The King's Mirror Part 21

"It is not that. It's----"

"It is that," she said. She turned away and seated herself on the sofa, where she sat with her eyes fixed on the ground. Then she gave a short laugh. "I knew it would come," she said, "but this is--is rather sudden."

I ran to her and threw myself on my knees by her. I lifted my arm and put it round her neck and drew her face down to mine.

"No, no, no," I whispered pa.s.sionately. "It's not that."

She let me kiss her now many times, and presently returned my kisses.

Her breath caught in gasps, and she clutched my hand imploringly.

"You do love me?" she murmured.

"Yes, yes."

"Then why--why? Why do you do this?" She drew back, looking in my face in a bewildered way. Then a sudden brightness came into her eyes. "Is it for me? Are you thinking of me?"

"No," said I in stubborn honesty, "I was not thinking of you."

"Don't!" she cried, for she did not believe me. "What do I care? I cared once; I don't care now."

"It wasn't because of you," I repeated obstinately.

"Then tell me, tell me! Because I believe you still love me."

I made s.h.i.+ft to tell her, but my stumbling words belittled the great conception: I could not find the phrases that alone might convey the truth to her; but I held on, trying to say something of what I meant.

"I never tried to interfere," she broke in once.

"I made you interfere, I myself," was my lame answer; and the rest I said was as lame.

"I don't understand," she murmured forlornly and petulantly. "Oh, I suppose I see what you mean in a way; but I don't believe it. I don't see why you should feel like that about it. Do men feel like that? Women don't."

"I can't help it," I pleaded, pressing her hand. She drew it away gently.

"And what will it mean?" she asked. "Am I never to see you?"

"Often, often, I hope, but----"

"I'm not to talk to you about--about important things, things we both care about?"

I felt the absurdity of such a position. The abstract made concrete is so often made absurd.

"Then you won't come often; you won't care about coming." Something in her thoughts made her flush suddenly. She met my eyes and took courage.

"You asked a good deal of me," she said.

I made no answer; she understood my silence. She rose, leaving me on my knees. I threw myself on the sofa and she went to the hearthrug. She knew that what I had asked of her I asked no more. There was a long silence between us. At last she spoke in a very low voice.

"It's only a little sooner than it must have been," she said. "And I--I suppose I must be glad that it's come home to me now instead of--later.

I daresay you'll be glad of that too, Augustin."

"How are we to live, how are we to meet, what are we to be to one another?" she broke out the next moment. "We can't go on as if nothing had happened."

"I don't know."

"You don't know! Yet you're hard as iron about it. Oh, I daresay you're right; you must be. It's only a little sooner."

She turned her back to me, and stood looking down into the fire. I was trying to answer her question, to realize how it would be between us, how, having lived in the real, we must now dwell in the unreal with one another. I was wondering how I could meet her and not show that I loved her, how I could love her and yet be true to my idol, the conception that governed me. Suddenly she spoke, without turning or lifting her head.

"Whom shall you send to Paris?"

"I don't know. I haven't settled."

"Wetter mentioned somebody else--besides himself?"

"Only Max," said I, with a dreary laugh.

"Hadn't you better send Max? That is, if you think him fit for it."

I thought that she was relieving her petulance by a bitter jest; but a moment later she said again, still without turning round:

"Send Max."

I rose and walked slowly to where she stood. Hearing my movement, she faced me.

"Send Max," she said again, holding out her hands toward me, clasped together. "I--I can't stay here like--in the way you say. And you? How could you do it?"

"You would go with him?" I exclaimed.

"Of course."

"For five years?"

"When I come back," she said, "you will be twenty-five. You will be married to Elsa. I shall be thirty-four. There will be no difficulty about how we are to treat one another when I come back, Augustin."

"My G.o.d!" I murmured, looking in her eyes. As I looked they filled with tears.

"My dear, my dear," she said, raising her arms and setting her hands on my shoulders, "I have never forgotten that I was a fool. Yes, once, for a few moments yesterday. I shall remember at Paris what a fool I was, and I shan't forget it when I come back. Only I wish it didn't break one's heart to be a fool."

"I won't let you go; I won't send him. I can't."

"Will it be better to have it happen here gradually before my eyes every day? I should kill myself. I couldn't bear it. I should see you finding out, changing, forgetting, laughing. Oh, what a miserable woman I am!"

She turned away suddenly and flung herself into an armchair.

"Why did you do it?" she cried. "Why did you?"

"I loved you."

"Yes, yes, yes. That's the absurdity, the horrible absurdity. And I loved you, and I love you. Isn't it funny?" She laughed hysterically.