"I"ll take my soul with me, such as it is," he answered. "I"ll not make away with it while my feet are on the earth."
"Do you know that you are really a very extraordinary person?" she said.
"What I am you are responsible for," he answered. "I was all right when you first knew me. I may have been ignorant, perhaps, but at any rate I was sincere. I had a conscience and an ideal. Oh! I suppose you found me very amusing--a missioner who thought it worth while to give a part of his life to help his fellows climb a few steps higher up. What devil was it that sent you stealing down the lane that night from your house, I wonder?"
She nodded slowly.
"I"m sorry you can speak of it like that," she said. "To me it was the most delightful piece of sentiment! Almost like a poem!"
"A poem! It was the Devil"s own poetry you breathed into me! What a poor mad fool I became! You saw how easily I gave my work up, how I sulked up to London, fighting with it all the time, with this madness--this----"
"Dear me," she said, "what an Adam you are! My dear Victor, isn"t it--you are very, very young. There is no need for you to manufacture a huge tragedy out of a woman"s kiss."
"What else is it but a tragedy," he demanded, "the kiss that is a lie--or worse? You brought me here, you let me hold you in my arms, you filled my brain with mad thoughts, you drove everything good and worth having out of life, you filled it with what? Yourself! And then--you pat me on the cheek and tell me to come, and be kissed some other day, when you feel in the humour, a wet afternoon, perhaps, or when you are feeling bored, and want to hunt up a few new emotions! It may be the way with you and your kind. I call it h.e.l.lish!"
"Well," she said, "tell me exactly what it is that you want?"
"To be laughed at--as you did before?" he answered fiercely. "Never mind. It was the truth. You have lain in my arms, you came willingly, your lips have been mine! You belong to me!"
"To be quite explicit," she murmured, "you think I ought to marry you."
"Yes!" he declared firmly. "A kiss is a promise! You seem to want to live as a "poseuse," to make playthings of your emotions and mine. I wanted to build up my life firmly, to make it a stable and a useful thing. You came and wrecked it, and you won"t even help me to rebuild."
"Let us understand one another thoroughly," she said. "Your complaint is, then, that I will not marry you?"
The word, the surprising, amazing word, left her lips again so calmly that Macheson was staggered a little, confused by its marvellous significance. He was thrown off his balance, and she smiled as a wrestler who has tripped his adversary. Henceforth she expected to find him easier to deal with.
"You know--that it is not that--altogether," he faltered.
"What is it that you want then?" she asked calmly. "There are not many men in the world who have kissed--even my hand. There are fewer still--whom I have kissed. I thought that I had been rather kind to you."
"Kind!" he threw out his arms with a despairing gesture. "You call it kindness, the drop of magic you pour into a man"s veins, the touch of your body, the breath of your lips vouchsafed for a second, the elixir of a new life. What is it to you? A caprice! A little dabbling in the emotions, a device to make a few minutes of the long days pa.s.s more smoothly. Perhaps it"s the way in your world, this! You cheat yourself of a whole-hearted happiness by making physiological experiments, frittering away the great chance out of sheer curiosity--or something worse. And we who don"t understand the game--we are the victims!"
"Really," she said pleasantly, "you are very eloquent."
"And you," he said, "are----"
Her hand flashed out almost to his lips, long shapely fingers, ablaze with the dull fire of emeralds.
"Stop," she commanded, "you are not quite yourself this evening. I am afraid that you will say something which you will regret. Now listen.
You have made a most eloquent attack upon me, but you must admit that it is a perfect tangle of generalities. Won"t you condescend to look me in the face, leave off vague complaints, and tell me precisely why you have placed me in the dock and yourself upon the bench? In plain words, mind.
No evasions. I want the truth."
"You shall have it," he answered grimly. "Listen, then. I began at Thorpe. You were at once rude and kind to me. I was a simple a.s.s, of course, and you were a mistress in all the arts which go to a man"s undoing. It wasn"t an equal fight. I struggled a little, but I thanked G.o.d that I had an excuse to give up my work. I came to London, but the poison was working. Every morning before you were up, and every night after dark, I walked round your square--and the days I saw you were the days that counted."
"Dear me, how interesting!" she interrupted softly. "And to think that I never knew!"
"I never meant you to know," he declared. "A fool I was from the first, but never fool enough to misunderstand. When I brought Letty Foulton to you, I brought her against my will. It was for the child"s sake. And you were angry, and then I saw you again--and you were kind!"
She smiled at him.
"I"m glad you admit that," she said gently. "I thought that I was very kind indeed. And you repaid me--how?"
"Kind!" he cried fiercely. "Yes! you were kind! You were mine for the moment, you lay in my arms, you gave me your lips! It was an impression!
It amused you to see any human being so much in earnest. Then the mood pa.s.sed. Your dole of charity had been given! I must sit apart and you must smooth your hair. What did it all amount to? An episode, a trifling debauch in sentiment--and for me--G.o.d knows!"
"To return once more," she said patiently, "to your complaint. Is it that I will not marry you?"
"I did not ask that--at first," he answered. "It is a good deal, I know."
"Then do you want to come and kiss me every day?" she asked, "because I don"t think that that would suit me either."
"I can believe it," he said.
"I am inclined to think," she said, "that you are a very grasping and unreasonable person. I have permitted you privileges which more men than my modesty permits me to tell you of have begged for in vain. You have accepted them--I promised nothing beyond, nor have you asked for it. Yet because I was obliged to talk reasonably to you, you flung yourself out of my house, and I am left to rescue you at the expense of my pride, perhaps also of my reputation, from a.s.sociations which you ought to be ashamed of."
"To talk reasonably to me," he repeated slowly. "Do you remember what you said?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Naturally! And what I said was true enough."
"I was to be content with sc.r.a.ps. To go away and forget you, until chance or a whim of yours should bring us together again."
"Did you want so much more?" she asked, with a swift maddening glance at him.
He fell on his knees before her couch.
"Oh! I love you!" he said. "Forgive me if I am unreasonable or foolish.
I can"t help it. You came so unexpectedly, so wonderfully! And you see I lost my head as well as my heart. I have so little to offer you--and I want so much."
Her hands rested for a moment caressingly upon his shoulders. A whole world of wonderful things was shining out of her eyes. It was only her lips that were cruel.
"My dear boy," she said, "you want what I may not give. I am very, very sorry. I think there must have been some sorcery in the air that night, the spell of the roses must have crept into my blood. I am sorry for what I did. I am very sorry that I did not leave you alone."
He rose heavily to his feet. His face was grey with suffering.
"I ought to have known," he said. "I think that I did know."
"All the same," she continued, laying her hand upon his arm, "I think that you are a rank extremist."
He shook his head.
"I don"t understand," he said.
"Shall I teach you?" she whispered.
He flung her hand away.