CHAPTER XIV
The next morning the sun streaming into Pansy's bedroom roused her. She awoke with the feeling of having indulged in some delightful dream, which, like all dreams, must melt with the morning.
She thought of the episode with Le Breton in the garden. A gentle look lingered on her face. He was a darling, the nicest man she had ever met; the only one she had ever liked enough to let kiss her; the only one in whose arms she had been content to stay. But about marrying?
A frown came and rested on her white brow.
Marrying was quite another matter. In a month's time, impossible. A thing not to be contemplated.
Pansy sat up suddenly, hugging her knees as she gazed thoughtfully at the brilliant expanse of dancing, shimmering sea that sparkled at her through the open bedroom window.
She, engaged to be married! She who had vowed never to fall in love until forty!
It was love Pansy had wanted in the moonlit garden with Le Breton's arms about her. But it was liberty she wanted now, as she sat hugging her knees, amazed at herself and her own behaviour.
She had bartered her liberty for a man's arms and a few kisses!
Pansy could hardly believe herself capable of such folly.
She had been swept off her feet—over her depth before she knew it.
By daylight her freedom and independence were as sweet to her as Le Breton's love had been by the romantic light of the moon. In the sober light of morning she tried to struggle back to where she had been before the hot flood of love he had poured over her had made her promise more than she was now prepared to fulfill.
"It's a woman's privilege to change her mind."
Pansy grasped at the old adage; but to her a promise was a promise, not lightly given or lightly snatched away. So she did not derive much comfort from dwelling on the old saw.
She was sitting up in bed, hugging her knees and frowning in dire perplexity when her maid came in with the early morning tea. And the frown was there when the woman came to say her bath was ready.
A thoughtful mood enveloped her during her dressing. And out of her musing this note was born:—
"My Dearest Raoul,
I can call you that because you are dearer to me than any one on this earth, dearest beyond all things except my liberty. Do not be horrid and cross when I say I cannot marry you, in spite of all I promised last night. Not for ten years at least. And even then I cannot bind myself in any way, for I might be still hankering after freedom. I do love you really, more than anything in the whole wide world except my independence.
You must not be too hard on me, Raoul. I am not quite the same as other women. It is not every girl of twenty who is her own mistress, with £60,000 a year to do what she likes with. It has made life seem so vast, matrimony such a cramped, everyday affair. And I do not want to handicap myself in any way.
This letter sounds awfully selfish, I know. I am not selfish really. Only I love my liberty. It is the one thing that is dearer to me than you.
Always your loving
PANSY."
When the letter was written, Pansy suddenly remembered she did not know his address.
Once satisfied that he was disinterested, she had bothered about nothing else. And after that one day spent among the red roses he had become something quite apart from the rest of the world, not to be gossiped about to mere people.
However, she knew that twenty pesetas given to the hall-porter would ensure the note reaching its destination. The hotel staff would know where he was staying, even if she did not.
Because the note was to Le Breton, Pansy took it down herself and gave it to the hall-porter. When this was done she wandered as far as the spot where she had made her fleeting vows, to see how it looked by daylight.
She lingered there for some minutes, and then returned to her suite.
In the interval a message had come from Le Breton.
It stood on one of the little tables of her sitting-room—a huge gilded wicker basket full of half-blown, red roses. In the midst of the flowers a packet reposed, tied with red ribbon.
Pansy opened the package.
Inside was the gold casket she had once refused. It was filled with purple pansies, still wet with dew. On them a ring reposed, with one huge sapphire, deeply blue as her own eyes.
There was a note in with the flowers, written in a strong masculine hand.
With a flutter about her heart, Pansy picked it out and read it:—
"Heart's Ease, My Own Dear Little Girl,
This little gift comes to you with all my love, my heart, my soul, my very life indeed, given forever into your keeping.
A week ago, if anyone had told me I should write such words to a woman, I should have laughed at them. Until meeting you I did not know what love was. I had no idea one woman could be so satisfying. In you I have found the heaven I have been searching for all my life. My one houri, and she all-sufficing—my little English flower, so sweet and winsome, so kind and wayward, so teasing and yet so tender, who has brought a new fragrance into my life, a peace my soul has never known till now, a love and gratitude into my heart that will keep me hers for ever.
Your devoted lover now and through all eternity.
RAOUL LE BRETON."
As Pansy read the note her lips trembled.
She wished she had never tasted of the sweets of liberty and independence; that the grand-godfather had not left her his millions. She wished she was Pansy Barclay again, a mere girl, not one with enormous riches luring her towards all sorts of goals where love was not. Just Pansy Barclay, who could have met his love with kisses and not a cruel counter note.