it was the marriage was such a success after all and that there might be a son!

So both Denzil and John went to the war--and Amaryllis was alone.

Verisschenzko had returned to Paris without seeing her--and it was the beginning of December before he was in England again and rang her up at Brook Street where she had returned for a week, asking if he might call.

"Of course!" she said, and so he came.

The library was looking its best. Amaryllis had a knack of arranging flowers and cus.h.i.+ons and such things--her rooms always breathed an air of home and repose, and Verisschenzko was struck by the sweet scent and the warmth and cosiness when he came in out of the gloomy fog.

She rose to greet him, her face more ethereal still than when he had dined with her.

"You are looking like an angel," he said, when she had given him some tea and they were seated on the big sofa before the fire. "What have you to tell me? I know that you are going to have a child; I am very interested about it all."

Amaryllis blushed a soft pink--he went on with perfect calm.

"You blush as though I had said something unheard of! How custom rules you still! For a blush is caused by feeling some sort of shame or discomfort, or agitating surprise at some discovery. We may get red with anger, or get pale, but that bright, sudden flush always has some self-conscious element of shame in it. It is just convention which has wrapped the most natural and divine thing in life round with discomfort in this way. You are deeply to be congratulated that you are going to have a baby, do you not think so?"

"Of course I do--" and Amaryllis controlled her uneasy bashfulness. She really wished to talk to her friend.

"Who told you about it?" she asked.

"Denzil."

Amaryllis drew in her breath suddenly. Verisschenzko's eyes were looking her through and through.

"Denzil--?"

"Yes,--he is glad that there may be the possibility of a son for the family."

"How do you feel about it? It is an enormous responsibility to have children."

"I feel that--I want to do the wisest things from the beginning--"

"You must take great care of yourself, and always remain serene. Never let your mind become agitated by speculation as to the _presently_, keep all thoughts fixed upon the now."

Amaryllis looked at him a little troubled. What did he know? Something tangible, or were these views of his just applicable to any case? Her eyes were full of question and pleading.

"What do you want to ask me?" His eyes narrowed in contemplating her.

"I--I--do not know."

"Yes, you want to hear of Denzil--is it not so?"

She clasped her hands.

"Yes--perhaps--"

"He is well--I heard from him yesterday. He asked me to come to you. His mother is still at Bath--he wishes you to meet."

Suddenly the impossibleness of everything seemed to come over Amaryllis.

She rose quickly and threw out her hands:

"Oh! if I could only understand the meaning of things, my friend! I am afraid to think!"

"You love Denzil very much--yes?"

"Yes--"

"Sit down and let us talk about it, lady of my soul. I am your mother now."

She sank into her seat beside him, among the green silk pillows--and he leaned back and watched her for a while.