"Are you angry with me?"
"Angry? No! What does it matter to me?"
"I am a man. I live alone. My life is lonely. Must I give up everything before I know that some day I shall have the only thing I really wish?
You know men. You know how we are. I do not defend. I only say that I am not better than the other men. I want to be happy. If that is not for me, then I want to make the time pa.s.s. I do not pretend. Men generally pretend very much to beautiful girls. But you would not believe such nonsense."
"Then why didn"t you stay in the restaurant?"
"Because I thought to do that would be like an insult for you. Such girls as that--mud--they must not come into your life even by chance, even for a few minutes. No man wishes to show himself with mud to a lady he respects. I tell you just the truth."
"Have you--have you seen her again?"
"She is in Paris. She has been in Paris for many days. But she is nothing. Why speak of such people?"
"I don"t know. But I hate--"
She moved restlessly. Then she got up and went to the fire. He followed her. She could not understand her own jealousy. It humiliated her as she had never been humiliated before. She felt jealous of this man"s absolute freedom, of his past. A sort of rage possessed her when she thought of all the experiences he must certainly have had. She almost hated him for those experiences. She wished she could lay hands on them, tear them out of him, so that he should not have them any longer in memory"s treasury. And yet she knew that, without them, he would probably attract her much less.
"Do you care then?" he said.
"Care?"
"Do you care what I do?"
"No, of course not!"
"But--you do care!" he said.
He said it without any triumph of the male, quite simply, almost as a boy might have said it.
"You do care!" he repeated.
And very gently, slowly, he put his arm round her, drew her close to him, bent down and gave her a long kiss.
For a moment she shut her eyes. She was giving herself up entirely to physical sensation. Fear, thought, everything except bodily feeling, seemed to cease in her entirely at that moment. Some fascination which he possessed, an intense fascination for women, entirely mysterious and inexplicable, a thing rooted in the body, absolutely overpowered her at that moment.
It was he who broke the physical spell. He lifted his lips from hers and she heard the words:
"I want you to marry me. Will you?"
Instantly she was released. A flood of thoughts, doubts, wonderings, flowed through her. She felt terribly startled.
Marriage with this man! Marriage with Nicolas Arabian! In all her thoughts of him she had never included the thought of marriage. Yet she had imagined many situations in which he and she played their parts.
Wild dreams had come to her in sleepless nights, the dreams that visit women who are awake under fascination. She had lived through romances with him. She had been with him in strange places, had travelled with him in sandy wastes, seen the night come with him in remote corners of the earth, stood with him in great cities, watched the sea waves slipping away with him on the decks of Atlantic liners. All this she had done in imagination with him. But never had she seen herself as his wife.
To be the wife of Arabian!
He let her go directly he felt the surprise in her body.
"Marry you!" she said.
"It could not be anything else," he said, very simply. "Could it?"
She flushed as if he had punished her by his respect for her.
"But--but we scarcely know each other!" she stammered.
"You say that now!"
Again she felt rebuked, as if she were lighter than he and as if he were surprised by her lightness.
"But we are only--I mean--"
"Let us not talk of it then now if you dislike. But I cannot take such a thing any way but seriously, knowing what you are. I love you; I would follow you anywhere. Naturally, therefore, I must think of marriage with you, or that I am to have nothing."
He stopped. She said nothing; could not say anything.
"With light women one is light. I do not pretend to be a very good man, better than the others. Those so very good men, I do not believe in them very much. But I know that many women are good. Just at first, let me confess, I was not sure how you were. At the Cafe Royal that night, seeing you with all those funny people, I made a mistake. I thought, "She is beautiful. She is audacious. She likes adventures. She wishes an adventure with me." And I came to d.i.c.k Garstin"s thinking of an adventure. But soon I knew--no! I heard you talk. I got to know your cultivation, your very fine mind. And then you held back from me, waiting till you should know me better. That pleased me. It taught me the value of you. And when at last you did not hold back, were willing to be alone with me, to lunch with me, to walk with me, I understood you had made up your mind: "He is all right!" But, best of all, you at last asked me to your hotel, introduced me to the dear lady you live with. I understood what was in your mind: "_She_, too, must be satisfied." Then I knew it was not an adventure. And when you told me first about your sorrow! Ah! That was the great day for me! I knew you would not have told such a thing, kept from even d.i.c.k Garstin, unless you put me in your mind away from the others. That was a very great day for me!"
She shivered slightly by the fire. He was telling her things. She could not in return tell him the truth of herself. Perhaps he really believed all he had just said. And yet that shrewd glance he had given her by the river and again in that room! What had it meant if now he had spoken the truth?
"I knew then that you cared," he said, quietly and with earnest conviction. "I knew then that some day I could ask you to marry me.
Anything else--it is impossible between you and me."
"Yes, of course! I never--you mustn"t suppose--"
"I do not suppose. I know you as now you know me."
He did not touch her again, though, of course, he must know--any man must have known by this time--his physical power to charm, even to overwhelm her. His power over himself amazed her. It proved to her the strength in his character. The man was strong, and in two ways. She worshipped strength, but his still made her afraid.
"Now let us leave it," he said, with a change of manner. "It is getting dark. It is dreary outside. I will shut the curtains. I will sing to you in the firelight."
He went over to the windows, drew down the blinds, pulled forward the curtains. She watched him, sitting motionless, wondering at herself and at him. For the moment he was certainly her master. He governed her as much by what he did not do as by what he did. And it had always been so ever since she had known him. The a.s.surance in his quiet was enormous.
How many things he must have carried through in his life, the life of which she knew absolutely nothing! But this--would he carry through this? She tried to tell herself with certainty that he would not. And yet, as she looked at him, she was not sure. Will can drown will. Great power can overcome lesser power, mysteriously sometimes, but certainly.
That play of which she had read an account in the _Westminster Gazette_ was founded on the possibilities, was based upon a solid foundation. To the ignorant it might seem grotesque, incredible even, but not to those who had really studied life and the eddying currents of life. In life, almost all that is said to be impossible happens at times, though perhaps not often. And who knows, who can say with absolute certainty, that he or she is not an exception, was not born an exception?
As Miss Van Tuyn watched Arabian drawing the curtains across the windows which looked upon the Thames she did not know positively that she would not marry him. She remembered her sensation under his kiss. It had been a sensation of absolute surrender. That was why she had shut her eyes.
She might shut her eyes again. He might even make her do that.
After the curtains were drawn, and only the light from the fire lit up the room, Arabian went over to the piano, a baby grand, and sat down on the music-stool. He was looking very grave, almost romantically grave, but quite un-self-conscious. She wondered whether, even now, he cared what she thought about him. He showed none of the diffidence of the not-yet-accepted lover, eager to please, anxious about the future. But he showed nothing of triumph. The firelight played over his face as he struck a few chords. She wondered whether his manservant was with them in the flat, or whether they were quite alone--shut in together. He had not offered her tea. Perhaps the man had gone out. She did not feel afraid of Arabian at this moment. After what he had said she knew she had no reason to be afraid of him just now. But if she gave herself to him, if they ever were married? How would it be then? Life with him would surely be an extraordinary business. She remembered her solicitude about not being seen with him in public places. Already that seemed long ago. d.i.c.k Garstin had told her she had travelled. No doubt that was true. One may travel far perhaps in mind and in feeling without being self-consciously aware of it. But when one was aware, when one knew, it must surely be possible to stop. He had made to her a tremendous suggestion. She could refuse to entertain it. And when she refused, if she did refuse, what would happen? What would he say, do, when he realized her determination? How would he take a determined refusal? She could not imagine. But she knew that she could not imagine Arabian ever yielding his will to hers in any big matter which would seriously upset his life.
"Now, shall I sing to you?" he said, fixing his eyes upon her.
"Yes, please do," she answered, looking away from him into the fire.
"You know how I sing. I am not a musician of cultivation, but I have music in me. I have always had it. I have always sung, even as a boy.
It is natural to me. But I have been very idle in my life. I have never been able to work, alas!"