“‘Tis better,” he called, “that you should move on.”
And in good sooth what had I more to do before those gates? I mounted my horse and rode backwards and forwards upon that wretched scrap of paper that had been charged with all the dearest longings of my heart, until it lay indistinguishable in the mud around it. Then I set spurs to my jade, and we rode, a well-matched couple, away towards the strange village where I was to meet János.
With the memory of that bitterest hour of his life burning so hot within him that he could continue his sedentary task no longer, but must rise and pace the room after the sullen way now well known to János as betokening his master’s worst moments, Basil Jennico laughed aloud. Pride must have a fall! God knows his pride had had falls enough to kill the most robust of vices.
Had ever man been so humiliated, so contemned as he? Had ever poor soul been made to suffer more relentlessly where it had sinned?
“I have been brought low, very low,” said he to himself, and thought of the early days at Tollendhal when its young lord had deemed the whole earth created for his use. Yet, even as he spoke, he knew in his heart that the pride that was born in him would die with him only, and that if it had been mastered awhile it was only but because love had been stronger still.
When he had taken the roturière unreservedly to his heart; when he had returned from the mountains to seek reconciliation; when he had followed her upon her flight, had twice besought her to return to him; when he had made his third and last futile appeal in the face of a slashing rebuff, pride had lain beneath the heel of love. He had been beaten, after all, by a pride greater than his own; and he knew that were she to call him even now, he would come to her bidding in spite of all and through all.
The boards of the narrow, irregular room creaked beneath his impatient tread. Outside, the sounds of traffic were dying away. The last belated coaches had clattered down the streets, the tall running footman had extinguished his link. Basil Jennico turned instinctively towards the south, like the restless compass-needle, a way that had grown into a habit of late as his spirit strove to bridge across the leagues of sea and land that lay between him and his wife.
Was she thinking of him now? What was his curse was at the same time his triumph: he defied her to forget him any more than he could forget her! Those hours, had she not shared them with him? Come what would, no man could lay claim to be to her what he had been. No man—that way madness lay!...
He looked round at the pages scored with his writings and gave a heart-sick sigh, and then at the door of the room beyond, wherein stood that huge four-post bed where he had tossed through such sleepless hours and dreamed such dreams that the waking moment held the bitterness of death. Next he thought of the town beyond, so full, yet to him so empty.
How to pass the time that went by with such leaden feet? The days were bad enough, but the nights—the nights were terrible! Should he don his most brilliant suit and hie him out into the throng of men of fashion? Some of the Woschutzski gold would not come amiss at the dicing-table of my Lady Brambury, or at the Cocoa-tree, or yet the Hummums, where (his head being as strong as the best of them) he could crack a few bottles in good company. Good company, forsooth! What could all the world be to him for want of that one small being? He might drink himself into oblivion, perhaps, a few hours’ oblivion, and be carried home in the early morning and wake at midday with a new headache and the old heartache. Pah!