Evelyn Innes Part 36

"When I heard your name it called up an image in my mind, and that image has never wholly left me--it comes back often like a ghost."

"When you were thinking of something different?"

"I am your destiny, or one of your destinies."

Her eyes were fixed eagerly upon him; his darkness and the mysteries he represented attracted her, and she even felt she could follow. At the same moment his eyes seemed the most beautiful in the world, and she desired him to make love to her. While enticing, she resisted him, now more feebly, and when he let go her hands she sat looking at him, wondering how she was to get through the evening without kissing him....

She spoke to him about his opera. He asked her if she were going to sing it, and she looked at him with vague, uncertain eyes. He said he knew she never would. She asked him why he thought so, and again a great longing bent him towards her. She withdrew her hands and face from his lips, and they had begun to talk of other things when he perceived her face close to his. Unable to resist he kissed her cheek, fearing that she would order him from the room. But at the instant of the touching of his lips, she threw her arm about his neck, and drew him down as a mermaiden draws her mortal lover into the depths, and in a wondering world of miraculous happiness he surrendered himself.

"Dearest, dearest," he said, raising himself to look at her.

"Ulick, Ulick," she said, "let me kiss you, I've longed such a while."

He thought he had never seen so radiant a face. What disguise had fallen? And looking at her, he strove to discover the woman who had denied him so often. This new woman seemed made all of light and love and transport, the woman of all his divinations, the being the old photograph in the old music-room had warned him of, the being that the voice of his destiny had told him he was to meet. And as they stood by the fireplace looking into each other's eyes, he gradually became aware of his happiness. It broke in his heart with a thrill and s.h.i.+ver like an exquisite dawn, opal and rose; the brilliancy of her eyes, the rapture of her face, the magnetic stirring of the little gold curls along her forehead were so wonderful that he feared her as an enchanter fears the spirit he has raised. Like one who has suddenly chanced on the hilltop, he gazed on the prospect, believing it all to be his. They stood gazing into each other's eyes too eager to speak, and when she called his name he remembered the legended forest, and replied with the song of the bird that leads Siegfried to Brunnhilde. She laughed, and sang the next two bars, and then seemed to forget everything.

"Dearest, of what are you thinking?"

"Only if I ever shall kiss you again, Ulick."

"You will always kiss me!"

She did not answer, and, frightened by her irresponsive eyes, he said--

"But, Evelyn, you must love me, me--only me; you will never see him again?"

She did not answer, and when he spoke, his voice trembled.

"But it is impossible you can ever marry him now."

"I am not going to marry Owen."

"You told him so the other night?"

"Yes, I told him, or very nearly, that I could not marry him."

"You cannot marry him, you love me.... But why don't you answer. What are you thinking of?"

"Only of you, dear.... Let me kiss you again," and in the embrace he forgot for the moment the inquietude her answer had caused him.

"That is my call," she said. "How am I to sing the Liebestod after all this? How does it begin?"

Ulick sang the opening phrase, and she continued the music for some bars.

"I hope I shall get through it all right. Then," she said, "we shall go home together in the brougham."

At that moment a knock was heard, and Merat entered. "Mademoiselle, you have no time to lose."

The call boy's voice was heard on the stairs, and Evelyn hastened away.

Ulick followed, and the first thing he heard when he got on the stage was Tristan's death motive. He listened, not so much to the music itself as to its occult significance regarding Evelyn and himself. And as Isolde's grief changed from wild lament for sensual delight to a resigned and n.o.ble prayer, the figure of ecstasy broke with a sound as of wings shaking, and Ulick seemed to witness a soul's transfiguration.

He watched it rising in several ascensions, like a lark's flight. For an instant it seemed to float in some divine consummation, then, like the bird, to suddenly quench in the radiance of the sky. The harps wept farewell over the bodies of the lovers, then all was done, and he stood at the wings listening to the applause. She came to him at once, as soon as the curtain was down.

"How did I sing it?"

"As well as ever."

"But you seem sad; what is it?"

"It seemed to mean something--something, I cannot tell what, something to do with us."

"No," she said, looking at him. "I was only thinking of the music. Wait for me, dear, I shall not keep you long."

He walked up and down the stage, and in his hand was a wreath that some admirer had kept for the last. For excitement he could hardly bid the singers good-night as they pa.s.sed him. Now it was Tristan, now Brangane, now one of the chorus. The question raged within him. Was it fated that she should marry him? So far as he understood the omens she would not; but the readings were obscure, and his will threw itself out in opposition to the influence of Sir Owen. But he was not certain that that was the direction whence the danger was coming. He could only exert, however, his will in that direction. At last he saw her coming down the steep stairs, wrapped in a white opera cloak. They walked in silence--she all rapture, but his happiness already clouded. The brougham was so full of flowers that they, could hardly find place for themselves. She drew him closer, and said--

"What is the matter, dear? Am I not nice to you?"

"Yes, Evelyn, you're an enchantment. Only--"

"Only what, dear?"

"I fear our future. I fear I shall lose you. All has come true so far, the end must happen."

She drew his arm about her waist, and laid his face on her bare shoulder.

"Let there be no foreboding. Live in the present."

"The future is too near us. Say you'll marry me, or else I shall lose you altogether. It is the one influence on our side."

She was born, he said, under two great influences, but each could be modified; one might be widened, the other lessened, and both modifications might finally resolve into her destiny. So far as he could read her future, it centred in him or another. That other, he was sure, was not Sir Owen, nor was it himself, he thought; for when she and he had met in the theatre, she had experienced no dread, but he had dreaded her, recognising her as his destiny. He had even recognised her as Evelyn Innes before she had been pointed out to him.

"But you had seen my photograph?"

"But it was not by your photograph that I knew you."

"And you knew that I should care for you?"

"I knew that something had to happen. But you did not feel that I was your destiny. You said you experienced no dread, but when you met Sir Owen did you experience none?"

"I suppose I did. I was afraid of him. At first I think I hated him."

"Ah, Evelyn, we shall not marry--it is not our fate. You see that you cannot say you will marry me. Another fate is beckoning you."

"Who is it who beckons me? Have I already met him?"

He fell to dreaming again, and Evelyn asked him vainly to describe this other man.

"Why are you singing that melancholy Mark motive?"

"I did not know I was singing it." He returned to his dream again, but starting from it, he seized her hands.