The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
her fancy, and with every sentence he threw the glamour of his love around her, and fascinated her soul. All his powers of attraction--and they were many--were employed for her undoing.
And Theodora sat as one in a dream.
At last she felt she _must_ wake--must realize that she was not a happy princess, but Theodora, who must live her dull life--and this--and this--where was it leading her to?
So she clasped her hands together suddenly, and she said:
"But do you know we have grown serious, and I asked you to amuse me, Lord Bracondale!"
"I cannot amuse you," he said, lazily, "but shall I tell you about my home, which I should like to show you some day?" And again he began to caress the farthest edge of her dress with his wild flower. Just the smallest movement of smoothing it up and down that no one could resent, but which was disturbing to Theodora. She did not wish him to stop, on the contrary--and yet--
"Yes, I would like to hear of that," she said. "Is it an old, old house?"
"Oh, moderately so, and it has nooks and corners and views that might appeal to you. I believe I should find them all endowed with fresh charm myself, if I could see them with you"--and he made the turning-point of his flower a few inches nearer her hand.
Theodora said nothing; but she took courage and peeped at him again. And she thought how powerful he looked, and how beautifully shaped; and she liked the fineness of the silk of his socks and his shirt, and the cut of his clothes, and the wave of his hair--and last of all, his brown, strong, well-shaped hands.
And then she fell to wondering what the general scheme of things could be that made husbands possess none of these charms; when, if they did, it could all be so good and so delicious, instead of a terribly irksome duty to live with them and be their wives.
"You are not listening to a word I am saying!" said Hector. "Where were your thoughts, cruel lady?"
She was confused a little, and laughed gently. "They were away in a land where you can never come," she said.
He raised himself on his elbow, and supported his head on his hand, while he answered, eagerly:
"But I must come! I want to know them, all your thoughts. Do you know that since we met on Monday you have never been for one instant out of my consciousness. And you would not listen then to what I told you of friendship when it is born of instantaneous sympathy--it is because in some other life two souls have been very near and dear. And that is our case, and I want to make you feel it so, as I do. Tell me that you do--?"
"I do not know what I do feel," said Theodora. "But perhaps--could it be true that we met when we lived before; and when was that? and who were we?"
"It matters not a jot," said he. "So long as you feel it too--that we are not only of yesterday, you and I. There is some stronger link between us."
For one second they looked into each other's eyes, and each read the other's thoughts mirrored there; and if his said, in conscious, passionate words, "I love you," hers were troubled and misty with possibilities. Then she jumped up from her seat suddenly, and her voice trembled a little as she said:
"And now I want to go out of the wood."
He rose too and stood beside her, while he pointed to the glade to the left of the centre they were facing.
"We must penetrate into the future then," he said, "because I told my chauffeur to meet us on the road where I think that will lead to. We cannot go back by the way we have come."
And she did not answer; she was afraid, because she remembered all those avenues were barred by--love.
As he walked beside her, Hector Bracondale knew that now he must be very, very careful in what he said. He must lull her fears to sleep again, or she would be off like a lark towards high heaven, and he would be left upon earth.
So he exerted himself to interest and amuse her in less agitating ways. He talked of his home and his mother and his sister. He wanted Theodora to meet them. She would like Anne, he said, and his mother would love her, he knew. And again the impossible vision same to him, and he felt he hated the face of Morella Winmarleigh.
Usually when he had been greatly attracted by a married woman before, he had unconsciously thought of her as having the qualities which would make her an adorable mistress, a delicious friend, or a holiday amusement. There had never been any reverence mixed up with the affair, which usually had the zest of forbidden fruit, and was hurried along by passion. It had always only depended upon the woman how far he had got beyond these stages; but, as he thought of Theodora, unconsciously a picture always came to him of what she would be were she his wife. And it astonished him when he analyzed it; he, the scoffer at bonds, now to find this picture the fairest in the world!
And as yet he was hardly even dimly growing to realize that fate would turn the anguish of this desire into a chastisement of scorpions for him.
Things had always been so within his grasp.
"We shall go to England on Tuesday," Theodora said, as they sauntered along down the green glade. "It is so strange, you know, but I have never been there."
"Never been to England!" Hector exclaimed, incredulously.
"No!" and she smiled up at him. All was at peace now in her mind, and she dared to look as much as she pleased.
"No. Papa used to go sometimes, but it was too expensive to take the whole family; so we were left at Bruges generally, or at Dieppe, or where we chanced to be. If it was the summer, often we have spent it in a Normandy farm-house."
"Then how have you learned all the things you know?" he asked.
"That was not difficult. I do not know much," she said, gently, "and Sarah taught me in the beginning, and then I went to convents whenever we were in towns, and dear papa was so kind and generous always; no matter how hard up he was he always got the best masters available for me--and for Clementine. Sarah is much older, and even Clementine five years."
"I wonder what on earth you will think of it--England, I mean?" He was deeply interested.
"I am sure I shall love it. We have always spoken of it as home, you know. And papa has often described my grandfather's houses. Both my grandfathers had beautiful houses, it seems, and he says, now that I am rich and cannot ever be a trouble to them, the family might be pleased to see me."
She spoke quite simply. There never was room for bitterness or irony in her tender heart. And Hector looked down upon her, a sort of worship in his eyes.
"Papa's father is dead long ago; it is his brother who owns Beechleigh now," she continued--"Sir Patrick Fitzgerald. They are Irish, of course, but the place is in Cambridgeshire, because it came from his grandmother."
"Yes, I know the old boy," said Hector. "I see him at the turf--a fiery, vile-tempered, thin, old bird, about sixty."
"That sounds like him," said Theodora.
"And so you are going to make all these relations' acquaintance. What an experience it will be, won't it?" His voice was full of sympathy. "But you will stay in London. They are all there now, I suppose?"
"My Grandfather Borringdon, my mother's father, never goes there, I believe; he is very old and delicate, we have heard. But I have written to him--papa wished me to do so; for myself I do not care, because I think he was unkind to my mother, and I shall not like him. It was cruel never to speak to her again--wasn't it?--just because she married papa, whom she loved very much--papa, who is so handsome that he could never have really been a husband, could he?"
Then she blushed deeply, realizing what she had said.
And the quaintness of it caused Hector to smile while he felt its pathos.