Infelice Part 65

"May not this interview at least be sacred from the presence of your keepers?"

"Poor dear soul, she is happily oblivious, and will take no stenographic notes. I would as soon declare war against my own shadow as order her away."

Evidently chagrined, the visitor stood irresolute, and meanwhile the gaze of his companion wandered back to the beauty of the Bay.

He drew a chair close to that which she occupied, and holding his hat as a screen, should Mrs. Waul's spectacles chance to turn in that direction, spoke earnestly.

"Have I been unpardonably presumptuous in interpreting favourably this permission to see you once more? Have you done me the honour to ponder the contents of my letter?"

"I certainly have pondered well the contents."

She kept her hands beyond his reach, and looking steadily into his eager handsome face, she saw it flush deeply.

"Madame, I trust, I believe you are incapable of trifling."

"In which, you do me bare justice only. With me the time for trifling is past; and just now life has put on all its tragic vestments. But how long since General Laurance believed me incapable of--worse than trifling?"

"Ever since my infamous folly was reproved by you as it deserved.

Ever since you taught me that you were even more n.o.ble in soul than lovely in person. Be generous, and do not humiliate me by recalling that temporary insanity. Having blundered fearfully, in my ignorance of your real character, does not the offer of yesterday embody all the reparation, all the atonement of which a man is capable?"

"You desire me to consider the proposal contained in your letter, as an expiation for past offences, as an _amende honourable_ for what might have ripened into insult, had it not been nipped in the bud? Do I translate correctly your gracious diction?"

"No, you cruelly torment me by referring to an audacious and shameful offence, for which I blush."

"Successful sins are unenc.u.mbered by penitential oblations, and only discovered and defeated crimes arouse conscience, and paint one's cheeks with mortification. General Laurance merely ill.u.s.trates a great social law."

"Do not, dear madame, keep me in this fiery suspense. I have offered you all that a gentleman can lay at the feet of the woman he loves."

A cold smile lighted her face, as some arctic moonbeams gleams for an instant across the spires and doomes of an iceberg.

"Once you attempted to offer me your heart, or what remains of its ossified ruins; which I declined. Now you tender me your hand and name, and indeed it appears that like many of the high-born cla.s.s you so n.o.bly represent, your heart and hand have never hitherto been conjoined in your _devoir_. It were a melancholy pity they should be eternally divorced."

Bending over her, he exclaimed:

"As heaven hears me, I swear I love you better than life, than everything else that the broad earth holds! You cannot possibly doubt my sincerity, for you hold the proof in your own hands. Be merciful, Odille, and end my anxiety."

He caught her hand, and as she attempted no resistance, he raised it to his moustached lip. Her eyes were resting upon the blue expanse of water, as if far away, across the vast vista of the Mediterranean she sought some strengthening influence, some sacred inspiration; and after a moment, turning them full upon his countenance, she said with grave stony composure:

"You have asked me to become your wife, knowing full well that no affection would prompt me to entertain the thought; and you must be thoroughly convinced that only sordid motives of policy could influence me to accept you. Do men who marry under such circ.u.mstances honour and trust the women, who as a _dernier ressort_ bear their names? You are not so weak, so egregiously vain, as to delude yourself for one instant with the supposition that I could ever love you?"

"Once my wife, I ask nothing more. Upon my own head and life, be the failure to make you love me. Only give me this hand, and I will take your heart Can a lover ask less, and hazard more?"

"And if you fail--woefully, as fail you must?"

"I shall not. You cannot awe or discourage me, for I have yet to find the heart that successfully defies my wors.h.i.+p. But if you remained indifferent--ah, loveliest! you would not! Even then, I should be blessed by your presence, your society--and that alone were worth all other women!"

"Even though it cost you the heavy, galling burden of marriage vows, an exorbitant price, which only necessity extorts? How vividly we of the nineteenth century exemplify the wisdom of the cla.s.sic aphorisms?

_Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat_. Have you no fear that you are seizing with bare fingers a glittering thirsty blade, which may flesh itself in the hand that dares to caress it?"

"I fear nothing but your rejection; and though you should prove Judith or Jael, I would disarm you thus."

Again he kissed the fair slender hand, and clasped it tenderly between both his own.

"A man of your years does not lightly forsake the traditions of his Caste, and the usages of his ancestors; and what can patricians like General Laurance hope to secure by stooping to the borders of _proletaire?_"

"The woman whom he loves. To you I will confess, that never until within the past six or eight months have I really comprehended the power of genuine love. Early in life I married a high-born, gentle, true-hearted woman, who made me a good faithful wife; but into that alliance my heart never entered, and although for many years I have been free to admire whom fickle fancy chose, and have certainly petted and caressed some whom the world p.r.o.nounced very lovely, the impression made upon me was transient, as the perfume of a blossom plucked and worn for a few hours only. You have exerted over me a fascination which I can neither explain nor resist. For you I entertain feelings never aroused in my nature until now; and I speak only the simple truth, when I solemnly swear to you, upon the honour of a Laurance, that you are the only woman I have ever truly and ardently loved."

"The honour of a Laurance? What more sacred pledge could I possibly desire?"

The fingers of her free hand were toying with a small gold chain around her neck, to which was fastened the hidden wedding ring of black agate, with its white skull; and as she spoke her scarlet lips paled perceptibly, and her soft dreamy eyes began to glitter.

"Ah! I repeat, upon my honour as a gentleman and a Laurance; and a holier oath no man could offer. Of my proud unsullied name I am fastidiously careful, and can even you demand or hope a n.o.bler one than that I now lay at your feet?"

"The name of Laurance? Certainly I think it would satisfy even my ambition."

He felt the pretty hand grow suddenly cold in his grasp, and saw the thin delicate nostril expand slightly, as she fixed her brilliant eyes on his, and smiled. Then she continued:

"Is it not too sacred and aristocratic a mantle to fling around an obscure actress, of whose pedigree and antecedent life you know nothing, save that widowhood and penury goaded her to histrionic exhibitions of a beauty, that sometimes threatened to subject her to impertinence and insult? Put aside the infatuation which not unfrequently attacks men, who like you are rapidly descending the hill of life, approaching the stage of second childlike simplicity, and listen for a moment to the cold dictates of prudence and policy.

Suppose that ere you surrendered your reason to the magnetism of what you are pleased to consider my 'physical perfection,' one of your relatives, a brother, or say even your son, had met me at Milan as you did; and madly forgetting his family rank, his aristocratic ties, all the pride and worldly wisdom of heredity, had, while in a fit of complete dementia, offered as you have done to clothe my humble obscurity in the splendid name of Laurance? Would General Rene Laurance have pardoned him, and received me as his sister, or his daughter?"

"Could I censure any man for surrendering to charms which have so completely vanquished me? Thank heaven! I have neither brother nor son to rival me. My only child Cuthbert is safely anch.o.r.ed in the harbour of wedlock, and having his own family ties, I am free to consult only my heart in the choice of a bride. I have not journeyed so far down the hill of life as you cruelly persist in a.s.serting, and the fervour of my emotions denies your unkind imputation. When I proudly show the world the lovely wife of my heart's choice, you will find my devotion a n.o.ble refutation of your unflattering estimate.

But a moment since, you confessed that to exchange the name of Orme for that of Laurance would crown your ambition; my dearest, the truth has escaped you."

With a sudden gesture of loathing she threw off his hand, struck her palms together, and he started at the expression that seemed literally to blaze in her eyes, so vivid, so withering was the light that rayed out.

"Yes, the truth escaped my lips. The honourable name of Laurance is talismanic, and offers much to Odille Orme; yet I will stain my soul with no dissimulation. With love and romance, I finished long, long ago; and to-day I have not patience to trifle even with its phraseology. I am thirty-three, and in my early girlhood the one love dream of all my life was rudely broken, leaving me no more capacity to indulge a second, than belongs to those marbles in the _Musee Bourbonique_. For my dear young husband I felt the only intense, idolatrous, yes, blindly wors.h.i.+pping devotion, that my nature could yield to any human being. When I lost him, I lost my heart also; became doubly widowed, because my grief bereft me of the power of properly loving even our little baby. For years I have given my body and soul to the accomplishment of one purpose, the elevation of my social status, and that of my child. Had my husband been spared to me, we would not have remained obscure and poor, but after my widowhood the struggle devolved upon me. I have not had leisure to think of love, have toiled solely for maintenance and position; and have sternly held myself aloof from the world that dared to believe my profession rendered me easy of access. t.i.tles have been laid at my feet, but their glitter seemed fict.i.tious, did not allure me; and no other name save yours has ever for an instant tempted me. To-day you are here to plead my acceptance of that name, and frankly, I tell you, sir, it dazzles me. As an American I know all that it represents, all that it would confer on me, all that it would prove for my child, and I would rather wear the name of Laurance than a coronet! I confess I have but one ambition, to lift my daughter into that high social plane, from which fate excluded her mother; and this eminence I covet for her, marriage with you promises me. I have no heart to bring you; mine died with all my wifely hopes when I lost my husband. If I consent to give you my hand, and nominally the claim of a husband, in exchange for the privilege of merging Orme in Laurance, it must be upon certain solemn conditions, to the fulfilment of which your traditional honour is pledged. Is a Laurance safely bound by vows?"

Her voice had grown strangely metallic, losing all its liquid sweetness, and as her gaze searched his face, the striking resemblance she traced in his eyes and mouth to those of Cuthbert and Regina seemed to stab her heart.

To the man who listened and watched with breathless anxiety her hardening, whitening features, she merely recalled the memory of her own tragic "Medea" confronting "Jason" at Athens.

"Only accept my vows at the altar, and I challenge the world to breathe an imputation upon their sanct.i.ty. Rene Laurance never broke a promise, never forfeited a pledge; and to keep his name unsullied, his honour stainless, is his sole religion. Odille, my Queen----"

She rose and waved him back.

"Spare me rapsodies that accord neither with your years nor my sentiments. Understand, it is a mere bargain and a sale, and I am carefully arranging the conditions. For myself I ask little; but as you are aware, my daughter is grown, is now in her seventeenth year, and the man whom the world regards as my husband must share his name and fortune with my child. Doubtless you deem me calculating and mercenary, and for her dear sake I am forced to do so; for all the tenderness that remains in my nature is centred in my little girl.

She has been reared as carefully as a princess, is accomplished and very beautiful, and when you see her I think you will scarcely refuse the tribute of your admiration and affection."

For an instant a grey pallor spread from lip to brow, and the unhappy woman shuddered; but rallying, she moved across the floor to her writing desk, and the infatuated man followed, whispering:

"If she resembles her mother, can you doubt her perfect and prompt adoption into my heart?"

"My daughter is unlike me; is so entirely the image of her lost father, that the sight of her beauty sometimes overwhelms me with torturing memories. Here. General Laurance is a carefully written paper, which I submit for your examination and mature reflection.

When in the presence of proper witnesses you sign that contract, you will have purchased the right to claim my hand--mark you, only my hand--at the altar."

It was a cautiously worded marriage settlement, drawn up in conformity with legal requirements; and its chief exaction was the adoption of Regina, the transmission of the name of Laurance, and the settlement upon her of a certain amount of money in stocks and bonds, exclusive of any real estate. As he received the paper and opened it, Mrs. Orme added: "Take your own time, and weigh the conditions carefully and deliberately."

"Stay, Odille; do not leave me. A few moments will suffice for this matter, and I am in no mood to endure suspense."