She wandered about looking for a seat however humble but could find nothing more inviting than piles of brick and twisted iron. She noticed an open place in the floor and went over to it and peered down. There was a flight of steps ending in cimmerian darkness. Doubtless the vaults of the great families of the neighborhood were down there. She wondered if the spite of the Huns had driven them to demolish the very bones of the race they were unable to conquer.
IV
Suddenly she stiffened. A chill ran up her spine. She had an overwhelming sense of impending danger and stepped swiftly away from the edge of the aperture; then turned about, and faced Gora Dwight.
CHAPTER XIV
I
"Oh," she said calmly, although her nerves still shuddered. "You must walk like a fairy. I didn"t hear you."
"One must pick one"s way through rubbish."
"Ghastly ruin, isn"t it?"
"Life is ghastly."
Alexina made no reply lest she deny this a.s.sertion out of the wonder of her own experience. She guessed what Gora had come for and that she was feeling as elemental as she looked. She herself had recovered from that sudden access of horror but she moved still further from, that black and waiting hole.
"Are you going to marry Gathbroke?"
The gauntlet was down and Alexina felt a sharp sense of relief. She was in no mood for the subtle evasion and she had not the least inclination to turn up her eyes. She made up her mind however to save Gora"s pride as far as possible.
"Yes," she said.
"You dare say that to me?"
Alexina raised her low curved eyebrows. She seldom raised them but when she did she looked like all her grandmothers.
"Dare? Did you expect me to lie? Is that what you wish?"
Gora clutched her m.u.f.f hard against her throat. (Alexina wondered if she had a pistol in it.) Her eyes looked over it pale and terrible.
Alexina had the advantage of her in apparent calm, but there was no sign of confusion in those wide baleful irises with their infinitesimal pupils.
"You knew that I loved him. That I had loved him for twelve years."
"I _knew_ nothing of the sort. You had his picture on your mantel and you corresponded with him off and on but you never gave me a hint that you loved him. Twelve years! Good heaven! A friendship extending over such a period was conceivable; natural enough. But a romance! When such an idea did cross my mind I dismissed it as fantastic. You always seemed to me the embodiment of common sense."
"There is no such thing. It is true--that I hardly believed it then--admitted it. But I knew we should meet again. He never had married. It looked like destiny when I did meet him. I nursed him--"
She paused and her eyes grew sharp and watchful, Alexina"s face showed no understanding and she went on, still watching.
"I nursed him back to life. Through a part of his convalescence. A woman _knows_ certain things. He almost loved me then. If we could have been alone he would have found out--asked me to marry him. We should be married to-day. If I could have seen him constantly in London it would have been the same." She burst out violently: "I believe you wrote to him to come to Paris."
"My dear Gora! Keep your imagination for your fiction. I had forgotten his existence until I saw him, for a few seconds, at a reception. Don"t forget that he came to Paris under orders from his Government."
"But you recognized him that night. You came down here to meet him, to get away from me."
"Far from coming here to meet him I had given up all hope of ever seeing him again. He found out my address and followed me. You also seem to forget that you never mentioned his name to me in Paris. How was I to know that you were still interested in him?"
"That first night ... you guessed it ... you threw down a sort of challenge. Deny that if you can!"
"No! I"ll not deny it. I wanted him as badly as you did if with less reason. Nevertheless ... believe it or not as you like ... I came down here as much to leave the field clear to you as for my own peace of mind. I think ... I fancy ... I decided to leave the matter on the knees of the G.o.ds."
"Do you mean to tell me that if I had met him while we were together in Paris, and you knew the truth, that you would not have tried to win him away from me?"
"I wonder! I have asked myself that question several times. I like to think that I should have been n.o.ble, and withdrawn. But I am not at all sure.... Yes, I do believe I should, not from n.o.ble unselfishness, oh, not by a long sight, but from pride--if I saw that he was really in love with you. I"d never descend to scheming and plotting and pitting my fascinations against another woman--"
"Oh, d.a.m.n your aristocratic highfalutin pride. I suppose you mean that I have no such pride, having no inherited right to it. Perhaps not or I wouldn"t be here to-day. At least I wouldn"t be talking to you," she added, her voice hoa.r.s.e with significance.
Once more Alexina eyed the m.u.f.f. "Did you come here to kill me?"
"Yes, I did. No, I haven"t a pistol. I couldn"t get one. I trusted to opportunity. When I saw you standing at the edge of that hole I thought I had it."
Alexina found it impossible to repress a shiver but in spite of those dreadful eyes she felt no recurrence of fear.
"What good would that have done you? Murderesses get short shrift in France. There is none of that sickening sentimentalism here that we are cursed with in our country."
"Murders are not always found out. If you were at the bottom of that hole it would be long before you were found and there is no reason why I should be suspected. I didn"t come through the village. I didn"t even inquire at your house. I saw you leave it and followed at a distance.
If I"d pushed you down there I"d have followed and killed you if you were not dead already."
Alexina wondered if she intended to rush her. But she was sure of her own strength. If one of them went down that hole it would not be she.
Nevertheless she was beginning to feel sorry for Gora. She had never sensed, not during the most poignant of her contacts with the war, such stark naked misery in any woman"s soul. Its futile diabolism but accentuated its appeal.
"Well, you missed your chance," she said coldly. Gora was in no mood to receive sympathy! "And if you hadn"t and escaped detection I don"t fancy you would have enjoyed carrying round with you for the next thirty or forty years the memory of a cowardly murder. Too bad we aren"t men so that we could have it out in a fair fight. My ancestors were all duellists. No doubt yours were too," she added politely.
"Perhaps you are right." For the first time there was a slight hesitation in Gora"s raucous tones. But she added in a swift access of anger: "I suppose you mean that your code is higher than mine. That you are incapable of killing from behind."
"Good heavens! I hope so! ... Still ... I will confess I have had my black moods. It is possible that I might have let loose my own devil if--if--things had turned out differently."
"Oh, no, you wouldn"t! Not when it came to the point. You would have elevated your aristocratic nose and walked off." She uttered this dictum with a certain air of personal pride although her face was convulsed with hate.
"Gora, you are really making an a.s.s of yourself. If you had taken more time to think it over you wouldn"t have followed me up with any such melodramatic intention as murder. Good G.o.d! Haven"t you seen enough of murder in the past four years? I could readily fancy you going in for some sort of revenge but I should have expected something more original--"
"Murder"s natural enough when you"ve seen nothing else as long as I have. And as for human life--how much value do you suppose I place on it after four years of war? I had almost reached the point where death seemed more natural than life."
"Oh, yes ... but later.... There are tremendous reactions after war.
Settled down once more in our smiling land my ghost would be an extremely unpleasant companion. You see, Gora, you are just now in that abnormal state of mind known as inhibition. But, unfortunately, perhaps, in spite of the fact that you have proved yourself to be possessed of a violence of disposition--that I rather admire--you were not cut out to be the permanent villain. You have great qualities. And for thirty-four years of your life you have been a sane and reasonable member of society. For four of those years you have been an angel of mercy.... Oh, no. If you had killed me you would have killed yourself later. You couldn"t live with Gathbroke for you couldn"t live with yourself. Silly old tradition perhaps, but we are made up of traditions.... That was one reason I left Paris, gave up trying to find him.... I knew that I could have him. But I also knew that you had had some sort of recent experience with him, that you had come to Paris to find him, that possibly if left with a clear field you could win him. I knew--Oh, yes, I knew!--that he would know instantly he was mine if we met. But ... well, I too have to live with myself. It might be that he was committed to you, that if he married you, you would both be happy enough. When he did come nothing would have tempted me to accept him if I had still believed--"