"But there's one thing we must remember," said Bethune, suddenly earnest again, in the midst of the welcome relaxation. "We must remember the old fellow's threat. You will have a bit of a job to keep out of trouble with the powers that be, won't you, after Sir Arthur's meddling?"
The anxiety on his countenance was not reflected upon English's face.
"I shall have my own story to tell," he said, "and I think that I have knowledge of sufficient value to make me a persona grata in high quarters just now. They will be rather more anxious, I take it, to retain my services rather than dispense with them—in spite of Sir Arthur."
He broke off, his brow clouded again. He sighed heavily.
"But what does that matter?" he cried; "just now there is only one thing that matters in the whole world."
BOOK IV
CHAPTER I
It was the most interesting case I have ever had (wrote M. Châtelard, in the third volume of his "Psychologie Féminine"), and the most abnormal. The illness, caused by shock, concussion—call it what you will—was benign, yet it was long. There was a little fever, a little delirium: un petit délire très doux, tout poétique, que, plongé dans mon vieux fauteuil de chêne, au milieu du silence de cet antique manoir, j'écoutais presqu'avec plaisir. Un gazouillement d'oiseau; une âme de femme, errant comme Psyché elle-même, sur les fleurs dans les jardins embaumés; délicates puerilitiés parfumées de la vie. Jamais une note de passion. Jamais un cri de ce coeur si profondement blessé....
And when later, by almost imperceptible steps, we drew the gentle creature back to health, the singular phenomenon persisted.
We physicians are, of course, accustomed in similar circumstances, to find a strong distaste in the patient suffering from shock to any effort of memory. Memory, indeed, by one of those marvellous dispensations of nature, is reluctant to bring back the events which have caused the mischief. But, with the beautiful Lady G—— (it is always thus I must recall her) there was something more than the mere recoil of weakness....
On eût pu croire que cette âm ebrisée de passion, abreuvée de douleur, s'était dit qu'elle n'en voulait plus; qu'elle n'en pouvait plus. Co n'était pas, ici, les souvenirs, qui faisaient défaut. Je l'ai trop observée pour m'y méprendre. En avait-elle des souvenirs et d'assez poignants, mon Dieu! ... But with a strength of will which surprised me in her state, she put these memories from her and deliberately lived in the present. Elle goutait son présent, elle savourait la paix voluptueuse de sa convalescence....
Je n'ai qu'à fermer les yeux, pour la revoir, sur son lit—longue, blanche et belle. Je revois ce jeune teint—divinement jeune sous cette grande chevelure d'argent; cet air de lys au soleil, à la fois languissant et mystérieusement heureux. Ces yeux noyés dans une pensée profonde. Ces lévres entr'ouvertes par un léger sourire. A qui rêvaitelle—à quoi? Cette belle bouche muette n'en soufflait jamais mot....
Of the three who had loved her, for whom was that smile? Certes, not for the poor Sir! And of the other two? (I must here frankly set down the humiliating admission, to me, that woman was, and remains Sphynx—yes, Sphynx, even to me, her physician, who beheld her, watched, tended her, through all those moments of suffering, weakness, défaillance where the soul reveals itself.) Which of the two, then, reigned in her secret dream? The sardonic Major, who had tracked her till she could escape him no longer, whose love was merciless. There are women, and many, who would never know passion but for defeat. The husband? The reincarnated ghost? Well reincarnated, that one!—The most virile type that I ever met. Nature of fire, born lover, under all his reticence of English gentleman and soldier. I have seen that face of his, half bronze, half marble, grow crimson and white within the minute, as I spoke to him of the woman, the while there would not be a tremble in the hand that held this pipe. I will confess he had all my sympathy; he was worthy of her. But she—why, to this day I ask myself: does the man who possesses her know the secret of her heart?
The day after the damaged motor had carried away the poor Governor—machine détraquée, clopin-clopant, symbole de cette vie qui jusqu'ici semblait rouler en triomphe et qui, desormais, se trainera si gauchement—the day following Sir G——'s departure, I say, the Major B—— also left. It was the very least he could have done. And after the astounding fact of his betrothal to the pretty little Miss C——, I myself felt his presence antipathetic.... Ah, but a strategist, that officer of Guides, strategist of the first order! A masterly move, that betrothal, to disarm any possible suspicion of his friend and keep the while a footing in his beloved's house! But the little one, she deserved better ... delicieuse enfant! With what innocent eyes she looked at me when I told her that, above all things, she must not whisper to my patient a word of her engagement. "Understand well, Miss," said I to her; and was ashamed of myself thus to join with him who was deceiving her. "It is because the least agitation, even a happy one, must be avoided." "Ah, that is why," said she, "you will not let her poor husband go to her?" "That is why," I replied, dissembling, "above all things, above all things, she must not be hurried."
* * * * *
She must not be hurried!