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Title: Three Weeks

Author: Elinor Glyn

Release Date: September, 2005 [EBook #8899]
[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
[This file was first posted on August 21, 2003]

Edition: 10

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THREE WEEKS ***




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THREE WEEKS

BY
ELINOR GLYN

1907



INTRODUCTION TO
MY AMERICAN READERS

I feel now, when my "Three Weeks" is to be launched in a new land,
where I have many sympathetic friends, that, owing to the
misunderstanding and misrepresentation it received from nearly the
entire press and a section of the public in England, I would like to
state my view of its meaning. (As I wrote it, I suppose it could be
believed I know something about that!) For me "the Lady" was a deep
study, the analysis of a strange Slav nature, who, from circumstances
and education and her general view of life, was beyond the ordinary
laws of morality. If I were making the study of a Tiger, I would not
give it the attributes of a spaniel, because the public, and I myself,
might prefer a spaniel! I would still seek to portray accurately
every minute instinct of that Tiger, to make a living picture. Thus,
as you read, I want you to think of her as such a study. A great
splendid nature, full of the passionate realisation of primitive
instincts, immensely cultivated, polished, blase. You must see her at
Lucerne, obsessed with the knowledge of her horrible life with her
brutal, vicious husband, to whom she had been sacrificed for political
reasons when almost a child. She suddenly sees this young Englishman,
who comes as an echo of something straight and true in manhood which,
in outward appearance at all events, she has met in her youth in the
person of his Uncle Hubert. She perceives in him at once the Soul
sleeping there; and it produces in her a strong emotion. Then I want
you to understand the effect of Love on them both. In her it rose from
caprice to intense devotion, until the day at the Farm when it reached
the highest point--a desire to reproduce his likeness. How, with the
most passionate physical emotion, her mental influence upon Paul was
ever to raise him to vast aims and noble desires for future
greatness. In him love opened the windows of his Soul, so that he saw
the fine in everything.

The immense rush of passion in Venice came from her knowledge that
they soon must part. Notice the effect of the two griefs on Paul. The
first, with its undefined hope, making him do well in all things--even
his prowess as a hunter--to raise himself to be more worthy in her
eyes; the second and paralysing one of death, turning him into adamant
until his soul awakens again with the returning spring of her spirit
in his heart, and the consolation of the living essence of their love
in the child.

The minds of some human beings are as moles, grubbing in the earth for
worms. They have no eyes to see God's sky with the stars in it. To
such "Three Weeks" will be but a sensual record of passion. But those
who do look up beyond the material will understand the deep pure love,
and the Soul in it all, and they will realise that to such a nature as
"the Lady's," passion would never have run riot until it was
sated--she would have daily grown nobler in her desire to make her
Loved One's son a splendid man.

And to all who read, I say--at least be just! and do not skip. No line
is written without its having a bearing upon the next, and in its
small scope helping to make the presentment of these two human beings
vivid and clear.

The verdict I must leave to the Public, but now, at all events, you
know, kind Reader, that _to me_, the "Imperatorskoye" appears a
noble woman, because she was absolutely faithful to the man she had
selected as her mate, through the one motive which makes a union moral
in ethics--Love.--ELINOR GLYN.




THREE WEEKS


CHAPTER I


Now this is an episode in a young man's life, and has no real
beginning or ending. And you who are old and have forgotten the
passions of youth may condemn it. But there are others who are
neither old nor young who, perhaps, will understand and find some
interest in the study of a strange woman who made the illumination of
a brief space.

Paul Verdayne was young and fresh and foolish when his episode
began. He believed in himself--he believed in his mother, and in a
number of other worthy things. Life was full of certainties for
him. He was certain he liked hunting better than anything else in the
world--for instance. He was certain he knew his own mind, and
therefore perfectly certain his passion for Isabella Waring would last
for ever! Ready to swear eternal devotion with that delightful
inconsequence of youth in its unreason, thinking to control an emotion
as Canute's flatterers would have had him do the waves.

And the Creator of waves--and emotions--no doubt smiled to Himself--if
He is not tired by now of smiling at the follies of the moles called
human beings, who for the most part inhabit His earth!

Paul was young, as I said, and fair and strong. He had been in the
eleven at Eton and left Oxford with a record for all that should turn
a beautiful Englishman into a perfect athlete. Books had not worried
him much! The fit of a hunting-coat, the pace of a horse, were things
of more importance, but he scraped through his "Smalls" and his
"Mods," and was considered by his friends to be anything but a
fool. As for his mother--the Lady Henrietta Verdayne--she thought him
a god among men!

Paul went to London like others of his time, and attended the
theatres, where perfectly virtuous young ladies display nightly their
innocent charms in hilarious choruses, arrayed in the latest
_modes_. He supped, too, with these houris--and felt himself a
man of the world.

He had stayed about in country houses for perhaps a year, and had
danced through the whole of a season with all the prettiest
_debutantes_. And one or two of the young married women of forty
had already marked him out for their prey.

By all this you can see just the kind of creature Paul was. There are
hundreds of others like him, and perhaps they, too, have the latent
qualities which he developed during his episode--only they remain as
he was in the beginning--sound asleep.

That fall out hunting in March, and being laid up with a sprained
ankle and a broken collar-bone, proved the commencement of the
Isabella Waring affair.

She was the parson's daughter--and is still for the matter of
that!--and often in those days between her games of golf and hockey,
or a good run on her feet with the hounds, she came up to Verdayne
Place to write Lady Henrietta's letters for her. Isabella was most
amiable and delighted to make herself useful.


And if her hands were big and red, she wrote clearly and well. The
Lady Henrietta, who herself was of the delicate Later Victorian
Dresden China type, could not imagine a state of things which
contained the fact that her god-like son might stoop to this daughter
of the earthy earth!

Yet so it fell about. Isabella read aloud the sporting papers to
him--Isabella played piquet with him in the dull late afternoons of
his convalescence--Isabella herself washed his dog Pike--that king of
rough terriers! And one terrible day Paul unfortunately kissed the
large pink lips of Isabella as his mother entered the room.

I will draw a veil over this part of his life.

The Lady Henrietta, being a great lady, chanced to behave as such on
the occasion referred to--but she was also a woman, and not a
particularly clever one. Thus Paul was soon irritated by opposition
into thinking himself seriously in love with this daughter of the
middle classes, so far beneath his noble station.

"Let the boy have his fling," said Sir Charles Verdayne, who was a
coarse person. "Damn it all! a man is not obliged to marry every woman
he kisses!"

"A gentlemen does not deliberately kiss an unmarried girl unless he
intends to make her his wife!" retorted Lady Henrietta. "I fear the
worst!"

Sir Charles snorted and chuckled, two unpleasant and annoying habits
his lady wife had never been able to break him of. So the affair grew
and grew! Until towards the middle of April Paul was advised to travel
for his health.

"Your father and I can sanction no engagement, Paul, before you
return," said Lady Henrietta. "If, in July, on your twenty-third
birthday, you still wish to break your mother's heart--I suppose you
must do so. But I ask of you the unfettered reflection of three months
first."

This seemed reasonable enough, and Paul consented to start upon a tour
round Europe--not having spoken the final fatal and binding words to
Isabella Waring. They made their adieux in the pouring rain under a
dripping oak in the lane by the Vicarage gate.

Paul was six foot two, and Isabella quite six foot, and broad in
proportion. They were dressed almost alike, and at a little distance,
but for the lady's scanty petticoat, it would have been difficult to
distinguish her sex.

"Good-bye, old chap," she said, "We have been real pals, and I'll not
forget you!"

But Paul, who was feeling sentimental, put it differently.

"Good-bye, darling," he whispered with a suspicion of tremble in his
charming voice. "I shall never love any woman but you--never, never in
my life."

Cuckoo! screamed the bird in the tree.

And now we are getting nearer the episode. Paris bored Paul--he did
not know its joys and was in no mood to learn them. He mooned about
and went to the races. His French was too indifferent to make theatres
a pleasure, and the attractive ladies who smiled at his blue eyes were
for him _defendues_. A man so recently parted from the only woman
he could ever love had no right to look at such things, he thought. How
young and chivalrous and honest he was--poor Paul!

So he took to visiting Versailles and Fontainebleau and Compiegne with
a guide-book, and came to the conclusion it was all "beastly rot."

So he turned his back upon France and fled to Switzerland.

Do you know Switzerland?--you who read. Do you know it at the
beginning of May? A feast of blue lakes, and snow-peaks, and the
divinest green of young beeches, and the sombre shadow of dark firs,
and the exhilaration of the air.

If you do, I need not tell you about it. Only in any case now, you
must see it through the eyes of Paul. That is if you intend to read
another page of this bad book.

It was pouring with rain when he drove from the station to the
hotel. His temper was at its worst. Pilatus hid his head in mist, the
Buergenstock was invisible--it was chilly, too, and the fire smoked in
the sitting-room when Paul had it lighted.

His heart yearned for his own snug room at Verdayne Place, and the
jolly voice of Isabella Waring counting point, quint and quatorze.
What nonsense to send him abroad. As if such treatment could be
effectual as a cure for a love like his. He almost laughed at his
mother's folly. How he longed to sit down and write to his
darling. Write and tell how he hated it all, and was only getting
through the time until he saw her six feet of buxom charms again--only
Paul did not put it like that--indeed, he never thought about her
charms at all--or want of them. He analysed nothing. He was sound
asleep, you see, to _nuances_ as yet; he was just a splendid
English young animal of the best class.

He had promised not to write to Isabella--or, if he _must_, at
least not to write a love-letter.

"Dear boy," the Lady Henrietta had said when giving him her fond
parting kiss, "if you are very unhappy and feel you greatly wish to
write to Miss Waring, I suppose you must do so, but let your letter be
about the scenery and the impressions of travel, in no way to be
interpreted into a declaration of affection or a promise of future
union--I have your word, Paul, for that?"

And Paul had given his word.

"All right, mother--I promise--for three months."

And now on this wet evening the "must" had come, so he pulled out some
hotel paper and began.

"MY DEAR ISABELLA:

"I say--you know--I hate beginning like this--I have arrived at this
beastly place, and I am awfully unhappy. I think it would have been
better if I had brought Pike with me, only those rotten laws about
getting the little chap back to England would have been hard. How is
Moonlighter? And have they really looked after that strain, do you
gather? Make Tremlett come down and report progress to you daily--I
told him to. My rooms look out on a beastly lake, and there are
mountains, I suppose, but I can't see them. There is hardly any one in
the hotel, because the Easter visitors have all gone back and the
summer ones haven't come, so I doubt even if I can have a game of
billiards. I am sick of guide-books, and I should like to take the
next train home again. I must dress for dinner now, and I'll finish
this to-night."

Paul dressed for dinner; his temper was vile, and his valet
trembled. Then he went down into the restaurant scowling, and was
ungracious to the polite and conciliating waiters, ordering his food
and a bottle of claret as if they had done him an injury.
"_Anglais_," they said to one another behind the serving-screen,
pointing their thumbs at him--"he pay but he damn."

Then Paul sent for the _New York Herald_ and propped it up in
front of him, prodding at some olives with his fork, one occasionally
reaching his mouth, while he read, and awaited his soup.

The table next to him in this quiet corner was laid for one, and had a
bunch of roses in the centre, just two or three exquisite blooms that
he was familiar with the appearance of in the Paris shops. Nearly all
the other tables were empty or emptying; he had dined very late. Who
could want roses eating alone? The _menu_, too, was written out
and ready, and an expression of expectancy lightened the face of the
head waiter--who himself brought a bottle of most carefully decanted
red wine, feeling the temperature through the fine glass with the air
of a great connoisseur.

"One of those over-fed foreign brutes of no sex, I suppose," Paul said
to himself, and turned to the sporting notes in front of him.

He did not look up again until he heard the rustle of a dress.

The woman had to pass him--even so close that the heavy silk touched
his foot. He fancied he smelt tuberoses, but it was not until she sat
down, and he again looked at her, that he perceived a knot of them
tucked into the front of her bodice.

A woman to order dinner for herself beforehand, and have special wine
and special roses--special attention, too! It was simply disgusting!

Paul frowned. He brought his brown eyebrows close together, and glared
at the creature with his blue young eyes.

An elderly, dignified servant in black livery stood behind her
chair. She herself was all in black, and her hat--an expensive,
distinguished-looking hat--cast a shadow over her eyes. He could just
see they were cast down on her plate. Her face was white, he saw that
plainly enough, startlingly white, like a magnolia bloom, and
contained no marked features. No features at all! he said to
himself. Yes--he was wrong, she had certainly a mouth worth looking at
again. It was so red. Not large and pink and laughingly open like
Isabella's, but straight and chiselled, and red, red, red.

Paul was young, but he knew paint when he saw it, and this red was
real, and vivid, and disconcerted him.

He began his soup--hers came at the same time; she had only toyed with
some caviare by way of _hors d'oeuvre_, and it angered him to
notice the obsequiousness of the waiters, who passed each thing to the
dignified servant to be placed before the lady by his hand. Who was
she to be served with this respect and rapidity?

Only her red wine the _maitre d'hotel_ poured into her glass
himself. She lifted it up to the light to see the clear ruby, then she
sipped it and scented its bouquet, the _maitre d'hotel_ anxiously
awaiting her verdict the while. "_Bon_," was all she said, and
the weight of the world seemed to fall from the man's sloping
shoulders as he bowed and moved aside.

Paul's irritation grew. "She's well over thirty," he said to
himself. "I suppose she has nothing else to live for! I wonder what
the devil she'll eat next!"

She ate a delicate _truite bleu_, but she did not touch her wine
again the while. She had almost finished the fish before Paul's
_sole au vin blanc_ arrived upon the scene, and this angered him
the more. Why should he wait for his dinner while this woman feasted?
Why, indeed. What would her next course be? He found himself
unpleasantly interested to know. The tenderest _selle d'agneau au
lait_ and the youngest green peas made their appearance, and again
the _maitre d'hotel_ returned, having mixed the salad.

Paul noticed with all these things the lady ate but a small portion of
each. And it was not until a fat quail arrived later, while he himself
was trying to get through two mutton chops _a l'anglaise_, that
she again tasted her claret. Yes, it was claret, he felt sure, and
probably wonderful claret at that. Confound her! Paul turned to the
wine list. What could it be? Chateau Latour at fifteen francs? Chateau
Margaux, or Chateau Lafite at twenty?--or possibly it was not here at
all, and was special, too--like the roses and the attention. He called
his waiter and ordered some port--he felt he could not drink another
drop of his modest St. Estephe!

All this time the lady had never once looked at him; indeed, except
that one occasion when she had lifted her head to examine the wine
with the light through it, he had not seen her raise her eyes, and
then the glass had been between himself and her. The white lids with
their heavy lashes began to irritate him. What colour could they be?
those eyes underneath. They were not very large, that was
certain--probably black, too, like her hair. Little black eyes! That
was ugly enough, surely! And he hated heavy black hair growing in
those unusual great waves. Women's hair should be light and fluffy
and fuzzy, and kept tidy in a net--like Isabella's. This looked so
thick--enough to strangle one, if she twisted it round one's
throat. What strange ideas were those coming into his head? Why should
she think of twisting her hair round a man's throat? It must be the
port mounting to his brain, he decided--he was not given to
speculating in this way about women.

What would she eat next? And why did it interest him what she ate or
did not eat? The _maitre d'hotel_ again appeared with a dish of
marvellous-looking nectarines. The waiter now handed the dignified
servant the finger-bowl, into which he poured rose-water. Paul could
just distinguish the scent of it, and then he noticed the lady's
hands. Yes, they at least were faultless; he could not cavil at
_them_; slender and white, with that transparent whiteness like
mother-of-pearl. And what pink nails! And how polished! Isabella's
hands--but he refused to think of them.

By this time he was conscious of an absorbing interest thrilling his
whole being--disapproving irritated interest.

The _maitre d'hotel_ now removed the claret, out of which the
lady had only drunk one glass.

(What waste! thought Paul.)

And then he returned with a strange-looking bottle, and this time the
dignified servant poured the brilliant golden fluid into a tiny
liqueur-glass. What could it be? Paul was familiar with most
liqueurs. Had he not dined at every restaurant in London, and supped
with houris who adored _creme de menthe_? But this was none he
knew. He had heard of Tokay--Imperial Tokay--could it be that? And
where did she get it? And who the devil was the woman, anyway?

She peeled the nectarine leisurely--she seemed to enjoy it more than
all the rest of her dinner. And what could that expression mean on
her face? Inscrutable--cynical was it? No--absorbed. As absolutely
unconscious of self and others as if she had been alone in the room.
What could she be thinking of never to worry to look about her?

He began now to notice her throat, it was rounded and intensely white,
through the transparent black stuff. She had no strings of pearls or
jewels on--unless--yes, that was a great sapphire gleaming from the
folds of gauze on her neck. Not surrounded by diamonds like ordinary
brooches, but just a big single stone so dark and splendid it seemed
almost black. There was another on her hand, and yet others in her
ears.

Her ears were not anything so very wonderful! Not so _very!_
Isabella's were quite as good--and this thought comforted him a
little. As far as he could see beyond the roses and the table she was
a slender woman, and he had not noticed on her entrance if she were
tall or short. He could not say why he felt she must be well over
thirty--there was not a line or wrinkle on her face--not even the
slight nip in under the chin, or the tell-tale strain beside the ears.

She was certainly not pretty, _certainly_ not. Well
shaped--yes--and graceful as far as he could judge; but pretty--a
thousand times No!

Then the speculation as to her nationality began. French? assuredly
not. English? ridiculous! Equally so German. Italian? perhaps.
Russian? possibly. Hungarian? probably.

Paul had drunk his third glass of port and was beginning his
fourth. This was far more than his usual limit. Paul was, as a rule,
an abstemious young man. Why he should have deliberately sat and drank
that night he never knew. His dinner had been moderate--distinctly
moderate--and he had watched a refined feast of Lucullus partaken of
by a woman who only _tasted_ each _plat!_

"I wonder what she will have to pay for it all?" he thought to
himself. "She will probably sign the bill, though, and I shan't see."

But when the lady had finished her nectarine and dipped her slender
fingers in the rose-water she got up--she had not smoked, she could
not be Russian then. Got up and walked towards the door, signing no
bill, and paying no gold.

Paul stared as she passed him--rudely stared--he knew it afterwards
and felt ashamed. However, the lady never so much as noticed him, nor
did she raise her eyes, so that when she had finally disappeared he
was still unaware of their colour or expression.

But what a figure she had! Sinuous, supple, rounded, and yet very
slight.

"She must have the smallest possible bones," Paul said to himself,
"because it looks all curvy and soft, and yet she is as slender as a
gazelle."

She was tall, too, though not six feet--like Isabella!

The waiters and _maitre d'hotel_ all bowed and stood aside as she
left, followed by her elderly, stately, silver-haired servant.

Of course it would have been an easy matter to Paul to find out her
name, and all about her. He would only have had to summon Monsieur
Jacques, and ask any question he pleased. But for some unexplained
reason he would not do this. Instead of which he scowled in front of
him, and finished his fourth glass of port. Then his head swam a
little, and he went outside into the night. The rain had stopped and
the sky was full of stars scattered in its intense blue. It was warm,
too, there, under the clipped trees, Paul hoped he wasn't drunk--such
a beastly thing to do! And not even good port either.

He sat on a bench and smoked a cigar. A strange sense of loneliness
came over him. It seemed as if he were far, far away from any one in
the world he had ever known. A vague feeling of oppression and coming
calamity passed through him, only he was really as yet too material
and thoroughly, solidly English to entertain it, or any other subtle
mental emotion for more than a minute. But he undoubtedly felt strange
to-night; different from what he had ever done before. He would have
said "weird" if he could have thought of the word. The woman and her
sinuous, sensuous black shape filled the space of his mental
vision. Black hair, black hat, black dress--and of course black
eyes. Ah! if he could only know their colour really!

The damp bench where he sat was just under the ivy hanging from the
balustrade of the small terrace belonging to the ground-floor suite at
the end.

There was a silence, very few people passed, frightened no doubt by
the recent rain. He seemed alone in the world.

The wine now began to fire his senses. Why should he remain alone? He
was young and rich and--surely even in Lucerne there must be--. And
then he felt a beast, and looked out on to the lake.

Suddenly his heart seemed to swell with some emotion, a faint scent of
tuberoses filled the air--and from exactly above his head there came a
gentle, tender sigh.

He started violently, and brusquely turned and looked up. Almost
indistinguishable in the deep shadow he saw the woman's face. It
seemed to emerge from a mist of black gauze. And looking down into his
were a pair of eyes--a pair of eyes. For a moment Paul's heart felt as
if it had stopped beating, so wonderful was their effect upon
him. They seemed to draw him--draw something out of him--intoxicate
him--paralyse him. And as he gazed up motionless the woman moved
noiselessly back on to the terrace, and he saw nothing but the night
sky studded with stars.

Had he been dreaming? Had she really bent over the ivy? Was he mad?
Yes--or drunk, because now he had seen the eyes, and yet he did not
know their colour! Were they black, or blue, or grey, or green? He did
not know, he could not think--only they were eyes--eyes--eyes.

The letter to Isabella Waring remained unfinished that night.




CHAPTER II


Paul's head ached a good deal next morning and he was disinclined to
rise. However, the sun blazed in at his windows, and a bird sang in a
tree.

His temper was the temper of next day--sodden, and sullen, and
ashamed. He even resented the sunshine.

But what a beautiful creature he looked, as later he stepped into a
boat for a row on the lake! His mother, the Lady Henrietta, had truly
reason to be proud of him. So tall and straight, and fair and
strong. And at the risk of causing a second fit among some of the
critics, I must add, he probably wore silk socks, and was "beautifully
groomed," too, as all young Englishmen are of his class and age. And
how supple his lithe body seemed as he bent over the oars, while the
boat shot out into the blue water.

The mountains were really very jolly, he thought, and it was not too
hot, and he was glad he had come out, even though he had eaten no
breakfast and was feeling rather cheap still. Yes, very glad.

After he had advanced a few hundred yards he rested on his oars, and
looked up at the hotel. Then wonder came back to him, where was she
to-day--the lady with the eyes? Or had he dreamed it--and was there no
lady at all?

It should not worry him anyway--so he rowed ahead, and ceased to
speculate.

The first thing he did when he came in for lunch was to finish his
letter to Isabella.

"P. S.--Monday," he added. "It is finer to-day, and I have had some
exercise. The view isn't bad now the mist has gone. I shall do some
climbing, I think. Take care of yourself, dear girl. Good-bye.

"Love from

"PAUL."

It was with a feeling of excitement that he entered the restaurant for
_dejeuner_. Would she be there? How would she seem in daylight?

But the little table where she had sat the night before was
unoccupied. There were the usual cloth and glass and silver, but no
preparations for any specially expected guest upon it. Paul felt
annoyed with himself because his heart sank. Had she gone? Or did she
only dine in public? Perhaps she lunched in the sitting-room beyond
the terrace, where he had seen her eyes the night before.

The food was really very good, and the sun shone, and Paul was young
and hungry, so presently he forgot about the lady and enjoyed his
meal.

The appearance of the Buergenstock across the lake attracted him, as
afterwards he smoked another cigar under the trees. He would hire an
electric launch and go there and explore the paths. If only Pike were
with him--or--Isabella!

This idea he put into execution.

What a thing was a funicular railway. How steep and unpleasant, but
how quaint the tree-tops looked when one was up among them. Yes--
Lucerne was a good deal jollier than Paris. And he roamed about among
the trees, never noticing their beautiful colours. Presently he paused
to rest. He was soothed--even peaceful. If he had Pike he could
really be quite happy, he thought.

What was that rustle among the leaves above him? He looked up, and
started then as violently almost as he had done the night
before. Because there, peeping at him from the tender green of the
young beeches, was the lady in black. She looked down upon him through
the parted boughs, her black hat and long black veil making a sharp
silhouette against the vivid verdure, her whole face in tender shadow
and framed in the misty gauze.

Paul's heart beat violently. He felt a pulse in his throat--for a few
seconds.

He knew he was gazing into her eyes, and he thought he knew they were
green. They looked larger than he had imagined them to be. They were
set so beautifully, too, just a suspicion of rise at the corners. And
their expression was mocking and compelling--and--But she let go the
branches and disappeared from view.

Paul stood still. He was thrilling all over. Should he bound in among
the trees and follow her? Should he call out and ask her to come back?
Should he--? But when he had decided and gained the spot where she
must have stood, he saw it was a junction of three paths, and he was
in perfect ignorance which one she had taken. He rushed down the
first of them, but it twisted and turned, and when he had gone far
enough to see ahead--there was no one in sight. So he retraced his
steps and tried the second. This, too, ended in disappointment. And
the third led to an opening where he could see the descending
_funiculaire_, and just as it sank out of view he caught sight of
a black dress, almost hidden by a standing man's figure, whom he
recognised as the elderly silver-haired servant.

Paul had learnt a number of swear-words at Eton and Oxford. And he let
the trees hear most of them then.

He could not get down himself until the train returned, and by that
time where would she be? To go by the paths would take an
eternity. This time circumstance had fairly done him.

Presently he sauntered back to the little hotel whose terrace commands
the lake far below, and eagerly watching the craft upon it, he thought
he caught sight of a black figure reclining in an electric launch
which sped over the blue water.

Then he began to reason with himself. Why should the sight of this
woman have caused him such violent emotion? Why? Women were jolly
things that did not matter much--except Isabella. She mattered, of
course, but somehow her mental picture came less readily to his mind
than usual. The things he seemed to see most distinctly were her
hands--her big red hands. And then he unconsciously drifted from all
thought of her.

"She certainly looks younger in daylight," he said to himself. "Not
more than thirty perhaps. And what strange hats with that shadow over
her eyes. What is she doing here all alone? She must be somebody from
the people in the hotel making such a fuss--and that servant--Then why
alone?" He mused and mused.

She was not a _demi-mondaine_. The English ones he knew were very
ordinary people, but he had heard of some of the French ladies as
being quite _grande dame_, and travelling _en prince_. Yet he was
convinced this was not one of them. Who _could_ she be? He must know.

To go back to the hotel would be the shortest way to find out, and so
by the next descending train he left the Buergenstock.

He walked up and down under the lime-trees outside the terrace of her
rooms for half an hour, but was not rewarded in any way for his pains.
And at last he went in. He, too, would have a dinner worth eating, he
thought. So he consulted the _maitre d'hotel_ on his way up to
dress, and together they evolved a banquet. Paul longed to question
the man about the unknown, but as yet he was no actor, and he found he
felt too much about it to do it naturally.

He dressed with the greatest care, and descended at exactly half-past
eight. Yes, the table was laid for her evidently--but there were giant
carnations, not roses, in the silver vase to-night. How quickly the
waiters seemed to bring things! And what a frightful lot there was to
eat! And dawdle as he would, by nine o'clock he had almost
finished. Perhaps it would be as well to send for a newspaper
again. Anything to delay his having to rise and go out. An anxious,
uncomfortable gnawing sense of expectancy dominated him. How
ridiculous for a woman to be so late! What cook could do justice to
his dishes if they were thus to be kept waiting? She couldn't possibly
have _ordered_ it for half past nine, surely! Gradually, as that
hour passed and his second cup of coffee had been sipped to its
finish, Paul felt a sickening sense of anger and disappointment. He
got up abruptly and went out. In the hall, coming from the corridor of
her rooms, he met the lady face to face.

Then rage with himself seized him. Why had he not waited? For no
possible reason could he go back now. And what a chance to look at her
missed--and all thrown away.

He sat sullenly down in the hall, resisting the temptation to go into
the beautiful night. At least he would see her on her way back. But he
waited until nearly eleven, and she never appeared, and then the
maddening thought came to him--she had probably passed to her rooms
along the terrace outside, under the lime-tree.

He bounded up, and stalked into the starlight. He could see through
the windows of the restaurant, and no one was there. Then he sat on
the bench again, under the ivy--but all was darkness and silence; and
thoroughly depressed, Paul at last went to bed.

Next day was so gloriously fine that youth and health sang within
him. He was up and away quite early. Not a thought of this strange
lady should cross his mind for the entire day, he determined as he ate
his breakfast. And soon he started for the Rigi in a launch, taking
the English papers with him. Intense joy, too! A letter from Isabella!

Such a nice letter. All about Pike and Moonlighter, and the other
horses--and Isabella was going to stay with a friend at Blackheath,
where she hoped to get better golf than at home--and Lady Henrietta
had been gracious to her, and given her Paul's address, and there had
been a "jolly big party" at Verdayne Place for Sunday, but none of his
"pals." At least if there were, they were not in church, she added
naively.

All this Paul read in his launch on the way to the Rigi, and for some
unexplained reason the information seemed about things a long way off,
and less thrilling than usual. He had a splendid climb, and when he
got back to Lucerne in the evening he was thoroughly tired, and so
hungry he flew down to his dinner.

It was nearly nine o'clock; at least if she came to-night he would be
there to see her. But of course it did not matter if she came or not,
he had conquered that ridiculous interest. He would hardly look until
he reached his table. Yes, there she was, but dipping her white
fingers in the rosewater at the very end of her repast.

And again, in spite of himself, a strange wild thrill ran through
Paul, and he knew it was what he had been subconsciously hoping for
all day--and oh, alas! it mattered exceedingly.

The lady never glanced at him. She swept from the room, her stately
graceful movements delighting his eye. He could understand and
appreciate movement--was he not accustomed to thoroughbreds, and able
to judge of their action and line?

How blank the space seemed when she had gone--dull and unspeakably
uninteresting. He became impatient with the slowness of the waiters,
who had seemed to hurry unnecessarily the night before. But at last
his meal ended, and he went out under the trees. The sky was so full
of stars it hardly seemed dark. The air was soft, and in the distance
a band played a plaintive valse tune.

There were numbers of people walking about, and the lights from the
hotel windows lit up the scene. Only the ivy terrace was in shadow as
he again sat down on the bench.

How had she got in last night? That he must find out--he rose, and
peered about him. Yes, there was a little gate, a flight of steps, a
private entrance into this suite, just round the corner.

And as he looked at it, the lady, wrapped in a scarf of black gauze,
passed him, and standing aside while the silver-haired servant opened
the little door with a key, she then entered and disappeared from
view.

It seemed as if the stars danced to Paul. His whole being was
quivering with excitement, and now he sat on the bench again almost
trembling.

He did not move for at least half an hour; then the clocks chimed in
the town. No, there was no hope; he would see her no more that night.
He rose listlessly to go back to bed, tired out with his day's
climb. And as he stood up, there, above the ivy again, he saw her face
looking down upon him.

How had she crossed the terrace without his hearing her? How long had
she been there? But what matter? At least she was there. And those
eyes looking into his out of the shadow, what did they say? Surely
they smiled at him. Paul jumped on to the bench. Now he was almost
level with her face--almost--and his was raised eagerly in
expectation. Was he dreaming, or did she whisper something? The sound
was so soft he was not quite sure. He stretched out his arms to her in
the darkness, pulling himself by the ivy nearer still. And this time
there was no mistake.

"Come, Paul," she said. "I have some words to say to you."

And round to the little gate Paul flew.




CHAPTER III


Paul was never quite sure of what happened that evening--everything
was so wonderful, so unusual, so unlike his ordinary life. The gate
was unlocked he found when he got there, but no one appeared to be
inside, and he bounded up the steps and on to the terrace. Silence and
darkness--was she fooling him then? No, there she was by one of the
windows; he could dimly see her outline as she passed into the room
beyond, through some heavy curtains. That was why no light came
through to the terrace. He followed, dropping them after him also, and
then he found himself in a room as unlike a hotel as he could
imagine. It may have had the usual brocade walls and gilt chairs of
the "best suite," but its aspect was so transformed by her subtle
taste and presence, it seemed to him unique, and there were masses of
flowers--roses, big white ones--tuberoses--lilies of the valley,
gardenias, late violets. The light were low and shaded, and a great
couch filled one side of the room beyond the fireplace. Such a couch!
covered with a tiger-skin and piled with pillows, all shades of rich
purple velvet and silk, embroidered with silver and gold--unlike any
pillows he had ever seen before, even to their shapes. The whole thing
was different and strange--and intoxicating.

The lady had reached the couch, and sank into it. She was in black
still, but gauzy, clinging black, which seemed to give some gleam of
purple underneath. And if he had not been sure that in daylight he had
thought they were green, he would have sworn the eyes which now looked
into his were deepest violet, too.

"Come," she said. "You may sit here beside me and tell me what you
think."

And her voice was like rich music--but she had hardly any accent. She
might have been an Englishwoman almost, for that matter, and yet he
somehow knew that she was not. Perhaps it was she pronounced each
word; nothing was slurred over. Without her hat she looked even more
attractive, and certainly younger. But what was age or youth? And what
was beauty itself, when a woman whose face was neither young nor
beautiful could make him feel he was looking at a divine goddess, and
thrilling as he had never dreamt of doing in his short life?

If any one had told Paul this was going to happen to him, this
experience, he would have laughed them to scorn. To begin with, he was
rather shy with ladies as a rule, and had not learnt a trick of
_entreprenance_. It took him quite a while to know one well
enough to even talk at ease. And yet here he was, embarked upon an
adventure which savoured of the Arabian Nights.

He came forward and sat down, and he could feel the pulse beating in
his throat. It all seemed perfectly natural at the time, but
afterwards he wondered how she had known his name was Paul--and how it
had all come to pass.

"For three days you have thought of me, Paul--is it not so?" she said,
half closing her lids.

But he could only blurt out "Yes!" while he devoured her with his
eyes.

"We are both--how shall I say--drifting--holiday-making--trying to
forget. And we must talk a little together, _n'est-ce pas_? Tell
me?"

"Oh, yes!" said Paul.

"You are beautiful, you know, Paul," she went on. "So tall and
straight like you English, with curly hair of gold. Your mother must
have loved you as a baby."

"I suppose she did," said Paul.

"She is well? Your mother, the stately lady?"

"Very well--do you know her?" he asked, surprised.

"Long ago I have seen her, and I knew you at once, so like you
are--and to your uncles, especially the Lord Hubert."

"Uncle Hubert is a rotter!"

"A--rotter?" inquired the lady. "And what is that?" And she smiled a
divine smile.

Paul felt ashamed. "Oh! well, it _is_ a rotter, you know--that
_is_--like Uncle Hubert, I mean."

She laughed again. "You do not explain well, but I understand you. And
so you only resemble the Uncle Hubert on the outside--that is good."

Paul felt jealous. Lord Hubert Aldringham's reputation--for some
things--was European. "I hope so," he said with emphasis. "And you
knew him well then, too?"

"I never said so," replied the lady. "I saw him once--twice
perhaps--years ago--at the marriage of a princess. There, it has made
you frown, we will speak no more of the Uncle Hubert!" and she leant
back and laughed.

Paul felt very young. He wanted to show her he was grown up, and he
wanted a number of things which had never even formed themselves in
his imagination before. But she went on talking.

"And your _cotelettes_ were tough, Paul, and you were so cross
that first evening, and hated me! And oh! Paul, you had far too much
wine for a boy like you!"

He reddened to the roots of his fair wavy hair, and then he hung his
head.

"I know I did--it was beastly of me--but I was so--upset--I--"

"Look at me," she said, and she bent forward over him--a gliding
feline movement infinitely sinuous and attractive.

Then he looked, his big blue eyes still cloudy with a mist of shame.

"You must tell me why you were upset, baby--Paul!"

How often she said his name! lingering over it as if it were music. It
thrilled him every time.

Then he gained courage.

"But how did you know anything about it--or what I had--or what I
drank? You never once raised your eyelids all the time!"

"Perhaps I can see through them when I want to--who knows!" and she
laughed.

"And you wanted to--wanted to see through them?"

He was gazing at her now, and she suddenly looked down, while the most
beautiful transparent pink flushed her soft white cheeks, turning her
into a tender girl almost. The change was so sudden, it startled Paul,
and emboldened him.

"You wanted to!" he repeated in a glad voice. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes," she whispered, and she looked up at him, but this time there
was mischief in her eyes.

"Is that why you sighed then among the ivy? What made you sigh?"

She paused a moment, and then she said slowly: "A number of
things. You seemed so young, and so beautiful, and so--asleep."

"Indeed I wasn't asleep!" Paul exclaimed. "It would take a great deal
more port than that to make me go to sleep. I was thinking of--" And
then he saw she had not meant that kind of sleep, and felt a fool--and
wondered.

She helped him out.

"All this time you have not told me why you were upset--upset enough
to drink bad port. That was naughty of you, Paul."

"I was upset--over you. I was angry because I was so interested--" and
he reddened again.

She leant back among the purple cushions, her figure so supple in its
lines, it made him think of a snake. She half closed her eyes
again--and she spoke low in a dreamy voice:

"It was fate, Paul. I knew it when I entered the room. I felt it again
among the green trees, and so I ran from you--but to-night it is
_plus fort que moi_--so I called you to come in."

"I am so glad--so _glad_," said Paul.

She remained silent. Her eyes in their narrowed lids gleamed at him,
seeming to penetrate into his very soul. And now he noticed her mouth
again. It neither drooped nor smiled, it was straight, and chiselled
and strong, and small rather, and the lower lip was rounded and
slightly cleft in the centre. A most appetising red flower of a mouth.

By this time Paul was more or less intoxicated with excitement, he had
lost all sense of time and place. It seemed as if he had known her
always--that there never had been a moment when she had not filled the
whole of his horizon.

They were both silent for a couple of minutes. As far as he could
gather from her inscrutable face, she was weighing things--what
things?

Suddenly she sprang up, one of those fine movements of hers full of
cat-like grace.

"Paul," she said, "listen," and she spoke rather fast. "You are so
young, so young--and I shall hurt you--probably. Won't you go
now--while there is yet time? Away from Lucerne, back to Paris--even
back to England. Anywhere away from me."

She put her hand on his arm, and looked up into his eyes. And there
were tears in hers. And now he saw that they were grey.

He was moved as never yet in all his life.

"I will not!" he said. "I may be young, but to-night I know--I want to
live! And I will chance the hurt, because I know that only you can
teach me--just how--"'

Then his voice broke, and he bent down and covered her hand with
kisses.

She quivered a little and drew away. She picked up a great bunch of
tuberoses, and broke off all their tops. "There, take them!" she said,
pressing them into his hands, and those against his heart. "Take them
and go--and dream of me. You have chosen. Dream of me to-night and
remember--there is to-morrow."

Then she glided back from him, and before he realised it she had gone
noiselessly away through another door.

Paul stood still. The room swam; his head swam. Then he stumbled out
on to the terrace, under the night sky, the white blossoms still
pressed against his heart.

He must have walked about for hours. The grey dawn was creeping over
the silent world when at last he went back to the hotel and to his
bed.

There he slept and dreamt--never a dream! For youth and health are
glorious things. And he was tired out.

The great sun was high in the heavens when next he awoke. And the room
was full of the scent of tuberoses, scattered on the pillow beside
him. Presently, when his blue eyes began to take in the meaning of
things, he remembered and bounded up. For was not this the
commencement of his first real day?




CHAPTER IV


The problem which faced Paul, when he had finished a very late
breakfast, was how he should see her soon--the lady in black.

He could not go and call like an ordinary visitor, because he did not
know her name! That was wonderful--did not even know her name, or
anything about her, only that his whole being was thrilling with
anxiety to see her again.

The simplest thing to do seemed to descend into the hall and look at
the Visitors' List, which he promptly did.

There were only a few people in the hotel; it was not hard, therefore,
guessing at the numbers of the rooms, to arrive at the conviction that
"Mme. Zalenska and suite" might be what he was searching
for. Zalenska--she was possibly Russian after all. And what was her
christian name? That he longed to know.

As he stood staring, his fair forehead puckered into a frown of
thought, the silver-haired servant came up behind him and said, with
his respectful, dignified bearing:

"_De la part de Madame_," handing Paul a letter the while.

What could it contain?

But this was not the moment for speculation--he would read and see.

He turned his back on the servant, and walked towards the light, while
he tore open the envelope. It had the most minute sphinx in the
corner, and the paper was un-English, and rather thin.

This was what he read:

"_Morning_.

"Paul, I am young to-day, and we must see the blue lake and the green
trees. Come to the landing towards the station, and I will call for
you in my launch. And you shall be young, too, Paul--and teach me!
Give Dmitry the answer."

"The answer is, 'Yes, immediately'--tell Madame," Paul said.

And then he trod on air until he arrived at the landing she had
indicated. Soon the launch glided up, he saw her there reclining under
an awning of striped green.

It was a well-arranged launch, the comfortable deck-chairs were in the
bows, and the steering took place from a raised perch behind the
cabin, so the two were practically alone. The lady was in grey to-day,
and it suited her strangely. Her eyes gleamed at him, full of
mischief, under her large grey hat.

Paul drew his chair a little forward, turning it so that he could look
at her without restraint.

"How good of you to send for me," he said delightedly.

She smiled a radiant smile. "Was it? I am capricious, I did not think
of the good for you, only I wanted you--to please myself. I wish to be
foolish to-day, Paul, and see your eyes dance, and watch the light on
your curls."

Paul frowned; it was as if she thought him a baby.

Then the lady leant back and laughed, the sound was of golden bells.

"Yes, you are a baby!" she said, answering his thoughts. "A great,
big, beautiful baby, Paul."

If Paul had been a girl he would have pouted.

She turned from him and gazed over the lake; it was looking
indescribably beautiful, with the colours of the springtime.

"Do you see the green of those beeches by the water, Paul? Look at
their tenderness, next the dark firs--and then the blue beyond--and
see, there is a copper beech, he is king of them all! I would like to
build a chalet up in some part like that, and come there each year in
May--to read fairy-tales."

For the first time in his life Paul saw with different eyes--just the
beauty of things--and forgot to gauge their sporting possibilities. An
infinite joy was flooding his being, some sensation he had not dreamed
about even, of happiness and fulfilment.

She appeared to him more alluring than ever, and young and gay--as
young as Isabella! And then his thoughts caused him to take in his
breath with a hiss--Isabella--how far away she seemed. Of course he
could never love any one else--but--

"Don't think of it, then," the lady whispered. "Be young like me, and
live under the blue sky."

How was it she knew his thoughts always? He blushed while he
stammered: "No--I won't think of it--or anything but you--Princess."

"Daring one!" she said, "who told you to call me that? The hotel
people have been talking, I suppose."

"No," said Paul, surprised, "I called you Princess just because you
seem like one to me--but now I guess from what you say, you are not
plain Madame Zalenska."

Her eyes clouded for a second. "Madame Zalenska does to travel
with--but you shall call me what you like."

He grew emboldened.

"I suddenly feel I want so much--I want to know why your eyes were so
mocking through the trees on the Buergenstock? They drove me nearly
mad, you know, and I raced about after you like a dog after a hare!"

"I thought you would--you did not control the expression when you
gazed up at me! And so I was the true hare--and ran away!"

She looked down suddenly and was silent for some moments, then she
turned the conversation from these personal things. She led his
thoughts into new channels--made him observe the trees and sky, and
the wonderful beauty of it all, and with lightning flashes took him
into unknown speculations on emotions and the meaning of things.

A new existence seemed to open to Paul's view. And all the while she
lay back in her chair almost motionless, only her wonderful eyes lit
up the strange whiteness of her face. There was not a touch of
_mauvaise honte_, or explanation of the unusualness of this
situation in her manner. It had a perfect, quiet dignity, as if to
look into the eyes of an unknown young man at night over an ivy
terrace, and then spend a day with him alone, were the most natural
things in the world to do.

Paul felt she was a queen whose actions must be left unquestioned.

Presently they came to a small village, and here she would land and
lunch. And from somewhere behind the cabin Dmitry appeared, and was
sent on ahead, so that when they walked into the little hotel a simple
repast was waiting for them.

By this time Paul was absolutely enthralled. Never in his whole life
had he spent such a morning. His imagination was expanded. He saw new
vistas. His brain almost whirled. Was it he--Paul Verdayne--who was
seated opposite this divine woman, drinking in her voice, and
listening to her subtle curious thoughts?

And what were the commonplace, ordinary things which had hitherto
occupied his mind? How had he ever wasted a moment on them?

It was his first awakening.

When it came to the end--this delightful repast--he called the waiter,
and wanted to pay the bill; small enough in all conscience. But a new
look appeared round the lady's mouth--imperious, with an instantaneous
flash in her eyes--a pure, steel-grey they were to-day.

"Leave it to Dmitry," she said quickly. "I never occupy myself with
money. They displease me, these details--and why spoil my day?"

But Paul was an Englishman, and resented any woman's paying for his
food. His mouth changed, too, and looked obstinate.

"I say, you know--" he began.

Then she turned upon him.

"Understand at once," she said haughtily. "Either you leave me
unjarred by your English conventionalities, or you pay these miserable
francs and go back to Lucerne alone!"

Paul shrugged his shoulders. He was angry, but could not insist
further.

When they got outside, her voice grew caressing again as she led the
way to a path up among the young beeches.

"Paul--foolish one!" she said. "Do you not think I understand and know
you--and your quaint English ways? But imagine how silly it is. I am
quite aware that you have ample money to provide me with a feast of
Midas--all of gold--if necessary, and you shall some day, if you
really wish. But to stop over paltry sums of francs, to destroy the
thread of our conversation and thoughts--to make it all banal and
everyday! That is what I won't have. Dmitry is there for nothing else
but to _eviter_ for me these details. It is my holiday, my
pleasure-day, my time of joy. I felt young, Paul. You would not make
one little shadow for me--would you, _ami?_"

No voice that he had ever dreamt of possessed so many tones in it as
hers--even one of pathos, as she lingered over the word "shadow," All
his annoyance melted. He only felt he would change the very mainspring
of his life if necessary to give her pleasure and joy.

"Of course I would not make a shadow,--surely you know that," he
said, moved. "Only you see a man generally pays for a woman's food."

"When she belongs to him--but I don't belong to you, baby Paul. You,
for the day, belong to me--and are my guest!"

"Very well, then, we won't talk about it," he said, resigned by the
caress in her words. To belong to her! That was something, if but for
one day.

"Only it must never come up again, this question", she
insisted. "Should we spend more hours on this lake, or other lakes--or
mountains, or rivers, or towns--let us speak never of money, or
paying. If you only knew of how I hate it! the cruel yellow gold! I
have heaps of it--heaps of it! and for it human beings have always
paid so great a price. Just this once in life let it bring happiness
and peace."

He wondered at the concentrated feeling she expressed. What could the
price be? And what was her history?"

"So it is over, our little breeze," she said gently, after a
pause. "And you will tease me no more, Paul?"

"I would never tease you!" he exclaimed tenderly. And, if he had
dared, he would have taken her hand.

"You English are so wonderful! Full of your prejudices," she said in a
contemplative way. "Bulldog tenacity of purpose, whether you are
right or wrong. Things are a custom, and they must be done, or it is
not 'playing the game,'" and she imitated a set English voice, her
beautiful mouth pursed up, until Paul had to use violent restraint
with himself to keep from kissing it. "A wonderful people--mostly
gentlemen and generally honest, but of a common sense that is
disastrous to sentiment or romance. If you were not so polished, and
lazy and strong--and beautiful to look at, one would not consider you
much beyond the German."

"Not consider us beyond a beastly German!" exclaimed Paul
indignantly.

And the lady laughed like a child.

"Oh! you darling Paul!" she said. "You dear, insular, arrogant
Englishman! You have no equal in the world!"

Paul was offended.

"If you had said an Austrian now--but a German--" he growled sulkily.

"The Austrians are charming," allowed the lady, "but they err the
other way; they have not enough common sense, they are only great
gentlemen. Also, they are naturally awake, whereas you English are
naturally asleep, and you yourself are the Sleeping Beauty, Paul."

They had climbed up the path now some two hundred feet, and all around
them were stripling beeches of an unnaturally exquisite green, as
fresh and pure and light almost as leaves of the forced lily of the
valley.

The whole world throbbed with youth and freshness, and here and there,
wide of the path, by a mossy stone, a gentian raised its azure head,
"small essences of sky;" the lady called them.

"Let us sit down on this piece of rock," Paul said. "I want to hear
why I am the Sleeping Beauty. It is so long since I read the story.
But wasn't it about a girl, not a man--and didn't she get wakened up
by a--kiss?"

"She did!" said the lady, leaning back against a tree behind her; "but
then it was just her faculties which were asleep, not her soul. Could
a kiss wake a soul?"

"I think so," Paul whispered. He was seated on a part of the rock
which jutted out a little lower than her resting-place, and he was so
close as to be almost touching her. He could look up under the brim of
that tantalising hat, which so often hid her from his view as they
walked. He was quivering with excitement at this moment, the result of
the thought of a kiss--and his blue eyes blazed with desire as they
devoured her face.

"Yes--it is so," said the lady, a low note in her voice. "Because
Huldebrand gave Undine a soul with a kiss."

"Tell me about it," implored Paul. "I am so ignorant. Who was
Huldebrand, and what did he do?"

So she began in a dreamy voice, and you who have read De la Motte
Fouque's dry version of this exquisite legend would hardly have
recognised the poetry and pathos and tender sentiment she wove round
those two, and the varied moods of Undine, and the passion of her
knight. And when she came to the evening of their wedding, when the
young priest had placed their hands together, and listened to their
vows--when Undine had found her soul at last, in Huldebrand's
arms--her voice faltered, and she stopped and looked down.

"And then?" said Paul, and his breath came rather fast. "And then?"

"He was a man, you see, Paul; so when he had won her love, he did not
value it--he threw it away."

"Oh, no! I don't believe it!" Paul exclaimed vehemently. "It was just
this brute Huldebrand. But you don't know men--to think they do not
value what they win--you don't know them, indeed!"

She looked down straight into his face, as he gazed up at her, and to
his intense surprise he could have sworn her eyes were green now! as
green as emeralds. And they held him and fascinated him and paralysed
him, like those of a snake.

"I do not know men?" she said softly. "You think not, Paul?"

But Paul could hardly speak, he buried his face in her lap, like a
child, and kept it there, kissing her gloved hands. His straw hat,
with its Zingari ribbon, lay on the grass beside him, and a tiny shaft
of sunlight glanced through the trees, gilding the crisp waves of his
brushed-back hair into dark burnished gold.

The lady moved one hand from his impassioned caress, and touched the
curl with her finger-tips. She smiled with the tenderness a mother
might have done.

"There--there!" she said. "Not yet." Then she drew her hand away from
him and leant back, half closing her eyes.

Paul sat up and stared around. Each moment of the day was providing
new emotions for him. Surely this was what Columbus must have felt,
nearing the new world. He pulled himself together. She was not angry
then at his outburst, and his caress--though something in her face
warned him not to err again.

"Tell me the rest," he said pleadingly. "Why did he not value Undine's
love, and what made the fool throw it away?"

"Because he possessed it, you see," said the lady. "That was reason
enough, surely."

Then she told him of the ceasing of Undine's wayward moods after she
had received her soul--of her docility--of her tenderness--of
Huldebrand's certainty of her love. Then of his inevitable
weariness. And at last of the Court, and the meeting again with
Hildegarde, and of all the sorrow that followed, until the end, when
the fountains burst their stoppings and rushed upwards, wreathing
themselves into the figure of Undine, to take her Love to death with
her kiss.

"Oh! he was wise!" Paul said. "He chose to die with her kiss. He knew
at last then--what he had thrown away."

"That one learns often, Paul, when it has grown--too late! Come, let
us live in the sunshine. Live while we may."

And the lady rose, and giving him her hand, she almost ran into the
bright light of day, where even no tender shadows fell.




CHAPTER V


Their return journey was one of quiet. The lady talked little, she
leant back and looked away across the blue lake, often apparently
unconscious of his presence. This troubled Paul. Had he wearied her?
What should he do? He was growing aware of the fact that she was not a
bit like his mother, or Isabella, or any of the other women whom he
knew--people whose moods he had never even speculated about--if they
had any--which he doubted.

Why wouldn't she speak? Had she forgotten him? He felt chilled and
saddened.

At last, as they neared a small bay where another tempting little
chalet-hotel mirrored itself in the clear water, he spoke. A note in
his voice--his charming young voice--as of a child in distress.

"Are--are you cross with me?"

Then she came back from her other world. "Cross with you? Foolish
one! No, I am dreaming. And I forgot that you could not know yet, or
understand. English Paul! who would have me make conversation and
chatter commonplaces or he feels a _gene!_ See, I will take you
where I have been into this infinite sky and air"--she let her hand
fall on his arm and thrilled him--"look up at Pilatus. Do you see his
head so snowy, and all the delicate shadows upon him, and his look of
mystery? And those dark pines--and the great chasms, and the wild
anger the giants were in when they hurled these huge rocks about? I
have been with them, and you and I seem such little people, Paul. We
cannot throw great rocks about--we are only two small ants in this
grand world."

Paul's face was puzzled, he did not believe in giants. His mind was
not accustomed yet to these flights of speech, he felt stupid and
irritated with himself, and in some way humiliated. The lady leant
over him, her face playfully tender.

"Great blue eyes!" she said. "So pretty, so pretty! What matter
whether they can see or no?" And she touched his lids with her slender
fingers.

Paul quivered in his chair.

"You know!" he gasped. "You make me mad--I----But won't you teach me
to see? No one wants to be blind! Teach me to see with your eyes,
lady--my lady."

"Yes, I will teach you!" she said. "Teach you a number of
things. Together we will put on the hat of darkness and go down into
Hades. We shall taste the apples of the Hesperides--we will rob
Mercure of his sandals--and Gyges of his ring. And one day, Paul--when
together we have fathomed the meaning of it all--what will happen
then, _enfant?_"

Her last word, "_enfant,_" was a caress, and Paul was too
bewildered with joy to answer her for a moment.

"What will happen?" he said at last. "I shall just love you--that's
all!"

Then he remembered Isabella Waring, and suddenly covered his face with
his hands.

They stopped for tea at the quaint chalet-hotel, and after it they
wandered to pick gentians. The lady was sweet and sympathetic and gay;
she ceased startling him with wild fancies; indeed, she spoke of
simple everyday things, and got him to tell her of his home and
Oxford, and his horses and his dogs. And when they arrived at the
subject of Pike, her sympathy drew Paul nearer to her than ever. Of
course she would love Pike if she only knew him! Who could help loving
a dog like Pike? And his master waxed eloquent. Then, when he looked
away, the lady's weird chameleon eyes melted upon him in that strange
tenderness which might have been a mother's watching the gambols of
her babe.

The shadows were quite deep when at last they decided to return to
Lucerne--a small bunch of heaven's own blue flower the only trophy of
the day.

Paul had never enjoyed himself so much in his twenty-three years of
life. And what would the evening bring? Surely more joy. This parting
at the landing could not be good-night!

But as the launch glided nearer and nearer his heart fell, and at last
he could bear the uncertainty no longer.

"And for dinner?" he said. "Won't you dine me, my Princess? Let me be
your host, as you have been mine all to-day."

But a stiffness seemed to fall upon her suddenly--she appeared to have
become a stranger again almost.

"Thank you, no. I cannot dine," she said. "I must write letters--and
go to sleep."

Paul felt an ice-hand clutching his heart. His face became so blank as
to almost pale before her eyes.

She leant forward, and smiled. "Will you be lonely, Paul? Then at ten
o'clock you must come under the ivy and wish me good-night."

And this was all he could gain from her. She landed him to walk back
to the hotel at the same place from which they had embarked, and the
launch struck out again into the lake.

He walked fast, just to be near enough to see her step ashore on to
the hotel wharf, but he could not arrive in time, and her grey figure
disappearing up the terrace steps was all his hungry eyes were
vouchsafed.

The weariness of dinner! What did it matter what the food was? What
did it matter that a new family of quite nice English people had
arrived, and sat near? A fresh young girl and a youth, and a father
and mother. People who would certainly play billiards and probably
bridge. What did anything matter in the world? Time must be got
through, simply got through until ten o'clock--that was all.

At half-past nine he strode out and sat upon the bench. His thoughts
went back in a constant review of the day. How she had looked, where
they had sat, what she had said. Why her eyes seemed green in the wood
and blue on the water. Why her voice had all those tones in it. Why
she had been old and young, and wise and childish. Then he thought of
the story of Undine and the lady's strange, snake's look when she had
said: "I do not know men?--You think not, Paul?"

His heart gave a great bound at the remembrance. He permitted himself
no speculation as to where he was drifting. He just sat there
thrilling in every limb and every sense and every quality of his
brain.

As the clocks chimed the hour something told him she was there above
him, although he heard no sound.

Not a soul was in sight in this quiet corner. He bounded on to the
bench to be nearer--if she should come. If she were there hiding in
the shadows. This was maddening--unbearable. He would climb the
balustrade to see. Then out of the blackest gloom came a laugh of
silver. A soft laugh that was almost a caress. And suddenly she crept
close and leant down over the ivy.

"Paul," she whispered. "I have come, you see, to wish
you--good-night!"

Paul stood up to his full height. He put out his arms to draw her to
him, but she eluded him and darted aside.

He gave a great sigh of pain.

Slowly she came back and bent over and over of her own accord--so low
that at last she was level with his face. And slowly her red lips
melted into his young lips in a long, strange kiss.

Then, before Paul could grasp her, or murmur one pleading word, she
was gone.

And again he found himself alone, intoxicated with emotion under the
night sky studded with stars.




CHAPTER VI


Rain, rain, rain! That was not an agreeable sound to wake to when one
had not had more than a few hours' sleep, and one's only hope of the
day was to see one's lady again.

So Paul thought despairingly. What would happen? No lake, or mountain
climb, was possible--but see her he must. After that kiss--that
divine, enthralling, undreamed-of kiss. What did it mean? Did she
love him? He loved her, that was certain. The poor feeble emotion he
had experienced for Isabella was completely washed out and gone now.

He felt horribly ashamed of himself when he thought about it. His
parents were perfectly right, of course; they had known best, and
fortunately Isabella had not perhaps believed him, and was not a
person of deep feeling anyway.

But the extreme discomfort of the thought of her made him toss in his
bed. What ought he to do? Rush away from Lucerne? To what good? The
die was cast, and in any case he was not bound to Isabella in any
way. But at least he ought to write to her and tell her he had made a
mistake. That was the only honest thing to do. A terrible duty, and
he must brace himself up to accomplish it.

He breakfasted in his sitting-room, his thoughts scourging him the
while, and afterwards, with a bulldog determination, he faced the
writing-table and began.

He tore up at least three sheets to start with--no Greek lines of
punishment in his boyhood had ever appeared such a task as this. He
found himself scribbling profiles on the paper, chiselled profiles
with inky hair--but no words would come.

"Dear Isabella," he wrote at last. No--"My dear Isabella," then he
paused and bit the pen. "I feel I ought to tell you something has
happened to me. I see my parents were right when--" "Oh! dash it all,"
he said to himself, "it's a beastly sneaking thing to do to put it
like that," and he scratched the paragraph out and began again. "I
have made a mistake in my feelings for you; I know now that they were
those of a brother--" "O Lord, what am I to say next, it does sound
bald, this!" The poor boy groaned and ran his hands through his curly
hair, then seized the pen again, and continued--"as such I shall love
you always, dear Isabella. Please forgive me if I have caused you any
pain. It was all my fault, and I feel a beastly cad.--Your very
unhappy PAUL."

This was not a masterpiece! but it would have to do. So he copied it
out on a fresh piece of paper. Then, when it was all finished and
addressed he ran down and posted it himself in the hall, with some of
the emotions Alexander may have experienced when he burnt his ships.

The clock struck eleven. At what time would he see the
lady--_his_ lady he called her now. Some instinct told him she
did not wish the hotel people to be aware of their acquaintance. He
felt it wiser not to send a note. He must wait and hope.

Rain or not, he was too English to stay indoors all day. So out he
went and into the town. The quaint bridge pleased him; he tried to
think how she would have told him to use his eyes. He must not be
stupid, he said to himself, and already he began to perceive new
meanings in things. Coming back, he chanced to stop and look in at
the fur shop under the hotel. There were some nice skins there, and
what caught his attention most was a really splendid tiger. A
magnificent creature the beast must have been. The deepest, most
perfectly marked, largest one he had ever seen. He stood for some time
admiring it. An infinitely better specimen than his lady had over her
couch. Should he buy it for her? Would she take it? Would it please
her to think he had remembered it might be what she would like?

He went into the shop. It was not even dear as tigers go, and his
parents had given him ample money for any follies.

"Confound it, Henrietta! The boy must have his head!" Sir Charles
Verdayne had said. "He's my son, you know, and you can't expect to
cure him of one wench unless you provide him with shekels to buy
another." Which crudely expressed wisdom had been followed, and Paul
had no worries where his banking account was concerned.

He bought the tiger, and ordered it to be sent to his rooms
immediately.

Then there was lunch to be thought of. She would not be there
probably, but still he had a faint hope.

She was not there, nor were any preparations made for her; but when
one is twenty-three and hungry, even if deeply in love, one must
eat. The English people had the next table beyond the sacred one of
the lady. The girl was pretty and young, and laughing. But what a
doll! thought Paul. What a meaningless wax doll! Not worth--not worth
a moment's glancing at.

And the pink and white fluffy girl was saying to herself: "There is
Paul Verdayne again. I wish he remembered he had met me at the De
Courcys', though we weren't introduced. I must get Percy to scrape up
a conversation with him. I wish mamma had not made me wear this green
alpaca to-day." But Paul's blue eyes gazed through and beyond her, and
saw her not. So all this prettiness was wasted.

And directly after lunch he returned to his sitting room. The tiger
would probably have arrived, and he wanted to further examine it. Yes,
it was there. He pulled it out and spread it over the floor. What a
splendid creature--it reminded him in some way of her--his lady.

Then he went into his bedroom and fetched a pair of scissors, and
proceeded to kneel on the floor and pare away the pinked-out black
cloth which came beyond the skin. It looked banal, and he knew she
would not like that.

Oh! he was awaking! this beautiful young Paul.

He had scarcely finished when there was a tap at the door, and Dmitry
appeared with a note. The thin, remembered paper thrilled him, and he
took it from the servant's hand.

"Paul--I am in the devil's mood to-day. About 5 o'clock come to me by
the terrace steps."

That was all--there was no date or signature. But Paul's heart beat
in his throat with joy.

"I want the skin to go to Madame," he said. "Have you any means of
conveying it to her without the whole world seeing it go?"

The stately servant bowed. "If the Excellency would help him to fold
it up," he said, "he would take it now to his own room, and from
thence to the _appartement numero 3_."

It is not a very easy thing to fold up a huge tiger-skin into a brown
paper parcel tied with string. But it was accomplished somehow and
Dmitry disappeared noiselessly with it and an answer to the note:

"I will be there, sweet lady.

"Your own PAUL."

And he was.

A bright fire burnt in the grate, and some palest orchid-mauve silk
curtains were drawn in the lady's room when Paul entered from the
terrace. And loveliest sight of all, in front of the fire, stretched
at full length, was his tiger--and on him--also at full
length--reclined the lady, garbed in some strange clinging garment of
heavy purple crepe, its hem embroidered with gold, one white arm
resting on the beast's head, her back supported by a pile of the
velvet cushions, and a heap of rarely bound books at her side, while
between her red lips was a rose not redder than they--an almost
scarlet rose. Paul had never seen one as red before.

The whole picture was barbaric. It might have been some painter's
dream of the Favourite in a harem. It was not what one would expect to
find in a sedate Swiss hotel.

She did not stir as he stepped in, dropping the heavy curtains after
him. She merely raised her eyes, and looked Paul through and through.
Her whole expression was changed; it was wicked and dangerous and
_provocante_. It seemed quite true, as she had said--she was
evidently in the devil's mood.

Paul bounded forward, but she raised one hand to stop him.

"No! you must not come near me, Paul. I am not safe to-day. Not
yet. See, you must sit there and we will talk."

And she pointed to a great chair of Venetian workmanship and wonderful
old velvet which was new to his view.

"I bought that chair in the town this morning at the curiosity shop on
the top of Weggisstrasse, which long ago was the home of the Venetian
envoy here--and you bought me the tiger, Paul. Ah! that was good. My
beautiful tiger!" And she gave a movement like a snake, of joy to feel
its fur under her, while she stretched out her hands and caressed the
creature where the hair turned white and black at the side, and was
deep and soft.

"Beautiful one! beautiful one!" she purred. "And I know all your
feelings and your passions, and now I have got your skin--for the joy
of my skin!" And she quivered again with the movements of a snake.

It is not difficult to imagine that Paul felt far from calm during
this scene--indeed he was obliged to hold on to his great chair to
prevent himself from seizing her in his arms.

"I'm--I'm so glad you like him," he said in a choked voice. "I thought
probably you would. And your own was not worthy of you. I found this
by chance. And oh! good God! if you knew how you are making me
feel--lying there wasting your caresses upon it!"

She tossed the scarlet rose over to him; it hit his mouth.

"I am not wasting them," she said, the innocence of a kitten in her
strange eyes--their colour impossible to define to-day. "Indeed not,
Paul! He was my lover in another life--perhaps--who knows?"

"But I," said Paul, who was now quite mad, "want to be your lover in
this!"

Then he gasped at his own boldness.

With a lightning movement she lay on her face, raised her elbows on
the tiger's head, and supported her chin in her hands. Perfectly
straight out her body was, the twisted purple drapery outlining her
perfect shape, and flowing in graceful lines beyond--like a serpent's
tail. The velvet pillows fell scattered at one side.

"Paul--what do you know of lovers--or love?" she said. "My baby Paul!"

"I know enough to know I know nothing yet which is worth knowing," he
said confusedly. "But--but--don't you understand, I want you to teach
me--"

"You are so sweet, Paul! when you plead like that I am taking in every
bit of you. In your way as perfect as this tiger. But we must
talk--oh! such a great, great deal--first."

A rage of passion was racing through Paul, his incoherent thoughts
were that he did not want to talk--only to kiss her--to devour her--to
strangle her with love if necessary.

He bit the rose.

"You see, Paul, love is a purely physical emotion," she continued. "We
could speak an immense amount about souls, and sympathy, and
understanding, and devotion. All beautiful things in their way, and
possible to be enjoyed at a distance from one another. All the things
which make passion noble--but without love--which _is_ passion--
these things dwindle and become duties presently, when the hysterical
exaltation cools. Love is _tangible_--it means to be close--close--
to be clasped--to be touching--to be One!"

Her voice was low--so concentrated as to be startling in contrast to
the drip of the rain outside, and her eyes--half closed and
gleaming--burnt into his brain. It seemed as if strange flames of
green darted from their pupils.

"But that is what I want!" Paul said, unsteadily.

"Without counting the cost? Tears and--cold steel--and blood!" she
whispered. "Wait a while, beautiful Paul!"

He started back chilled for a second, and in that second she changed
her position, pulling the cushions around her, nestling into them and
drawing herself cosily up like a child playing on a mat in front of
the fire, while with a face of perfect innocence she looked up as she
drew one of her great books nearer, and said in a dreamy voice:

"Now we will read fairy-tales, Paul."

But Paul was too moved to speak. These rapid changes were too much for
him, greatly advanced though he had become in these short days since
he had known her. He leant back in his chair, every nerve in his body
quivering, his young fresh face almost pale.

"Paul," she cooed plaintively, "to-morrow I shall be reasonable again,
perhaps, and human, but to-day I am capricious and wayward, and
mustn't be teased. I want to read about Cupid and Psyche from this
wonderful 'Golden Ass' of Apuleius--just a simple tale for a wet
day--and you and--me!"

"Read then!" said Paul, resigned.

And she commenced in Latin, in a chanting, tender voice. Paul had
forgotten most of the Latin he knew, but he remembered enough to be
aware that this must be as easy as English to her as it flowed along
in a rich rhythmic sound.

It soothed him. He seemed to be dreaming of flowery lands and running
streams. After a while she looked up again, and then with one of her
sudden movements like a graceful cat, she was beside him leaning from
the back of his chair.

"Paul!" she whispered right in his ear, "am I being wicked for you
to-day? I cannot help it. The devil is in me--and now I must sing."

"Sing then!" said Paul, maddened with again arising emotion.

She seized a guitar that lay near, and began in a soft voice in some
language he knew not--a cadence of melody he had never heard, but one
whose notes made strange quivers all up his spine. An exquisite
pleasure of sound that was almost pain. And when he felt he could bear
no more, she flung the instrument aside, and leant over his chair
again--caressing his curls with her dainty fingers, and purring
unknown strange words in his ear.

Paul was young and unlearned in many things. He was completely
enthralled and under her dominion--but he was naturally no weakling of
body or mind. And this was more than he could stand.

"_You_ mustn't be teased. My God! it is you who are maddening
me!" he cried, his voice hoarse with emotion. "Do you think I am a
statue, or a table, or chair--or inanimate like that tiger there? I am
not, I tell you!" and he seized her in his arms, raining kisses upon
her which, whatever they lacked in subtlety, made up for in their
passion and strength. "Some day some man will kill you, I suppose, but
I shall be your lover--first!"

The lady gasped. She looked up at him in bewildered surprise, as a
child might do who sets a light to a whole box of matches in
play. What a naughty, naughty toy to burn so quickly for such a little
strike!

But Paul's young, strong arms held her close, she could not struggle
or move. Then she laughed a laugh of pure glad joy.

"Beautiful, savage Paul," she whispered. "Do you love me? Tell me
that?"

"Love you!" he said. "Good God! Love you! Madly, and you know it,
darling Queen."

"Then," said the lady in a voice in which all the caresses of the
world seemed melted, "then, sweet Paul, I shall teach you many things,
and among them I shall teach you how--to--LIVE."

And outside the black storm made the darkness fall early. And inside
the half-burnt logs tumbled together, causing a cloud of golden
sparks, and then the flames leapt up again and crackled in the grate.




CHAPTER VII


At dinner that night the lady came in after Paul was seated. She was
all in black velvet, stately and dignified and fine. She passed his
chair and took her seat, not the faintest sign of recognition on her
face. And although he was prepared for this, for some reason his
heart sank for a moment. Her demeanour was the same as on the first
night he had seen her, hardly raising her eyes, eating little of the
most exquisite food, and appearing totally unconscious of her
neighbours or their ways.

She caused a flutter of excitement at the English table, the only
other party, except two old men in a corner, who had dined so late,
and they were half-way through their repast before she began
hers. Paul was annoyed to see how they stared--stared at _his_
lady. But what joy it was to sit there and realise that she was
his--his very own! And only four nights ago he had been a rude
stranger, too, criticising her every movement, and drinking too much
port with annoyance over it all. And now his whole life was changed.
He saw with new eyes, and heard with new ears, even his casual
observation was altered and sharpened, so that he noticed the texture
of the cloth and the quality of the glass, and the shape of the room
and its decoration.

And how insupportably commonplace the good English family seemed! That
bread-and-butter miss with her pink cheeks and fluffy hair, without a
hat! Women's hair should be black and grow in heavy waves. He was
certain of that now. How like them to come into a foreign restaurant
hatless, just because they were English and must impose their customs!
He sat and mused on it all, as he looked at his velvet-clad Queen. A
sense of complete joy and satisfaction stealing over him, his wild
excitement and emotion calmed for the time.

The delightful sensation of sharing a secret with her--a love-secret
known only to themselves. Think, if these Philistines guessed at it
even! their faces. And at this thought Paul almost laughed aloud.

With passionate interest he absorbed every little detail about his
lady. How exactly she knew what suited her. How refined and _grande
dame_ and quiet it all was, and what an air of breeding and command
she had in the poise of her little Greek head.

What did it matter what age she was, or of what nation? What did
anything matter since she was his? And at that thought his heart began
to beat again and cause him to speculate as to his evening.

Would she let him come back to the terrace room after dinner, or must
he get through the time as best he could? When he had left her, half
dazed with joy and languor, no arrangements had been made--no definite
plans settled. But of course she could not mean him not to wish her
good-night--not _now_. For one second before she left the room
their eyes met, she raised a red rose, which she had taken from the
silver vase, casually to her lips, and then passed out, but Paul knew
she had meant the kiss for him, and his whole being was uplifted.

It was still pouring with rain. No possible excuse to smoke on the
terrace. It might be wiser to stay in the hall. Surely Dmitry would
come with some message before very long, if he was patient and waited
her pleasure. But ten o'clock struck and there was no sign. Only the
English youth, Percy Trevellian, had got into conversation with him,
and was proposing billiards to pass the time.

Paul loved billiards--but not to-night. Heavens! what an idea! Go off
to the billiard-room--now--to-night!

He said he had a headache, and answered rather shortly in fact, and
then, to escape further importunity, went up to his sitting-room,
there to await the turn of events, leaving poor little Mabel
Trevellian gazing after him with longing eyes.

"Did you see at dinner how he stared at that foreign person, mamma?"
she said. "Men are such fools! Clarkson told me, as she fastened my
dress to-night, she'd heard she was some Grand Duchess, or Queen,
travelling incognito for her health. Very plain and odd-looking,
didn't you think so, mamma? And quite old!"

"No, dear. Most distinguished. Not a girl, of course, but quite the
appearance of a Princess," said Mabel's mother, who had seen the
world.

Paul meanwhile paced his room--an anxious excitement was now his
portion. Surely, surely she could not mean him not to see her--not to
say one little good-night. What should he do? What possible plan
invent? As eleven chimed he could bear it no longer. Rain or no, he
must go out on the terrace!

"Those mad English!" the porter said to himself, as he watched Paul's
tall figure disappear in the dripping night.

And there till after twelve he paced the path under the trees. But no
light showed; the terrace gate was locked. It was chilly and wet and
miserable, and at last he crept back utterly depressed, to bed. But
not to sleep. Even his youth and health were not proof against the mad
emotions of the day. He tossed and turned, a thousand questions
singing in his brain. Was it really he who had been chosen by this
divine woman for her lover? And if so, why was he alone now instead of
holding her in his arms? What did it all mean? Who was she? Where
would it end? But here he refused to think further. He was living at
all events--living as he had never dreamed was possible.

And yet, poor Paul, he was only on the rim of all that he was soon to
know of life.

At last he fell asleep, one sentence ringing in his ears--"Tears
and--cold steel--and blood!" But if he was young, he was a gallant
gentleman, and Fear had no place in his dreams.




CHAPTER VIII


Next day they went to the Buergenstock to stay. It was all arranged with
consummate simplicity. Paul was to start for a climb, he told his valet,
and for a week they would leave Lucerne. Mme. Zalenska was not very well,
it appeared, and consented to try, at the suggestion of the amiable
manager--inspired by Dmitry--a few days in higher air. There would not be
a soul in their hotel on top of the Buergenstock probably, and she could
have complete rest.

They did not arrive together, Paul was the first. He had not seen her.
Dmitry had given him his final instructions, and he awaited her coming
with passionate impatience.

He had written to her, on awaking, a coherent torrent of love,
marvellously unlike the letter which had gone to poor Isabella only a few
days before. In this to his lady he had said he could not bear it _now_,
the uncertainty of seeing her, and had suggested the Buergenstock crudely,
without any of the clever details which afterwards made it possible.

He--Paul Verdayne, not quite twenty-three years old, and English--to
suggest without a backward thought or a qualm that a lady whom he had
known five days should come and live with him and be his love! None of his
friends accustomed to his bashful habits would have believed it. Only his
father perhaps might have smiled.

As for the Lady Henrietta, she would have fainted on the spot. But fortune
favoured him--they did not know.

No excitement of the wildest day's hunting had ever made his pulses bound
like this! Dmitry had arranged everything. Paul was a young English
secretary to Madame, who had much writing to do. And in any case it is not
the affair of respectable foreign hotels to pry into their clients'
relationship when a large suite has been engaged.

Paul's valet, the son of an old retainer of the family, was an honest
fellow, and devoted to his master--but Sir Charles Verdayne had decided to
make things doubly sure.

"Tompson," he had said, the morning before they left, "however Mr.
Verdayne may amuse himself while you are abroad, your eyes and mouth are
shut, remember. No d----d gossip back to the servants here, or in hotels,
or houses--and, above all, no details must ever reach her Ladyship. If he
gets into any thundering mess let me know--but mum's the word, d'y
understand, Tompson?"

"I do, Sir Charles," said Tompson, stolidly.

And he did, as events proved.

The rooms on the Buergenstock looked so simple, so unlike the sitting-room
at Lucerne! Just fresh and clean and primitive. Paul wandered through
them, and in the one allotted to himself he came upon Anna--Madame's maid,
whom Dmitry had pointed out to him--putting sheets as fine as gossamer on
his bed; with the softest down pillows. How dear of his lady to think thus
of him!--her secretary.

The tiger--his tiger--had arrived in the sitting-room, and some simple
cushions of silk; sweet-peas and spring flowers decorated the vases--there
were no tuberoses, or anything hot-house, or forced.

The sun blazed in at the windows, the green trees all washed and fresh
from the rain gladdened his eye, and down below, a sapphire lake reflected
the snow-capped mountains. What a setting for a love-dream. No wonder Paul
trod on air!


The only possible crumpled rose-leaves were some sentences in the lady's
reply to his impassioned letter of the morning:

"Yes, I will come, Paul--but only on one condition, that you never ask me
questions as to who I am, or where I am going. You must promise me to take
life as a summer holiday--an episode--and if fate gives us this great joy,
you must not try to fetter me, now or at any future time, or control my
movements. You must give me your word of honour for this--you will never
seek to discover who or what was your loved one--you must never try to
follow me. Yes, I will come for now--when I have your assurance--but I
will go when I will go--in silence."

And Paul had given his word. He felt he could not look ahead. He must just
live in this gorgeous joy, and trust to chance. So he awaited her,
thrilling in all his being.

About tea time she drove up in a carriage--she and Dmitry having come the
long way round.

And was it not right that her secretary should meet and assist her out,
and conduct her to her apartments?

How beautiful she looked, all in palest grey, and somehow the things had a
younger shape. Her skirt was short, and he could see her small and slender
feet, while a straw hat and veil adorned her black hair. Everything was
simple, and as it should be for a mountain top and unsophisticated
surroundings.

Tea was laid out on the balcony, fragrant Russian tea, and when Dmitry had
lit the silver kettle lamp he retired and left them alone in peace.

"Darling!" said Paul, as he folded her in his arms--"darling!--darling!"

And when she could speak the lady cooed back to him:

"So sweet a word is that, my Paul. Sweeter in English than in any other
language. And you are glad I have come, and we shall live a little and be
quite happy here in our pretty nest, all fresh and not a bit too grand--is
it not so? Oh! what joys there are in life; and oh! how foolish just to
miss them."

"Indeed, _yes_," said Paul.

Then they played with the tea, and she showed him how he was to drink it
with lemon. She was sweet as a girl, and said no vague, startling things;
it was as if she were a young bride, and Paul were complete master and
lord! Wild happiness rushed through him. How had he ever endured the time
before he had met her?

When they had finished they went out. She must walk, she said, and Paul,
being English, must want exercise! Oh! she knew the English and their
exercise! And of course she must think of everything that would be for the
pleasure of her lover Paul.

And he? You old worn people of the world, who perhaps are reading, think
what all this was to Paul--his young strong life vibrating to passionate
joys, his imagination kindled, his very being uplifted and thrilled with
happiness! His charming soul expanded, he found himself saying gracious
tender phrases to her. Every moment he was growing more passionately in
love, and in each new mood she seemed the more divine. Not one trace of
her waywardness of the day before remained. Her eyes, as they glanced at
him from under her hat, were bashful and sweet, no look of the devil to
provoke a saint. She talked gently.

He must take her to the place where she had peeped at him through the
trees. And--

"Oh! Paul!" she said. "If you had known that day, how you tempted me,
looking up at me, your whole soul in your eyes! I had to run, run, run!"

"And now I have caught you, darling mine," said Paul. "But you were wrong.
I had no soul--it is you who are giving me one now."

They sat on the bench where he had sat. She was getting joy out of the
colour of the moss, the tints of the beeches, every little shade and shape
of nature, and letting Paul see with her eyes.

And all the while she was nestling near him like a tender ring-dove to her
mate. Paul's heart swelled with exultation. He felt good, as if he could
be kind to every one, as if his temper were a thing to be ashamed of, and
all his faults, as if for ever he must be her own true knight and
defender, and show her he was worthy of this great gift and joy. And ah!
how could he put into words his tender worshipping love?

So the afternoon faded into evening, and the young crescent moon began to
show in the sky--a slender moon of silver, only born the night before.

"See, this is our moon," said the lady, "and as she waxes, so will our
love wax--but now she is young and fresh and fair, like it. Come, my Paul.
Let us go to our house; soon we shall dine, and I want to be beautiful for
you."

So they went in to their little hotel.

She was all in white when Paul found her in their inner salon, where they
were to dine alone, waited on only by Dmitry. Her splendid hair was bound
with a fillet of gold, and fell in two long strands, twisted with gold,
nearly to her knees. Her garment was soft and clinging, and unlike any
garment he had ever seen. They sat on a sofa together, the table in front
of them, and they ate slowly and whispered much--and before Paul could
taste his wine, she kissed his glass and sipped from it and made him do
the same with hers. The food was of the simplest, and the only things
exotic were the great red strawberries at the end.

Dmitry had left them, placing the coffee on the table as he went, and a
bottle of the rare golden wine.

Then this strange lady grew more tender still. She must lie in Paul's
arms, and he must feed her with strawberries. And the thought came to him
that her mouth looked as red as they.

To say he was intoxicated with pleasure and love is to put it as it was.
It seemed as if he had arrived at a zenith, and yet he knew there would be
more to come. At last she raised herself and poured out the yellow
wine--into one glass.

"My Paul," she said, "this is our wedding might, and this is our wedding
wine. Taste from this our glass and say if it is good."

And to the day of his death, if ever Paul should taste that wine again, a
mad current of passionate remembrance will come to him--and still more
passionate regret.

Oh! the divine joy of that night! They sat upon the balcony presently, and
Elaine in her worshipping thoughts of Lancelot--Marguerite wooed by
Faust--the youngest girl bride--could not have been more sweet or tender
or submissive than this wayward Tiger Queen.

"Paul," she said, "out of the whole world tonight there are only you and I
who matter, sweetheart. Is it not so? And is not that your English word
for lover and loved--'sweetheart'?"

And Paul, who had never even heard it used except in a kind of joke, now
knew it was what he had always admired. Yes, indeed, it was
"sweetheart"--and she was his!

"Remember, Paul," she whispered when, passion maddening him, he clasped
her violently in his arms--"remember--whatever happens--whatever
comes--for now, to-night, there is no other reason in all of this but
just--I love you--I love you, Paul!"

"My Queen, my Queen!" said Paul, his voice hoarse in his throat.

And the wind played in softest zephyrs, and the stars blazed in the sky,
mirroring themselves in the blue lake below.

Such was their wedding night.

Oh! glorious youth! and still more glorious love!




CHAPTER IX


Who can tell the joy of their awakening? The transcendent pleasure to
Paul to be allowed to play with his lady's hair, all unbound for him to do
with as he willed? The glory to realise she was his--his own--in his arms?
And then to be tenderly masterful and give himself lordly airs of
possession. She was almost silent, only the history of the whole world of
passion seemed written in her eyes--slumbrous, inscrutable, their heavy
lashes making shadows on her soft, smooth cheeks.

The ring-dove was gone, a thing of mystery lay there instead--unresisting,
motionless, white. Now and then Paul looked at her half in fear. Was she
real? Was it some dream, and would he wake in his room at Verdayne Place
among the sporting prints and solid Chippendale furniture to hear Tompson
saying, "Eight o'clock, sir, and a fine day"?

Oh, no, no, she was real! He raised himself, and bent down to touch her
tenderly with his forefinger. Yes, all this fascination was indeed his,
living and breathing and warm, and he was her lover and lord. Ah!

The same coloured orchid-mauve silk curtains as at Lucerne were drawn over
the open windows, so the sun in high heaven seemed only as dawn in the
room, filtering though the _jalousies_ outside. But what was time? Time
counts as one lives, and Paul was living now.

It was twelve o'clock before they were ready for their dainty breakfast,
laid out under the balcony awning.

And the lady talked tenderly and occupied herself with the fancies of her
lord, as a new bride should.

But all the time the mystery stayed in her eyes. And the thought came to
Paul that were he to live with her for a hundred years, he would never be
sure of their real meaning.

"What shall we do with our day, my Paul?" she said presently. "See, you
shall choose. Shall we climb to the highest point on this mountain and
look at our kingdom of trees and lake below? Or shall we rest in the
launch and glide over the blue water, and dream sweet dreams? Or shall we
drive in the carriage far inland to a quaint farmhouse I know, where we
shall see people living in simple happiness with their cows and their
sheep? Decide, sweetheart--decide!"

"Whatever you would wish, my Queen," said Paul.

Then the lady frowned, and summer lightnings flashed from her eyes.

"Of course, what I shall wish! But I have told you to choose, feeble Paul!
There is nothing so irritates me as these English answers. Should I have
asked you to select our day had I decided myself? I would have commanded
Dmitry to make the arrangements, that is all. But no! to-day I am thy
obedient one. I ask my Love to choose for me. To-morrow I may want my own
will; to-day I desire only thine, beloved," and she leant forward and
looked into his eyes.

"The mountain top, then!" said Paul, "because there we can sit, and I can
gaze at you, and learn more of life, close to your lips. I might not touch
you in the launch, and you might look at others at the farm--and it seems
as if I could not bear one glance or word turned from myself today!"

"You have chosen well. _Mylyi moi._"

The strange words pleased him; he must know their meaning, and learn to
pronounce them himself. And all this between their dainty dishes took
time, so it was an hour later before they started for their walk.

Up, up those winding paths among the firs and larches--up and up to the
top. They dawdled slowly until they reached their goal. There, aloof from
the beaten track, safe from the prying eyes of some chance stranger, they
sat down, their backs against a giant rock, and all the glory of their
lake and tree-tops to gaze at down below.

Paul had carried her cloak, and now they spread it out, covering their
couch of moss and lichen. A soft languor was over them both. Passion was
asleep for the while. But what exquisite bliss to sit thus, undisturbed in
their eyrie--he and she alone in all the world.

Her words came back to him: "Love means to be clasped, to be close, to be
touching, to be One!" Yes, they were One.

Then she began to talk softly, to open yet more windows in his soul to joy
and sunshine. Her mind seemed so vast, each hour gave him fresh surprises
in the perception of her infinite knowledge, while she charmed his fancy
by her delicate modes of expression and un-English perfect pronunciation,
no single word slurred over.

"Paul," she said presently, "how small seem the puny conventions of the
world, do they not, beloved? Small as those little boats floating like
scattered flower-leaves on the great lake down there. They were invented
first to fill the place of the zest which fighting and holding one's own
by the strength of one's arm originally gave to man. Now, he has only laws
to combat, instead of a fiercer fellow creature--a dull exchange forsooth!
Here are you and I--mated and wedded and perfectly happy--and yet by these
foolish laws we are sinning, and you would be more nobly employed yawning
with some bony English miss for your wife--and I by the side of a mad,
drunken husband. All because the law made us swear a vow to keep for ever
stationary an emotion! Emotion which we can no more control than the trees
can which way the wind will blow their branches! To love! Oh! yes, they
call it that at the altar--'joined together by God!' As likely as not two
human creatures who hate each other, and are standing there swearing those
impossibilities for some political purpose and advantage of their family.
They desecrate the word love. Love is for us, Paul, who came together
because our beings cried, 'This is my mate!' I should say nothing of
it--oh no! if it had no pretence--marriage. If it were frankly a
contract--'Yes, I give you my body and my dowry.' 'Yes, you give me your
name and your state.' It is of the coarse, horrible things one must pass
through in life--but to call the Great Spirit's blessing upon it, as an
exaltation! To stand there and talk of love! Ah--that is what must make
God angry, and I feel for Him."

Paul noticed that she spoke as if she had no realisation of the lives of
lesser persons who might possibly wed because they were "mated" as
well--not for political reasons or ambition of family. Her keen senses
divined his thought.

"Yes, beloved, you would say--?"

"Only that supposing you were not married to any one else, we should be
swearing the truth if we swore before God that we loved. I would make any
vows to you from my soul, in perfect honesty, for ever and ever, my
darling Queen."

His blue eyes, brimming with devotion and conviction of the truth of his
thought, gazed up at her. And into her strange orbs there came that same
look of tenderness that once before had made them as a mother's watching
the gambols of her babe.

"There, there," she said. "You would swear them and hug your chains of
roses--but because they were chains they would turn heavy as lead. Make no
vows, sweetheart! Fate will force you to break them if you do, and then
the gods are angry and misfortune follows. Swear none, and that fickle one
will keep you passionate, in hopes always to lure you into her
pitfalls--to vow and to break--pain and regret. Live, live, Paul, and
love, and swear nothing at all."

Paul was troubled. "But, but," he said, "don't you believe I shall love
you for ever?"

The lady leant back against the rock and narrowed her eyes.

"That will depend upon me, my Paul," she said. "The duration of love in a
being always depends upon the loved one. I create an emotion in you, as
you create one in me. You do not create it in yourself. It is because
something in my personality causes an answering glow in yours that you
love me. Were you to cease to do so, it would be because I was no longer
able to call forth that answer in you. It would not be your fault any more
than when you cease to please me it will be mine. That is where people are
unjust."

"But surely," said Paul, "it is only the fickle who can change?"

"It is according to one's nature; if one is born a steadfast gentleman,
one is more likely to continue than if one is a _farceur_--prince or
no--but it depends upon the object of one's love--whether he or she can
hold one or not. One would not blame a needle if it fell from a magnet,
the attraction of the magnet being in some way removed, either by a
stronger at the needle's side, or by some deadening of the drawing quality
in the magnet itself--and so it is in love. Do you follow me, Paul?"

"Yes." said Paul gloomily. "I must try to please you, or you will throw me
away."

"You see," she continued, "the ignorant make vows, and being
weaklings--for the most part--vanity and fate easily remove their
inclination from the loved one; it may not be his fault any more than a
broken leg keeping him from walking would be his fault, beyond the fact
that it was _his_ leg; but we have to suffer for our own things--so there
it is. We will say the weakling's inclination wants to make him break his
vows; so he does, either in the letter or spirit--or both! And then he
feels degraded and cheap and low, as all must do who break their sacred
word given of their own free will when inclination prompted them to. So
how much better to make no vow; then at least when the cord of attraction
snaps, we can go free, still defying the lightning in our untarnished
pride."

"Oh! darling, do not speak of it," cried Paul, "the cord of attraction
between us can never snap. I worship, I adore you--you are just my life,
my darling one, my Queen!"

"Sweet Paul!" she whispered, "oh! so good, so good is love, keep me loving
you, my beautiful one--keep my desire long to be your Queen."

And after this they melted into one another's arms, and cooed and kissed,
and were foolish and incoherent, as lovers always are and have been from
the beginning of old time. More concentrated--more absorbed--than the
sternest Eastern sage--absorbed in each other.

The spirit of two natures vibrating as One.




CHAPTER X


That evening it was so warm and peaceful they dined at the wide-open
balcony windows. They could see far away over the terrace and down to the
lake, with the distant lights towards Lucerne. The moon, still slender and
fine, was drawing to her setting, and a few cloudlets floated over the
sky, obscuring the stars here and there.

The lady was quiet and tender, her eyes melting upon Paul, and something
of her ring-dove mood was upon her again. Not once, since they had been on
the Buergenstock, had she shown any of the tigerish waywardness that he had
had glimpses of at first. It seemed as if her moods, like her chameleon
eyes, took colour from her surroundings, and there all was primitive
simplicity and nature and peace.

Paul himself was in a state of ecstasy. He hardly knew whether he trod on
air or no. No siren of old Greek fable had ever lured mortal more under
her spell than this strange foreign woman thing--Queen or Princess or what
you will. Nothing else in the world was of any consequence to him--and it
was all the more remarkable because subjection was in no way part of his
nature. Paul was a masterful youth, and ruled things to his will in his
own home.

The lady talked of him--of his tastes--of his pleasures. There was not an
incident in his life, or of his family, that she had not fathomed by now.
All about Isabella even--poor Isabella! And she told him how she
sympathised with the girl, and how badly he had behaved.

"Another proof, my Paul, of what I said today--no one must make vows about
love."

But Paul, in his heart, believed her not. He would worship her for ever,
he knew.

"Yes," she said, answering his thoughts. "You think so, beloved, and it
may be so because you do not know from moment to moment how I shall be--if
I shall stay here in your arms, or fly far away beyond your reach. You
love me because I give you the stimulus of uncertainty, and so keep bright
your passion, but once you were sure, I should become a duty, as all women
become, and then my Paul would yawn and grow to see I was no longer young,
and that the expected is always an _ennui_ when it comes!"

"Never, never!" said Paul, with fervour.

Presently their conversation drifted to other things, and Paul told her
how he longed to see the world and its people and its ways. She had been
almost everywhere, it seemed, and with her talent of word-painting, she
took him with her on the magic carpet of her vivid description to east and
west and north and south.

Oh! their _entr'actes_ between the incoherence of just lovers' love were
not banal or dull. And never she forgot her tender ways of insinuated
caresses--small exquisite touches of sentiment and grace. The note ever of
One--that they were fused and melted together into one body and soul.

Through all her talk that night Paul caught glimpses of the life of a
great lady, surrounded with state and cares, and now and then there was a
savage echo which made him think of things barbaric, and wonder more than
ever from whence she had come.

It was quite late before the chill of night airs drove them into their
salon, and here she made him some Russian tea, and then lay in his arms,
and purred love-words to him, and nestled close like a child who wants
petting to cure it of some imaginary hurt. Only, in her tenderest caresses
he seemed at last to feel something of danger. A slumbering look of
passion far under the calm exterior, but ready to break forth at any
moment from its studied control.

It thrilled and maddened him.

"Beloved, beloved!" he cried, "let us waste no more precious moments. I
want you--I want you--my sweet!"

       *       *       *       *       *

At the first glow of dawn, he awoke, a strange sensation, almost of
strangling and suffocation, upon him. There, bending over, framed in a
mist of blue-black waves, he saw his lady's face. Its milky whiteness lit
by her strange eyes--green as cats' they seemed, and blazing with the
fiercest passion of love--while twisted round his throat he felt a great
strand of her splendid hair. The wildest thrill as yet his life had known
then came to Paul; he clasped her in his arms with a frenzy of mad,
passionate joy.




CHAPTER XI


The next day was Sunday, and even through the silk blinds they could hear
the rain drip in monotonous fashion. Of what use to wake? Sleep is
blissful and calm when the loved one is near.

Thus it was late when Paul at last opened his eyes. He found himself
alone, and heard his lady's voice singing softly from the sitting-room
beyond, and through the open door he could perceive her stretched on the
tiger, already dressed, reclining among the silk pillows, her guitar held
in her hands.

"Hasten, hasten, lazy one. Thy breakfast awaits thee," she called, and
Paul bounded up without further delay.

This day was to be a day of books, she said, and she read poetry to him,
and made him read to her--but she would not permit him to sit too near
her, or caress her--and often she was restless and moved about with the
undulating grace of a cat. She would peep from the windows, and frown at
the scene. The lake was hidden by mist, the skies cried, all nature was
weeping and gloomy.

And at last she flung the books aside, and crept up to Paul, who was
huddled on the sofa, feeling rather morose from her decree that he must
not touch or kiss her.

"Weeping skies, I hate you!" she said. Then she called Dmitry in a sharp
voice, and when he appeared from the passage where he always awaited her
pleasure, she spoke to him in Russian, or some language Paul knew not, a
fierce gleam in her eyes. Dmitry abased himself almost to the floor, and
departing quickly, returned with sticks and lit a blazing pine-log fire in
the open grate. Then he threw some powder into it, and with stealthy haste
drew all the orchid-silk curtains, and departed from the room. A strange
divine scent presently rose in the air, and over Paul seemed to steal a
spell. The lady crept still nearer, and then with infinite sweetness, all
her docility of the first hours of their union returned, she melted in his
arms.

"Paul--I am so wayward to-day, forgive me," she said in a childish,
lisping voice. "See, I will make you forget the rain and damp. Fly with me
to Egypt where the sun always shines."

And Paul, like a sulky, hungry baby, who had been debarred, and now
received its expected sweetmeat, clasped her and kissed her for a few
minutes before he would let her speak.

"See, we are getting near Cairo," she said, her eyes half closed, while
she settled herself among the cushions, and drew Paul down to her until
his head rested on her breast, and her arms held him like a mother with a
child.

Her voice was a dream-voice as she whispered on. "Do you not love those
minarets and towers against the opal sky, and the rose-pink granite hills
beyond? And look, Paul, at this peep of the Nile--those are the
water-buffaloes--those strange beasts--you see they are pulling that
ridiculous water-drawer--just the same as in Pharaoh's time. Ah! I smell
the scent of the East. Look at the straight blue figures, the lines so
pleasing and long. The dignity, the peace, the forever in it all.... Now
we are there. See the brilliant crowd all moving with little haste, and
listen to the strange noise. Look at the faces of the camels, disdainful
and calm, and that of an old devil-man with tangled hair....

"Come--come from this; I want the desert and the Sphinx!

"Ah! it is bright day again, and we have all the green world between us
and the great vast brown tract of sand. And those are the Pyramids
clear-cut against the turquoise sky, and soon we shall be there, only you
must observe this green around us first, my Paul--the green of no other
country in all the world--pure emerald--nature's supreme concentrated
effort of green for miles and miles. No, I do not want to live in that
small village in a brown mud hut, shared with another wife to that gaunt
blue linen-clad man; I would kill them all and be free. I want to go on,
beloved--on to the desert for you and me alone, with its wonderful passion,
and wonderful peace...."

Her voice became still more dreamy; there was a cadence in it now as if
some soul within were forcing her to chant it all, with almost the lilt of
blank verse.

"Oh! the strange drug of the glorious East, flooding your senses with
beauty and life. 'Tis the spell of the Sphinx, and now we are there, close
in her presence. Look, the sun has set....

"Hush! hush! beloved! we are alone, the camels and guides afar off--we are
alone, sweetheart, and we go on together, you and I and the moon. See, she
is rising all silver and pure, and blue is the sky, and scented the night.
Look, there is the Sphinx! Do you see the strange mystery of her smile and
the glamour of her eyes? She is a goddess, and she knows men's souls, and
their foolish unavailing passion and pain--never content with the _Is_
which they have, always regretting the _Was_ which has passed, and
building false hopes on the phantom _May be._ But you and I, my lover, my
sweet, have fathomed the riddle which is hid in the smile of our goddess,
our Sphinx--we have guessed it, and now are as high gods too. For we know
it means to live in the present, and quaff life in its full. Sweetheart,
beloved--joy and life in its full----"....

Her voice grew faint and far away, like the echo of some exquisite song,
and the lids closed over Paul's blue eyes, and he slept.

The light of all the love in the world seemed to flood the lady's face.
She bent over and kissed him, and smoothed his cheek with her velvet
cheek, she moved so that his curly lashes might touch her bare neck, and
at last she slipped from under him, and laid his head gently down upon the
pillows.

Then a madness of tender caressing seized her. She purred as a tiger might
have done, while she undulated like a snake. She touched him with her
finger-tips, she kissed his throat, his wrists, the palms of his hands,
his eyelids, his hair. Strange, subtle kisses, unlike the kisses of women.
And often, between her purrings, she murmured love-words in some strange
fierce language of her own, brushing his ears and his eyes with her lips
the while.

And through it all Paul slept on, the Eastern perfume in the air still
drugging his sense.

It was quite dark when he awoke again, and beside him--seated on the
floor, all propped with pillows, his lady reclined her head against his
shoulder. And as he looked down at her in the firelight's flickering
gleam, he saw that her wonderful eyes were wet with great glittering
tears.

"My soul, my soul!" he said tenderly, his heart wrung with emotion. "What
is it, sweetheart--why have you these tears? Oh! what have I
done--darling, my own?"

"I am weary," she said, and fell to weeping softly, and refused to be
comforted.

Paul's distress was intense--what could have happened? What terrible thing
had he done? What sorrow had fallen upon his beloved while he selfishly
slept? But all she would say was that she was weary, while she clung to
him in a storm of passion, as if some one threatened to take her out of
his arms. Then she left him abruptly and went off to dress.

But later, at dinner, it seemed as if a new and more radiant light than
ever glowed on her face. She was gay and caressing, telling him merry
tales of Paris and its plays. It was as if she meant to efface all
suggestion of sorrow or pain--and gradually the impression wore off in
Paul's mind, and ere it came to their sipping the golden wine, all was
brightness and peace.

"See," she said, looking from the window just before they retired to rest,
"the sky has stopped crying, and there are our stars, sweetheart, come out
to wish us good-night. Ah! for us tomorrow once more will be a glorious
day."

"My Queen," said Paul; "rain or fine, all days are glorious to me, so long
as I have you to clasp in my arms. You are my sun, moon and stars--always,
for ever."

She laughed a laugh, the silver echo of satisfaction and joy.

"Sweet Paul," she lisped mischievously, "so good you have been, so gentle
with my moods. You must have some reward. Listen, beloved while I tell it
to you."

But what she said is written in his heart!




CHAPTER XII


His lady was so intensely _soignee_--that is what pleased Paul. He had
never thought about such things, or noticed them much in other women, but
she was a revelation.

No Roman Empress with her bath of asses' milk could have had a more
wonderful toilet than she. And ever she was illusive, and he never quite
got to the end of her mystery. Always there was a veil, when he least
expected it, and so these hours for the most part were passed at the
boiling-point of excitement and bliss. The experiences of another man's
whole lifetime Paul was going through in the space of days.

It was the Monday following the wet Sunday when an incident happened which
soon came back to him, and gave him food for reflection.

They would spend the day in the launch, she decided, going whither they
wished, stopping here to pick gentians, going there under the shadow of
trees--landing where and when they desired--even sleeping at Flueclen if
the fancy took them to. Anna was sent on with their things in case this
contingency occurred. And earth, water and sky seemed smiling them a
welcome.

Just before they started, Dmitry, after the gentlest tap, noiselessly
entered Paul's room. Paul was selecting some cigars from a box, and looked
up in surprise as the stately servant cautiously closed the door.

"Yes, Dmitry, what is it?" he said half impatiently.

Dmitry advanced, and now Paul saw that he carried something in his hand.
He bowed low with his usual courtly respect. Then he stammered a little as
he began to speak.

The substance of his sentence, Paul gathered, was that the Excellency
would not be inconveniencing himself too much, he hoped, if he would
consent to carry this pistol. A very good pistol, he assured him, which
would take but little room.

Paul's surprise deepened. Carry a pistol in peaceful Switzerland! It
seemed too absurd.

"What on earth for, my friend?" he said.

But Dmitry would give no decided answer, only that it was wiser, when away
from one's home and out with a lady, never to go unarmed. Real anxiety
peeped from his cautious grey eyes.

Did Paul know how to shoot? And would he be pardoned for asking the
Excellency such a question?--but in England, he heard, they dealt little
with revolvers--and this was a point to be assured of.

Yes, Paul knew how to shoot! The idea made him laugh. But now he came to
think of it, he had not had great practice with a revolver, and might not
do so well as with a gun or rifle. But the whole thing seemed so absurd,
he did not think it of much consequence.

"Of course I'll take it to please you, Dmitry," he said, "though I wish
you would tell me why."

However, Dmitry escaped from the room without further words, his finger
upon his lips.

The lady was looking more exquisitely white than usual; she wore soft pale
mauve, and appeared in Paul's eyes a thing of joy.

When they were seated on the launch in their chairs, she let him hold her
hand, but she did not talk much at first; only now he understood her
silences, and did not worry over them--so great a teacher is love to
quicken the perception of man.

He sat there, and gazed at her, and tried to realise that it was really he
who was experiencing all this happiness. This wonderful, wonderful
woman--and he was her lover.

At last something in her expression of sadness caught his watchful eye,
and an ache came into his mind to know where hers had gone.

"Darling," he said tenderly, "mayn't I come there, too?"

She turned towards him--a shadow was in her eyes.

"No, Paul," she said. "Not there. It is a land of rocks and
precipices--not for lovers."

"But if you can go--where is the danger for me, my Queen? Or, if there is
danger, then it is my place to stand by your side."

"Paul, my sweet Paul," she whispered, while her eyes filled with mist, "I
was thinking how fair the world could be, perhaps, if fate allowed one to
meet one's mate while there was yet time. Surely two souls together, like
you and I, might climb to Paradise doing deeds of greatness by the way.
But so much of life is like a rushing torrent tearing along making a
course for itself, without power to choose through what country it will
pass, until it meets the ocean and is swallowed up and lost. If one could
only see--only know in time--could he change the course? Alas! who can
tell?"

Her voice was sad, and as ever it wrung Paul's heart.

"My darling one," he said, "don't think of those odd things. Only remember
that I am here beside you, and that I love you, love you so--"

"My Paul!" she murmured, and she smiled a strange, sweet smile, "do you
know, I find you like a rare violin which hitherto has been used by
ordinary musicians to play their popular airs upon, but which is now
highly strung and being touched by the bow of an artist who loves it. And
oh! the exquisite sounds which are coming, and will yet come forth to
enchant the ear, and satisfy the sense. All the capacity is there, Paul,
in you, beautiful one--only I must bring it out with my bow of love! And
what a progress you have made already--a great, great progress. Think,
only a few days ago you had never noticed the colours of this lake, or
even these great mountains, they said nothing to you at all except as
places to take your exercise upon. Life, for you, was just eating and
sleeping and strengthening your muscles." And she laughed softly.

"I know I was a Goth," said Paul. "I can hardly realise it myself, the
change that has happened to me. Everything now seems full of joy."

"Your very phrases are altered, Paul, and will alter more yet, while our