Athalie Part 56

"The knowledge that--"

"That you are in love with me? Then you _are_! Oh, Clive, Clive! You dear, sweet, funny boy! And you've told me so, haven't you? Or it amounts to that; doesn't it?"

"Yes; I love you."

She leaned swiftly toward him, sparkling, flushed, radiant, tender:

"You dear boy! I'm not really laughing at you. I'm laughing--I don't know why: happiness--excitement--pride--I don't know.... Do you suppose it actually is love? It won't make you unhappy, will it?

Besides you can be very busy trying to win me. That will be exciting enough for both of us, won't it?"

"Yes--if I try."

"But you will try, won't you?" she demanded mockingly.

He said, forcing a smile: "You seem to think it impossible that I could win you."

"Oh," she said airily, "I don't say that. You see I don't know the method of procedure. I don't know what you're going to do about your falling in love with me."

He leaned over and took her by the waist; and she drew back instinctively, surprised and disconcerted.

"That is silly," she said. "Are you going to be silly with me, Clive?"

"No," he said, "I won't be that."

He sat looking at her in silence for a few moments. And slowly the belief entered his heart like a slim steel blade that she had never loved, and that there was in her nothing except what she had said there was, loyalty and devotion, unsullied and spiritual, clean of all else lower and less n.o.ble, guiltless of pa.s.sion, ignorant of desire.

As he looked at her he remembered the past--remembered that once he might have taught her love in all its attributes--that once he might have married her. For in a school so gentle and secure as wedlock such a girl might learn to love.

He had had his chance. What did he want of her now, then?--more than he had of her already. Love? Her devotion amounted to that--all of it that could concern a man already married--hopelessly married to a woman who would never submit to divorce. What did he want of her then?

He turned and walked to the open window and stood looking out over the city. Sunset blazed crimson at the western end of every cross-street.

Far away on the Jersey sh.o.r.e electric lights began to sparkle.

He did not know she was behind him until one arm fell lightly on his shoulder.

It remained there after her imprisoned waist yielded a little to his arm.

"You are not unhappy, are you, Clive?"

"No."

"I didn't mean to take it lightly. I don't comprehend; that's all. It seems to me that I can't care for you more than I do already. Do you understand?"

"Yes, dear."

She raised one cool hand and drew his cheek gently against her own, and rested so a moment, looking out across the misty city.

He remembered that night of his departure when she had put both arms around his neck and kissed him. It had been like the serene touch of a crucifix to his lips. It was like that now,--the smooth, pa.s.sionless touch of her cool, young face against his, and her slim hand framing his cheek.

"To think," she murmured to herself, "that you should ever care for me in that way, too.... It is wonderful, wonderful--and very sweet--if it does not make you unhappy. Does it?"

"No."

"It's so dear of you to love me that way, Clive. Could--could _I_ do anything--about it?"

"How?"

"Would you care to kiss me?" she asked with a faint smile. And turned her face.

Chaste, cool and fresh as a flower her young mouth met his, lingered; then, still smiling, and a trifle flushed and shy, she laid her cheek against his shoulder, and her hands in his, calm in her security.

"You see," she said, "you need not worry over me. I am glad you are in love with me."

CHAPTER XXI

It was in the days when nothing physical tainted her pa.s.sionate attachment to Clive. When she was with him she enjoyed the moment with all her heart and soul--gave to it and to him everything that was best in her--all the richness of her mental and bodily vigour, all the unspoiled enthusiasm of her years, all the st.u.r.dy freshness of youth, eager, receptive, credulous, unsatiated.

With them, once more, the old happy companions.h.i.+p began; the Cafe Arabesque, the Regina, the theatres, the suburban restaurants knew them again. Familiar faces among the waiters welcomed them to the same tables; the same ushers guided them through familiar aisles; the same taxi drivers touched their caps with the same alacrity; the same porters bestirred themselves for tips.

Sometimes when they were not alone, they and their friends danced late at Castle House or the Sans-Souci, or the Humming-Bird, or some such resort, at that time in vogue.

Sometimes on Sat.u.r.day afternoons or on Sundays and holidays they spent hours in the museums and libraries--not that Clive had either inherited or been educated to any truer appreciation of things worth while than the average New York man--but like the majority he admitted the solemnity and fearsomeness of art and letters, and his att.i.tude toward them was as carefully respectful as it was in church.

Which first perplexed and then amused Athalie who, with no opportunities, had been born with a wholesome pa.s.sion for all things beautiful of the mind.

The little she knew she had learned from books or from her companions.h.i.+p with Captain Dane that first summer after Clive had gone abroad. And there was nothing orthodox, nothing pedantic, nothing simulated or artificial in her likes or dislikes, her preferences or her indifference.

Yet, somehow, even without knowing, the girl instinctively gravitated toward all things good.

In modern art--with the exception of a few painters--she found little to attract her; but the magnificence of the great Venetians, the sombre splendour of the great Spaniards, the n.o.bility of the great English and Dutch masters held her with a spell forever new. And, as for the exquisite, navely self-conscious works of Greuze, Lancret, Fragonard, Boucher, Watteau, and Nattier, she adored them with all the fresh and natural appet.i.te of a capacity for visual pleasure unjaded.

He recognised Raphael with respect and pleasure when authority rea.s.sured him it _was_ Raphael. Also he probably knew more about the history of art than did she. Otherwise it was Athalie who led, instinctively, toward what gallery and library held as their best.

Her favourite lingering places were amid the immortal Chinese porcelains and the masterpieces of the Renaissance. And thither she frequently beguiled Clive,--not that he required any persuading to follow this young and lovely creature who ranged the full boundaries of her environment, living to the full life as it had been allotted her.

Wholesome with that charming and rounded slenderness of perfect health there yet seemed no limit to her capacity for the enjoyment of all things for which an appet.i.te exists--pleasures, mental or physical--it did not seem to matter.

She adored walking; to exercise her body delighted her. Always she ate and drank with a relish that fascinated; she was mad about the theatre and about music:--and whatever she chanced to be doing she did with all the vigour, intelligence, and pleasure of which she was capable, throwing into it her entire heart and soul.

It led to temporary misunderstandings--particularly with the men she met--even in the small circle of friends whom she received and with whom she went about. Arthur Ensart entirely mistook her until fiercely set right one evening when alone with him; James Allys also listened to a curt but righteously impa.s.sioned discourse which he never forgot.

Hargrave's gentlemanly and suavely villainous intentions, when finally comprehended, became radically modified under her coolly scornful rebuke. Welter, fat and sentimental, never was more than tiresomely saccharine; Ferris and Lyndhurst betrayed symptoms of being misunderstood, but it was a toss-up as to the degree of seriousness in their intentions.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Once more, the old happy companions.h.i.+p began."]