The Beloved Traitor Part 23

"I love you!"--his voice was hoa.r.s.e, shrill, out of control. "I love you! My G.o.d, I love you! Do you think that you can own a man's soul and not pay the price? You made me love you! In a thousand ways you asked for my love--in a thousand ways you--"

"Jean!" she cried at him again--half running now back across the room.

"Yes, you did!" he shouted pa.s.sionately, following her. "Yes, you did--or you have been playing with me! But if you have been playing with me, the playing is ended now, do you understand? It is ended!

And whether you have been playing or not, you have made me love you, and you are mine--you belong to me--you shall be mine! That is how much I love you! You are mine--_mine_! You shall tell that cursed Paul Valmain to go about his business! Do you understand that, too? I saw you last night!"

She caught at the straw--as, flinging aside the portieres in her retreat, she backed through the archway into the _atelier_.

"Ah, it is that, then? It is Paul Valmain then, that is the cause of this! Well, at least, Paul Valmain is incapable of such actions!"

"There is much that Paul Valmain is incapable of!" he answered furiously. "And one thing is that he, or any other man, shall ever have you!"

She glanced hurriedly over her shoulder. It was a large room, the _atelier_, larger even than the salon, but she was almost across it now, and the huge statue of Jean's "_Fille du Regiment_," his "Daughter of the Regiment," his newest work, that was nearing completion, blocked the way.

"Jean," she burst out desperately, "what is it? What do you mean?

There is no need for this! There--there was no need to lock that door, to send Hector away! Do you know what you are doing? Have you lost your reason to treat me like this? Have you forgotten what--what you owe to my father--that--that I am his daughter?"

"Ah, you will twist and wriggle, and you will not answer, eh?"--the words seemed to scorch and burn on his lips. "It is always like this!

You evade, you elude, you ask other questions. You know why I have done this! I have told you. I owe your father nothing--nothing! Do you hear--nothing! It is he who owes! Ask him! They are his own words come true. Ask him what the name of Jean Laparde has done for him! He is not merely a paltry millionaire to-day--he is a famous man!

The debt is paid a thousandfold--even to the money, franc for franc, that he has spent. You know well enough why I have done this! It is not like the days of Bernay-sur-Mer when the poor fisherman dared only dream and smother the pa.s.sion in him like some mean, crawling thing, and thank the G.o.d who made him, and hold himself blessed for the crumbs that were flung to him--a smile from those lips of yours--a finger touch upon the sleeve, when it seemed all heaven and h.e.l.l could not keep my arms back from you! I have waited! I let you put me off until--until the hour should come when no man or woman in the world should put off Jean Laparde! Until--yes, _sacre nom de misericorde_!--until I should be able to forget, forget, forget, do you understand, _forget_ that I was once a poor fisherman when I looked at you. Well, it has come, that hour! What tribute in all the history of France was ever paid to man as was paid to me last night? _Sacre nom_, it is no fisherman that speaks to you now! It is I--Jean Laparde, the sculptor of France! I am rich! Kings, princes, the n.o.bles, the world comes to my door and begs--do you hear, _begs_ the entree! What more do you ask? My G.o.d"--he was clutching at his cravat, loosening it from his throat, as though it were choking him--"you shall no longer put off my love!"

She had halted--because she could retreat no further. The face of the statue, a life-size figure of a girl in tattered uniform, the corsage torn, the hair dishevelled, the form crouched a little as though pressing forward in the face of mighty stress, the hands beating at a drum that was slung from the shoulders, looked down upon her. And it seemed to bring quick, instant, another weapon to her hand. That _something_ in the face, those lips! It was in every piece of work he had ever done. All talked of it, all saw it--and wondered. A strange exhilaration was upon her. She was not afraid. In his pa.s.sion, pa.s.sion like this, Jean was superb. To have aroused pa.s.sion such as this in a man was as to have drunk of wine! But to yield?

Never--until the day when she was quite ready to yield. To master him, hold him, curb him--yes, a thousand times! His face was close to hers, his breath was hot upon her cheeks, his hands were stretching out for her again. She pushed him away violently.

"You talk of love!" she flashed out. "What do you know of love? What _kind_ of love could you have for me?" She swept her hand around, pointing to the statue. "Who is this secret model that all Paris talks about--that everybody has been talking about for months--that lives in the face and always in the lips of everything you do? That though the face of one statue is like the face of no other one, yet she is there!

You talk to me of love! At what strange hours does she come here, that no one sees her? How does she come? Where do you keep her?"

For an instant, Jean drew back, staring at her wildly--but only for an instant. The next, he had caught her arm in an iron grip.

"You are clever!" he whispered hoa.r.s.ely. "You are too _d.a.m.ned_ clever!

You are at it again, eh--to sidetrack me? It has been like that for two years now--always in some way, by some trick, you put me off! But you will put me off no more. You can play no trick here. We are alone, and I will not be tricked. It is not true what you say! There is no model like that! It is a lie!" His voice swelled until it rang out in a strong, vibrant note. "The model is here--here in my heart--in my brain! That face and form is the face and form of France!

It is the womanhood of France, the glory of my country! No man before has ever conceived it. It was for me--for me--Jean Laparde--to do! Do you hear--it is the face and the womanhood of France! You do not understand--you are not a Frenchwoman. And you do not understand me--who am a Frenchman!" His voice dropped low again, hoa.r.s.e in its pa.s.sion. "You have gone too far!" His grip on her arm tightened.

"You love me, or you have played with me--it is all the same! The two years have made you mine! You _are_ mine--now--now! You would starve my love, would you, you wonderful, beautiful, glorious woman!"

He was drawing her closer and closer to him. Pa.s.sion, loosened, freed, rocking the man to the soul, was in eyes and face, in the half parted lips, in the short, quick, panting breath. And for a moment, fascinated, she was lifeless; then with all her strength she wrenched and strove to free herself.

"You would not _dare_!" she gasped. "You would not--"

"Dare!"--the word was a wild, hollow laugh. "Dare! Does a man dare to save his soul from torment? See--your lips! Your lips! Ah, G.o.d--your lips!"

She was his--_his_! She was in his arms, crushed to him! His--as his mad desire had bade him crush her in his arms long since in that other life in Bernay-sur-Mer; his--as he had dreamed of crus.h.i.+ng her in his arms, of crus.h.i.+ng her ravis.h.i.+ng form close to him in the dreams of the days and nights, every day and night since then. It was all blind madness, a delirium of ecstasy. How warm and hot those lips of hers from which his soul was drinking! G.o.d, how she struggled! But her lips--her lips were his--his to rain his kisses of pa.s.sionate thirst upon--and upon her face, and upon her eyes, and upon her hair. If only she would not struggle so, that he might smother his face, bury it in the intoxicating fragrance of that hair!

She beat at him with her fists. He could not hold her still. She was strong, strong as some young lioness. They were swaying around the room, now this way, new that--and now through the portieres into the salon. She made no cry--how could she cry?--he strangled the cries unborn upon her lips with his kisses! Ah, he had her now--she was pa.s.sive at last--her head was bent far back in his arms. Yes, now--now! To feel the life, the heart throb, the pulse of that lithe form against his own--to hold his lips to hers in a kiss long as all eternity--to--

And then in a numbed, blank way he was standing back and staring at her. Footsteps, laughter, voices were coming from the street outside, coming up the steps--and, where it had seemed that her strength was gone, in a paroxysm of terror, of desperation, she had torn herself away from him. And now--yes--her face was as white as death itself.

What made it like that? What had happened? He pa.s.sed his hand dazedly across his eyes.

"Quick! That door!" she breathed frantically. "They must not find it _locked_!" She s.n.a.t.c.hed up her outer wraps, slipped them on, and, with a most marvellous display of composure, a.s.sumed a languid att.i.tude in a chair. Outwardly, Myrna Bliss was quite calm and undisturbed again.

"Quick! The door--_quick_!" she whispered.

The door! Some one was coming! Yes, of course! His brain was reeling, stupefied. The door! He fumbled in his pocket for the key, and in a mechanical way turned it in the lock. And then they were trooping into the salon, a dozen of them, men and women.

"Wasn't it a charming idea!" some one exclaimed in effusive greeting.

"But the credit is all Myrna's, of course. We've come, you know, to--"

Jean did not hear any more. With a start, he raised his head and glanced down the room. Myrna's idea--this! A little twisted smile of understanding came to Jean's lips. Self-possessed, animated, she was already the centre of a group where everybody was talking at once.

And then Paul Valmain's pale, aristocratic, esthetic face came before him. The man was bowing, murmuring polite conventionalities; only somehow the man's eyes, instead of meeting his, seemed to be set with peculiar fixedness upon some object. Automatically, Jean followed their direction with his own--to his own hand hanging at his side.

The door key was still clasped in his fingers!

-- III --

IN THE DEAD OF THE NIGHT

The temptation was very great. But what would Father Anton say? What would Madame Garneau, with whom she lodged, _think_? To go out at this time of night! It was very late. It was long after midnight, because it was very long ago when she had heard some distant church clock strike twelve--and since then it had struck many times, the quarters, the half hours, only she had lost count.

Marie-Louise drew her cloak a little more closely around her, as she leaned on the cas.e.m.e.nt of her open window--and then remained quite still and motionless again.

Irrelevantly it seemed, her thoughts turned on Hector, the concierge.

How very blue Hector's eyes were, and how very red his hair, and altogether how very droll a figure he made with his absurd self-importance; and how fat his wife was, whom he so ridiculously called Mi-mi! And then that conversation between the concierge and his wife in Jean's salon early that morning, at which she had been present, began to run through her mind.

"_Tiens_!" Hector had said to his wife. "But will she not make the thrifty wife for some lucky fellow, our little Louise Bern, here--eh?

She is already waiting an hour in the mornings to be let in. An hour, mind you, _ma belle_ Mi-mi--and we who think we rise so early! It is a lesson that! Would you have her standing out in the cold? Why not a key that she may come in and do her work?"

"But Monsieur Jean," madame had objected mildly, "might be angry if he knew."

"Monsieur Jean," Hector had replied fatuously, and folding his arms with an air, "is very well content to leave such matters to me. I do not pester Monsieur Jean with details. On the night after the reception, even in the exceedingly bad humour in which I found him, when I told him that I had thought the matter over, and that the work was too hard, and that you were wasting away--you see, _ma_ Mi-mi, how I lie for you--and that I had decided--'decided' was the word I used--that I must have some one in the mornings to help with the work, did he not say: 'But a.s.suredly, Hector, a.s.suredly; whatever you think is right. I depend upon you, _mon ami_.' And does that not show that we understand each other, Monsieur Jean and I--eh?"

"It was Father Anton, not you, whose idea it was," madame had corrected with conscientious earnestness. "It was Father Anton, that evening after we had returned from the Bois and before you had seen Monsieur Jean, who suggested it, and spoke of Louise here. And that was not what Monsieur Jean said, for I was listening outside the door. He said you were a red-headed buffoon, and to go to the devil and not bother him."

"And what then?" Hector, though slightly disconcerted, had rejoined with acerbity. "Your tongue is forever clacking! Do I ever recount an event but that you must put in your word? But that is not the point.

It is Father Anton who says Louise is an honest girl and to be trusted--and that is enough!"

It was not so irrelevant after all. She was twisting the key in her fingers now. The key to Jean's house in the Rue Vanitaire. How still the night was! It seemed so strange that in so great a city where there were such mult.i.tudes of people it could be so still. It was almost as still as that other night when she had sat at her window in Bernay-sur-Mer, that night when the _bon Dieu_ had made her see that for Jean's sake their ways lay so very wide apart. She was glad, very glad that the _bon Dieu_ had helped her then to put nothing in Jean's way, because Jean had done so very much more even than any one had dreamed of.

But it was so strange, so strange! To hear everybody talking about Jean--on the streets--little s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation--even here amongst the very poor--even Madame Garneau, who that afternoon had stopped in the scrubbing of the floor, and, waving the scrubbing brush excitedly to point the words, must needs tell her, Marie-Louise, all about the great Laparde! How proud they all were of Jean, because Jean had brought such honour upon their beloved France! But it was so strange, so strange--that they did not know--that they did not know that, oh, for so many, many years it had been just Jean and Marie-Louise, and glad, glad days, with the blue sky above, and the strong arms upon the oars--and--and that she loved Jean, that all her life she had loved him, that all her life until she should come to die she would love Jean. It was strange that all these people did not know, because it seemed that she knew nothing else, because it seemed to be the only thing in all the world. But it was good that they did not know, because otherwise she could not even be here as she was, she could not even be Louise Bern for a little while, and be near Jean, and see the work that she loved because it was Jean's work, and because--and because those marvellous figures that he fas.h.i.+oned seemed somehow now to mean everything that there was in life for her, as though her own life were wrapped up In them, given in exchange for them, as though indeed she were a very part of them, and they were of her blood and flesh.

She pressed her hands very tightly together over the key, and then opened them and let the key lay in her palm to look at it in the moonlight. She had seen so little in the studio, so very little! In the three mornings she had been there, there had always been Madame Mi-mi to fuss around her, to instruct her in her work, or, failing that as an excuse--to gossip. And if it were not madame, then it was Hector--and often it was both. And she had so wanted to be alone there--it was not very much to ask, that--just to be alone there for a little time with Jean's things around her, to be very quiet, to be alone.

Why should she not go now? It was not a sin that she would commit. It was only that if Father Anton knew, or Madame Garneau knew they would not understand--but they would never know. No one would ever know.

Jean would be upstairs asleep; and Hector and his wife would be downstairs in bed. That statue, that wonderful statue of the girl with the drum, would be more wonderful than ever with the bright moonlight pouring in upon it through that great gla.s.s roof of the _atelier_. She had seen so little of it, because when she was there it was always wrapped up in damp cloths; she had seen it only when that absurd Hector had exhibited it to her with a patronising air as though he had modelled it himself, making use of a flood of technical expressions of which she did not understand a word, and of whose meaning she was quite sure he was equally ignorant, but having heard the words around the studio repeated them like a parrot. She had seen so little of it, when her soul cried out to see so much. It haunted her, that statue--why, she did not know. It was before her always--in her dreams, which were always dreams of the salon and the _atelier_, the figure with the drum always stood out above everything else, even though everything else, even though the very smallest things and details there were so dear and intimate too. Was it a sin to go and stand and look, when her heart was so full of the longing that it would not be denied? Who was there to say, "you went to Jean's studio at two o'clock in the morning,"

when, in the quiet and the stillness there, there would be only herself, and that great figure with the drum, and the _bon Dieu_, who made Jean do such wondrous things, to know?

She turned from the window and tiptoed across the little room, and took the little black velvet turban with its white c.o.c.kade, that Father Anton had given her, down from where it hung upon a nail on the wall, and fastened her cloak tightly about her for fear that it might brush against something and make a noise, and stole then to the door, and out into the hallway, and to the front door of the tenement. Yes, she would go--but no one must know--only herself, and that great figure with the drum, and--and the _bon Dieu_, who would understand.