The Essential Elinor Glyn Collection. Glyn Elinor
How _could_ they all have sacrificed this beautiful young life between them! And he slashed off a tall green weed with his stick when he thought of Josiah Brown--his short, stumpy, plebeian figure and bald, shiny head, his common voice, and his pompousness--Josiah Brown, who had now the ordering of her comings and goings, who paid for her clothes and gave her those great pearls--who might touch her and kiss her--might clasp and caress her--might hold her in his arms, his very own, any moment of the day--or night! Ah, God! that last thought was impossible--unbearable.
And for one second Hector's eyes looked murderous as they glared into the distance--and Theodora glanced up timidly, and asked, in a sympathetic voice: What was it? What ailed him?
"Some day I will tell you," he said. "But not yet."
Then he asked her more about her family and her plans.
They would stay in London at Claridge's for a week or so, and go down to Bessington Hall for Whitsuntide. It would be ready for them then. Josiah had had it all furnished magnificently by one of those people who had taste and ordered well for those who could afford to pay for it. She was rather longing to see it, she said--her future home--and she could have wished she might have chosen the things herself. Not that it mattered much either way.
"I am very ignorant about houses," she explained, "because we never really had one, you see, but I think, perhaps, I would know what was pretty from museums and pictures--and I love all colors and forms."
He felt sure she would know what was pretty. How delightful it would be to watch her playing with his old home! The touches of her gentle fingers would make everything sacred afterwards.
At last they came to the end of the green glade--and temptation again assailed him. He _must_ ruffle the peace of her soft eyes once more.
"And here is the barrier," he said, pointing to a board with "_Terrain rserv_" upon it--_Rserve pour la chasse de Monsieur le Prsident_, "The barrier which Love keeps--and I want to take him with us as the prince and princess did in the fairy tale."
"Then you must carry him all by yourself," laughed Theodora. "And he will be heavy and tire you, long before we get to Versailles."
This time she was on her guard--and besides they were walking--and he was no longer caressing the edge of her dress with his wild flower; it was almost easy to fence now.
But when they reached the automobile and he bent over to tuck the rug in--and she felt the touch of his hands and perceived the scent of him--the subtle scent, not a perfume hardly, of his coat, or his hair, a wild rush of that passionate disturbance came over her again, making her heart beat and her eyes dilate.
And Hector saw and understood, and bit his lips, and clinched his hands together under the rug, because so great was his own emotion that he feared what he should say or do. He dared not, dared not chance a dismissal from the joy of her presence forever, after this one day.
"I will wait until I know she loves me enough to certainly forgive me--and then, and then--" he said to himself.
But Fate, who was looking on, laughed while she chanted, "The hour is now at hand when these steeds of passion whose reins you have left loose so long will not ask your leave, noble friend, but will carry you whither they will."
XI
They were both a little constrained upon the journey back to Versailles--and both felt it. But when they turned into the Porte St. Antoine Theodora woke up.
"Do you know," she said, "something tells me that for a long, long time I shall not again have such a happy day. It can't be more than half-past five or six--need we go back to the Reservoirs yet? Could we not have tea at the little caf by the lake?"
He gave the order to his chauffeur, and then he turned to her.
"I, too, want to prolong it all," he said, "and I want to make you happy--always."
"It is only lately that I have begun to think about things," she said, softly--"about happiness, I mean, and its possibilities and impossibilities. I think before my marriage I must have been half asleep, and very young."
And Hector thought, "You are still, but I shall awake you."
"You see," she continued, "I had never read any novels, or books about life until _Jean d'Agrve_. And now I wonder sometimes if it is possible to be really happy--really, really happy?"
"I know it is," he said; "but only in one way."
She did not dare to ask in what way. She looked down and clasped her hands.
"I once thought," she went on, hurriedly, "that I was perfectly happy the first time Josiah gave me two thousand francs, and told me to go out with my maid and buy just what I wished with it; and oh, we bought everything I could think Sarah and Clementine could want, numbers and numbers of things, and I remember I was fearfully excited when they were sent off to Dieppe. But I never knew if I chose well or if they liked them all quite, and now to do that does not give me nearly so much joy."
Soon they drew up at the little caf and ordered tea, which he guessed probably would be very bad and they would not drink. But tea was English, and more novel than coffee for Theodora, and that she must have, she said.
She was so gracious and sweet in the pouring of it out, when presently it came, and the elderly waiter seemed so sympathetic, and it was all gay and bright with the late afternoon sun streaming upon them.
"The garon takes us for a honeymoon couple," Hector said; "he sees you have beautiful new clothes, and that we have not yet begun to yawn with each other."
But Theodora had not this view of honeymoons. To her a honeymoon meant a nightmare, now happily a thing of the past, and almost forgotten.
"Do not speak of it," she said, and she put out her hands as if to ward off an ugly sight, and Hector bent over the table and touched her fingers gently as he said:
"Forgive me," and he raged within himself. How could he have been so gauche, so clumsy and unlike himself. He had punished them both, and destroyed an illusion. He meant that she should picture herself and him as married lovers, and she had only seen--Josiah Brown. They both fell into silence and so finished their repast.
"I want you to walk now," Hector said, "through some delicious alles where I will show you Enceladus after he was struck by the thunders of Zeus. You will like him, I think, and there is fine greensward around him where we can sit awhile."
"I was always sorry for him," said Theodora; "and oh, how I would like to go to Sicily and see tna and his fiery breath coming forth, and to know when the island quakes it is the poor giant turning his weary side!"
To go to Sicily--and with her! The picture conjured up in Hector's imagination made him thrill again.
Then he told her about it all, he charmed her fancy and excited her imagination, and by the time they came to their goal the feeling of jar had departed, and the dangerous sense of attraction--of nearness--had returned.
It was nearly seven o'clock, and here among the trees all was in a soft gloom of evening light.
"Is not this still and far away?" he said, as they sat on an old stone bench. "I often stay the whole morning here when I spend a week at Versailles."
"How peaceful and beautiful! Oh, I would like a week here, too!" and Theodora sighed.
"You must not sigh, beautiful princess," he implored, "on this our happy day."
The slender lines of her figure seemed all drooping. She reminded him more than ever of the fragment of Psyche in the Naples Museum.
"No, I must not sigh," she said. "But it seems suddenly to have grown sad--the air--what does it mean? Tell me, you who know so many things?" There