第16章

After a turn or two and some casual talk the professor said suddenly: "My late son was in your school - do you know? I can imagine that had he lived and you had ever met you would have understood each other.He too was inclined to action."He sighed, then, shaking off the mournful thought and with a nod at the dusky part of the terrace where the dress of his daughter made a luminous stain: "I really wish you would drop in that quarter a few sensible, discouraging words."Renouard disengaged himself from that most perfidious of men under the pretence of astonishment, and stepping back a pace -"Surely you are making fun of me, Professor Moorsom," he said with a low laugh, which was really a sound of rage.

"My dear young friend! It's no subject for jokes, to me...You don't seem to have any notion of your prestige," he added, walking away towards the chairs.

"Humbug!" thought Renouard, standing still and looking after him.

"And yet! And yet! What if it were true?"He advanced then towards Miss Moorsom.Posed on the seat on which they had first spoken to each other, it was her turn to watch him coming on.But many of the windows were not lighted that evening.

It was dark over there.She appeared to him luminous in her clear dress, a figure without shape, a face without features, awaiting his approach, till he got quite near to her, sat down, and they had exchanged a few insignificant words.Gradually she came out like a magic painting of charm, fascination, and desire, glowing mysteriously on the dark background.Something imperceptible in the lines of her attitude, in the modulations of her voice, seemed to soften that suggestion of calm unconscious pride which enveloped her always like a mantle.He, sensitive like a bond slave to the moods of the master, was moved by the subtle relenting of her grace to an infinite tenderness.He fought down the impulse to seize her by the hand, lead her down into the garden away under the big trees, and throw himself at her feet uttering words of love.His emotion was so strong that he had to cough slightly, and not knowing what to talk to her about he began to tell her of his mother and sisters.All the family were coming to London to live there, for some little time at least.

"I hope you will go and tell them something of me.Something seen," he said pressingly.

By this miserable subterfuge, like a man about to part with his life, he hoped to make her remember him a little longer.

"Certainly," she said."I'll be glad to call when I get back.But that 'when' may be a long time."He heard a light sigh.A cruel jealous curiosity made him ask -"Are you growing weary, Miss Moorsom?"

A silence fell on his low spoken question.

"Do you mean heart-weary?" sounded Miss Moorsom's voice."You don't know me, I see.""Ah! Never despair," he muttered.

"This, Mr.Renouard, is a work of reparation.I stand for truth here.I can't think of myself."He could have taken her by the throat for every word seemed an insult to his passion; but he only said -"I never doubted the - the - nobility of your purpose.""And to hear the word weariness pronounced in this connection surprises me.And from a man too who, I understand, has never counted the cost.""You are pleased to tease me," he said, directly he had recovered his voice and had mastered his anger.It was as if Professor Moorsom had dropped poison in his ear which was spreading now and tainting his passion, his very jealousy.He mistrusted every word that came from those lips on which his life hung."How can you know anything of men who do not count the cost?" he asked in his gentlest tones.

"From hearsay - a little."

"Well, I assure you they are like the others, subject to suffering, victims of spells....""One of them, at least, speaks very strangely."She dismissed the subject after a short silence."Mr.Renouard, Ihad a disappointment this morning.This mail brought me a letter from the widow of the old butler - you know.I expected to learn that she had heard from - from here.But no.No letter arrived home since we left."Her voice was calm.His jealousy couldn't stand much more of this sort of talk; but he was glad that nothing had turned up to help the search; glad blindly, unreasonably - only because it would keep her longer in his sight - since she wouldn't give up.

"I am too near her," he thought, moving a little further on the seat.He was afraid in the revulsion of feeling of flinging himself on her hands, which were lying on her lap, and covering them with kisses.He was afraid.Nothing, nothing could shake that spell - not if she were ever so false, stupid, or degraded.

She was fate itself.The extent of his misfortune plunged him in such a stupor that he failed at first to hear the sound of voices and footsteps inside the drawing-room.Willie had come home - and the Editor was with him.

They burst out on the terrace babbling noisily, and then pulling themselves together stood still, surprising - and as if themselves surprised.