"What is the matter?" I asked, with spa.r.s.e sympathy. "Don"t cry.
Tears spell ruin to the complexion."
"I am the most miserable woman in the world," she wailed.
"Then you are at the bottom of a very large cla.s.s. Tears don"t suit you, either. They make your eyes red and puffy. A luxury even you cannot afford, beautiful as you are."
"You are hateful," she cried, angrily; and immediately dried her eyes and sat up to glare at me.
I smiled. "I have stopped your crying at any rate."
"I wish to be alone."
"I think you ought to be very grateful to me. Look at yourself;" and I held a hand mirror in front of her face.
She s.n.a.t.c.hed it from me and flung it down on the sofa pillow with a little French oath.
"Be careful. To break a mirror means a year"s ill luck. A serious misfortune for even a pretty woman."
"I don"t believe you have a grain of sympathy in your whole heart. It must be as hard as a stone."
"My dear Henriette, the heart has nothing to do with sympathy or any other emotion. It is just the blood pump. I have not read much physiology but...."
"_Nom de Dieu_, spare me your science," she cried, excitedly.
I laughed again without restraint. "We"ll drop physiology, then. But I know other things, and now that I have brought you out of the tear stage, we"ll talk about them if you like. I agree with you that it is most exasperating and bitterly disappointing."
Her face was a mask of bewilderment as she turned to me swiftly. "What do you mean?" The question came after a pause.
"It is so ridiculously easy. I mean what you were thinking about when the pa.s.sion of tears came along. What are you going to do about it?"
I had seated myself and taken up a book, and was turning over the leaves as I put the question. She jumped up excitedly and came and stood over me, her features almost fiercely set as she stared down.
"What do you mean? You shall say what you mean. You shall."
"Not while you stand there threatening me with a sort of wild glare in your eyes. I don"t think it"s fair to be angry with me just because you can"t do what you wish."
She stretched out her hands as if she would shake me in her exasperation. Then she laughed, a little wildly, and went back to her seat on the couch.
"What was in my thoughts then?"
"At the foundation--the inconvenience of your religious convictions as a member of the Roman Catholic Church."
"You are mad," she cried, with a toss of her shapely head and a ringing laugh. But as the laugh died away her eyes filled with sobering perplexity. "At the foundation," she said slowly, repeating my words.
"You are a poor thought-reader. What else was I thinking of?"
I paused to give due significance to my next words, and looked at her fixedly as I spoke. "Of your marriage with M. Constans; and that in your church, marriage is a sacrament."
"You are a devil," she exclaimed, with fresh excitement, almost with fury indeed. "Say what you mean and don"t torment me."
"The Count has been urging you to marry him of course, and----"
"You have been listening. You spy." The last vestige of her self-control was lost as she flung the words at me.
I paused. I never act impetuously with hysterical people. With studied deliberation I closed my book, having carefully laid a marker between the pages, and looked round as if for anything that might belong to me. Then I rose. Her eyes watched me with growing doubt and anxiety.
"I shall be ready to leave the house in about an hour, Madame," I said icily, and walked toward the door.
She let me get close to it. "What are you going to do?"
My answer was a cold smile, in which I contrived to convey a threat. I knew how to frighten her.
She jumped up and rushed to the door and stood with her back against it--as an angry, over-teased child will do. "You shall not go. You mean to try and ruin me." I had known before that she was afraid of me; but she had never shown it so openly.
"Yes, I shall do my best." I spoke so calmly and looked her so firmly in the face that she was convinced of my earnestness.
"I didn"t mean what I said," she declared.
"It is too late for that," I replied, with a sneer of obvious distrust and disbelief. She had very little courage and was a poor fighter.
Her only weapon was her beauty; and it was useless of course against me.
Her eyes began to show a scared, hunted expression. "Don"t go.
Forgive me, Christabel. I didn"t mean it. I swear I didn"t. You angered me, and you know how impetuous I am."
"I am surprised you should plead thus to--a spy, Madame."
"But I tell you I didn"t mean it. Christabel, dear Christabel, I know you are not a spy. Don"t make so much of an angry word. Come, let us talk it over. Do, do"; and she put her arm in mine to lead me back to my chair.
I let her prevail with me, but with obvious reluctance. "Why are you so afraid of me?" I asked.
"I am not afraid of you; but I want you to stay and help me."
I sat down then as a concession and a sign that I was willing to talk things over; and she sat near me, taking care to place her chair between me and the door.
"If that is so, it is time that we understood one another. Perhaps I had better begin. You cannot marry Count Karl."
"I love him, Christabel."
"And Monsieur Constans--your husband?"
"Don"t, don"t. He deserted me. He is a villain, a false scoundrel.
Don"t speak of him in the same breath with--with the man I love."
"He is your husband, Madame." She moaned and waved her arms despairingly.
"I am the most wretched woman on earth. I love him so."
"And therefore encourage him to take opium. I do not understand that kind of love. Had you not better tell me the truth?"
"I shall save him. You don"t understand. My G.o.d, you don"t understand at all. The only way I can save him is to do what he asks."